Rammed Earth is for Everyone

Rammed Earth Construction in Cameron Valley, Virginia, 1942

2011-03-19T17:21:00.000-07:00

Check out these fascinating pictures from LIFE Magazine's 1942 photo archive

documenting Thomas Hibben's experimental housing project with the United States' Federal Works Agency.

Many of the innovations he made to the rammed earth construction process are still employed today,

Not much change in mixer technology in the last 70 years, either.

Here men are laying bricks in the foreground of some completed rammed earth walls. The footing appears to be cinderblock. Combinations of different materials such as concrete, asphalt-stabilized adobe brick, bituminous earth block, and cement-stabilized rammed earth were used in each house.

Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters!

The finished product, outside...

...and inside.

Sadly these buildings were demolished in the 70's. Read more about the project at the end of Chapter One in Anthony F. Merrill's The Rammed-Earth House.

Country & Western Rammed Earth in Merritt, B.C.

2011-03-01T12:23:00.000-08:00

Here are a few views of Spirit Square in downtown Merritt, British Columbia, Canada's Country Music Capital. Rammed earth, concrete, heavy timber with copper and black steel trim contribute to a look that is both modern and rustic.

Those lamps aren't my favourite, but everyone loves Crystal Gayle, right? Merritt also boasts a "Walk of Stars" which features hand prints and autographs of a few great, and many lesser, country musicians.

The bandshell where all the magic happens. No idea who that cat on the right is.

I'm getting pretty bored of these Nk'mip-style stripes, but the abundance of curves is nice.

Footing fetishists should note that for the time being, Google street view shows the site early in the construction process.

View Larger Map

Selections from Dwelling On Earth: A Manual for the Professional Application of Earthbuilding Techniques

2011-02-13T22:43:00.000-08:00

This winter I received a second-hand copy of Dwelling on Earth, a self-published spiral-bound book by Californian earth-building authority David Easton.

I've scanned a few pages of this twenty year old text for those who are interested in older documents relating to this method of construction.

Readers looking for more contemporary information from Mr Easton are urged to acquire a copy of his most recent book, The Rammed Earth House published by Chelsea Green.

Old Rammed Earth Church in Ontario, Canada - Part One

2010-12-14T23:22:00.000-08:00

The Rammed-Earth House by Anthony F. Merrill

2010-11-26T16:55:00.000-08:00

I recently re-acquired another copy of Anthony Merrill's The Rammed-Earth House and thought I'd better scan it before I lost this one to another scoundrel.

Here are a few illustrations from this long out-of-print tome. This winter we'll scan the chapters and post the pages on flickr.

Some Year Old Papers Related to Rammed Earth

2010-10-01T06:00:00.000-07:00

While I was poking around for information related to John Cheah's work on Maori rammed earth housing, I found a couple more articles from the proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Non-conventional Materials and Technologies (NOCMAT 2009) that relate to our purview here at REi4E.

There's ACHIEVING CARBON NEUTRAL STRUCTURES THROUGH PURE TENSION: USING A FABRIC FORMWORK TO CONSTRUCT RAMMED EARTH COLUMNS AND WALLS by Alan Chandler and Rowland Keable which has not-to-be-missed photos of the world's first rammed earth mattresses

and

ASSESSING THE ANISOTROPY OF RAMMED EARTH by Quoc-Bao Bui and Jean-Claude Morel which attempts to settle a controversy at the heart of many fights between rival factions of engineers: Is rammed earth isotropic or not?

I can hardly wait to read the proceedings of 2010!

Q & A with John Cheah of the University of Auckland

2010-09-30T06:00:00.000-07:00

I am very grateful to Mr. Cheah for taking time to share his information with this blog.

If you'd like to keep up with more earth construction news in New Zealand , be sure to subscribe to the Earth Building Association of N Z newsletter.

What kind of forming system do you use? Any pitfalls or improvements?
We build modular rammed earth panels. This allows us to build walls up to 2.2 meters long and at variable thickness from about 350mm to 150mm. The height of walls that we can ram is limited to 2.4 meters. I've attached a photo of the original red formwork. This formwork is designed to be very flexible in terms of wall thickness.

We have since designed a complimentary set of black formwork with less flexibility (best for ramming 200 mm thick walls) which is about a fifth or less of the weight of the red forms and much easier to set up.We use both and have a few more ideas of how to make it easier to build certain difficult geometries including T sections and L sections.

There aren't really any pitfalls with this system that I've found so far. Single standalone walls are very easy to build using this modular formwork. Because we reuse the formwork we only need enough formwork for one panel to build a house. Building joining walls is a little more complex but with familiarity and experience should take the same amount of time to take down from the previous wall and set up for the next (which is about 45 minutes). Making sure everything is wedged up tight and level is important and prevents issues arising later on.

We sometimes put a strop around the whole system to add stability and safety (in the place of a guard rail at higher heights). The speed at which we have been ramming the Ahipara house has been about 5 panels a week. We can build 2 wall panels a day but it is very physical work so we aimed to do one wall a day and spend the rest of the day preparing for the next day and resting. A 2m long, full height wall takes about 3-4 hours to ram with a 6 person team.

We needed 6 people because we decided to do the Ahipara house without a bobcat and had a large archimedian screw sort of machine instead.

We would typically have:
- 1 person mixing in the right amount and proportion of sand and clay in the screw drive
- 1 person mixing in the right amount of NZ Flax fibres and cement in the screw drive
- 1 person looking after the water addition in the screw drive, making sure it's about right and ensuring everything is getting mixed well (quality control)
- 1 person transporting the mixed soil to the wall panel being rammed (also does some quality control)
- 2 people on the formwork ramming - alternating with the hand rammer and the pneumatic rammer.

What type of footing/foundation?
We have a reinforced concrete foundation around the perimeter of the rammed earth walls/house. The floor in Ahipara will be of stabilised rammed earth - the same as is used for the walls.
It should be noted that for each structural wall panel, there were two D16 vertical reinforcing bars placed 150mm from both edges of the wall panel.

How did you finish the top of the walls and attach your roof?
Top of wall panels have a reinforced concrete ring beam into which the vertical reinforcing going through the wall panels was bent into. In NZ we have to design for seismic loads and this is the reason why we have steel in our walls and a reinforced concrete bond beam.

How did you attach your doors and windows?

We embedded pieces of wood into the edges of the wall panels when ramming which could later be screwed into.
In Ahipara we rammed the wall panels next to doors and windows flat (with no embedded wood) and will fix a thin piece of timber to the wall panels next to openings and then fix the doors and windows onto those pieces of wood.

What type of construction equipment did you use?

We have used bobcats in the past. For the Ahipara project we decided to use the screw drive. Interestingly we found near the end of the project that hand mixing worked quite well and was fast - but tiring. After working on site for a while though, the guys I were working with were more fit and are generally big and strong so this worked well.
We used one pneumatic rammer and one hand rammer.

How long did it take to build the walls?
There were about 28 walls in the house - this included short walls, window walls and non structural walls. In terms of ramming days it took about 25 days as we were able to build two walls in one day on several occasions. In terms of time, we built the first wall on 23rd April, 2010. We built the last wall on the 17th of June. Once we had reached the physical construction stage, delays took the form of gathering resources, rain, family and community events (including trying to save and then later euthanising a beached pilot whale), occasional disputes and equipment failure.
The Ahipara uku walls are 200mm thick and the Rotoiti UKU walls are 150mm thick.

