Superadobe construction system
Given the interest in low-tech technologies in general and in earthen architecture, seen as an ideal tool for the development of community empowerment projects and their implementation in the absence of funding, there has always been a lot of fascination for the “Superadobe” construction system.
So at the beginning of 2012 I went to the Institute CalEarth in California, the center where Nader Khalili developed this technology, completing his “Long-Term Training Program” there completely and satisfactorily.
This program is aimed at and focused on training technicians and teaching staff on the superarobe and I had the opportunity, from the first weeks, to be able to accompany the director of the Institute Ian Lodge before and Professor Marcos Cervantes later in the workshops in Spain.
I participated in the March 2012 workshops in Mallorca and Barcelona with the first one and in Bilbao and Madrid with the second one in May of the same year.
From that moment until June 2013 Ctrl+Z development for CalEarth-Spain the teaching part of the workshops given in this country, reaching a total of 10 workshops with them, carrying out theoretical/practical courses always accompanied by the construction of educational prototypes.
In parallel, Ctrl+Z has been independently and constantly providing support and advice on the projects that students are carrying out, organizing some work days in which we meet with various former students to contribute to the construction of one of their projects.
These opportunities are used to consolidate and expand the training obtained in the workshops and to broaden the practice of the technique.
From June 2013, CalEarth-Spain and Ctrl+Z have separated and we are once again collaborating directly with the CalEarth Institute in central California. This new line of collaboration has materialised with the holding of a 10-day workshop in Morocco, in which the basic programme of the workshops held in Spain has been expanded with the complete construction and finishing of a 3-metre dome and the incorporation of different eco-techniques.
Various activities will be organised in 2014 and will be announced once the calendar is finalised. If you are interested in organising Superadobe-related activities in Europe or South America, please contact us at: info@ctrlz.net
The activities can be developed in Spanish, English or Italian.
For those who did not know her, Superadobe It is an ecological construction technique designed by the architect.
For those who don't know, Superadobe is an ecological construction technique designed by architect Nader Khalili, who founded Cal Earth based on three principles:
(1) Housing is a basic human right, (2) Every human being should be able to build a home for themselves, and (3) the best way to provide shelter in the face of exponentially increasing human population is by building with earth.
The Superadobe (sandbag and barbed wire) is a long adobe. It is a simple adobe, an immediate and flexible generator of lines. It uses war materials for peaceful purposes, integrating traditional earthen architecture with contemporary global security requirements.
These are bags filled with stabilized or non-stabilized soil from the area, superimposed on each other by barbed wire, to give consistency to the structure, which is normally dome-shaped, vaulted, arched and apse-shaped, creating resistance to earthquakes, hurricanes, floods, fires, etc., a simple and easy technique where the whole family can participate in the self-construction of their home.
The Superadobe (sandbag and barbed wire) is a long adobe. It is a simple adobe, an immediate and flexible generator of lines. It uses war materials for peaceful purposes, integrating traditional earthen architecture with contemporary global security requirements.
These are bags filled with stabilized or non-stabilized soil from the area, superimposed on each other by barbed wire, to give consistency to the structure, which is normally dome-shaped, vaulted, arched and apse-shaped, creating resistance to earthquakes, hurricanes, floods, fires, etc., a simple and easy technique where the whole family can participate in the self-construction of their home.
Ctrl+Z, due to its vocation towards models that promote self-construction and community empowerment, does not build superadobe houses for third parties, although it can participate in the construction process in the case of social interest projects or, very occasionally, in private constructions. Self-construction is, in fact, conceived as a tool to emancipate oneself from the need to ask for a mortgage and superdobe as one of the possibilities to implement it.
