Innovative Rammed Earth Construction Approach to Sustainable Rural Development in Southwest China

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This is a refreshing and innovative case study that has been well presented. It provides valuable insight that will be relevant to people developing more sustainable rural buildings using earth. 

Some suggestions for the paper are as follows: 

Title: Innovative Rammed Earth Construction Approach to Sustaina- 2 ble Rural Development in Southwest China——Take Terra 3 Centre as an example 

I would suggest a shorter title - for instance, remove - Take Terra...

Use ISO convention for figures which include commas to make it easier to read these (figure 9)

It is not clear how the project addressed the SDGs ( ie 1 No Poverty, SDGs 3 Good Health & Well-Being, SDGs 8 Decent Work and Eco- 355 nomic Growth, and SDGs 9 Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure). If the project aimed to address these there should specific targets, for instance for employment intensity, health, and safety targets etc. 

Social and economic sustainability targets and data are especially important in a project of this nature and should be given greater prominence and addressed in the research design. 

The study would benefit from a greater description and analysis of the innovative nature of the construction.

For instance, what is the nature of the resin roofing material, and how it was constructed?

What is the nature of the bamboo roof structure and how this was constructed?

What is the nature of earth construction - how was this protected against rising damp and driving rain?

A large-scale annotated section and descriptions would help. 

It is not clear how the building is compared to another building.

Did the other building have active cooling and heating? The results indicate that temperatures in the building dropped to 10 degrees C. Was the building used at these temperatures?

This detail should be presented and discussed. If there are fundamental differences in the compared buildings in terms of occupancy, active systems etc these should be presented. 

Broader implications for further research and industry should be drawn out. For instance, is there a sufficient supply of earth locally for this type of construction to occur at scale? How would this work? Can this approach be applied to other building types ie high rise buildings? 

Author Response

Please see the attachment. 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

The proposed paper is focused on a highly relevant subject—the social vector of sustainability combined with economic and environmental sustainability concerns. However, the paper is not at all organised as a traditional research paper, and even if that is not mandatory, the structure of the paper should be clearer. Additionally, the information that is conveyed throughout the paper is more similar to the final report of a research project than to a research paper. Nevertheless, if the authors are willing to improve the article, and considering the social relevance of the 1U1V project, publication may be considered.

Further comments/suggestions:

Line 13: use “(…) construction approach suitable for Southwest (…)” instead.

Line 16-17: the use of massive and substantial seems redundant.

Lines 17, 81, 155, 161, 341-342:what do you mean by environmental load? Do you mean environmental impacts?

Line 26: use “(…) rural areas that are usually located (…)” instead.

Line 37: what do you mean by “(…) earthen buildings are relevant to poverty (…)”? Do you mean “are associated”?

Line 53: include a paragraph with an overview of the structure of the paper at the end of section 1.

Line 58: use “(…) launched several rural development (…)” instead.

Line 60-61: rephrase so as not to repeat “infrastructure”?

Line 88: use “(…) urban areas (…)” instead.

Line 121: use “(…) the rural living environment (…)” instead.

Lines 129-130, 196, 330, 367: use “(…) the 1U1V team (…)” instead.

Lines 131, 157-158: use ‘(…) the “high-science-low-technology” strategy (…)’ instead.

Line 134: what do you mean by behand? Do you mean behind?

Line 141: use “(…) in the future (…)” instead.

Line 145: use “(…) a long-term stable construction team (…)” instead.

Line 158: use ‘(…) the “local materials, local labour and local technology” principle (…)’ instead.

Lines 163-164: when the authors refer to the “large temperature difference between day and night”, some climatic data would be useful (maximum and minimum temperatures, on average, for instance).

Line 182: use “(…) has a very long history (…)” instead.

Line 183: use “(…) houses distributed throughout (…)” instead.

Line 191: use “(…) houses are often seriously (…)” instead.

Line 197: use “(…) by practicing in the villages” instead.

Lines 199-200: use “(…) has a design value of the basic seismic acceleration of 0.2 g” instead.

Lines 200-201: use “(…) of an earth building (…)” instead.

Lines 202-203: use “(…) is a bearing wall structure (…)” instead.

Line 208: use “(…) made of stone and mud” instead.

Line 210: use “(…) shear strength of walls rammed by (…)” instead.

Lines 225, 300-301: what are constructional columns? Maybe it is better to simply write “reinforced concrete columns”.

Lines 225-227: were other seismic reinforcement strategies considered? The literature suggests other approaches, probably less intrusive. Why use reinforced concrete?

