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Super adobe is a form of earthbag construction that was developed by Iranian architect Nader Khalili. The technique utilizes long snake-like sand bags to form a beehiveshaped compressive structure that employs arches, domes, and vaults to create singleand double-curvature shell structures that are strong and aesthetically pleasing. It has received growing interest for the past two decades in the natural building and sustainability movements. Due to super adobe's inexpensive nature, ease in construction, and use of locally available materials, it has also been proposed for use as a long-term emergency shelter. Super adobe is also known as "superadobe" (one word) and "superblock."
Contents 1 History 2 Methodology 3 Emergency Shelters 4 Sustainability 5 Properties 6 Criticisms

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History
Although it is not known exactly how long, earthbag shelters have been used for decades, primarily as implements of refuge in times of war. Military infantrymen used sand-filled sacks to create bunkers and barriers for protection prior to World War I. In the last century more peaceful earthbag buildings have undergone extensive research and are slowly beginning to gain worldwide recognition as a Super adobe construction plausible solution to the global epidemic of housing shortages. German architect Frei Otto is said to have experimented with earth bags, as has Gernot Minke, more recently. The technique's current pioneer is Nader Khalili, who originally developed the super adobe system in 1984 in response to a NASA call for housing designs for future human settlements on the moon and on Mars. His proposal was to use moon dust to fill the plastic super adobe tubes and to velcro together the layers (instead of using barbed wire). Some projects have been done using bags as low-tech foundations for straw-bale construction. They can be covered in a waterproof membrane to keep the straw dry. In 1995 fifteen refugee shelters were built in Iran, by Nader Khalili and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in response to refugees from the Persian Gulf War. According to Khalili, the cluster of fifteen domes that was built could have been repeated by the thousands. Unfortunately the government dismantled the camp a few years later. Since then, the super adobe method has been put to use in Mexico, Brazil, Chile, Iran, India, Siberia, and Thailand, as well as in the US.

Methodology
Materials
Many different materials can be used to construct super adobe. Ideally you would have barbed wire, earth or sand, cement or lime, and super adobe fabric tubing, but the bags can be polypropylene, burlap, or some other material. Virtually any fill material will actually work, including unstabilized sand, earth, gravel, crushed volcanic rock, rice hulls, etc. If the fill material is weak, the bags have to be really strong and UV-resistant, or else plastered right away. The material can be either wet or dry, but the structure is more stable when the tube's contents have been moistened. Other materials needed include water, shovels, tampers, scissors, large plugs or pipes (for windows), and small buckets or coffee cans for filling the sacks.

Process
The foundation for the structure is formed by digging a 12 in. deep circular trench with an 814 ft diameter. Two to three layers of the polypropylene-filled sand tubes (super adobe fabric tubing) are set below the ground level in the foundation trench. A rope is anchored to the ground in the center of the circle and used like a compass to trace the shape of the base. Another rope is fastened to the ground on the inside base of the wall and used as a guide to shape the interior radius of the opposite wall of the dome. Ropes

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can be used from several points around the inside of the base to ensure accuracy of the finished dome. On top of each layer of tamped, filled tubes, a loop of barbed wire is placed to help stabilize the location of each consecutive layer. Window voids can be placed in two ways, either by rolling the filled tube back on itself around a circular plug (forming an arched header) or by waiting for the earth mixture to set and sawing out a gothic or pointed arch void. A round skylight can even be the top of the dome. It is not recommended to exceed the 14 ft diameter design in size, but many larger structures have been created by grouping several beehives together to form a sort of connected village of domes. The grouped beehive design lends itself to residential applications, some rooms being for sleeping and some for living.

Finishing
Once the corbelled dome is complete, it can be covered in several different kinds of exterior treatments, usually plaster. Khalili developed a system that used 85% earth and 15% cement plaster, which is covered by "Reptile," a veneer of grapefruit-sized balls of concrete and earth. Reptile is easy to install, and because the balls create easy paths for stress, it doesn't crack with time. There are many different possibilities. Some super adobe buildings have even been covered by living grass, a kind of green roof covering the entire structure. Any exterior treatment and building details would need to be adapted to a region's specific climatic needs.

Emergency Shelters
According to Khalili's website, in an emergency, impermanent shelters can be built using only dirt with no cement or lime, and for the sake of speed of construction windows can be punched out later. Ordinary sandbags can also be used to form the dome if no super adobe tubes can be procured; this, in fact, was how the original design was developed. There is a great potential for long-term emergency shelters with super adobe because of the simplicity of construction. Labor can be unskilled, and the workers do not need to great physical strength or formal training, so women and children are able to substantially contribute to the construction process. Local resources can be utilized with ease. Super adobe is not an exact art, and similar materials may be substituted if the most ideal ones are not readily available. In an interview with an American Institute of Architects (AIA) representative, Nader Khalili, Super Adobe's founder and figure head, said this about the emergency shelter aspects of super adobe: "A 400-square-foot house, with bedroom, bathroom, kitchen, and entryI call it the Eco-Domecan be put up in about four weeks, by one skilled and four unskilled people. Emergency shelters can go up much more quickly. After the Gulf War, the United Nations sent an architect here. We trained him, and he went to the Persian Gulf and put them up with refugees as they arrived at the camps. Every five incoming refugees put up a simple structure in five days. It's emergency shelter, but if you cover it with waterproofing and stucco, it will last for 30 or more years."

