Cement and Concrete Research 130 (2020) 105992

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Cement and Concrete Research

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/cemconres

Discussion

Reply to the discussion of the paper “Earth Concrete. Stabilization T

Revisited” by A.T.M. Marsh, A. Heath, P. Walker, B.V. Venkatarama Reddy,
and G. Habert
⁎
Henri Van Dammea, , Hugo Houbenb
a
< MSE > 2, Multiscale Materials Science for Energy and the Environment, the Joint CNRS-MIT Laboratory, Cambridge, MA, USA
b
CRAterre-ENSAG, Grenoble, France

A R T I C LE I N FO A B S T R A C T

Keywords: Reply to the discussion of the paper “Earth Concrete. Stabilization Revisited” by A.T.M. Marsh, A. Heath, P.
Earth Walker, B.V. Venkatarama Reddy, and G. Habert.
Stabilization
Social perception
Hydro-thermal comfort
Norms

1. Introduction purpose of stabilization which, as they correctly point out, is often a

In their discussion of our paper devoted to the “stabilization” of raw
earth with Portland cement, Marsh and co-authors correctly point out a
number of discussion elements which were omitted or only briefly
discussed in our original paper. While we essentially agree with the
substance of their message as wrapped in their abstract and in their
concluding remarks – namely (i) a fair assessment of the effectiveness of
cement use in building materials should be based on more than just
embodied carbon and dry compressive strength and (ii) there are si-
tuations in which cement-stabilized earth materials are the best or ac-
cepted solutions – we still believe that it was important to warn the
builders that, considering the massive character of earthen architecture,
mixing earth with even “moderate” amounts of cement is not an en-
vironmentally benign operation. It harms greatly its exceptionally low
environmental impact and its unique cradle-to-cradle recyclability, a
property which as we move toward a circular economy may well prove
to be as important as durability, if not more. Actually, the introduction
of 5 to 10% cement in earth brings construction with stabilized earth in
the same environmental and technical discussion frame as construction
with ordinary concrete or mortar. This was the starting point of our
work.
2. Strength and moisture resistance in context
The first technical point raised by Marsh et al. is related to the very
blend of several items like improving dry and wet strength, erosion
resistance, complying with state regulations, with standardized tests, or
with insurance company requirements, or simply improving the socio-
psychological perception of the property, especially in developing
economies.
We agree with Marsh et al. when they point out that high- and ultra-
high-performance concrete do not belong to the same material world as
raw earth and can hardly be compared with it. In the same vein, we
may argue that considering a slurry (the zero-cement asymptotic limit
for strength in wet conditions their Fig. 1) as a construction material
doesn't really make sense.
On the other hand, we are fully aware that the perception of non-
stabilized earth as a “material for the poor” is a serious handicap for its
acceptance in developing regions and a strong driver for stabilization
associated with a more industrial and “modern” perception. As ex-
tensively discussed in two recent books advocating the use of virgin
earth without stabilization [1,2], the best way to modify this perception
is to multiply and publicize exemplary projects in both developed and
developing countries. The Ricola Kräuterzentrum built by Lehm Ton
Erde GmbH, a company founded by the Austrian architect Martin
Rauch [1], in collaboration with Herzog & de Meuron Architects, the
agency of two Pritzker prize-winning architects, is a very good example
(quoted by Marsh et al. also, later in their discussion). It is a large
110 × 30 m2 building with a slender concrete frame invisible from the
outside. The 11 m-tall non-load-bearing external walls are made of

