| Submit your comments on this article | |
| Iran | |
| Innovative Iranian Architect Found - in California | |
| 2004-01-13 | |
| EFL - (unusual article from Rooters: ie. I could detect no anti-American spin) Iran-born architect Nader Khalili has a technique for building earthquake-proof houses, but he is struggling to sell it to governments even though he teaches it for free and it could save countless lives. Called "superadobe," it uses nothing more sophisticated than sandbags and barbed wire, and it has been approved as quake-safe by the hard-to-please building authorities on California’s seismic fault line. Khalili hopes to put the technique into practice in places like his native country, where an earthquake last month killed more than 30,000 people. But as simple, secure and cheap as superadobe appears to be, Khalili has battled for more than a decade to get the technique widely implemented -- with little success. The problem, he says, lies in the reluctance of bureaucrats to accept an idea that is not based on conventional steel and concrete. "The only things they accept are imitations from the West," Khalili said in an interview. Superadobe takes an ancient technique -- building with earth -- and improves upon it. Soil dug from the construction site is mixed with a small amount of cement and water and rammed into tubular bags which are laid one on top of the other to form walls. Barbed wire is placed between the layers to hold the bags together and provide reinforcement. In the simplest form of superadobe, the bags are laid in a circle about 12 feet across. The diameter of the rows gradually decreases toward the top. The result is a self-supporting dome, a traditional building form in much of the Middle East and Mediterranean. Superadobe can be used to build a one-room structure, or by combining the domes, more complicated multi-room houses.
Iranian village names are quite onomatopoetic. I wonder if there is also a town called Kab in the vicinity. | |
| Posted by:Super Hose |
| #6 If I was to build my adobe igloo in Afghanistan, I would use kevlar bags. |
| Posted by: Super Hose 2004-1-13 10:15:58 PM |
| #5 , but they aspire to the "bahay na bato" - stone house, and surprising numbers manage to build them. hmmmmm.. cool. I wonder if building techniques amongst the |
| Posted by: Shipman 2004-1-13 7:46:09 PM |
| #4 Filipinos ? Sure. If they can afford it or steal it. These people build their own houses, they have an interest in quality. Most live in wood/cardboard/galvanized iron shacks, but they aspire to the "bahay na bato" - stone house, and surprising numbers manage to build them. For sure legit construction in the Phils uses lots of rebar. |
| Posted by: buwaya 2004-1-13 6:36:46 PM |
| #3 They use rebar buwaya? Jeez... Just out of convenience or with knowledge of what it can prevent? |
| Posted by: Shipman 2004-1-13 6:10:00 PM |
| #2 I think one major problem this addresses is the typical Middle-Eastern one-story rural house built of unreinforced mud brick. These are very unsafe of course, but they are not the major source of mass earthquake casualties, but rather multi-story mud-brick construction. Cheaper steel rebar, cement, and galvanized roofing would in fact be the solution for multi-story. I don't know why these are not more popular in the ME, because in the Philippines even squatters use these in construction. |
| Posted by: buwaya 2004-1-13 4:29:37 PM |
| #1 So if I understand the design correctly, he is selling an adobe igloo ? I can imagine the bureaucrats' response to that: "Uh, yeah, we'll add your proposal to our files. Good day, sir. ... I said, Good DAY, sir !" |
| Posted by: Carl in N.H. 2004-1-13 2:51:33 PM |