Building with earth - Gernot MINKE (1)

Office building, New Delhi, India
This office building was constructed in order
to prove that domed and vaulted rooms
built of earth blocks are conducive to a better
indoor climate and can be more economical
than traditional buildings with flat
concrete roofs.
The project was built as part of a research
and development project sponsored by the
German agency Gate/GTZ.
The building provides office and laboratory
space for a research group with a usable
area of 115 m 2 .
The central hall acts as a multi-purpose
room for seminars, meetings and exhibitions.
The three domes were built of soil blocks,
utilising a rotational slipform that was developed
by the Building Research Laboratory,
University of Kassel, Germany (see p. 127).
The soil blocks were produced by a manually
operated press.
For heating and cooling, an earth tunnel
system was installed. Climate conditions
require that the rooms are cooled from April
to September and heated from December
to February. For this purpose, a 100-m-long
stoneware pipe system was installed in a
depth of 3.50 m, through which ambient
air is blown by two fans. The blown air
receives the nearly constant earth temperature
of about 25°C, which corresponds to
the annual mean temperature. This air cools
the building in the hot season and heats
it in the cold season.
The energy saving results in nearly 38,000
kWh per year, about 2 /3 of the total amount.
The saving in building costs in comparison
with a conventional building with flat concrete
roof was 22%.
Foundation and plinth: Burned bricks
Vertical walls and domes: Stabilised soil blocks
Vaults: Handmade stabilised adobes
Surface treatment: Cowdung-mud mortar with
water repellent
Skylights: Acrylic glass with openings for natural
ventilation
Architect and supervisor: Gernot Minke,
Kassel, Germany
Collaborator: R. Muthu Kumar, New Delhi, India
Energy concept: N.K. Bansal, New Delhi, India
Completion: 1991
Area: 115 m 2
176
Built examples