Customizing designs with minimum resources: An accessible and sustainable fabrication process for bespoke, compressed earth blocks using additively manufactured molds

With advances in computational design and digital fabrication, mass customization of building geometries and components can improve structural integrity, sustainability, usability and architectural aesthetics. However, bespoke and sustainable structures often require proprietary materials and specialized machinery, which may be expensive, increase environmental impact and may not be available in low-resource settings or remote areas. This research presents an adaptive fabrication process that enables a conventional Compressed Earth Block (CEB) press to produce bespoke, customized blocks. Customized, 3D-printed molds, which are compatible with most conventional CEB presses without modification, are used to fabricate unique geometry CEBs, for example, blocks containing intricate features that enable interlocking. The novel CEB process is validated using a case study that fabricates five different interlocking CEB geometries from which a corbelled dome structure is assembled using 512 of these blocks without the need for mortar or formwork. The demonstrated new CEB process enables the construction of the corbelled dome structure using only earth material and one construction process. Compared with other customized fabrication processes, namely Additive Manufacturing, the demonstrated process can produce fine features in the CEBs, has a higher production throughput and is shown to not alter the mechanical properties of CEBs compared to a conventional CEB process. This research contributes to making the fabrication and construction of customized and sustainable CEB structures accessible, affordable and adaptable to all.