Arquitectura de Terra em Portugal: Viabilidade Contemporânea

Abstract

The use of earth in architecture stands as an ancient heritage of the human race which is still widely exploited. In Portugal there's a vast inheritance of earth-built constructions; a significant part of it finds itself ruined and forgotten, but the last 20 years brought a renewed enthusiasm surrounding the traditional earth-based building techniques. This dissertation was made with the intention of studying Earth Architecture in the Portugal (mainland) and its nowadays feasibility. The three main building techniques found in Portugal are: rammed earth, mud brick and wattle-and-daub. Since earth is obtained from the soil, whose genesis and properties are influenced by weather, lithological and topographical conditions (among others), the initial approach comprises the analysis of the place of implantation of each building technique according to the factors that play a major role in the soil formation, in an attempt to establish a relationship between the localisation and the building technique, drawing a local profile. Afterwards, there's a focus on the soil itself - which part of it is eligible for building, what are its components and how do they interact between them to define the soil's physical properties. Further on, there's a description of the three building techniques from the moment of soil selection and gathering, its stabilization, application techniques and options for architectural components. Finally, the case-studies that are presented in attatchment, exemplify either requalification or newlyprojected buildings that used earth as raw material; each case-study is intended to be analysed according to the knowledge gained in the previous chapters.