International Hakka Tulou Alliance

International Hakka Tulou Alliance (IHTA)

v Hakka Tulou – also known as Fujian Tulou, Hakka rammed earth buildings - a UNESCO World Heritage

v Founded on June 24, 2009

v Founded at the Forum on Hakka Tulous: Lessons to Be Learned, Past, Present and Future, Xiamen University, Xiamen, China

v Founded by

Ruifeng (Ray) Liang, Ph.D. West Virginia Univ Constructed Facilities Center, Morgantown, WV, USA

Gangarao Hota, P.E. Ph.D. West Virginia Univ Constructed Facilities Center, Morgantown, WV, USA

Jorg Ostrowski, Autonomous Sustainable Housing Inc, Calgary, AB, Canada

Ying Lei, Ph.D. Xiamen University, Xiamen, Fujian, China

Minoru Ueda, MU Design Inc, Tokyo, Japan

Vision

The world is facing a Sustainable crisis! Now the responsibility for change has fallen to entire scientific and engineering community. We need to commit ourselves to act on it quickly. We need to turn back the environmental clock and steer the world toward a greener direction.

Mission

v To help make the scientific and engineering community aware of the advantages of rammed earth construction, catalyze new international collaborations and cooperation between University researchers and rammed earth construction societies, and promote new research opportunities that can further advance our knowledge (near zero embodied energy) on rammed earth material and make it a viable building material option, leading to a greener future for planet Earth

Objectives

v To help save, preserve and revitalize Hakka Villages for our common World Heritage and a more sustainable future of planet Earth

v To emulate Hakka Tulou technologies for design, construction and operation of future green structures

v To advance and promote use of rammed earth as a structural material and construction technique for sustainable structures

Activities

v Forum on Hakka Tulous’ 2009: Lessons to Be Learned, Past, Present and Future

Launch of the International Hakka Tulou Alliance (IHTA) (in Mandarin & English)

June 24, 2009, Xiamen University, Xiamen, China

v Forum on Hakka Tulous’2011: Structures of Sustainability

US/China Workshop on Earth Based Materials and Sustainable Structures

October 28 – November 1, 2011, Xiamen University, Xiamen, China

In conjunction with

International Symposium on Innovation & Sustainability of Structures in Civil Engineering (ISISS’2011), October 28 -30, 2011, Xiamen University, Xiamen, China

v Forum on Hakka Tulous’ 2013: Putting Sustainability into Practice

Time and Place to be decided

Resources

v Photo Tour of Hakka Tulous (Liang, 2001)

v Fujian Tulous and Science (Liang et al, 2009)

v Hakka Tulous: Lessons to Be Learned for a Sustainable Future (a poster, Liang et al, 2010)

v NSF Annual Report 2010 on Exploratory Research on Hakka Tulous (Liang and Hota, 2010)

v Structural Responses and Finite Element Modeling of Hakka Tulou Rammed Earth Structures (MSCE Thesis by Daniel Stanislawski, 2011) New!

v Many more to be added soon

v Links

o EarthArchitecture.org

o Greenhomebuilding.com