On
the 8th of October 2005, Pakistan experienced a 7.6 magnitude
earthquake. More than 74,000 people were killed, and over
3 million were left homeless.
Back
in September 2004, a full year before the devastating
earthquake in Pakestan, tests were performed at the University
of British Columbia. A cob building was given a 2 g force
shake, something closer to a 9 richter and at its epicenter.
Amazingly, despite such a violent shake, the cob building
remained standing, though large chunks of cob had fallen
away from the building. Anyone inside would have survived.
Here you can see the structure after the violent testing.
You can see more details on The
Stanley Park Earthen Architecture Project
The devistation in Pakestan inspired engineer Darcey Donovan
to put her expertise to work in poor rural areas using straw
bales to build homes in Pakistan.
In
2007, in a similar vain to the earlier test at the University
of British Columbia, the Pakistan
Straw Bale and Appropriate Building
(PAKSBAB) was awarded a research grant from the Earthquake
Engineering Research Institute
(EERI). The project’s objective was to determine
the performance of earth plastered, load bearing, straw
bale walls of a small full-scale straw bale house using
an earthquake simulation shake table. Darcey Donovan,
the founder of PAKSBAB, talks here about the earthquake
tests done at the University of Nevada, Reno on the 27th
of March 2009.
Builders
Without Borders
is
supporting PAKSBAB with educational materials and has
donated books and training materials for PAKSBAB. PAKSBAB
are revising and translating their publication "Strawbale
Construction Curriculum" into
Urdu for use in their training courses.