Any horizontal re-bar? I am surprised at how little reinforcement you are using considering your seismic zone
No. We have done lots of testing at a small level and at full size in the labs and on the field and did a specific design for the house.

We are fortunate that Ahipara (in the far North of New Zealand) is in the lowest seismic zone in New Zealand. I'm currently doing shear tests in the UK to better understand the shear performance and characterisation of earth so we can more confidently design in more earthquake prone areas.

No concerns regarding moisture ingress with flax fibres?
The flax fibres are a naturally abundant resource in many areas of New Zealand. We include them for:
- cultural reasons - traditional use of flax fibres in many aspects of lifestyle however not in it's current function as reinforcement for rammed earth walls.
- It does improve the thermal insulative properties significantly albeit from quite a low base so it is not significant enough to be a reason to include it just for thermal advantages.
- It increases the tensile strength of the material so cracks form under larger forces and after cracks haved formed the material has a much larger residual strength instead of being prone to cracking further with no reliable strength.
- It reduces shrinkage in the walls and increases volume stability.
- It helps with durability - it acts as a kind of stabiliser binding everything together - in parallel with the compaction and cement and clay actions.
- I am currently doing research on the shear performance and seeing what benefit there is on that property and to what extent. Shear strength is important particularly in earthquake prone areas of which NZ is one.

The cement stabilised walls are more susceptible to long period of exposed water. E.g. through a wet winter and no sun to dry the walls we have had one instance of water getting through the wall. The fibres do not seem to be creating any issues with moisture. Eaves are important and the Ahipara house will likely have eaves out to 2 meters. Sun exposure is also very important.

Are the houses plastered inside and out?
No plastering inside or out.

How did you determine your soil mix?
Soil mix follows commonly accepted limits for rammed earth construction. I use Houben and Guillaud's recommendations. The sand content is around 60%, clay between 10-15%, silts and gravels vary in between this. We do use around 7.5% portland cement I also do quite a number of other tests included Atterberg limits tests to find the liquid limit and plastic limit and a Proctor Density Compaction test and shrinkage box tests. As a research student at university it is much easier for me to do these tests and there would be considerable cost to get these tests done in New Zealand using an independant testing laboratory.
We have mainly used two different soils so far. The compressive strengths do vary quite a bit but our soil strength must be at least 1.3 MPa to be acceptable for structural use and we have measured strengths up to an average compressive strength of 7.5 MPa.

Are you concerned about variability in your mixes?

This is more an experience and a process and quality control issue. We minimize variability as much as we can. We got quite consistently high quality mixes and wall panels throughout the project. If any panel was poorly rammed we knock it down. We did it once on the Ahipara project. Due to the large conservatism built into the mix design and house design a bit of mix variation was not a concern. For me, the use of cement was helpful in this sense as it does give a reliable base level material performance. We were using people from the community that were inexperienced initially in earth building and were building in a largely variable climate (hot and sunny / scorching, very windy, and sometimes ramming in heavy rain). Looking at the finished house I am happy with the result and quality.

How many houses have been built since the start of the project?

We have built 4 UKU structures. The first two were single room dwellings, built in 2004. The first house was built in Rotoiti, the next in Ahipara.

What has been learned with each successive build?
Many things! We've been extensively monitoring the first UKU house thermally and with 150mm thick walls in a area that went down to -7 C in 2009, it performed really well. We've learnt a lot from a construction and practical perspective.

I've personally learned a lot about dealing with council and the engineering design side of the project. The project has been quite a holistic one and I have enjoyed it all the more because of this. Strangely, although it takes more time to get to know the community I'm working with, things actually happen quicker because after a decision is made, everyone knows what is happening and people and resources come together just when we need it.

It requires a little bit of faith and a good portion of optimism but they're rich in resources and expertise up there, and very resourceful such that we have rarely been delayed because of materials and labour. It's actually been council and gaining council consent that created the most issues for us (and this is on-going). Still, we are building bridges with them also and plan to build more of these earth houses in the near future. The second house should be much smoother to work through council as they will be more familiar with the building technique and we will be more familiar with what they want to see and know.

Working in rural Maori communities also has many different dynamics that need to be understood and that can greatly benefit the project. Including things like following their ancient calendar called Maramataka. This specifies that there are good days to work, and bad days to work, days to rest - not based on 7 day week. So we won't have a meeting with council on a particular simply because the maramataka is bad.

The house construction also followed traditional Maori tikanga/protocols and one of those is that females are not allowed on the work site until it is completed. A female walking on site would traditionally be part of the officiating/commissioning process. Heeni, the wife, and a few other female friends and relatives did help out with some of the flax fibre processing and were allowed on site to have a look after hours. All the physical construction was done by males. Heeni did a lot of work on raising sponsorship, community awareness, dealing with council, general communication, keeping track of project, media control, resources and funding.

Maori have such an impressive carving culture, it would be wonderful to see these designs transferred to walls, especially if there are standardized housing plans in practice. Any experimentation with artistic techniques?

Not yet - although we have managed to get beautiful impressions from the plywood formwork. I have thought about it and several people working on the project and visiting the project have asked about this. I can definitely see this is a valuable thing to explore. Earth walls are built from the soil their ancestors lived on and that provided for them so it is very valuable and meaningful (and beautiful) already but with some art / symbols in them would become so much more valuable.

Do the houses have a heating system?

Rotoiti was meant to have a wet back fire place but it hasn't yet been installed. They used a gas heater through the worst of winter. Generally speaking the energy usage was still very low.

I was impressed by the community's insistence on houses that last six generations
On this point - Maori are connected with their land. They have no intention of moving or selling. Everything is inherited by their children. They don't actually see themselves as owning the land either. They are guardians, this is their role and responsibility. Houses that last 6 generations was decided as a good target lifespan to towards which to work.

Excellent Paper On Historic Rammed Earth in Alabama and the US

2010-09-28T06:00:00.000-07:00

DIRT CHEAP: THE GARDENDALE EXPERIMENT & RAMMED EARTH HOME CONSTRUCTION IN THE UNITED STATES by Jennifer Lynn Carpenter
A Masters Final Project submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the University of Maryland, College Park, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master in Historic Preservation, 2010

Ms. Carpenter has put many great sources together to discuss the seven rammed earth homes built by the US federal government during the New Deal.

Lots of contemporary photos of the houses as well as documentation of the construction process. Historic context underscores the importance of these dwellings and their preservation.

Rammed Earth in Aotearoa / New Zealand

2010-09-27T06:00:00.000-07:00

UKU is a research project which is focused in the immediate sense on developing an appropriate housing solution for rural Māori communities, but in the longer term on affordable, appropriate construction technologies for third world countries. At present a large proportion of rural Maori are living in sub-standard and overcrowded living conditions. Conventional housing solutions are not appropriate for many rural Maori communities due to the financial aspects (cost, maintenance issues), practical issues (transport of materials, isolated location, lack of infrastructure) and legal issues (multiply owned land and Maori land title).

In 1994 the UKU concept was conceived by Dr Kepa Morgan of Ngāti Pikiao to build houses using flax-fibre reinforced earth. Through the support and involvement of research organisations and businesses like Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga, the Foundation for Research Science and Technology, Te Runanga O Ngāti Pikiao, the Forest Research Institute, the University of Auckland, Golden Bay Cement and Pacific Steel, the UKU project has developed and refined the UKU building method, identified optimum mixtures, developed and built a portable flax decortication device, built two single room (6X6 metre) dwellings and a two bedroom 90m2 house on Māori land. The second UKU dwelling is due to be completed in 2010 in Ahipara, Te Tai Tokerau (the Far North).

