Between Concrete and Earth

This essay scrutinizes the soil-cement brick (SCB), a half-earthen, half-concrete building material, and its use in U.S.-aided housing projects in Cold War-era Taiwan. Made of cement and natural earth with manually operated ‘brickmaker’ machines, SCB drew American housing technocrats’ attention and was regarded as an alternative to the concrete block but a more ‘modern’ and standardizable material than mudbricks or red bricks. Since the early 1950s, American advisors attempted to engage the SCB in the ‘aided self-help housing’ model, utilizing it as an infrastructure for mortgage-driven mass homeownership in underdeveloped countries. However, the standardized manufacture of SCB proved challenging; the material’s deficient performances resulted in local homebuyers’ skepticism and resistance. Analyzing the SCB as a material that simultaneously presented the characters of the concrete block and rammed earthen structure, this essay aims to recomplicate ‘modern’ characteristics of different building materials

Astrobiology · Physics · Architecture and Computational Design · Mathematics · Geology