Building with earth in a cold climate
Typ
Examensarbete för masterexamen
Program
Architecture and urban design (MPARC), MSc
Publicerad
2022
Författare
Moene-Omholt, Klara
Modellbyggare
Tidskriftstitel
ISSN
Volymtitel
Utgivare
Sammanfattning
The climate crisis is one the biggest challenges that
have ever faced humanity. The building industry is
responsible for almost 40% of all emissions. Looking
at the high emissions from many commonly used
building materials, changes in choice of material have
the potential for making great impacts on the total
emissions of the building industry.
The low emission material, earth, is not a new building
material. It has been used for thousands of years, and
even today, one third of the planet’s population lives
in houses made from earth, mostly in warm climate
developing countries. Earth, being a widely available
material across the globe, has the potential to become
a common building material in colder climates.
In this master thesis, first, the advantages of earth
are explored, including sustainability, recyclability,
and relative humidity regulation. The challenges of
building in a cold climate are then found, in addition
to their impact on earth building. Lastly, how to
solve these challenges are studied, including erosion,
moisture control, thermal mass, and insulation. In
each of these categories, factors that could impact
the performance and advantages are identified, in the
form of criteria.
Existing earth buildings in Europe are used as reference
projects, to compare them, and the climate they are
located in, in order to discover trends and similarities.
Three projects, which are close in scale and function
of the redesign of a rowhouse which will take place in
the end of this thesis, are then studied closer as case
studies. The different solutions in the case studies are
evaluated using the criteria, created in the theoretical
part, and effectiveness and relevance is discussed.
The results from the reference projects and case studies
are then used as a base for the redesign of a rowhouse
in Höganäs, Sweden. Four suggestions for a redesign
have been made. The differences are representing
priorities when building with earth in a cold climate.
The purpose of this is to see how this rowhouse could
have been built, had it been built in earth.
Beskrivning
Ämne/nyckelord
Earth, sustainability, indoor climate, cold climate