The research has been conducted in partnership with Māori individuals representing various hapu (sub-tribes) around the North Island. Their input has been used to identify the obstacles to housing faced by rural Māori, the available local resources, and the desirable aspects of a suitable housing solution.

Social acceptance has been assessed with a positive response from the groups involved in the research to the experience of living in earth houses. The two single room dwellings built for this purpose were initially designated as a mower shed and a laundry/storage room. They were subsequently used as a music / arts room and a wharepuni (sleeping area) for the kaumatua (elders) respectively. Both groups have indicated a desire to build more structures using the UKU method.

The University of Auckland is conducting on-going research into the thermal and seismic performance of the UKU wall panels and houses as a whole. The test results are used to determine the strength and other characteristics of the earth material so that UKU structures can be designed, consented and built.

The UKU research team works with the rural Maori communities to empower and train up locals to build using the UKU method. Local materials are sourced and processed locally as far as is practical. One of the key measures of success for the UKU research is the practical benefit of the research to the target end-users; rural Māori communities. As a result working with rural Māori communities is prioritised, supporting them through the design and consenting processes, and involving these communities as active participants building houses on Māori land.

Next we will catch up with the engineer/ builder on this project, John Cheah to get details on this ongoing project.

TAPIAL MALO / TAPIAL BUENO

2010-09-27T05:00:00.000-07:00

Rammed earth t-shirts that celebrate Australia

2010-09-26T22:01:00.000-07:00

Or is it Australian t-shirts that celebrate rammed earth (and water conservation)?

No matter. It's a cute idea. Order them here.

Rammed Earth Ampitheatre at the UBC Botanical Garden

2010-09-24T08:10:00.000-07:00

The UBC Botanical Garden opened their lovely rammed earth ampitheatre to the public this spring so it was high time I went to check it out.

The project was planned by Forma Design of North Vancouver and inspired by the Fibonacci numbers. I didn't really see the resemblance, but it was a very pleasing space nonetheless.

Doesn't it look like Captain Kirk and Spock should be engaging in a little kal-if-fee down there?

The rammed earth walls were a joint construction project between Aquarius Contracting and Clifton Schooley & Associates

I wonder how long it will take for the free lime to leave this wall?

There are more photos of the rammed earth construction process here.

Very subtle colour variation.

I love how it looks when the soil is placed in the form in a wavy pattern.

This rougher texture was the result of experimenting with a sand-blaster.

Isn't it amazing how the finest impressions show up?

I dig these stairs!

Historic Rammed Earth In Ontario

2010-09-21T21:29:00.000-07:00

Reader Alex sent some photos of his 142 year old rammed earth house in Greensville, Ontario.

The walls are 12 inches thick standing on an 18" rubble footing. The ceilings are 11 feet high inside. The interior walls are lath and plaster, with the lath being set out about 3 inches from the earth walls on wooden vertical members.

The interior of the wall has the same earth/gravel surface with no large stones visible. On the exterior, there is a coating of stucco or lime plaster.

He writes to say, " I don’t know the nationality of the builder, but my research led me to an owner that immigrated from England when he was young. The story that’s been passed down to the prior owners and neighbours is that the house was once a church rectory. This seems to jive with what I’ve found so far. The 1877 land registry map is labelled with the last name “Hore,” which would be Francis William Hore, who owned a mill across the street, among others, and also built a stone mansion on a large lot next to us (now the residence of a billionaire). In the record of his death, it describes that he was a churchwarden at Christ Church Anglican, which is about a 5 minute walk away, so it’s entirely possible that he built the house as a rectory for the church. As for the actual builder, I found a paper that includes 1871 census information for stonemasons and stone cutters. Lincoln District is the closest that has census info, and the breakdown is England: 21, Ontario: 10, Ireland: 9, Germany: 5, USA: 4, Scotland: 2; Others: 2."

Rammed Earth Home Construction in Chad

2010-09-07T07:13:00.000-07:00

This post, the third in the series by Mark David Heath, will offer an update on the previous two projects as well as where we seem to be headed with rammed earth in Chad.

Our first project of rammed earth in Chad was the wall around our work base in the village of Mainani, near Kome, the base of ExxonMobil in Southern Chad. We built this first wall, 676 meters long (2217 feet) by 1.5 meters tall (4ʼ-11”). This site was originally used as our work base for the road work we were doing for ExxonMobil. However, with that work concluded and our work now being the composting of ExxonMobil waste material, we needed to raise the wall height. The first wall was built of laterite soil, taken straight out of the borrow pit, and screened to remove pieces larger than about 36 mm (1.5”), mixed with 5% Portland cement.

With the added height to the wall (we added about 800 mm (2ʼ-7”)) we used laterite soils again, but this time, we used “recovered” laterite soils from the roadway windrows. Through the normal course of maintaining an earthen road, soil is normally cut off the road and pushed off to the sides, creating the “windrow” typically seen all along the sides of earthen roads. If these windrows get too large in areas of high rains (like Chad) they can become a drainage problem. In a particular section of road we were building, these windrows needed to be removed to relieve a drainage issue. Since this material is typically being graded off the top of the road, it has had a lot of traffic wear and tear on it. It has been crushed and ground down by the traffic, resulting in a much higher percentage of “fines”, material that is much less coarse than the laterite material coming right out of the borrow pits.

This laterite material with higher fines in it provided results more like what we had experienced with the clay soils and sand. The higher percentage of finer material produced a much smoother and more tightly consolidated surface that laterite straight out of the pit. We still added 5% Portland cement to the majority of the extended height sections. We set our wooden forms right on top of the existing rammed earth wall, now over 4 years old and facing the fourth rainy season.

We also did an experiment with “non-stabilized” rammed earth. All of our previous projects had used some percentage of Portland cement as a “stabilizer” to make the finished product more weather resistant. The biggest issue for long-term use of rammed earth is weathering, especially due to water, in any form - rain, snow, ice, etc. With Chad having no frost, this is to our advantage. However, with all of Chad having over 30” of rain per year, rain damage is a huge issue for rammed earth in Chad.

However, I had read of structures being built of “non-stabilized” rammed earth, meaning without Portland cement, lime, asphalt emulsion, etc, as a stabilizer. I have also seen rammed earth structures several hundred years old, built with non-stabilized rammed earth. Given the possibility, and given that the expense of the Portland cement is our largest single expense in the rammed earthh, we decided to give non-stabilized rammed earth a test.

