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Anti-seismic earth brick house

Architecture 

On September 8th, 2023, an earthquake hit the south of Morocco, leaving 60,000 houses in 3,000 villages partially or entirely damaged, over 3,500 dead, and many thousands more homeless. The 6.7 magnitude earthquake primarily affected traditional earth and stone houses in rural areas built on steep slopes. While the government and NGOs provided temporary housing and financial aid to 400,000 survivors, the reconstruction efforts on the ground have been problematic.

Indeed, the Moroccan government decided to rely on self- construction and granted some survivors - those with 100% destruction of their homes - a $14,000 US grant to build a 2-bedroom, 70 to 80 m2 house, on the location of their original house.

With a group of Moroccan volunteers including Holcim Lafargue Moroccan team composed of Amal El Abdi Alaoui and Soufiane Khazouli, pre-fab experts Amine Maachi and engineer Zouhir Farah, we decided to develop and test a sustainable, modular anti-seismic house prototype, at a cost close to the government grant. Our prototype used three types of mass-produced, mortarless compressed earth bricks used in ceiling slabs, load-bearing walls, and pavement. The bricks are composed of 95% earth and 5% Durabrick cement mix. We also provided for black water treament using an ecological spetic tank and grey water re-use after a subterranean gravel bed treatment. The Moroccan government handed us a piece of land for this experimental trial near the village of Taalat N’Yacoub, which was severely affected by the earthquake.

The prototype was meant to act as a proof of concept and serve as a model to help change constructive practices, to offer an alternative for affordable housing in rural settings in Morocco, and to be duplicated to form a model village for the widows of the village of Tajgalte, which was also severely affected by the earthquake. In addition, we are transferring knowledge we learned in this first prototype to the design of a youth and children community center in the village of Tajgalte, ran by the NGO Amal Biladi.

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This prototype won the World Monuments Funds Watch Award in 2024 and the Institut du Monde Arabe Impact award

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