The increased concerns about climate change, diminishing natural resources, and environmental degradation call for deep research into new environmentally friendly building systems that use natural or recycled materials. The article presents an assessment of the environmental and climatic benefits associated with the construction of a tiny house made of quincha, a building system based on a wooden structure filled with locally sourced earth and straw. The tiny house is located in the Elqui Valley, in the Chilean region of Coquimbo, and it is designed to be compact, functional, comfortable, and efficient. The study uses a life cycle approach to assess the environmental impacts of building construction, maintenance, and end-of-life treatment, comparing the adopted quincha solution with four hypothetical scenarios using industrial, prefabricated, and/or synthetic construction materials currently adopted in the region. The thermal performance of all the analyzed solutions is also included in order to provide insights into the impact of the operational phase. This paper demonstrates that the quincha solution, in the face of lower thermal insulation compared to the other prefabricated solutions (the U-value of the quincha wall is 0.79 W/m²K while the U-value of the best prefabricated wall is 0.26 W/m²K), has higher thermal inertia (time lag (TL) and decrement factor (DF) are, respectively, 6.97 h and 0.60, while other systems have a TL below 4 h and DF higher than 0.81). For a quantitative environmental evaluation, the carbon footprint (global warming potential), water footprint, and embodied energy indicators are assessed through LCA, which takes into account the mass of the materials and their emission factors. The effectiveness of the quincha solution is also reflected in environmental terms; in fact, it is found to have the lowest carbon footprint (2635.47 kgCO₂eq) and embodied energy (42.7 GJ) and the second-lowest water footprint (2303.7 m³). Moreover, carbon sequestration values, which are assessed by estimating the carbon contained in building systems using wood and straw, demonstrate that the quincha tiny house is the only solution that can theoretically reach carbon neutrality (with its carbon storage value at −5670.21 kgCO₂eq).

Chile is in one of the most seismically active zones in the world and its capital, Santiago, has frequently been destroyed by earthquakes since its foundation by Spanish colonialists in 1541. Nonetheless, there are some historic masonry buildings that remain as a testimony of the efforts of builders to erect the new, unfamiliar structures introduced by the Spanish, in a seismic context like Santiago. This article will explore the geometrical features of churches, public buildings, and Colonial houses—the most representative surviving masonry buildings in Santiago—in order to reveal their common characteristics. These characteristics, in turn, could explain their longevity and good dynamic structural performance. The results of the analysis shows that each typology—after a long process of trial and error induced by earthquakes—has evolved to a set of geometric rules that allowed the buildings to survive the test of time, and have given a strong identity to the heritage of Santiago.

El terremoto del Maule del año 2010 de magnitud 8.8Mw, dejó severamente dañadas las estructuras de adobe que conforman gran parte del patrimonio colonial rural chileno. En ese contexto, y como parte de un programa gubernamental de reconstrucción patrimonial, se desarrollaron una serie de intervenciones destinadas a la recuperación estructural y arquitectónica de las obras dañadas, pese a la inexistencia en ese entonces, de una normativa específica que regulara dichas intervenciones. Así, las actuaciones de reconstrucción, refuerzo y consolidación estructural, se realizaron teniendo como referentes investigaciones internacionales, adaptándolas a la realidad de las tipologías locales, en una suerte de laboratorio real donde el desempeño estructural de los inmuebles será puesto a prueba en futuros sismos. En este artículo se caracterizan y analizan comparativamente los sistemas de refuerzo empleados en edificios religiosos y viviendas de adobe, en función de las características tipológicas y de los daños sufridos.

How has a four-century old church managed to stand on its feet, resisting more than 15 earthquakes of magnitude over 7? Starting from this question, this research examines the church's subsoil to suggest that its foundations, built in 1586, perhaps would be one of the first earthquake-resistant structures in Chil