The issue in non-stabilized rammed earth is “getting the mix right”, meaning getting the right combination of sand and clay to produce a “stable” and durable structure. Fortunately, I was shown an old and simple test for determining the “right mix” which we have used very successfully. We took the principle of the test and then adapted it to our circumstances, here in Chad. Since we already have forms built for making corners of 500 mm square, and since all of our materials are mixed by hand we made up seven test blocks, using our 500 mm x 500 mm forms. We mixed up 30 shovels of material, in varying quantities, and then rammed a block with each different mix. We chose 30 shovels of material per block because it is relatively simple math to make the percentage calcs with, and a “Chadian” wheelbarrow will hold just about 30 shovels of material. Our blocks were as follows:

Clay soils	Sand	%Clay Soil	%Sand
6	24	20.0%	80.0%
9	21	30.0%	70.0%
12	18	40.0%	60.0%
15	15	50.0%	50.0%
18	12	60.0%	40.0%
21	9	70.0%	30.0%
24	6	80.0%	20.0%

Across seven test blocks, we are able to look at clay:sand ratios varying from 20%:80% to 80%:20%, with each block having 10% more of one material and 10% less of the other material than the last block. Our objective is to see which mix is the most durable. We let them dry for at least 3 days and then, if there is no rain, we “make it rain” by watering the blocks with a garden watering can, the same one we use to add water to the rammed earth as we are mixing it for ramming. We dump about 20 Liters (5 gallons) at a time on each block, and do it 2 or three times a day.

After about a week to 10 days of “rain” we look at which test block held up the best. In Mainani, with our “recovered” laterite and sand mix, test block #5 held up the best - made up of 18 shovels of laterite and 12 shovels of sand. Since this was all new to us we were a bit cautious. We built the bulk of the wall with “recovered” laterite and 5% Portland cement, like the mix we had used to build the original rammed earth wall, 4 years ago. But, at the back of the property, where no one from the street could see (just in case it was a disaster) we built a part of the new wall with non-stabilized rammed earth, using the mixture of test block #5. We found out, very quickly, that non-stabilized is much more moisture sensitive in the early days, as it is drying, than is stabilized rammed earth. A couple of times we had rains hit us just as we were finishing or that same night, and we found our non-stabilized rammed earth wall, living up to the name “non-stabilized”, lying on the ground when we came back in the morning. With that lesson earned, we bought some plastic sheeting and covered the fresh walls for at least three days.

Right after completing the non-stabilized rammed earth sections we had some very strong rains, including one that lasted almost 18 hours, and a couple that, while not a long, were even more intense. We were more than pleasantly surprised to see that after 2 weeks of heavy rains, preceded by at least 3 days of good drying of the non-stabilized rammed earth, that there is virtually zero difference in the non-stabilized rammed earth vs the stabilized rammed earth.

This knowledge, combined with the knowledge gained from our second project (described next) is providing what we think is the direction to now be headed with rammed earth in Chad.

In Doba we did a joint venture project of rammed earth on a residential lot. The owner put up the lot and we did the rammed earth. We have recently sold this project, recovering our investment, the land owner recovering hers, and we both made a small profit.

This project was on a residential lot measuring 25 m by 40 m and is a ʻcorner lotʼ, having streets on two sides. We decided with the owner to put two gates on the long side street. Each gate opening is 3 m wide. Unlike the Mainani site, we are trying to do a demonstration of a more typical rammed earth project. So, we have a footing under the rammed earth. We chose a gravel-filled ditch for our foundation, similar to the idea of a railroad foundation. Gravel costs less than concrete, does not need Portland cement, and distributes the loads well and allows water to pass freely, which is a concern here where we get more than 1 000 mm (39”) of rain per year. So our foundation is a gravel-filled trench 500 mm wide, which is twice as wide as the wall, and 300 mm deep, which gets us past the topsoil and into the subsoils.

We began with the installation of the corner posts which were made with 5% Portland cement. Then we installed the remainder of the intermediate posts, again with a 5% Portland cement mix. After all the posts were built, we built the wall sections, between the existing posts. For the Wall sections, we used a mix of 2% Portland Cement.

As you can see in the photos, all of the posts are “keyed” so that the Wall sections tie into them with the keyway. The intermediate posts are “Tʼs” and we built an intermediatepost at least every three wall sections. The wall sections are about 3 m (10ʼ) long by 2.4 m (8ʼ) tall. This project was covered in greater detail in the previous article.

After having built the walls and we build two small buildings inside the walls. One was a one-room structure that could serve as a guard house, situated between the two gate openings. The second structure was a 60 m2 structure with a bedroom, a bathroom and a “great room”, a living room / kitchen combination room. The photos show the windows formed out and then having a beam poured over them as we poured the bond beam.

This project received a lot of interest and a lot of folks coming to look at it. They spoke well of it, of how thick the walls were, etc., but we had no one willing to buy it. Our partner was thinking that she was going to have to live in it to prove to the Chadians that it was a good product. Then, one day, we were talking about the project and she said that she has overheard someone talking about how they did not trust the project because the rain had eroded the walls. We had built this right at the beginning of the rainy season and we intentionally did not cover the walls to see just how much damage the rain would do to fresh walls. What was a good thing to us, showing what we felt was very little degradation, seemed to have become a really big negative to anyone who came to see the project. The owner suggested that we plaster the walls. This would cover up the rain erosion and it would make the walls look more “familiar” to the Chadians.

Traditional brick walls need to be plastered or the rains will wash away both the bricks and the mortar as can be seen. So, even though we understood that the minor erosion that had happened to the Rammed Earth wall while it was still fresh and before it had hardened was all that was going to happen, the Chadian thought that it would continue and eventually eat out the entire wall, as happens with traditional bricks.

So we plastered the two walls facing the street, being the two walls facing the prevailing wind, which were the two that had taken the most abuse and suffered the most erosion. We plastered them with a “tossed” or “thrown” plaster made of sand and Portland cement.

The result was that the walls looked just like any other plastered wall, except for being twice as thick, and, that they were immediately accepted by the Chadians. By the time we had the first two faces plastered we had 4 offers to buy the project, and before we started on the third side, we had it sold, and cash in hand. Another demonstration that, especially with new products, you need to be sensitive to the customer and find a way to get them to accept the new product.

With the outcome of these two projects, the one with successful non-stabilized rammed earth seems to be offering us a more clear direction in which to proceed with rammed earth in Chad. Since the Chadians prefer the stucco look, and since non-stabilized rammed earth can be built to deliver similar performance to stabilized rammed earth, then it seems to us that the way to go is to build non-stabilized rammed earth, then plaster the walls. This save the expense of mixing Portland cement in the rammed earth, delivers the same performance, as long as the rammed earth mix is correct, and the saved Portland cement can be used to plaster the walls, making them acceptable in the marketplace and even more resistant to the rains.

This new direction could really help in the general acceptance and diffusion of rammed earth technology in Chad. Rammed earth is faster than either CMU (cement block) construction or traditional brick construction. Rammed earth is much thicker than traditional brick and stronger than CMU or brick. This offers greater security to the occupants. Being thicker, the heat of the sun will not get through the walls, making the structures built with rammed earth more comfortable. Now, the knowledge that non-stabilized rammed earth can be built with comparable performance to stabilized rammed earth, means that rammed earth is now economically competitive as well. It was already less expensive than CMU construction but more expensive than traditional brick. Now we are even less expensive than traditional brick construction, as well.

The single biggest roadblock seems to be the initial cost of the forms. Although this is not a huge issue for an existing construction company that is going to be going into the rammed earth business, it could be for a small enterprise. We are looking at trying out a forming system that will make large “blocks” of Rammed Earth, about 1 000 mm long, 250 mm thick and 500 mm tall. These would have to be built in a “bond” pattern, similar to laying CMU block or brick, but this technique is already well understood. The initial cost for these smaller forms would be significantly less, and, with two sets, the speed should not be too compromised. We still need to sort out how to build corners, and intermediate posts.

