Local Materials Study

LOCALMATERIALS Nairobi, Kenya JOSH PETERSEN

ROOF ENCLOSURE FENESTRATION MOUND

ROOF

01

.

METAL PANEL

modular unit 4’ 8’

Modual Variation

varying angles

Modual Expansion

Material Properties Materials List

metal sheets

wood

wood posts

4’ X 8’

2" X 4" X 96" Cypress

10’ Cypress Post

$6.91

$4.80

$8.60

ONE 4’ roof

Total Cost: $20.31

Assembly Steps

BASE

SUPPORTS

TOP

BOTTOM

SLATS

METAL PANEL

naifourang youth center

In the fall of 2011 three architecture students from NTNU travelled to Niafourang, a small coastal village in the Casamance region of Senegal, to design and build a Youth Center. The population of Niafourang is approximately 300 inhabitants. The village is very poor and people generally live hand to mouth. Locals harvest rice from fields and fish from the river. The region is lush with vegetation due to its tropical climate. There is a high unemployment rate and many young people leave Niafourang to find work elsewhere. December 2010 we got in touch with Hilde Huus-Hansen. Hilde leads a non-profit organization; Friends of Niafourang, that works to improve conditions for local youth and create job opportunities in the village. She was looking to build a Youth Center in Niafourang that would include a computer room/ library and a larger multi-purpose room. The intention was to create opportunities, jobs and development in the village. An important aspect of the project was to involve the local community in both the building and planning stages, in order to create a sense of ownership and pride in the resulting building.

Work started shortly after our arrival in Niafourang and lasted an intense 10 weeks.

ROOF

02

CANVAS

..

modular unit

8’

4’

Modual Variation

varying FILL

Modual Expansion

Material Properties Materials List

wood

caNvas

ONE 4’ roof 2” X 4” X 96” Cypress

3’ X 8’

$13.20

$14.97 Total Cost: $28.17

Assembly Steps

BASE

RIBS

SECTIONS

STRETCH CANVAS

nasaro spa

This may not be camping as you know it - this is not even boutique camping, but something far superior.

A crop of just 12 stylish, space-age structures on the lush green hillside, the luxury tents boast wooden floors, a plush en-suite bathroom, heaps of living space and a raised patio with a view of the bush and beyond. You’ll have access to the luxe facilities, which include the dining area, a 12-metre infinity pool with a sunbathing deck and the Nasaro spa treatment room offering Africology treatments.

enclosure

01

WOOD

.

modular unit

8’

4’

Modual Variation

varying CUT

VERTICAL

Modual Expansion

direction of expansion

Material Properties Materials List

wood posts

wood panelS

ONE 4’ WALL 10’ Cypress Post

1" X 6" X 96" Cypress

$8.60

$57.60 Total Cost: $66.20

Assembly Steps

4X4 COLUMNS

1X3 SLATS

Nakuru Project

From the architect. Built with a diverse group from a small Kikuyu community in the rapidly developing agricultural outskirts of Nakuru, Kenya, humanitarian design organization, Orkidstudio, have recently completed a new home which will house local disadvantaged and abandoned children. Challenging the typology of the typical African orphanage where children sleep en mass in large dormitories, the new home limits each room to just four children providing ample space and natural light, and is characterised by a range of different social spaces from open communal areas to quiet nooks and crannies offering space to study, read or simply relax.

enclosure

02

PANELS

.

modular unit

8’

4’

Modual Variation

varying AnGLE

Modual Expansion

direction of expansion

Material Properties Materials List

polycarBonate

wood

wood posts

1" X 6" X 96" Cypress

10’ Cypress Post

ONE 4’’ WALL 4’ X 8’

2" X 4" X 96" Cypress $30.00

$4.80

$8.60 Total Cost: $43.40

Assembly Steps

4X4 COLUMNS

1X6 SLATS

PANEL

Louisiana Pavilion

The Louisiana Hamlet Pavilion has been packed in shipping containers and is on its way to Kibera, the largest urban slum in Africa, where it will be reassembled to replace a dilapidated school made of scavenged corrugated iron and timber.

The project is a collaboration between the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Copenhagen, Madrid practice SelgasCano, young New York architecture studio Helloeverything, Kenyan architect AbdulFatah Adam, architectural photographer Iwan Baan and London creative workplace Second Home.

enclosure

03

FABRIC

...

modular unit

8’

4’

Modual Variation

PEnETRATIOnS

Modual Expansion

direction of expansion

Material Properties Materials List

wood

caNvas

ONE 4’ WALL 2” X 4” X 96” Cypress

3’ X 8’

$13.20

$14.97 Total Cost: $28.17

Assembly Steps

4X4 COLUMNS

2X4 SLATS

FABRIC

Elephant Pepper Camp

As it sits right on the northern edge of the Masai Mara Reserve, Elephant Pepper Camp is tucked away from the hustle and bustle of the crowded areas of the reserve surrounded by the ever-present wildlife.

