Introduction

Raw earth for building has been used worldwide for millennia but during the 20 th century most of the
skills of earth builders were lost and building with earth became marginal. Through the endeavour of the
Auroville Earth Institute, Auroville is today reviving these traditional skills and demonstrating that earth
is a noble building material which can be used for manifesting modern, harmonious and progressive
architecture for the third millennium.

From the early days of Auroville, in the 1970’s, different experiments have been made with earth
building, with mixed results. The creation of the Auroville Earth Institute in 1989, the construction of the
Visitors’ Centre from 1989 to 1992 and the development of Vikas Community from 1992 to 1998,
started a new era in earthen architecture in Auroville.

This Visitors’ Centre of 1200 m² was granted the “Hassan Fathy Award for Architecture for the Poor” in
1992. Built of compressed stabilised earth blocks, it demonstrated the potential of stabilised earth as a
quality building material. Vikas Community was a finalist for the “World Habitat Award 2000: and its 3 rd
building was built on 4 floors. Since then, the value of earth as a building material has been
acknowledged for its economic advantage, as well as its comfort and quality, which promotes
indigenous and sustainable development. Today, Auroville can show a wide variety of earthen projects:
public buildings, schools, apartments and individual houses.

Visitors Centre Vikas Community on 4 floors Training centre of the Auroville

Most of the projects are built with compressed stabilised earth blocks (CSEB), as this technology benefits
of more than half a century of research and development worldwide. Stabilised rammed earth is also
used extensively for foundations and to a lesser extent for walls. In Auroville, CSEB present several
advantages compared to the local country fired bricks:
•    Walls made of CSEB and stabilised rammed earth are always cheaper than fired bricks.
•    The initial embodied energy of CSEB produced on site with 5 % cement is ~ 4 times less than the local
country fired bricks.
•    The strength of these blocks is most of the time higher than the local country fired bricks.
There are also three other earth techniques used in Auroville. These techniques are very marginally used
as only about 10 buildings have been built with them:
•    Raw rammed earth
•    Adobe blocks, the traditional sun dried mud brick
•    Wattle and daub which is mud plastered on a wattle made of split bamboo or palmyra tree

1. COMPRESSED STABILISED EARTH BLOCKS

CSEB is nowadays the earth technology, which is the most used worldwide, as well as in Auroville,
because it represents a synthesis between traditional practices and a modern technology.

Auram Press 3000 for producing about 75 different About 75 different blocks produced by the Auram
blocks Press 3000

The soil, raw or stabilized, for a compressed earth block is slightly moistened, poured into a steel press
(with or without stabiliser) and then compressed either with a manual or motorized press. CEB can be
compressed in many different shapes and sizes. For example, the Auram press 3000 proposes 18 types
of moulds for producing about 70 different blocks.

Compressed earth blocks can be stabilised or not. But most of the times, they are stabilised with cement
or lime. Therefore, we prefer today to call them Compressed Stabilised Earth Blocks (CSEB).

The input of soil stabilization allowed people to build higher with thinner walls, which have a much
better compressive strength and water resistance. With cement stabilization, the blocks must be cured
for four weeks after manufacturing. After this, they can dry freely and be used like common bricks with a
soil cement stabilized mortar.

In Auroville, CSEB are stabilised with 5% cement and have an average dry compressive crushing strength
of 50 kg/cm2 (5 Mpa) and a wet compressive crushing strength of 25 kg/cm 2. The water absorption is
around 10%. Country fired bricks have resist at around 35 kg/cm² for the dry compressive strength and
have a 12% water absorption rate.
    
The Auroville Earth Institute has designed manual presses for CSEB, the Auram, which are manufactured
in Auroville by Aureka, one of its steel workshops. Today, the Auram press 3000 for compressed
stabilised earth blocks is being sold worldwide on all continents.
2. STABILISED RAMMED EARTH

In Auroville, the earth is rammed by hand. Until 1994, Auroville had only one house made of raw
rammed earth. Stabilised rammed earth was promoted since 1995, after the construction of Mirramukhi
School (presently named Deepanam). Stabilised rammed earth presents the advantage of being cheaper
than compressed stabilised earth blocks.

3. COMPOSITE COLUMNS

This technique is extensively used in Auroville since 1995. Two types of round hollow CSEB have been
designed: the round block 240 and the round block 290. These blocks are reinforced with reinforced
with cement concrete. Both types of blocks are laid with a cement sand mortar CSM 1: 3 of 1 cm
thickness. Note that stabilised earth mortar cannot be used for this composite technique for the reason
that the stabilised earth mortar will shrink and will not adhere on the steel rods. The steel rods do not
exceed 1.5 m high, as it is difficult to slide down the blocks if the steel bars are the entire height of the
column. Therefore some extension rods are regularly placed with an overlap of 50 time the bar
diameter.

4. HOURDI ROOFING

The hourdi block produced by the Auram press 3000 is used to create floors and roofs.

These blocks rest either on reinforced concrete T beams or on ferrocement channels.

