Though some community members were initially skeptical about the prospect of building their schools with bags full of dirt, here in the Solukhumbu District, earthbag construction was catching on at a quick pace.[break]
Nepal is a country still reeling from the impact of last September’s Richter magnitude scale of 6.9 earthquake. With experts predicting that another even bigger earthquake is just around the corner, disaster preparedness has moved to the forefront of the agenda for many of Nepal’s leaders, engineers, and citizens, especially when thinking about how to preserve the country’s educational and financial systems, not to mention the homes of Nepal’s 30 million citizens.
Photo: Sarah Andrews
One solution being implemented in the Solukhumbu District is earthbag construction, a cost-effective, environmentally-sensitive building method that is more earthquake-resistant than traditional stone or brick building methods.
Two school buildings in Taksindu and Basa villages have recently been constructed with earthbags, and a third is currently nearing completion. The schools were built through a partnership between The Small World, a Kathmandu-based NGO that supports locally-driven community development projects in Nepal, and Edge of Seven, an American organization that works to provide educational opportunities for girls in rural Nepal.
“In addition to providing much-needed classroom space for the children in these villages, a major goal of the project was to introduce and educate community members on an alternative method of construction that is both safer and replicable,” said Travis Hughbanks, Edge of Seven’s lead architect who oversaw the construction of the schools and provided training for local engineers.
“One of the other benefits of earthbag construction is that it is simple and easy to implement. After The Small World and Edge of Seven leave the project site, we want the communities to have the knowledge and confidence they need to continue building in this manner.”
Photo: Sarah Andrews
Simply put, earthbag construction takes dirt-filled polypropylene bags, like those used to transport rice and cement, and utilizes them as the main building block in a structure.
The bags are filled with dirt on-site, usually with the soil excavated for the building’s foundation, and then stacked in courses, much like bricks would be. Instead of using cement as mortar, a thin layer of barbed wire is laid between each course to hold the bags together.
When the walls are finished, a concrete ring beam is poured above to give the structure the rigidity necessary to withstand a strong earthquake. Plaster is then applied to the exterior to create a protective, airtight shell.
Earthbag buildings have several features that make them safer and more stable in seismic areas. The interconnected bags create a uniform wall system that has the ability to flex and absorb the shock of a seismic wave, while the concrete ring beam prevents them from moving too much and collapsing.
In addition, the barbed wire works to hold the bags together during movement so the walls don’t crack apart.
Photo: Sarah Andrews
“As Nepal is a country with one of the highest possible earthquake risks, this new technology of earthbag construction can be considered as one of the best options to save schools and other community spaces from damage in an earthquake,” said Karma Sherpa, Executive Director of The Small World. “Also, this type of construction is considered very cost effective, since most of the materials used are locally available.”
In February, The Small World and Edge of Seven completed a primary school in the village of Phuleli that will house students in grades 7 and 8. Two classrooms for a higher secondary school in the village of Basa were finished in May and two more classrooms for that same school are slated for completion this summer.
To learn more about the earthbag buildings, visit www.thesmallworld.org and www.edgeofseven.org.
The writer is the Board Chair for Edge of Seven. She recently returned to the U.S. after living in Nepal for seven months and assisting with the Basa and Phuleli earthbag schools. In America, she works as a freelance writer and communications consultant for nonprofit organizations. Follow her on Twitter at @atxsarah.