THE CASE STUDY OF THE EARTH-BUILT WALLS IN THE CIAC, AN EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTION IN FORTALEZA-CE, BRAZIL

The CIAC (Integrated Center for Community Action, translated from Portuguese) is an educational center designed mainly to promote early childhood education at a desely populated area in the city of Fortaleza-CE, Brazil. The well-documented use of sustainable tecnologies in the construction of the CIAC, in particular the use of different earthen construction techniques to build non-load-bearing walls, is the subject of this article. The material use and embodied emissions of unfinished walls built using
raw earth in rammed earthbags, adobe, and taipa de mão (wattle and daub) were calculated and compared. This study showcases the use of earthen construction techniques in a densely populated urban area and the benefits of the reuse of excavated materials to reduce embodied emissions in earthen construction.