Materials and Construction Techniques

There are plenty of earth construction techniques available and we keep on exploring and inventing new techniques. A glimpse of some materials and eco-friendly construction techniques are shown below.

The videos displayed below were made during my tenure at Wallmakers.

Since I actively participated in these processes, I have showcased them here with due permission

COMPRESSED STABILISED EARTH BLOCKS [CSEB]

These are mud blocks used for walls, vaults, composite beams and columns prepared by compressing earth in the form of blocks of different sizes and shapes. The mix basically contains 80% gravel, 15% sand and 5% cement. A finished CSEB wall is 15-20% cheaper than country fired brick wall.

FERRO-CEMENT ROOF SHELLS

These wafer-like structures are steel reinforced arched shells with effective thickness of 1.5cm and they take equal load of respective R.C.C slabs. They effectively reduce the overall cement consumption by 40% and steel consumption by 30%.These replace the R.C.C Slab in roofing as they are as strong as 1200 kg/m2.

DEBRIS WALL

Materials from old houses or discarded buildings are pulverised into manageable aggregates (roughly 3”dia), mixed with stabilised earth and pounded inside a reinforced frame work which is not only eco friendly but also removes excess waste created by old and discarded buildings.

SHUTTERED DEBRIS WALL [SHOBRI]

A patented technique by Ar.Vinu Daniel, Wallmakers.
This is a debri wall in which a mix of 70-80% recycled aggregate and 10-12% fine aggregate is stabilised with 8-10% cement and it is poured into shutters to build final finished unplastered walls-. This is a semi-dry earth construction technique, where 8-10% water is added to the mix to make it pliable

SCRAP IS GOLD

Discarded materials procured from the scrapyards can be used in a creative way to make window grills, partition walls, furniture, flooring, door frames etc. This ensures that there is upcycling of waste instead of using fresh materials, and is thus eco-friendly.

Back to Gallery