Tabique construction in the Municipalities Association of the Terra Quente Transmontana

Abstract

Tabique is one of the main Portuguese traditional building techniques which use basically natural and local building materials such as earth and timber. A tabique building component such as a wall is build up using a simple timber structure covered on both sides by an earth based mortar. The earth based mortar has an important role in this building system technology since it not only protects the internal timber structure but it also acts as finishing elements. Meanwhile, earth has the advantage of being abundant, natural, local and recycled which gives to this technique a special importance in the sustainability context. It has been noticed that this traditional building technique has an expressive incidence in the region of Trás-os-Montes and Alto Douro, Portugal. Taking into account that the Trás-os- Montes and Alto Douro region is very large, there was the necessity to divide it in to more manageable areas. The manageable areas are the six Municipalities Associations, which are: Alto Tâmega, Terra Quente Transmontana, Terra Fria do Nordeste Transmontano, Vale do Douro Norte, Vale do Douro Sul and Douro Superior. This research work is focused on the Municipalities Association of Terra Quente Transmontana. This, combined with the scarcity of scientific studies concerning the construction of partition wall in this region, motivated this research work that uses some constructions as sampling and which is focused on experimental study to determine the texture, identification of chemical and mineralogical composition of the coating material / filler used, identifying the species of wood and the hardness of the nails.