⁎
Corresponding author.
E-mail address: henrivd@mit.edu (H. Van Damme).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cemconres.2020.105992
Received 7 January 2020; Accepted 18 January 2020
Available online 28 January 2020
0008-8846/ © 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
H. Van Damme and H. Houben
standard 3.36 × 1,30 × 0.45 m3 prefabricated rammed earth elements.
The elements are manufactured using non-stabilized soil taken from the
near vicinity (contrary to what Marsh et al. claim, lime and volcanic tuff
was not used for stabilization; see below). As it should, the building is
equipped with “boots” (a concrete base up to ~0.6 m above ground
level) and a rather discreet “hat” (a roof with only 40 cm overreach), in
order to comply with contemporary aesthetics. However, in order to
control erosion in the rainy climate of Basel, Switzerland, thin (a few
cm) layers of a more resistant sand/lime/pozzolan mixture were in-
corporated every 60 cm during ramming (Fig. 1). After some minor
initial erosion of the most exposed facades, these harder layers are
protruding, slowing down water dripping and protecting the façade
from further erosion.
Another exemplary project is the EU-funded Cycle Terre project in
Sevran, a suburb city of Paris [3]. As a new metro line around Paris is
built, about 40 millions tons of excavation material will be available
over a period of about ten years. The project intends to turn this ma-
terial into a useful construction material instead of treating it as a
waste. In its demonstration phase covering the 2018–2021 period, the
Cycle Terre project aims to transform 8000 tons of material yearly into
compressed bricks, plasterboard-like natural fiber-reinforced panels,
and ready-to-use renderings, mostly without any stabilization. In the
longer term, the project is to organize a comprehensive professional
sector covering all aspects of construction with earth. In the same vein,
the Manufacture-sur-Seine project of several architecture agencies in-
cluding Amateur Architecture Studio of another Pritzker prize-winning
architect, Wang Shu, will lead to the construction of > 300 apartments
and 20,000 m2 of office space in low rise buildings along the Seine
river, starting in 2021 [2,4]. This type of project, in a highly priced
urban environment, may radically transform the perception of stabili-
zation-free earthen architecture.
Returning to the possible motivations for stabilization, there is no
question that there are indeed situations where stabilization is fully
justified like, for instance, unsuitable soil quality and lack of aggregates
for correcting the soil grading curve, or extreme climatic conditions
(monsoon rains, floods). Yet, too often, stabilization with cement is
chosen systematically as the easiest way to get away from optimization
of the soil grading curve or from more demanding architectural choices,
the first of which still remains compliance with the basic “boots and
hat” rule. As illustrated above for the Ricola Kräuterzentrum, simple
2
Cement and Concrete Research 130 (2020) 105992
Fig. 1. Left: A finished façade of the Ricola
Kräuterzentrum (credit: Tobias Fritz). Note the white
“erosion lines”. Note also the concrete basement and the
narrow overreach of the roof. Right: A close look at the
unfinished façade, showing the erosion lines embedded
in the prefabricated rammed earth blocks and the joins
between blocks, to be filled with an earth mortar (credit:
Ricola).
inventive solutions may also help avoiding stabilization. Actually, the
situation of cement use in earth is not that different from its use in low
or medium performance concrete. In concrete also, unnecessarily large
cement content is too often used as a way to compensate for a poor mix
design [5]. The scrutiny of large data bases [6–8] show that the cement
content of a ~20 MPa concrete may vary from a remarkably low
~20 kg/m3 to a wastefully large ~400 kg/m3!
3. Broadening the panel of sustainability indicators
A second point raised by Marsh et al. is the necessity to use a
broader panel of sustainability indicators. The embodied carbon of the
binder is undoubtedly the primary indicator to consider for a correct
environmental assessment of stabilized earth and other cement-based
material – at least, as long as the cement industry has not succeeded in
decreasing drastically the clinker content – but many other “second
rank” indicators should be considered for a proper life cycle analysis,
including land and resource use, transportation, and human labor. This
is correct. As far as natural resources are concerned, aggregates - in-
cluding sand - are indeed not everywhere available, either from local
sources or via low impact transportation means (boat). Sand is parti-
cularly critical for concrete, especially in regions where industry is not
yet producing large quantities of industrial sand from crushing larger
aggregates [9]. As pointed out by Marsh et al., this can make stabili-
zation of local earth a better option than the design of a concrete mix
with from-far-coming aggregates.
Another “second rank” eco-criterion wisely suggested by Marsh
et al. is human labor or, more precisely, the social and economical
benefits of the human labor involved in construction. It is indeed true
that the question “Who is most benefiting from the selected materials
and construction method?” should be considered on equal foot with
technical and strictly environmental parameters. In developing econo-
mies suffering from high unemployment, giving people the opportunity
to use inexpensive local materials and to have a rewarding activity, at
least temporarily, may be a decisive criterion. It is all the more im-
portant that giving people the opportunity to participate themselves in
the construction process is a strong way to build community. As ex-
pressed by B. King, “To do it yourself means to do it with other” [10]. In
more developed economies, the increasing number of “self-builders”
using bio- or geo-sourced eco-materials pertains to the same logic.
H. Van Damme and H. Houben
Fig. 2. Evolution of the temperature in the middle of a rammed earth wall
separating two climatic chambers. One chamber is kept at 20 °C and 50% RH.
The other chamber is following a sequence of four stages for 24 h each: [20 °C;
50%RH], [10 °C; 80%RH], [40 °C; 45%RH], [20 °C; 50%RH]. The continuous
line is the measured temperature. The dashed line is the temperature predicted
using a model which takes into account the thermal conductivity of the wall
and its heat capacity, but not the vaporization-condensation of capillary water.
Adapted from [14].