The owner of the Doba project is now so pleased that she has formed a small construction firm, hired a crew, and is building a project for a new client and has already signed two more clients. We also have a young, newly graduated engineer, whose father has a long-established construction company, doing an “apprenticeship” on these first new projects. So, we have what looks like the first two adoptees of the rammed earth technology in Chad and we have the third project underway, and two more right behind them. The first project, in Mainani, is being actively used as a yard for making compost from Esso waste, the second project, in Doba, has been sold and is nearly completed and ready to be occupied by the new owner. The third project is underway and going well with a new adoptee and a new apprentice. Rammed earth in Chad may be off to a new role in the battle against desertification.

When we first built the walls in the second project we thought that we needed to have at least 2.5 to 3% Portland Cement in our mix. We know now that we were basing this on short-term issues. With higher cement content it is true that the walls eroded less in the rain. However, with the correct mix, we now know that the walls get very, very hard with time and if we protect them from early rains, we can build excellent structures with 2% Portland cement and without any Portland cement, at all.

What our experience has now shown us is that rammed earth takes a significant amount of time to fully harden. However, with that time, it gets really, really hard. When we went back to cut in the windows on the walls where we did not form them in, we found that our rammed earth walls were every bit as hard and as difficult to break open as the concrete construction in the area. The crew assigned to cut out the window openings kept going on about how surprisingly hard the walls were. There were a couple of doubting Thomases that were converted watching the windows being cut into the rammed earth walls that had now hardened for one year.

Rammed Earth Houses For Sale in British Columbia

2010-09-05T13:41:00.000-07:00

Save for the odd cottage, rammed earth dwellings in Canada have typically been occupied by those who initiated their construction.

There are an unprecedented three rammed earth houses languishing on the Multiple Listing Service in British Columbia.

The cheapest is in Ganges on Salt Spring Island and will cost a mere $656K. The one with the most land is just outside Ymir in the Kootenays, listed for just 1.7 million dollars. If you like skiing and have 4.5 million jingling in your pockets, you might want to check out the one in Whistler.

It will be interesting to see how long these homes take to sell.

Traditional Rammed Earth Construction In Himachal Pradesh (Indian Himalayas)

2010-09-05T11:53:00.000-07:00

Please enjoy this fascinating video of Sonam Tsering discussing the completion of his new rammed earth guesthouse in Tabo, a village located in the Spiti Valley of Himachal Pradesh.

Interview conducted and shot by Andy Couturier.
Those wishing to visit may contact Mr. Tsering at: 0091-94185-03966 or sonam_nadaan@yahoo.com

Rammed Earth Walking Tour In Greeley, Colorado

2010-07-21T14:11:00.000-07:00

Free Walking Tour of Alles Acres in Greeley, Colorado

Monday, Aug 2 7:00 pm

The Greeley Historic Preservation Office hosts its third free walking tour of the summer at Alles Acres on Monday, August 2, 2010 at 7:00pm. Alles Acres is an historic large-lot neighborhood located just west of the UNC west campus. The tour will start at Bethel Baptist Church, 2307 17 th Avenue and is open to the public and for all ages. Participants are encouraged to wear walking shoes and bring a water bottle and an umbrella, in case of rain. No dogs will be allowed on the tour.

Half of all houses on this planet are made out of earth, and this tour will highlight some of these, built by a process known as “rammed earth.” The different styles and materials that comprise these structures will be discussed, along with the local history. Area resident Lydia Ruyle, descendant of the Alles family for which the area is named, will share information about her family and rammed earth construction.
Registration and tickets are not required.
For more information and directions to the site, contact Betsy Kellums at the Greeley Historic Preservation Office at 970-350-9222

visit our website at www.greeleygov.com/hp .

The rammed earth homes in question were constructed by David and Lydia Miller, a lawyer and a teacher, who knew of this type of wall construction from their travels in Europe.You can learn more about the Millers in The Rammed Earth House and Mother Earth News

Abandoned Rammed Earth House In Bhutan

2010-06-20T01:15:00.000-07:00

These images were taken by the Reddy family traveling on the road from Paro to Thimpu in Bhutan.

The father is a professor of Civil Engineering for the Centre for Sustainable Technologies at the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore, India and he insisted they stop for a better look. His son Dileep took these photos and kindly agreed to share them with us.

The evenly-spaced pock marks in the surface indicate where the form-work was clamped for each lift.

One meter thick.

It's amazing to see how tightly some of these timbers fit long after the structure has been vacated. That's wood on masonry, yes it is.

The large square holes show where the floor joists for the second floor were seated.

Nature taking over on the inside.

It probably looked something like this in its time...

...with a traditional stacked slate roof like this.

It's good to see traditional building techniques being kept alive, part of Shing Zo class, one of the thirteen traditional Bhutanese crafts disciplines, known as the Zorig Chusum.

Here's a some video to put you right in the midst of thing:

Mark David Heath Breaks It All Down For You

2010-06-19T16:01:00.000-07:00

With transcriptions in three languages, no less.

Great echo inside the compound!

Or You Could Get Your Own Copy

2010-03-24T11:30:00.000-07:00

A copy of the venerable USDA Farmers Bulletin No. 1500, that is.
There is a copy on eBay for the next few days.

Rammed Earth Stoves In Malawi

2010-03-17T12:03:00.001-07:00

photos by Tristan and George

These are Further Improved Rammed Earth Stoves or F.I.R.E.S., promoted by the East Africa Trust as a way to improve self-sufficiency and sustainability in Malawi, Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda, Mozambique and beyond.

The stove is an improvement on an earlier mud design, refined byTristan Cooper MSc., CEO of the East Africa Trust.

Click here for the plans to construct the form-work.

The large tapered piece is the fire box, the smaller piece on the left forms the smoke vent.

Making the forms provides work for local carpenters; making stoves can be a trade for someone otherwise without work.

With this sturdy wooden form, two people can make a stove in under two hours. Being compacted, the earth is unlikely to crack and, being from a form-work, consistent stoves can be made every time.

Removing the firebox form.

There is no cement in the earth mix.

Scraping a recess for cooking pots.

The finished stoves are very popular, making the kitchen virtually smoke-free and so much safer.

There are plans underway to construct a stove-building classroom out of rammed earth as well.

Call for Earth Architecture-Based Entries: Design An Arts Village In Ghana for the Nka Foundation

2010-03-16T14:50:00.000-07:00

Nka is an Igbo (African) word for artistry, its literary translation is “…of art”. It is also an Akan word that implies “may be” but in Akan, nká means “ancient”. We reckon the arts are the most ancient of human activities.

Along these lines, Nka Foundation has a focus on human capital development through use of the arts, broadly defined to include visual arts, literary arts, performing arts, design, new media/film production, arts history, arts criticism, arts education, arts administration and curatorship, and emerging others.

OUR ARTS VILLAGE CONCEPT

We are developing a model arts village at Abetenim in Ejisu-Juaben District of the Ashanti Region of Ghana for replication in other parts of Africa. For the locals, it will mean a resolution to the age-old problem for people of artistry- painters, sculptors, actors, dancers, musicians, designers, and others who require low-cost and expanse of space in which to live and work; and for persons in the arts from around the world, it will be a contact point for artist-in-residence for community arts projects, cross-cultural conferences and environmental retreats. The arts village we will consist of live-in and work cottages, general studio spaces, a multipurpose arts center for conferences and community arts missions, as would be recreational facilities such as volley ball.