The camp has just eight large and spacious canvas tents with light decor, en-suites, dressing rooms and safari showers filled with hot water on request complete with flush toilets.

The main dining/bar tent creates a family style dining experience as guests can help themselves to the bar. Relaxing at camp you can witness the “greatest game show on earth� as the annual wildebeest migration thunders by in search of new grazing in the lush green grass covering the Masai Mara.

FENESTRATION

01

.

VENTILATION

modular unit

8’

4’

Modual Variation

ORIEnTATIOn

Modual Movement

Material Properties Materials List

polycarBonate

wood

wood posts

1" X 6" X 96" Cypress

10’ Cypress Post

ONE 4’’ WALL 4’ X 8’

2" X 4" X 96" Cypress $30.00

$4.80

$8.60 Total Cost: $43.40

Assembly Steps

BASE

COLUMN

WOOD FRAME

PANEL

Gando Primary School

The design for the Primary School evolved from a lengthy list of parameters including cost, climate, resource availability, and construction feasibility. The success of the project relied on both embracing and negating these constraints. Many houses in Burkina Faso have corrugated metal roofs which absorb the heat from the sun, making the interior living space intolerably hot. The roof of the Primary School was pulled away from the learning space of the interior though, and a perforated clay ceiling with ample ventilation was introduced. This dry-stacked brick ceiling allows for maximum ventilation, pulling cool air in from the interior windows and releasing hot air out through the perforated ceiling. In turn, the ecological footprint of the school is vastly reduced by alleviating the need for air-conditioning.

mound

01

.

RAMMED EARTH

KENYAN RAMMED EARTH The first image that comes to the mind of many when you talk about rammed earth houses is the grassthatched mud house synonymous with rural areas. Most people’s reaction is that there is no way one can build a modern house using mud. Well, it is possible. Rammed earth technology has been around since the 18th century, but has seldom been used in Kenya. Rammed earth homes are built by putting in place the form of the house, which is usually a plywood structure that provides the outline of a wall. A mix of soils is then rammed into the walls, either by hand or machine. When everything is packed tightly, the forms are removed, and what is left is a solid, stable wall. The ramming is repeated until the entire house is built. The wall is built layer by layer horizontally. The first thing a rammed earth homeowner needs to do is to check the strength of the soil to be used. “Compression test can be done by geo-technological experts at the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute or done on site,” says Franklin Mwango, a lecturer at Maseno University. You need to mix the soil with water first before carrying out the site test.

Put the soil in a bucket little by little using a spade. Divide the bucket into ten equal parts, and then add water into one-tenth of it. Make a smaller mould of ten cubic centimetres from this mixture, and once dry, put a 150 kilogramme weight on it. Strength “Rammed earth technology is such that it should be able to hold up to 150 kilogrammes of weight per square inch. Leave the weight on for 24 hours. If it cracks, you have to create another mixture. If it holds, you are good to go,” adds Mwango. If it cracks it may mean that there is more clay in the soil composition than sand, and you may have to bring in sand from another place. The additional transportation cost may increase the overall cost of building the house. Some people add lime to make the mixture hard. Continue carrying out these strength tests while recording the soil mixtures until you find one that can withstand the 150-kilogramme weight. The foundation is dug out normally. Even the plans of the house are drawn by the architect as usual — with the electrical and plumbing lines drawn out well in advance. Walls It is this soil that had been dug out that will form the walls. Place stones on the dugout foundation, then ram earth on top of it. But because rammed earth absorbs a lot of water, the edges of the floor have to be cemented. You can finish the floor by using conventional finishing methods like laying tiles, or using wooden engineered floor-boards.

To create the wall, one can use steel or plywood panelling. “The steel or plywood panelling have to be about four feet wide and eight feet long. Since in Kenya we do not have the ramming machine, doing it manually means covering about six inches high of every pounding,” he says. The mixture is pounded by a seven-kilogramme metallic compactor. Pour the soil mixture between the steel or plywood panels and begin to pound. The key thing is to know when to stop pounding, and add the following layer of soil.

“Do not get carried away with the rhythm of the pounding. When you start it makes a muffled sound, but as it begins to get compacted, the sound gets louder and louder. The moment you hear it making a metallic sound, it is time to stop and add on the next layer,” says Moses Hunja, an architect.

