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Building with Gabions
Introduction
Gabion baskets can be used to great effect for architectural and building
applications. Dirt removed to prepare building sites; pools and driveways
can be put to greater use filling gabion baskets, which can subsequently
be used as wall supports for a house.
Ian Ritchie (2003), a prominent and innovative architect based in London,
believes that gabions are caged rocks, which capture the feel of non-linearity.
It is the non repetitive forms of the stone - a collection of individual
fragments from the same geological time tied together by wire, even
the wire has a pattern that the rocks interfere with, leaving it structured
yet random - no two cages remain visually the same.
Gabion walls are well-ventilated structures, and are ideal for innovative
eco-friendly buildings. Overall, gabions have a rustically uniform aesthetic
appeal.
Gabions have been used for structural building walls in South Africa
and extensively overseas.
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South African Sites
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Kwandwe Ecca Lodge - E.Cape
Innovative safari accommodation: Set in spectacular African wilderness
surrounds, this unique safari lodge boasts a revolutionary design -
stone-and-mesh gabion walls, sliding glass, timber and gauze doors and
corrugated iron roofing.
Gabion baskets have recently been used to build impressive cottage walls
in the Eastern Cape at the Kwandwe Game Reserve - CCAfrica, near Grahamstown.
The gabions had been built on site. Due to the scarcity of rock on site,
the contractor had used a stonemason to build the walls using rock supplied
from quite a distance away. The rock had been broken to facilitate a
very vertical, neat face with a small percentage of voids, and no bulge
that could be visually noticed.
The gabions were tied to the newly built brick walls with a sand/cement
mortar. During the erection of the brick wall steel wire had been placed
at approx 1-metre centres and the grouting of the rock was anchored
using this method.
Sandstone is a relatively soft rock and with the help of a stonemason
can be shaped in such a way that there is very little bulging and very
small voids. The sandstone has a very natural look and is available
in a variety of colours allowing it to always be a focal point in any
home.
It is possible to make use of other forms of rock, each of which will
offer a different look and feel to the constructed wall.
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External Gabion Wall - Kwandwe Game Reserve,
CC Africa
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International Sites
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Due to alternative specifications overseas, welded mesh gabions are
often used for architectural cladding. Welded mesh gabions are very
rigid and square material and are well suited for this application.
Woven mesh baskets have also been used but not to the same extent as
welded mesh.
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Housing - Montpellier, France - Edouard Francois
On an unremarkable housing estate in Montpellier, Edouard Francois
has designed a new apartment block that uninhibitedly explores and celebrates
materials and nature. The most radical aspect is the treatment of the
exterior as a massive rock face that will eventually bloom into a spectacular
vertical garden. Moored on a solid stone base, the walls are formed
from a series of prefabricated concrete panels measuring 2.77m x 1.35m.
The external face of each panel is clad in a layer of steel wire cages,
containing loosely compacted stones. The model is clearly the gabion
cage, typically employed in river and highway engineering as a retaining
element.
Unlike many new sites where gabions have been appropriated, the baskets
used at Montpellier are used simply as a uniform external layer; its
monolithic appearance will eventually be transformed by vegetation implanted
within the cages.
Panels were assembled in several stages. The steel cages were set within
steel formwork and studded with a double layer of frost-resistant pebbles.
A layer of sand followed, then seeds of rock plants contained in grow
bags. The ends of the cages are set within a layer of concrete that
forms the inner face of the panel. On removing the formwork, the sand
was gently shaken out, leaving the soil and seeds. Cast-in lifting hooks
enable the panels to be easily lifted into position and fixed onto the
structural frame. A watering system between the joints of the panels
will nurture the emerging plants.
The stone cages have a curiously sensual, primeval quality, like the
ancient dry stonewalls in fields. It will be fascinating to witness
their slow metamorphosis into a modern hanging garden. (The Architectural
Review, 2000. Rock Garden - apartment complex in Montpellier, France.
May)
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Chateau-le-Lez Housing, Montpellier
Architect: Edouard Francois
Photographer: Paul
Raftery |
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Napanook Vineyard - Napa Valley, USA
- Herzog and de Meuron
The winery is of conventional economic warehouse construction,
a two-stories box 140m long by 25m wide with its long axis running
north-south, while the building shape may be conventional, the
cladding is not.
The skin cladding of Dominus is both handsome and functional.
Galvanised steel gabions, widely used in river and highway engineering
as retaining structures, are filled with loose crushed basalt
typically used as the sub-base for road construction. Here the
caged stone takes on a new role as rain screen and, through
modulation of both light and heat, tempers the interior environment
of the building.
The gabions were assembled and filled with local on-site rock.
They bear on a perimeter grade beam and are restrained by ties
to stainless steel rods cast into the concrete wall panels and,
in the areas that are framed, by brackets from the steelwork.
Using a single module of 900 x 450 x 450mm for the entire building,
enormous variety is achieved by very frugal means.
Three grades of stone were used. The largest and least densely
packed, which is permeable to light and ventilation is used
for the walls of covered outdoor areas and the tank room. Because
the fermentation tanks themselves are insulated and fitted with
sophisticated temperature controls, the environment of the tank
room is not critical. The space is permanently vented at high
level by the coarse stone screen combined with a window screen
in the back-up wall. By day, filtered sunlight is allowed into
the tank room and by night, the façade glows like the
embers of a dying fire. A closely packed smaller grade of stone
that clads the cask cellar and warehouse is opaque to light
and provides a stronger barrier against temperature changes
in these sensitive areas.
Like the transformative process of winemaking, Herzog and de
Meuron have elevated the most unassuming of raw materials into
an architecture which is functional and beautiful, robust and
delicate, tactile and highly abstract. This building, like the
wine it houses, is a refined blend of science and art. While
highly rational, efficient and intelligent, Dominus Winery is
also a sensuous fusion of nature and the man-made. (Lecuyer,
A. 1998. The Architectural Review, Steel, stone & sky -
Herzog & de Meuron's architectural design for a winery in
the Napa Valley, California. October.)
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The Earth Centre - Doncastor, United Kingdom
- Bill Dunster Architects
Following a design competition in August 1999, Bill Dunster architects
were appointed to design a new conference and arrivals facility at the
earth centre.
The requirement to preserve the views of distant Connisborough Castle,
and create a sense of arrival at the hub of the Earth Centre has resulted
in two separate buildings. Our focus being on the first of these buildings
- the conference centre that is buried into the hillside.
Gabion baskets filled with crushed concrete from local demolition sites,
have been used to construct the structural walls which are in part acting
as retaining walls for the earth banks behind. The gabions have also
been used to clad the external walls of the conference centre. (www.zedfactory.com)
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Architects: Bill Dunster Architects
Services Engineer: Ove Arups and Partners
Structural Engineer: Mark Lovell Design Engineers
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