As these blocks are hollow they create roofs which are more comfortable under a hot climate.
 Roof with hourdi blocks and T beams
Testing hourdi blocks –

750 kg on 8 hourdis

= 3125 kg/m2

5. VAULTED STRUCTURES

This Research&Developement seeks to increase the span of the roof, decrease its thickness, and create
new shapes. Note that all vaults and domes are built with compressed stabilised earth blocks which are
laid in “Free spanning” mode, meaning without formwork. This was previously called the Nubian
technique, from Egypt, but the Auroville Earth Institute developed it and found new ways to build arches
and vaults.

Segmental vault, 10.35 m span Semicircular vault, 6 m span built Equilateral vault, 3.6 m span built
built free spanning in 3 weeks free spanning in 6 weeks free spanning in 6 weeks

DISASTER RESISTANT BUILDINGS

Since 1995, research has been oriented towards the development of a cost-effective technology which is
based on reinforced masonry with hollow interlocking CSEB. Three types of blocks have been developed:
•    The square hollow interlocking block 245. It is laid with mortar and reinforced with cement concrete.
It allows building up to 2 storeys high.
•    The rectangular hollow interlocking block 295. It is laid also with mortar and reinforced with cement
concrete. It can be used only for ground floor buildings.
•     The dry interlocking 300. It used dry stacked (without mortar) and a cement concrete grout is cast in
the holes with reinforcement bars.

Note that this technology has not been used in Auroville as our area is not earthquake prone. This
technology has mostly been used for the rehabilitation of the zones affected by disasters, such as
Gujarat after the 2001 earthquake; Bam, after the 2003 earthquake and Tamil Nadu / Sri Lanka after the
2004 tsunami.

Minimum emergency house built Aum House built in 66 hours at Aum House built in 62 hours in
at Istanbul, Turkey, in 8 days New Delhi as a demonstration Gujarat
During the City Summit habitat in Project granted gold medal by For the rehabilitation after the
1996 ITPO 2001 earthquake

EARTH VERSUS OTHER BUILDING MATERIALS

The traditional building material used around Auroville is fired brick. Villagers fire their own bricks in
country kilns, which are not very efficient. They consume a lot of wood, pollute a lot and give at the end
poor quality building materials: Villagers around Auroville burn about 100 Tons of wood for 250,000
fired bricks… Good quality fired bricks are also available from factories and they are called wire cut
bricks.

     
Wire cut fired brick (22 x 10.5 x 7.2 Country fired brick (± 22 x 10.5 x 6.5
Half CSEB 240 (24 x 24 x 9 cm) cm) cm)
ENERGY EFFECTIVENESS

Costs are too often limited only to a monetary value. Another important aspect is the environmental
cost, especially with the embodied energy into the material. The production of earth-based materials
consumes much less energy. The initial embodied energy of CSEB is about 4 times less than country fired
bricks. Of course the carbon emission is also about 4 time less for the CSEB, compared to the country
fired bricks.

COST EFFECTIVENESS

Earthen buildings have the advantage of using local resources and being labour intensive. Therefore,
most of the time, they cost less than conventional materials and technologies. The final cost of a
building will depend mainly on the design, the type of finishes and the project management. In all cases,
the technologies implemented are cost effective.

In Auroville, Walls made of compressed stabilised earth blocks are already cheaper than fired bricks but
stabilised rammed earth walls are even cheaper than CSEB masonry. The material for CSEB or stabilised
rammed earth is the same, but the difference comes from the fact that the blocks have to be cured on
the ground, lifted and built by masons later on. In the case of stabilised rammed earth, the walls are
made by semi skilled labour and they stand in place at the end of the day. Therefore, a finished m 3 of
rammed earth wall is 20 to 30 % cheaper than CSEB wall and 30 to 50 % cheaper than fired bricks.

TOWARDS THE FUTURE

Building with earth has a great past, but also a promising future, especially in Auroville. It is definitely an
appropriate, cost and energy-efficient, and eco-friendly technology which can promote a sustainable
future. Obviously, one has to master the material the techniques so as to obtain the optimum
possibilities for a harmonious, durable, agreeable and efficient architecture. One can note these
advantages of earth as a building material:
•    The earth is a local material, contributing to sustainable development.
•    The production of the building components demands a lot of semi-skilled manpower.
•    The technology is easily adaptable and transferable.
•    The monetary and environmental costs are much lower than that of most other materials.
•    The thermal comfort and quality of space are in general better than conventional materials.

Despite the possibilities and advantages offered by stabilised earth materials, building with earth in
Auroville is still not the common practice. Either people don’t want to acknowledge the advantage of
this material or they don’t want to get the burden to organise the block production on their site and
manage everything themselves.The generalised use in Auroville of compressed stabilised earth blocks
and other earth techniques needs a centralised production of blocks and a coordinated management of
resources – physical and human. This development step would insure a controlled and more regular
quality of raw materials and finished products. This is one of the aims for the next years to come.