Straw-bale Construction for Quake Areas

Bill Mollison, 6 May, 2009
(See: New Scientist, 18 April, 2009, p. 20)

Darcy Donovan, of Truckee, California designs straw-bale houses. After an earthquake in Kashmir in 2005, she went there to assist in re-housing survivors. Some 75,000 people were killed when their mud and stone houses collapsed; she made a new house as follows:

The Foundations were trenches, filled with sacks of gravel or pebbles.

The Basement floors were clay, sand and cement.

The Walls were straw-bales built into a strong wooden frame. They were rendered with clay, sand and chopped grains.

The Roof was sheets of corrugated iron. Altogether this home was sturdy and much lighter than the mud and stone dwellings, which people were frightened to enter. Seven straw-bale houses were built, and occupied.

It is now very unlikely anyone can be killed by a house collapse if straw-bales are used.

A team at the University of Nevada in Reno tested the model with 8 simulated earthquakes of increasing intensity. At 0.82 times the force of gravity, stronger than the Kashmir quake, some flakes of render (plaster) came off the bales.

The team at the university believes that the straw-bale house has a great future in quake areas, where many people are killed by collapsing houses of mud, brick and stone. I say “good work Ms Darcy Donovan”. China and Turkey need this data, as do some Andean towns, Chile and Indonesia.