Concrete Roof Tiles, puzolanic cement, earth houses, ecomaterials: EcoSur

In this third contribution in our series discussing Different experiences in reconstruction projects, the EcoSur E-magazine documents a project proposal for rapid action after a disaster.

Fifteen days after hurricane Ike, almost anywhere in Cuba one feels the enormous effort to reestablish normality. Almost half a million houses were damaged and more than 100’000 collapsed totally. Everywhere one can see people repairing roofs and placing fibrocement elements (similar in shape to asbestos-cement).

The workday of  Cristobal Flores used to start at 3 o´clock in the morning. In the cold of the early morning, at 2800 m over the sea level,  Cristobal mixed the earth deposited in his back yard with sawdust, soaked the mixture and started to trample it to grind and homogenize it, with his bull “Martin”. Four hours later, the mixture was ready to mould and be converted into raw bricks.

At this time we lance the Project competition for 2009. And, our memory takes us back to the third international EcoMaterials conference in 2005, when the EcoSur Network organized a competition of projects in two categories.