Department of Architecture, Faculty of Art and Architecture, Yazd University, Yazd, Iran , abbasi@yazd.ac.ir
Abstract: (1552 Views)
No precise statistics and figures are available on the amount of water consumption in the Iran's construction industry (either directly consumed water or hidden water). There is also no prioritization between the usual construction systems and the alternatives in terms of water demand. Bearing in mind the dire water shortage crisis in Iran and that the construction industry is one of the most water-consuming industries, this paper seeks reducing water consumption by selecting optimal structural system of conventional buildings in the country. The study aims to compare water consumption in the conventional steel and concrete systems with the earthen architecture, which has been re-introduced in the world and its traditional methods have a long history. Therefore, two questions are raised; first, how much water is used in the structural phase in Iran in usual? Then to achieve a suitable method (with less water requirement), the main question of the study has been raised: what is the ratio of water consumption for the implementation of conventional structures (concrete and steel) compared to earthen structures? The research method is desk study to extract the amount of water consumed in cases where there are valid statistics and in cases where there is no valid information, the elimination of standard deviation and data triangulation have been considered. The results indicate that buildings with earthen structures consume between 7 and 15 percent of their similar cases with steel and concrete structures; in other words, at least 2500 liters of water is saved in the construction of each square meter of the building.
Abbasi Harofteh M. (2022). Earthen architecture, an alternative to construction industry to manage the drought crisis in Iran: Comparison between water usage in a building with three type of loading system: steel, concrete, and earthen. JHRE. 41(178), 63-76. doi:DOI: 10.22034/41.178.63 URL: http://jhre.ir/article-1-2214-en.html