Case 1: Design with ‘improved quincha’ for increased earthquake protection in Peru
In the Alto Mayo earthquake of 1990 many houses built with tapial (rammed earth) or adobe collapsed,or
were damaged. Many of the people who had built with these technologies had migrated into the Alto Mayo
from Cajamarca, where the earthquake risk is less, but continued to use the technologies they knew. The
NGO Practical Action (then called ITDG) realised a safer way of building was needed to mitigate the risk
of future earthquakes. Local people initially wanted to rebuild with modern materials, such as bricks and
reinforced concrete, but it was soon realised that its cost was a constraint. Given the limited external
support generally poor income level, it would have been only possible to help few households rebuild. It
was observed, though, that another local technology, quincha (consisting of a pole or sawn timber frame,
with cane panels and mud plaster, sometimes finished with a mortar), had performed a lot better during
the quake. Practical Action started a reconstruction project in the small town of Soritor, which had strong
community based organisations; from there, the work spread to surrounding rural areas and other towns. It
gathered people’s opinions about reconstruction at community meetings. Drawings, manuals, videos and
photographs of other housing projects were shown to get people to think about and discuss the types of
housing they would want to reconstruct. People began to accept quincha as an option, but it was accepted
that some improvements needed to be made to it, including embedding the poles in concrete footings,
preservation of the timber, and stronger connections of key structural elements. It was then decided to
use this improved quincha to build a community centre in Soritor. Thus, community members and local
builders learned how to build with the technology and got to accept it.
Community centre in Soritor during construction
Careful jointing between columns and beams improves
structural integrity
Following that, Practical Action organised meetings with small groups of local people to design and
model houses, using wooden bricks of several colours. An architect drew up house plans from people’s
drawings and models, and finalised those plans with the communities. People used the plans and the
community spirit generated by the participatory process to construct in groups, assisted by builders
trained on the community centre. They were also contributing the materials they could source locally,
such as gravel, sand, timber and bamboo, while Practical Action and Caritas provided galvanised iron
sheeting – and later on locally produced micro-concrete roofing tiles – nails and cement to families with
low incomes, identified by the community. The community centre and early houses perfectly withstood
another earthquake, a year later, which helped their popularity and as a result the technology spread well
beyond the original project.
Side elevationof a core house
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