DESIGN+BUILD-AND-LIVE-IN PROJECT

Our ARchiTecture (art+architecture) Residency Programme in the Ashanti Region of Ghana welcomes artistic persons in the fields of architecture, engineering and the arts that include visual arts, literary arts, performing arts, design, new media/ film production, arts history, arts criticism, arts education, arts administration and curatorship, and emerging others to apply for residence. Length of residencies is usually from 1 month to 12 months. The applicant’s project plan may be to design and build dwellings or non-dwellings out of earth and other materials from the environment. The architecture participant will be assisted by local master builder and local laborers, if necessary.

Individuals and collaborative groups may also submit proposals for research, public art or community arts project under our International Visiting Residency programme.

Specifically, the International Visiting Residency is for researchers, observer-participants, interns, volunteers and other independent practices at the cost of $200 / €125 / £99 a week to cover local guide and housing. However, you need to bring your own bed sheets, toiletries, medicines, music, mosquito net and other personal comforts. Dinner by cooperative kitchen in which we all work together in sharing the planning, cost, shopping and cooking has always worked for us. It has been more of a dinner party, a time to come together to sample national cuisines, have fun at the table and bond as a community. Each participant will receive a diploma certifying your participation and Associate Membership in Nka Foundation.

What does participation fee/tuition NOT cover? Budget for your air fare, local transportation, visa costs, and other personal expenses; for example, a generous Onsite budget might include about $15 USD per day for gifts, foods, and drinks. We can help the candidate research and apply for grants in order to cover the above expenses. For Registration, Work Trade, or Group discounts contact us.

There was more detailed information here.

CALLING ALL ARCHITECTS, ECO-COMMUNITY DESIGNERS, STRUCTURAL ENGINEERS & IMAGINATIVE OTHERS:

Goal of the challenge is to design and build units of a model arts village in Ghana with a budget of $42,000-$62,000 and earth under the feet. The competition is a part of the Foundation’s ongoing project: tapping local resources for sustainable development in the African settings in the 21^st century. We are interested in design solutions that integrate art into architecture for a more sustainable future. Join us! A grand prize winner and twenty top finalists and will be chosen. Show the world how to re-invent the African semi-suburb! Establish your name, and contribute your ideas and designs to a real need.

Competition Starts: April 7, 2010.

Deadline for all Entries: November 13, 2010

Date Results will be Published: January 7, 2011

Project Location: Abetenim near Kumasi in the Ashanti Region of Ghana

Contact Detail: Nka Foundation, Box Up 1115, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi, Ghana, (www.nkafoundation.org; nkaprojects@gmail.com).

THE CHALLENGE

On 10 acres, with a budget of $42,000-$62,000 and earth under the feet, design+build for all of the following: Multipurpose Arts Center, Residential Courtyard that sleeps 21 persons, Community Kitchen, Courtyard for arts studios and a Recreational Sports Ground as a part of the Arts Village. The production budget of up to $62,000 includes materials, labor, and infrastructure. The challenge is that the design should be easily built from local materials and local labor at low cost, and that provides a comfortable and multi-use of space for the international arts community in a rural part of Africa. We emphasize low budget, but cannot compromise quality.

HOW TO ENTER THE COMPETITION

Enter the competition by first by sending JPEG* images of your conceptual drawings that you plan to develop, in order to avail the design process to all prospective users of the space for questions and contributions to resolve any production concerns. Second, send the final images, one-page CV/ Résumé, and a statement about your design proposal (includes time budget, materials and the financial component). Entries will be judged on: (1) success with the goal of the challenge, (2) practicality of design, and (3) visual/ aesthetic appeal to the degree the design explored a relationship between art and architecture . E-mail entries to nkaprojects@gmail.com, africoae5@gmail.com. For additional information go towww.nkafoundation.org.

*we request that your online jpeg submissions be compressed and sized for web, please make sure to keep a copy of your files in HIGH-RES!

GRAND PRIZE

+ $1000 cash prize

+ Full board residency to build the design on location.

+ Lavish press coverage in and out of Africa

Out of the twenty top finalists, one grand prize winner will be chosen by the judges to receive the grand prize and the highest honor of the competition. In addition to the grand prize, 2 Runners Up (Second and Third Place) will be selected to receive cash prize of $500 and $300 respectively, based on the popular vote online. All who participated in the competition from start to finish will be allowed a two-week free stay at the arts village. All submissions must be work that is original from the designer. The winners will be determined by a jury of architecture and art professionals.

The grand prize winning project must be executed between August 2011 and August 2012.

WISH LIST

(1) Tropical Comfort (optimum natural ventilation and greenery to break the dry season)

(2) Sustainability (low cost and quality work, maximum use of local resources, etc)

(3) At least 70% single level house units

(4) A desire for standby renewable energy (solar, wind, etc)

(5) Spaces designed with artists and designers in mind (e.g. the multipurpose center for the arts that has: (1) large stage area for performing arts and conference presentations, (2) art exhibition halls, (3) toilets &1 bath, (4) offices, etc.); the Community kitchen would have a spacious eating area, cooking unit (with cob oven), pantry, office, etc.)

(6) A desire for an acoustic room as an audio recording studio

(7) Low maintenance requirements for our climate

(8) Open Source Share (The goal is to design a social space while making the design process and design documents open to all prospective users of the space for questions or suggestions to generate a more practical design for the climate. All designs and ideas will be published and shared on nkafoundation.org and we may exhibit them in gallery/ museum settings to inspire others. Others may use, improve and adapt them. For this reason, conceptual drawings, designs and presentations should be completed in a clear, reproducible manner).

PROJECT CONTEXT

The challenge is a part of our ongoing project: tapping local resources for sustainable development in the Anglophone, Lusophone and Francophone African settings. Goal of the art and architecture project is to design for a model arts village that would consist of: (1) private residential units (first phase), and (2) Communal Center (second phase). This challenge is for the second phase of the experimental project.

Our social project takes in the theoretical frame of the book, Architecture for the Poor: An Experiment in Rural Egypt by a known Egyptian architect, Hassan Fathy. In it, Fathy puts forward that an informed person can, in fact, self-build durable, aesthetic and highly functional buildings without using expensive materials. In light of the challenge we ask: How does Fathy‘s theory translate to action within West Africa at the turn of the 21^st century? We reckon across spaces, earth is an abundant and inexhaustible natural resource and one of humankind’s most thermally efficient and ecologically sophisticated building-capital. In indigenous cultures, earth homes are, in fact, designed and built by people (owners) using their intelligence, ability and local resources to their fullest extent.

Interestingly, the central problem the project addresses is “The Great Forgetting” of earth as resource for sustainable housing projects such as for the arts, especially in industrially developing nations of West Africa. In West Africa, from the cities to the low-income villages, earth architecture is fast giving way to modern dwellings (made of cement-blocks and corrugated zinc-roof that are expensive and thermally and acoustically problematic). Regrettably, architecture in our times has become increasingly mechanized, as are becoming some areas of the arts; yet, a quarter of the world population does not have access to adequate housing. On the fringes of environmental issues, a range of disciplines in study, research, and practice associated with building structures of earth have re-emerged in the modern era. In the last few decades, global use of rammed earth, mud brick, compressed earth, cob, and several other interesting techniques testify to the resurgence of building homes of earth.