He further warns that this sound has to be watched keenly, so that the next layer of soil gets to gel with the already compacted one and avoid cracks. This method is repeated until the wall is to the desired height — the average being 2.4 metres high. This process sounds labour intensive. “Yes, it is labour intensive. The mechanical compactor is much faster, but it is not available here in Kenya, hence the use of physical labour. You will use about one fundi for a metre of the wall. Therefore the bigger the size of the house, the more the number of hands needed,” Mwango points out. Plumbing Plumbing pipes and electrical conduits are placed within the mould and earth rammed around it. Even door and window shapes are framed using the panels, placed along the walls and earth-rammed through it. After every layer, the fundis have to keep checking on the alignment of the wall, that it is 90-degrees through and through. A rammed earth wall when finished is 45-60 centimetres wide – wider than a wall made of conventional materials. This means that it can hold any roof. Hunja says that one may opt to install a wall plate to hold the roof, or a lintel. “Since rammed earth absorbs water, the roof has to be placed such that when it rains it doesn’t get to the wall. You can give the wall another type of exterior finish that will protect it. But rammed earth is a beautiful finish in itself — with layers of different colours from the soil forming with every layer of compaction. If you like it that way, then create an eve-roof,” says Mwango.

The conventional size of an eve-roof is 300-350 milimetres wide from the wall. You can also create one that is 600 milimetres wide. All the wet areas of the house like the kitchen and bathroom can be plastered and tiled. Hunja says there has been a lot of interest by Kenyans in this technology, but those who have tried it are on the outskirts of the city — the majority being lodges. One such is the Kuki Gallman Foundation in Nanyuki. A house built with rammed earth technology has excellent thermal properties.

During the day, it is cool inside, while at night it is warm. Mwango is quick to point out that the roofing material one chooses should add to the thermal properties of the technology. “You can use makuti, clay tiles or stone-coated roofing sheets. Also put a ceiling that will work with thermal qualities of the roofing materials and the wall,” ne says.

modular unit

8’

4’

1’

Modual Variation

varying height

Modual Expansion

direction of expansion

curves

Material Properties Materials List

Stones

wood panelS

marram

1" X 6" X 48" Cypress

72 Cubic Feet

ONE 4’X1’x 8’ WALL 6" X 6" X 12"

2" X 4" X 48" Cypress $1.60

$84.80

N/A Total Cost: $86.40

Assembly Steps

150 KG

TEST

STONE BASE

2X4 COLUMNS

1X6 SLATS

BEGIN FILLING

FILL FORM

RAISE FORM

REMOVE FORM

WIldlife works research center

“Rammed earth� compacts the soil excavated on site, thereby dramatically reducing the need to import materials. Why? There is no stabilising compound needed as long as the footings are well drained.

Once the roof is in place, voila! It stands up to the test of time!

Once the outer walls have been constructed, another rammed earth construction method is used to build the interior dividing walls. These blocks are compressed in a simple hand-operated machine which produces Interlocking Stabilised Soil Blocks, more commonly known as ISSB. Three unskilled labourers are able to use this machine and create either curved or straight blocks. The shape of the blocks allows them to interlock, meaning that there is no need for a cement mortar between courses.

This method is not only cheaper than buying, transporting and installing a plastic tank from a large corporation, but is also longer lasting and increases employment of local unskilled labourers, as well as further reducing imports.

mound

02

stone

..

modular unit

8’

4’

1’

Modual Variation

varying DEnSITY

Modual Expansion

direction of expansion

Material Properties Materials List

Stones

wALL paSS

ONE 8’X1’ WALL 6" X 6" X 12"

100 Kg

$51.20

$106.00 Total Cost: $157.20

Assembly Steps

STONE BASE

STACK

butaro hospital

the burera district was one of the most under-served parts of rwanda, one of the last two areas in the country lacking a regional hospital. massachusetts-based non profit firm MASS design group pooled its resources and designed ‘butaro hospital’ as part of a program of partners in health and in collaboration with the government of rwanda. bringing together infectious disease specialists as well as brigham and women’s hospital and harvard medical school to effectively mitigate and reduce the transmission of airborne illnesses, the architecture works with the program, using design strategies in plan, patient and staff circulation and natural cross-ventilation.

mound

03

...

concrete

modular unit

8’

4’

1’

Modual Variation

varying height

Modual Expansion

direction of expansion

curves

Material Properties Materials List

cement

Ballast

ONE 8’X1’ WALL 50 Kg

14 Tones

$7.90

$130.00 Total Cost: $137.90

Assembly Steps

STONE BASE

2X4 COLUMNS

1X6 SLATS

FILL FORM

REMOVE FORM

Gota Dam Residence

Sforza Seilern Architects, an artistic collaboration between Studio Seilern Architects and Muzia Sforza, completed their first African project: a house on a rock. The 1’500sm building is situated atop a granite rock overlooking a large man-made dam, or reservoir for the extensive surrounding farmland. The area is, to say the least, breathtaking and awe-inspiring, and deserved a piece of architecture that is equally awe-inspiring

CONCRETE

STONE

RAMMED EARTH

VENTILATION

FABRIC

PANELS

WOOD

CANVAS

METAL PANEL

COMPARISOnS

SKILL TIME

COST