Report #164: Reinforced concrete frame with lightly reinforced masonry infill
by Laura Redmond, Reginald DesRoches This type of home is a reinforced concrete frame building with brick infill on the second story. The infill may be lightly reinforced and the first story is either left open to prevent flooding in hurricanes, or later, when the individual has more money the bottom story is often infilled […]
Report #165: Timber Stilt Homes
by Laura Redmond, Reginald DesRoches This construction type is used as a single-family house. It is a single-story, detached building, found in the rural and suburban areas of the province of San Juan. This traditional type of construction is built with adobe walls and no cornice. The traditional adobe house has a range of deficiencies: […]
Report #161: Confined and Internally Reinforced Concrete Block Masonry Building
by Diego Velasquez Jofre, Lars Abrahamczyk, Jochen Schwarz The February 1976 earthquake caused severe damage to housing and buildings in Guatemala. Because many adobe houses were destroyed during the earthquake, there was greater interest in building with reinforced concrete block masonry structures after the event. This building type can now be found throughout Guatemala. Reinforced […]
Report # 160 : Combined and Confined Masonry Construction
by Arturo Tena-Colunga, Artemio Juárez-Ãngeles, Victor Hugo Salinas-Vallejo It is defined as combined and confined masonry structures those where the bearing/seismic walls are made by alternating courses of lightweight concrete blocks (inexpensive in Mexico) with courses of fired clay bricks (more expensive) and they are confined with cast-in place reinforced-concrete tie-beams and tie-columns (Figure 1). […]
Report # 156 : Typical Single-Story Residential Construction Practices in Trinidad and Tobago
by Richard P. Clarke, Rakesh Ramnath Typical single-story residential construction in Trinidad and Tobago comprises 100 mm thick unreinforced clay tile or concrete block masonry (URM) load-bearing walls supporting the roof. The roofing is a 20 to 30 degree gable or hipped shape and is of approximately 0.2 to 0.5 kN/m2 in weight. It comprises […]
Report # 148 : Vivienda de Minifalda (Wooden houses with heavy bases)
by Dominik Lang, Alvaro Amador, Lisa Holliday, Claudio Romero L, Armando Ugarte The term ‘minifalda’, translated ‘miniskirt’ refers to the building’s walls which consist of masonry or concrete in the lower part, while the upper part is made of a light wood construction (also ‘madera y concreto’). According to a recent population census carried out […]
Report # 144 : Vivienda de Adobe (adobe brick houses)
by Dominik Lang, Lisa Holliday, Omar G. Flores Beleton Buildings made of adobe brick masonry can still be found in all parts of Guatemala both in rural and urban areas. Generally adobe houses are characterized by only one story, no basement, and sometimes an irregular plan shape. The main use is residential or small commercial […]
Report # 141 : Vivienda de Bahareque
by Dominik Lang, Roberto Merlos, Lisa Holliday, Manuel A. Lopez M. The bahareque construction type refers to a mixed timber, bamboo and mud wall construction technique which was the most frequently used method for simple houses in El Salvador before the 1965 earthquake (Levin, 1940; Yoshimura and Kuroki, 2001). According to statistics of the Vice-ministry […]
Report # 137 : Adobe walls supporting rough timber framed roof with corrugated iron sheeting.
by Matthew A. French The plan of this adobe building is a simple rectangle with three rooms. Adobe as a material is very weak under seismic loads, which is the main issue which concerns this building type. Also, the roof does not have sufficent eaves to protect the adobe walls, which has resulted in the […]
Report # 136 : Adobe with sawn timber roof framing and corrugated iron sheeting
by Matthew A. French This very small building doubles as a home and workplace. The homeowner weaves products such as hats, clothes and mats for a living. The building functions as a showroom for her products by the day and as her house for rest at night. Three months before the site visit, the house […]