Developing Wide-Span Building Techniques by Using Low Cost Traditional Date Palm Midribs Bundles

Abstract

Date palm midribs, among the other secondary products of date palms, have been used as a source of raw materials for traditional handicrafts and construction in rural Egypt. This technical heritage was built upon various techniques that are still actively practiced among a wide base of workers. Literature review This surviving technical heritage encouraged previous trials of using date palm midribs in building 1:1 mock-ups to investigate the potential of using date palm midribs in wide-span construction using low cost traditional techniques. This approach depended on imitating the spontaneity of the traditional workers. However, the on-site behavior would differ greatly from the predicted behavior because of the existence of unintended factors such as wind loads. Another approach employed the axial loading nature of trusses in achieving high structural efficiency of the midribs. This analytical approach depended on structural experimentation and analysis of the designed structures. However, the intricacy of the developed joinery of those structures obstructed the future developments of the designs due to their complexity, which consequently increases the building materials cost. Question and argument Here the thesis raised the following argument: What is the actual potential of date palm midribs in the field of wide-span construction? Can a fusion between the analytical and the spontaneous approaches unlock those potentials while sustaining simplicity and efficiency that are among the main demands of the market? Thus, the design of the tri-arched space truss was introduced. The design of the tri-arched space truss merged between the curved shape of arches that matched the natural bent shape of the midribs and the structurally form-active shape of space trusses. The design depended on the simple traditional techniques of bundling and rope-fastening while employing the parabolic shape in order to host simple friction-based joinery. The development of this design was guided by the three fundamentals of architecture as stated by Vitruvius; Utility: Utilitas, Durability: Firmitas and Beauty: Venustas. The design was validated experimentally and evaluated according to the market needs.