CEB Vaults

From Abe Connally:

Marcin,

Have you been able to do any research on ferrocement? I found a slightly different way of doing ceilings and roofs that you might be interested in. It is called timbrel vaults or Catalan vaults.

Basically, it consists of creating a vault using tiles, and it requires very little formwork. The tiles then become the form for the roof, so you place your insulation on top of the tile vault, then a ferro-cement cap that could be sprayed on or applied by hand. It removes the need to stucco from below, which is a major pain with ferro-cement ceilings. Also, it reduces the need for steel in the ceiling, which saves a lot on building cost and complexity. You guys could make a tile machine similar to the Liberator CEB press, and use the tiles for the ceiling and the floor, making a building almost completely out of CEB-type material.

We are trying this method out on a small building in the next few weeks, and I will let you know how it goes. The method appears to be very promising, and it would make ferro-cement roofs very easy and fast to do.

Here are some links to look at:

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guastavino_tile
• http://www.guastavino.net/
• http://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2008/11/tiles-vaults.html
• http://crossway.tumblr.com/

Good luck, Abe

Comments

There is almost zero experience with using CEBs in Guastavino-type masonry. The unresolved question is whether CEB tiles will deliver adequate structural performance. This can only be addressed with side-by-side comparisons of fired tiles vs. CEB tiles. One example that used pressed tiles is the Mapungubwe National Park Interpretive Centre, which won the Holcim Awards in 2008.

http://web.mit.edu/masonry/projects/projects_mapungubwe.html http://www.holcimfoundation.org/T873/A08AMack-gallery.htm