Line 229: The authors refer to “a structural design” to connect the ring beam to the rammed earth wall. That is a very general statement. Could the authors be more specific?

Lines 232-233: The last sentence of the paragraph is not clear. Please rewrite.

Lines 241-242: use “(…) a way of earning a living later on” instead.

Lines 247: what do the authors mean by “summarized”? Do they mean created?

Line 247: use “(…) design prototypes (…)” instead.

Line 260: use “The 1U1V project (…)” instead.

Line 263: what do the authors mean by “process good adaptability”?

Line 268: is compressive strength the most important parameter for good seismic performance?

Lines 282-284: how about the concrete elements and thermal bridges?

Lines 300-301: a common reinforced concrete building with non-bearing brick walls uses approximately the same amount of concrete (at least in the same elements). So, is the use of concrete really limited in the case study?

Line 311: these amounts of CO2 emissions were part of a specific study of life cycle assessment? The presented amounts are not properly justified.

Line 329: use “(…) itself a living teaching tool” instead.

Line 330: use “(…) the village construction teams have completed (…)” instead.

Line 339: section 4 seems to repeat a lot of the information in the other sections. The authors should try to rewrite those repeated sentences, or even be more concise.

Line 340: the authors refer to “research”. Which research? The citation of such research is missing.

Line 350: use “(…) and local culture, villagers can see (…)” instead.

Line 355: before an acronym (SDGs) is used, it should be introduced. The first time you use the term, put the acronym in parentheses after the full term.

Line 361: use “(…) located in an urban area” instead.

Line 389: the authors should use the third person to refer to themselves. E.g. “The authors wish to thank (...)”.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

Your work is very interesting but, to be honest, it doesn’t sound sufficiently scientific. I mean that mostly of your statement are not supported by references, especially the Introduction. It is true also for table 1. It is not clear the origin of the figures. The architecture design is not supported by a typological analysis. The description of the local building traditions is not supported by illustrations. The figures are not well referred to in the text. The paper lacks of a Literature review or a framework of the state of the art.  Even the subject is not clear: is it the construction of the building or the activities of the centre?

In the following you have some detailed notes.

In the title there are two dashes: please, remove one of them.

Line 36, I suggest to make incidental (in commas) the sentence: that usually ... regions.

Lines 35, I suggest "On one hand" instead "On the one hand"; and also I suggest to bring it as head of a new line.

Line 59, insert blank before the reference.

Line 61, insert comma after "area"

Line 66-82 and lines 208-214, put lowercase initial.

Lines 138-143, repetitions of the word "construction". 

Lines 208, it lacks the "e" in the word made.

Line 214, if the reference [19] is for all the list of statement, it is better to move it in line 207.

Line 220, insert blank between 6 and Km.

Lines 228-230, the sentence is not clear.

Lines 242, 316, 317, 331, 376, I suggest to insert the number in letters.

Line 265, I suggest full stop instead of colon.

Line 281, insert blank between Figure and the numbers.

Line 390, the acknowledgments are in singular person "I wish to thank"; I suppose they came from all authors, so I suggest "we wish to thank".

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

After the first step of the revision process, the authors presented a revised manuscript with significant improvements in terms of the structure of the article and its clarity. Additionally, all the comments of this reviewer were addressed, whether directly in the manuscript or in the cover letter.

For these reasons, this reviewer considers that the article should be published, provided that some minor formatting issues will be taken care of during the next stage. Congratulations to the authors.

Author Response

Some language and formatting issues have been corrected.

Thanks to the reviewers.

Reviewer 3 Report

I think you improved strongly your work. For other similar occasions, I suggest you to provide a cover letter to the reviewer with the main changes, to help him in the check.

 

At lines 44-62, I suggest to close each point of the list with a semi-colon (;).

 

At line 97, I suggest to insert an endpoint and to bring "Actually" in a new line.

 

At line 259, I suggest to change the title of the sub-paragraph 2.1, to avoid confusion with the paragraph 1.

 

At line 279, I suggest to eliminate the blank line.

 

Line 289 isn't in the list, please, remove the point.

 

At page 10, the Figure lacks of caption.

 

For Fig. 4-8 and 12-15, I suggest to insert the name of the building in the captions.

 

At line 355, I suggest to change the title of the sub-paragraph 2.2.2 in "local building materials".

 

In line 752, I don't agree with a paragraph which contains both discussion and conclusions. I suggest you to shift the discussion at the end of paragraph 2 (as sub-paragraph 2.5).

Author Response

Language and formatting issues have been revised one by one in the text.

The discussion and conclusions have been written separately as suggested.

Thanks to the reviewers.