Along these techniques, we are developing a model arts village in the Ashanti Region ofGhana for replication in other parts of Africa. The village is designed to create a relational space for creative men and women in earth architecture , earth art/ land art/ earthworks, engineering, and others to come for residency projects. From an aerial view, the site would look like a big piece of land art with many parts that entail earth architecture , and environmental sculptures and in between would be persons from different nations in cross-cultural interactions. For the locals, it will mean a resolution to the age-old problem for people of artistry- painters, sculptors, actors, dancers, musicians, designers, and others who require low-cost and expanse of space in which to live and work; and for persons in the arts from around the world, it will be a contact point for artist-in-residence for community-based arts projects, cross-cultural conferences and environmental retreats in evidence-based society.

Our key objective is thus to demonstrate the use of the earth under our feet as a valid alternative to modern home building methods in Ghana and neighboring countries of the Sub-Sahara. The project’s role is a “pump-priming” one: to get best practices in contemporary earth construction adopted in a particular zone by developing an arts village and training the younger generation, regardless of gender, then to gradually withdraw and move on to other suitable areas to develop yet another arts village.

We are optimistic that through the ARchiTecture (art and architecture ) project, cultural bridges and technological transfers will be accomplished.

PROJECT SITE

Our Arts Village at Abetenim is in Ejisu-Juaben District in the Ashanti Region. Abetenim is off the Accra-Kumasi road in the rural community about 15 minutes from Kumasi. The district lies within Latitude 1° 15’ N and 1 ° 45’ N and Longitude 6° 15’W and 7° 00’ W; it has four urban settlements that are Ejisu, Juaben, Besease and Bonwire. Juaben about 2 miles from Abetenim, is the nearest urbanized area. Juaben has a palm oil mill that yields palm fibre-ash and a research center for our project. The Juaben Government Hospital is the major health facility around the Abetenim Traditional Area. The project acreage is along a main road. Like much of Ghana, few of the roads are tarred.

The District is in the middle of the Deciduous Rainforest zone. The relative humidity is generally high. The range is from 75-80 percent in the Rainy season and 70-72 percent in the dry season. The mean annual rainfall is between 125 cm and 180cm. Nationwide, there are two main seasons, the raining season and dry season. The raining season is from approximately April to September followed by the dry season, which starts by October with the Hamattan wind blowing from the Saharan Desert and ends in March each year.

On the acreage are fruit trees such mango trees, palm trees and an orange orchard. The rural area has an abundance of local resources suitable for the project, such as expanse of land, needed raw materials and low labor costs. Within Ejisu-Juaben District and environs are cultural sites such as Bomwire Kente Village, Ntonso Cloth Printing Village, Ahwia Carving Centre, Bobiri Forest Reserve/ Butterfly Sanctuary, and the cultural centres of the historic city of Kumasi. The construction participant may start with a study of the traditional architecture of the region. The visitors can also participate in several traditional events such as funerals, naming ceremonies, and festivals. Interestingly, Royal Akwasidae is held every six weeks at the Royal Palace of the Asante King, Otumfuo Osei Tutu II. In practice, there are far more local resources to tap to execute project in accordance with the disciplinary orientation and project/ idea of the individual participant.

DESIGN CONSIDERATIONS

We seek to encourage simple structures with features that optimize sustainability and can readily be applied to future designs. Sustainability encompasses diverse viable aspects of the system such as the artistic, the social and the economic, and the most beneficial solution will be the one that best balances the disparate aspects. The following is a description of the features, and is broadly split into artistic, economic and creation-research aspect, but as with sustainability, everything is interwoven and the categories are in name only.

Artistic Consideration: The competition is a design+build ARchiTecture project. By design+build we imply the person will design the structure, come to immerse in the environment for possible modifications, and with assistance from local master builders and local labor will build the structures. By ARchiTecture, we imply a combination of the best of art and architecture in the design and construction with earth and other materials from the environment. From the artist’s perspective, it may be taken as an architectonic artwork that is habitable; and from the architect’s vision it may mean an architecture that is also a monumental sculptural piece. And, the rest is open to the participant’s visualization and craftsmanship.

Economic Consideration: The cost of the Communal Center is critical to the brief, with $5,000 (U.S) allocated per unit. Water supply is by on site borehole, water tower and pipe distribution. Electricity is by public power grid. However, the design requires use of earth and other locally available materials, with the construction technique kept simple, so a focused crew of under-skilled members of the community can easily lend labor.

The most fiscal aspect may be the roofing; quality roofing is necessary. Stabilized and weather proofed earth vaults and domes, living roofs and cast earth roofs are quite alluring, and not yet proven options in the region largely because of the demands of the climate. Zinc roofing is commonplace but not a quality option. They are the cheapest of the metal roofing materials, but zinc roots emit excessively heat during the dry season, rain falls noisily on them, and they last only a few years. There have been contemporary experiments with thatch roof as resource. The most popular and pricey are the aluminum sheets. However, the roof system has to overhanging by at least three feet off the wall to provide protection from the elements.

Construction has to uncomplicated, with the truss proving the most challenging detail. Pre-made windows frames made of thick timber are available to provide reinforcement and lower the cost. The windows, doors and fittings can be those of quality purchased off the market or commissioned locally with not much difference in price if they are not too complicated. Currently cast earth by formwork, stabilized earth bricks, and cob are proposed for wall construction, but this could be rammed earth, earthship, or another if winning designer considers that preferable.

Creation-Research Consideration: We assume that a meaningful conceptual solution to the design+build problem would require some form of research on the project region. We expect that once onsite and immerse in the environment, the participant may have esthetic or practical cause to de-conceptualize a part of the offsite design. Hence, the participant and crew would start with a study tour of the traditional earth architecture in the district. We will be assisted by a local master builder. Our team will not only be looking at the mud wall structures, we will also be looking at the roofing methods. The survey will lead to conclusions about what are the best earth architecture practices in area and how they inform the planned arts village project. Using the information and the abundance of local materials, participant would think over the design in concert with local conditions.

As noted, Juaben, the nearest urbanized area to Abetenim has a palm oil mill that yields palm fibre-ash and a research institute for our project. In consultation with the research institute in the district that has established results in road construction with palm fibre-ash admixtures, we can explore possible uses for earth building and construction of pathways to link the units. The primary materials would be laterite –the red subsoil on site- which is rich in iron, and the fibre-ash. Other binder admixtures such as with straw, cement, lime from local spring, and pulp from African Cactus and other latex trees can also be explored to know what is most fitting. The stabilization process starts with the mixing of the aggregate and binder components in a concrete mixing system to get out the air bubbles and make the mix denser by aligning the molecules in the mixing process. We think that the properties of the different mixtures can be regulated by changing the proportion of different components to optimize the properties to create durable structures.

Open ARchiTecture Challenge is a project of Nka Foundation (www.nkafoundation.org), an artists’ cooperative with focus on the arts for human capital development. The Foundation is incorporated as a non-profit seeking company under the laws of the Republic of Ghana. One way to achieve the objectives is to draw on Western and non-Western traditions to create an international arts village in Ghana, as a starting point for an emerging network of arts villages in the Sub-Sahara. After this first competition the Foundation will continue to promote the implementation of more Open ARchiTecture Challenges, realize more designs, organize new projects and stimulate the emerging arts villages to adapt designs to the local conditions.

Come! Let’s generate choice for those who say they are economically underprivileged despite the abundance of inexhaustible local resources. Establish your name, and contribute your ideas and designs to a real need. For additional information go to www.nkafoundation.org.

