Rammed-earth earthquake-resistant house prototype named the World Building of the Year
By Ayda Ayoubi
A rammed-earth earthquake-resistant house prototype designed by the One University One Village team of the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) was named the World Building of the Year at the 10th World Architecture Festival (WAF) held earlier this month in Berlin. The jury commended the project for reusing salvaged construction materials, being sensitive to its context, and for combining traditional construction methods with new technologies.
In 2014, an earthquake struck Yunnan Province in southwestern China and destroyed approximately 81,000 houses, including the majority of structures in Guangming Village, many of which used rammed-earth construction. As a result, locals lost confidence in traditional building techniques and locally sourced materials, and began to reconstruct houses using brick and concrete. But the use of these imported materials proved expensive and the brick-and-concrete structures demonstrated a poor thermal performance. On top of that, a lack of technical understanding of the materials and trained craftsmanship led to critical safety concerns.
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