Abstract
Rammed earth/pisé is an earth building technique with a deep history in several countries across the globe. In the past twenty years, pisé buildings have seen a resurgence in popularity, primarily because of their environmentally friendly, passive energy characteristics, but also due to the aesthetic appeal of the fabric. As with all other earth architecture, pisé is susceptible to decay by moisture ingress. This paper presents longitudinal observations on the decay of capped and uncapped pisé walls of an early twenty-first-century complex of four buildings in Albury (NSW, Australia). It can be shown that while surface treatment with water-repellent sealants prevents the ingress of penetrating damp, it also traps moisture (falling damp) in the fabric by restricting evaporation. This leads to internal cleavage between the consolidated and the unconsolidated fabric and accelerates the decay of uncapped walls. The future design of both stabilized and unstabilized external rammed earth walls must ensure effective protection from rainfall through well-proportioned overhanging eaves. While the capping of feature walls may be aesthetically pleasing, and thus architecturally desirable, it does not adequately protect the walling against long-term decay.
Subject
Building and Construction,Civil and Structural Engineering,Architecture
Reference80 articles.
1. Pisé. Stampflehm–Tradition und Potenzial;Boltshauser,2019
2. Zur Geschichte des Lehmbaus in Deutschland. 1. Massive Lehmbauten: Geschichte, Techniken, Verbreitung;Güntzel,1988
3. Earth Architecture: From Ancient to Modern;Morgan,2008
4. Earth Architecture in Rural Egypt: Challenges of the context and the material;Maher;A+ Arch Des. Int. J. Archit. Des.,2021
5. African earthen structures in colonial Louisiana: architecture from the Coincoin plantation (1787–1816)
Cited by
3 articles.
订阅此论文施引文献
订阅此论文施引文献,注册后可以免费订阅5篇论文的施引文献,订阅后可以查看论文全部施引文献