Learn To Build With Superadobe
What is Superadobe?
Superadobe (sandbag and barbed wire) technology. It is a simple adobe, an instant and flexible line generator. It uses the materials of war for peaceful ends, integrating traditional earth architecture with contemporary global safety requirements. Long or short sandbags are filled with on-site earth and arranged in layers or long coils with strands of barbed wire placed between them to act as both mortar and reinforcement. Stabilizers such as cement, lime, or asphalt emulsion may be added. This patented and trademarked (U.S. patent #5,934,027, #3,195,445) technology is offered free to the needy of the world, and licensed for commercial use.
The structural principles of the timeless forms of arches, domes, vaults, and apses are built with the materials of earth, sandbags and barbed wire using the engineering of single and double curvature compression shell structures, to reach the ultimate in strength, self-help, and aesthetics. In Superadobe, the ancient earth architecture of the Middle East using sun-dried mud bricks is fused with its portable nomadic culture of fabrics and tensile elements, not just through design and pattern, but through the structure itself. Structural design uses modern engineering concepts like base-isolation and post-tensioning. The innovation of barbed wire adds the tensile element to the traditional earthen structures, creating earthquake resistance despite the earth’s low shear strength. The innovation of sandbags adds flood resistance, and easy construction, while the earth itself provides insulation and fire-proofing.
The system can be used for structural arches, domes and vaults, or conventional rectilinear shapes.
By filling bags directly from the land and reinforcing with barbed wire, almost any earth can be used and the speed of building is much faster yet still in the hands of people.
Safety Standards and Comfort. Cal-Earth’s sandbag structures, reinforced with barbed wire, have successfully passed tests for California’s high seismic building codes, making them resistant to earthquakes as well as fire, flood, and hurricanes. Their design and thermal mass create comfortable living spaces based on the time-tested, sustainable architecture of harsh environments.
Cal Earth, Inc.
Phone: 760-956-7533
elements@calearth.org
http://calearth.org/
Posted: 09/07/2010
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