Micro Concrete tiles, mud bricks, pozzolanic cement: EcoSur - Home

In this third contribution in our series discussing Different experiences in reconstruction projects, the EcoSur E-magazine documents a project proposal for rapid action after a disaster.
Always after earthquakes, hurricanes, landslides, wars and other catastrophes, fast action is needed to create shelter, the same scenarios each time. Usually the limited existing financial resources are used to import tents, plastic and other non-durable materials. The population then builds sheds that protect from rain but do not provide any kind of security for the inhabitants and much less for their goods. Such provisional structures, that in reality have cost more than their worth, tend to become permanent...

The Clay House Project in Namibia has developed a dry-toilet that is gaining wide acceptance among users and Experts alike. The Town of Otjiwarongo is planning to build thousands of “Otji toilets” in the next few years. A group of experts to the European Union recommends the use of dry toilets to resolve sanitation problems of rural and semi-urban Namibia.

Fifteen days after hurricane Ike, almost anywhere in Cuba one feels the enormous effort to reestablish normality. Almost half a million houses were damaged and more than 100’000 collapsed totally. Everywhere one can see people repairing roofs and placing fibrocement elements (similar in shape to asbestos-cement).

The workday of  Cristobal Flores used to start at 3 o´clock in the morning. In the cold of the early morning, at 2800 m over the sea level,  Cristobal mixed the earth deposited in his back yard with sawdust, soaked the mixture and started to trample it to grind and homogenize it, with his bull “Martin”. Four hours later, the mixture was ready to mould and be converted into raw bricks.