Construcción de vivienda sostenible con bloques de suelo cemento: del residuo al material

Soil, as a product of excavations, is generally seen as waste, with a treatment that is almost always controlled disposal in waste dumps. However, it can be valued as a building material using different techniques, among them the elaboration of cement soil blocks (CSB) using Cinva-Ram (a manual press for making blocks), which is easy to handle by the staff who work in the construction sector. In this sense, this paper presents an experience based on the valorization of residual soil as an affordable material of optimum performance for housing construction. This experience was carried out in the geographical context of the department of Antioquia, Colombia, characterized by cool climate with high level of rainfalls. Different measurements showed that its physical-mechanical performance is in line with the requirements of the project, which is a favorable aspect for the viability of housing projects that contribute to the ecological sustainability of the habitat through the concept of inverse mining.