Sustainability
Super adobe and other forms of earthbag construction are considered sustainable for several reasons. First of all, the system is extremely cheap and easy to build. Soil can be taken right from the site, and the bags can be obtained for free or for a low cost. The technique demands few skills. Anyone can learn to do it, which makes this building technique accessible to low income communities. Additionally, the building can be erected very quickly; building with bags goes faster than any other earth-building technique (e.g., cob, adobe, etc.). Also, the system is very flexible, allowing for alterations in design and construction. This makes customizing a design to a specific individual's needs while the home is under construction relatively unencumbered compared to post-permit alterations in modern-day construction. Super adobe is increasingly being realized as a green building technique. Building sustainably does not just entail a focus on the health of the inhabitants of the structure or the environmental impacts of a certain technique or material. The ethics or social and economic impact of the technique and materials must also be considered. Sustainability implies a level of social awareness paramount to a healthy building culture. Super adobe's major ingredient is earth, which is nontoxic and readily available. If the earth is not from the immediate site, then locating a nearby source is generally not difficult; such close proximity to a materials source decreases the materials' embodied energy, another focus of sustainability. In terms of energy conservation, the walls are very thick and have significant thermal mass, which reduces heating and cooling costs and provides sound insulation, structural integrity, fire resistance, and protection against pests. Like traditional adobe or concrete structures, the walls are heated throughout the day and a comfortable temperature is maintained on the inside. Then the heat is released slowly throughout night, also contributing to a comfortable interior temperature. Another vital emphasis in green, or sustainable, design is a structure's connection to its natural environment. In the same interview with the AIA representative mentioned above, Khalili said this about his reason for creating the super adobe technique of construction: "I was searching for a way to create a building that was totally in harmony with nature, that could be available to everybody around the world."

Properties
Super adobe has also been proven to be competitively strong by modern western construction standards. Strength and resiliency tests done at Cal-Earth under the supervision of the International Conference of Building Officials (ICBO) showed that under static load testing conditions simulating seismic, wind, and snow loads, the super adobe system exceeded by 200 percent the 1991 Uniform Building Code Requirements. Based on these results, California granted its first permit for earthbag construction, for the Hesperia Museum and Nature Center. Earthbag shelters have since been built in the US, Mexico, Canada, the Bahamas, and Mongolia. Like many sustainable building techniques, sandbag construction has gained interest in the public eye as environmental consciousness increases.

Criticisms
Structural Design Issues
Several building departments have required that substantial changes be made to designs to meet seismic building codes. Most building codes require positive vertical connections between structural members, but since super adobe is reinforced by barbed

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wire placed between sandbag layers, no positive connection exists between bag layers to contain dynamic vertical loads and prevent separation. The Eco-Dome constructed at the Pomona College Organic Farm in Los Angeles County, for example, included a reinforcing rebar and welded-wire mesh faced in shotcrete on both the inner and outer surfaces.

Architectural Design Issues

Some architects criticize Cal-Earth designs as being a "regressive technique." In a New York Times article, Peter Berman, a Montana architect, raised objections over economy of scale. Berman asserts that technology should be foremost in architecture and that buildings should be "lighter, stronger, and more transparent." Moreover, Berman has stated that he does not view Khalili as a professional, due in most part to his rejection of industrialized processes and products.

High Construction Costs

As an experimental or developmental technique, super adobe has been criticized as being overly expensive, since the construction is so proportionally labor-intensive. Super adobe, for this reason, is well suited for communal, volunteer constructions, or for places where the cost of labor is low. Within a commercial model, Khalili estimated that a four-bedroom, 2,000 sq ft house would cost $75,000 to build, including labor, materials, and utilities.

Poor Insulation
The Cal-Earth Eco-Dome design has U-Factors of 0.103 (9.7 R-value) for 18 in. thick walls and 0.253 (3.9 R-value) for a 6 in. thick roof.

Use of Energy-intensive or Petroleum-based Materials

In the super adobe process, cement is mixed with earth in the ratio of 15% or more. A Cal-Earth design, such as the double Eco-Dome, requires 70,000 lbs of Portland cement for a structure having less than 800 interior sq ft. Also, since earth contains materials such as clay or organic matter that interfere with the binding properties of cement, it may result in inefficient use of cement. In soils with high clay content, Cal-Earth recommends increasing the percentage of cement or lime. Petroleum-based materials, such as asphalt emulsion, are applied to the exterior surfaces of the structure for weatherproofing.

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Super adobe."

Copyright 2010 KTerra. All rights reserved.

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