4. Other material functions
The third and last point raised by Marsh and coauthors is the need to
consider material functions other than strength, in particular those re-
lated to hydrothermal living comfort. Once more, Marsh and coauthors
correctly point out – as we did – the potential benefits of the high
thermal mass and large moisture buffering capacity of raw earth walls.
Provided the architecture has been correctly designed to take advantage
of them, these are properties that should definitely enter into an overall
environmental assessment.
Actually, the thermal benefits of using earth as building material are
larger than anticipated, thanks to a synergetic hydro-thermal effect
which turns raw earth into a natural phase-change material (PCM). The
thermal mass of a wall may be defined as its heat content per unit wall
area. The thermal mass acts as a source of heat when the indoor air
temperature falls below the wall temperature, and as a heat sink in the
opposite situation, flattening the diurnal and seasonal temperature
fluctuations [11]. Quantitatively, the thermal mass depends on the wall
thickness, the density of the wall constituents, and their heat capacity.
The largest contribution is coming from the mineral constituents, with
some minor contribution from the water adsorbed on the fine-grained
constituents (clay) or condensed in the capillary pores. The contribu-
tion of the entrapped moist air is negligible. Earth and plain concrete
behave very similarly as far as this “intrinsic” thermal mass is con-
cerned, with a higher density but a smaller wall thickness for concrete.
What makes raw earth different from concrete is an extra con-
tribution to the thermal mass stemming from the evaporation and
condensation of capillary water and its exchange with the surrounding
moist air. As the wall temperature is increasing, some capillary con-
densed water is evaporating and the vapor is escaping from the wall.
The enthalpy change associated with this is the very large latent heat of
vaporization of water, ~2.2 103 kJ.kg−1, which is taken from the
surrounding. On the contrary, when the temperature is decreasing,
more water vapor is condensing, now releasing the associated latent
heat. Thus, the reversible liquid-vapor phase change of capillary water
is adding an extra contribution to the wall thermal mass. This is the
principle of all PCMs used for thermal comfort [12]. However, there is
no industrial PCM which is based on the liquid-vapor equilibrium of
3
Cement and Concrete Research 130 (2020) 105992
water or another substance. They are all based on the solid-liquid
equilibrium of some compound with a large latent heat of melting. A
widespread example is plain concrete with encapsulated paraffin wax
beads [12].
The requirements for the evaporation-condensation process to occur
reversibly and rapidly are rather stringent. The material should not only
have a pore population with the right dimensions for capillary con-
densation in the comfort temperature and moisture range, it should also
have a pore network with much larger pores connected to the smaller
pores and to the surrounding in order to allow for rapid exchange of
relatively large volumes of vapor with the moist atmosphere (1 L of
water is producing 700 L of vapor in standard conditions). This kinetic
condition is much better fulfilled in raw earth – especially non stabi-
lized earth – than in ordinary plain concrete (just think of the difference
in time required to reach equilibrium after a RH change).
The temperature buffering properties stemming from the liquid-
vapor equilibrium of capillary water is most important in some highly
hydrophilic bio-sourced materials, like hemp for instance [13]. In hemp
concrete (or “hempcrete”), short pieces of defibrillated hemp stems are
used as aggregate in a mortar matrix. The binder is chosen and the
concrete is formulated according to the target properties (mechanical,
acoustic, thermal). Provided the matrix is not too air-tight (a lime
mortar for instance), a strong thermal regulation capacity is obtained,
which goes well beyond what is expected from the “intrinsic” (phase
change-free) thermal mass. Using a modified coupled mass and heat
transfer model, the contribution of the liquid-vapor capillary water
phase change has been quantitatively described and verified experi-
mentally [13].
Our understanding of the thermal properties of raw earth has not
yet reached the same level, but there is clear experimental evidence
that a phase change effect is at work [14]. As shown in Fig. 2, the
temperature buffering capacity of crude earth is much better than one
can predict using software that neglects phase changes (the type of
software unfortunately used in climatic modeling of buildings and
certification procedures).
This leads us to reflect on our criteria for certification and for giving
the “high environmental quality” label to dwellings. These criteria are
still largely founded upon a few selected physical properties which were
chosen in some historical context for a given class of materials owing
their performance to those physical parameters. The least that can be
said is that this manner of proceeding is not very well adapted to the
introduction of materials working differently, or materials in which
there is a strong coupling between properties. In fact, our world is an
extraordinarily diverse showroom of resourceful and frugal answers to
local material and environmental constraints. This intrinsically verna-
cular character of traditional dwelling construction materials and
techniques – to use with measure what is locally available and recycl-
able and invent locally-optimized solutions – is contrasting with the
evolution of the modern habitat construction sector, privileging a lim-
ited choice of materials and constructive solutions among which
Portland-type cement-based mortars and concrete occupy a dominating
position. This out-of-context character of the present habitat construc-
tion sector (at least, for low rise buildings) is reinforced by the norms
and standards system which in its time was a useful way to inject
technical knowledge, reliability and safety in construction practice, but
which is also a confession of our inability to deal with contextual di-
versity and constitutes an exceedingly rigid straitjacket for innovation.
In agreement with Marsh et al., we believe that it is about time to
broaden the lens through which we look at our living space.
Declaration of competing interest
The authors declare no conflict of interest.
H. Van Damme and H. Houben
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