It is fascinating to see the ancient arts of clay puddling
and gravel back-filling revived in this quite new building
system that uses either hessian, burlap or polypropylene bags
filled with the mixed with water and often with cement or
lime. Rows of these bags are gradually elevated on top of
each other and tamped into place, with lines of barbed wire
between them to fix one row onto the other.
The
resulting walls, domes and vaults have remarkable organic
forms that are topped off with roofs finished with grasses,
patties, shingles or more conventional timber trusses and
tiles. What is very interesting is to see new designers reinventing
mud features, like the exterior mud bench, that I have excavated
6000 year old examples of in Mesopotamia where later scribes
called them ‘kisu’ in cuneiform tablets written in over 4500
years ago. Perhaps what we see described in Paulina’s book
is actually a building construction system of the future,
as well as one of the past. If
so it is fortunate we have such a comprehensive ‘how to’ manual
for the mudbag builders of tomorrow.
This
is a delightful book and has lots of lessons on the basic
construction that apply to many building types, not just those
of flexible-form earthbag construction.”
By
Professor Susan Roaf (author of the book: “Ecohouse – A design
Guide”)
Energy-Efficiency Building Programme, Oxford Brookes University |
