Construction of a Superadobe Dome

Abstract

Superadobe Technology consists on filling long polypropylene sacks with a moist mixture of clay, sand, gravel and lime/cement; placing and compacting one on top of another forming concentric rings of decreasing radius and describing a double curvature monolith.From the 26th of August till the 6th of September of 2017, a group of 10 students at the “Domoterra” Institute of Earthbag construction, in the province of Teruel, autonomous community of Aragon, Spain, participated in the construction of what would become a Superadobe domed shelter of internal diameter 4m, roughly 3.5m high with the capacity to enclose 17.5m^2 of habitable surface, using approximately 250m of polypropylene sack and 20 m³ of earth.The structure advanced from an initial base cylinder of 0.5 m to the height of 2.1 m in 7 effective work days of 8 hours each day, and such an experience is taken into account together with existing literature, to describe the construction process of a Superadobe dome.