3 ms·

Superadobe looks like something that could kill you in an earthquake.

• Angostura 11y ago
  From the article: "Cal-Earth’s sandbag structures, reinforced with barbed wire, have successfully passed tests for California’s high seismic building codes, making them resistant to earthquakes as well as fire, flood, and hurricanes. "
• dredmorbius 11y ago
  A properly tensioned dome structure with multiple bonding between layers, particularly if continuous or long bags / ropes are used in the coils seems to me a possibly robust structure. An unmortared or weakly-mortared square brick or stone structure is about the worst option for a quake. All the compressive forces are vertical only,and there's not a whole lot to keep things together when shaking starts. Individual structural elements (bricks or stones) are small and easily shift relative to one another. "Fired brick wall earthquake test 10 second shake highest magnitude" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LzblCe8krCY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LzblCe8krCY Though this doesn't show direct earthquake effects, this post-quake demolition in Christchurch demonstrates how much stronger reinforced concrete is than unreinforced brick. The demo would have gone far faster with a jackhammer attachment. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0qU19p_zwA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0qU19p_zwA