From Reuters
By Anton Ferreira | May 17, 1999
Tools of war could help rebuild Kosovo
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Advocates of an innovative building method say Kosovo's refugees, when they eventually return home, can use it to transform the tools of war -- sandbags and barbed wire -- into the foundations of peace.
The technique known as "Superadobe" is the brain-child of Nader Khalili, an Iranian-born architect working in the high desert of southern California, who for eight years has been building comfortable, durable homes from sandbags, barbed wire and earth.
Khalili and his colleagues have built several demonstration structures at their Cal-Earth Institute, hosting would-be Superadobe builders from around the United States and abroad.
The basic structure is formed by filling bags with whatever soil is found on the building site and laying them in a circle with a diameter of 12 to 14 feet. The circles are built up in layers with strands of barbed wire laid between each layer like Velcro to give additional stability.
The circles grow gradually smaller as they get higher, closing at the top, so the finished structure resembles a domed beehive. It requires no structural timber or steel, although cement can be added to the earth mix for greater strength. Holes are left for a door and windows.
The buildings at Cal-Earth have passed with flying colors tests of their ability to withstand earthquakes and Hesperia city building authorities have approved a house design using sandbag construction.
Khalili, who used to design conventional concrete and steel skyscrapers before deciding to pursue affordable earth-based building methods, said Superadobe would be ideal for rebuilding homes and infrastructure in both Kosovo and Serbia.
"It would be like the phoenix rising from the ashes," he said. "But in this case it would be rising from sandbags."
No detailed assessment of the physical damage to Kosovo's cities and villages is possible yet but NATO officers say "thousands" of homes have been destroyed in 500 Kosovo villages.
"Rebuilding the conventional way will cost a fortune and take forever," Khalili said. "Both NATO and the Kosovars should send representatives to Hesperia to see what we have here."
The Superadobe technique resulted from Khalili's efforts to simplify traditional earth architecture as much as possible.
He started out trying to make mud brick -- adobe -- buildings more resistant to earthquakes and weathering, then hit on sandbags as a way of eliminating the laborious block-making required in adobe building.
METHOD OFFERS HELP FOR THE HOMELESS
Superadobe houses are not only for the poor. They can be plastered, enlarged and given whatever level of interior and exterior finishes the owner can afford, including conventional plumbing and wiring.
Nassrine Azimi, head of U.N. Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR) in New York, has visited Khalili's research center in Hesperia, east of Los Angeles.
Nassrine Azimi said the technique was well suited as emergency shelter after natural disasters such as the hurricane that struck Honduras last year, making tens of thousands of people homeless, and as affordable housing to replace the shack cities in much of the Third World.
"Once you have the basic structure up, you can gradually add to it until you have a proper home. It's real application is in slum areas -- that's where the magic may lie," she said.
"It's one of those simple things that are slow to be adopted because they don't take a lot of money for anyone ... The battle is to get enough people to know about this kind of building," Azimi said. She said the challenge for technologies like Superadobe was to get the backing of political authorities and to overcome prejudices against the unusual or innovative.
Superadobe has also won converts in an unlikely constituency: "survivalists" who preach self-reliance. In a recent edition of one of their favorite magazines, "American Surivival Guide," an assessment of the building method praises, among other things, its ability to withstand attack.
"The walls should provide adequate protection, under certain conditions, against 5.56 mm rifle fire, 7.62 mm rifle fire, and M433 40 mm High Explosive Grenade blast," the magazine said. "If your particular survival scenario or location requires this type of protection, then a Superadobe home may be a consideration for you."
Cal-Earth has a Web site at www.calearth.org
11:09 05-17-99
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