Rammed Earth In Rwanda

2010-03-16T00:33:00.000-07:00

Look at these beautiful red walls going up on a project in Rwinkwavu, Rwanda.

Rwink, as it is also known, is home to a hospital run by Partners In Health.

You can follow along with the construction at Red Earth Dreaming.

We'll catch up with them later and ask a few questions once the rush to build has subsided.
Best of Luck!

20 Pages of Rammed Earth PDFs

2010-03-10T21:39:00.000-08:00

We're always looking for hidden troves of rammed earth information on the interwebs.

A search through a PDF finder revealed plenty of interesting articles; architectural course-work, technical abstracts, Fine Homebuilding design porn, Australian governmental documents, and other curios await.

Imagine what would happen if you searched in other languages.

Singing and House-Building in Bhutan

2010-03-07T20:40:00.000-08:00

Popular Science: Rammed Earth Archives

2010-03-07T19:35:00.000-08:00

Popular Science has put all their back issues on-line.

Here are the rammed earth articles for your enjoyment:

Mud Is Used To Build Modern Low-Cost Houses
December 1936 page 21

Rammed Earth The Free Material You Pound Into Forms
January 1982 page 114
by Richard Day with photos by Eleanor Beemer and author

Rammed Earth Summit Meeting
by Al Lees July 1982 page 130

He Builds High Tech Houses
December 1982 page 82
by Richard Day with photos by Magnus Berglund.
and
Rammed Earth Building Comes to the Conference Table
December 1982 page 85

The Other Rammed Earth Man
by Al Lees July 1983 page 150

Dirt Cheap Floor
November 1988 page 76
by David Easton photos by Daniel D. Agostini

Construction Ladies Sing Near Punakha, Bhutan

2010-02-22T00:05:00.000-08:00

These Bhutanese women reminded me of their colleagues in Chad.
Read more about this fascinating nation in Another Side of This Life.

More Rammed Earth In Israel

2009-07-04T11:00:00.000-07:00

Dan Mouyal of Adama Construction presents another spectacular rammed earth project.

Is this the UK's Eco-Shed of the Year?

2009-06-10T11:04:00.000-07:00

Michael Thompson has finished his rammed earth garden shed!

He's hoping it will be voted the UK's Eco-Shed of 2009.

Click here if you would like to vote. Best of luck to Michael!

Rammed Earth In Chad: The Sequel

2009-06-07T12:59:00.000-07:00

This article will offer information on a follow‐on demonstration of Rammed Earth in Chad, in a project carried out in Doba, a small town in southern Chad, Africa, about an hour northeast of Mondou, and on the edge of the ExxonMobil oilfield. The first document, prepared on the first demonstration, had quite a bit of background information in it, which this document will hopefully not unduly repeat.

The first demonstration was carried out in a village called Mainani, near Kome, the center of the ExxonMobil oilfield in southern Chad, Africa. The first demonstration was a wall made of laterite soils (laterite, noun, a reddish clayey material, hard when dry, forming a topsoil in some tropical or subtropical regions and sometimes used for building. Geology, a clayey soil horizon rich in iron and aluminum oxides, formed by weathering of igneous rocks in moist warm climates. From my MacBook Dictionary). We added 5% Portland cement to the laterite soils. The forms were made from waste steel shipping boxes from ExxonMobil and the ramming was all done by hand, by local village women, using their traditional pestle sticks which are used daily for grinding flour from millet and rice.

In the article on the first demonstration, we described the forms, the mix, the
ramming, and the results. We also discussed what we thought would be our next steps in further demonstrating the Rammed Earth technology in Chad. Here we will begin with some brief updates on the first demonstration.

It is now about 3 years since the first demonstration was carried out. The first wall has been through 3 full rainy seasons and the 4th has just now begun. The first rainy season was the heaviest in the previous 10 years and caused heavy flooding and there were many traditional buildings that failed and collapsed. The last rainy season, made the first look mild. It was reputed to be the heaviest rain is over 25 and possibly 50 years. The flooding was far more extensive than 2006. Many traditional houses collapsed, roads were impassible and washed out, and many crops were destroyed. The first demonstration wall, made of Laterite soils and Portland cement, has well withstood the past three years of very heavy rains.

The wall is very slightly weathered on top and on the face. Much of the weathering is due to the nature of the laterite material, itself. It is quite gravely. The final surface of the first wall was quite rough, right from the beginning. The ensuing years of weathering have only slightly increased the roughness of the surface. Also, the wall was built “doing everything wrong”. We intentionally wanted to test the limits of the wall to face the likely mistakes of future users. For example, we built the 200mm (8”) thick wall, about 2 meters (6’) tall without any foundation under it. We built it right on top of the uncompacted existing topsoil with 200mm scrap steel posts from ExxonMobil set 1 meter (3’) deep at 6 meters (20’) on center. That is a pretty poor way to build a heavy earthen wall. But, again, the objective was to make as many ‘mistakes’ as we thought we might have future users make. The result is that there has been some settlement of the topsoil in some portions of the wall causing some minor cracks. None of the cracks has opened enough to fit a playing card in it. But most of the sections are uncracked and looking very much like the day we pulled the forms off.

In this new demonstration we wanted to accomplish several things:

1. We wanted to use clay soils and sand, rather than laterite soils. Laterite soils are readily available in the area of southern Chad, but not so elsewhere. On the other hand, clay soils and sand are available most anywhere in the country, and is the most common building material used in Chad.
The conventional method of construction in Chad is to make bricks of clay soils, dry them in the sun for a couple of weeks, stack them and bake them with wood or charcoal fires, then construct the structure using clay and Portland cement mortar. Then, the norm is to plaster the surface with Portland cement and sand plaster. If the brick structure is not plastered, the mortar and the bricks can suffer badly from the rain and weather, and it is common to see bricks starting to fall out of walls after 1 to 2 years, and commonly, by the third year, there will be more than a few ‘gaps’ in the wall. So we wanted to use the common materials of clay soils, sand and some Portland cement, but in a “new” and better way.

2. We wanted to use a forming system that could be readily duplicated anywhere in Chad. Our forms for the first wall were made of scrap steel from ExxonMobil. This time we made them from the rough‐sawn wood that is common in the Chadian marketplace. We began with the general concept presented by David Easton is his pamphlet and later book on Rammed Earth, by the same name, and modified it to accommodate the lumber available to us here. David used 1‐1/8” thick plywood. There is no such thing here. So we used 30mm (1‐1/8”) thick planks about 300mm (12”) wide. Because the lumber is rough‐sawn, we hand‐planed the planks down to a uniform 290mm width. These planks are the faces of the forms. The planks are backed up by 40mm (1‐1/2”) thick by 80mm (3”) wide members at about 150mm (6”) on center. Horizontal members, made of the same planks used for the form face, but doubled up and nailed together, and set on edge, then back up these vertical members. These horizontal members are held in place with 3⁄4” diameter pipe clamps. The pipe clamps are not commonly available in the marketplace but they are not difficult to import. All the alternative materials we looked at in the marketplace were much more expensive and not as simple and flexible in use. All of this is shown in the photos.

3. We wanted to go higher and not have to use scaffolding. The formwork is strong enough that the forms can be stacked over 3meters (10’) tall and the workers mount and work on the formwork, itself, as the ‘scaffolding’.
Granted, it will give a Cal‐OSHA and ExxonMobil Safety Inspector pause, but I climb them daily and the workers use them without any trouble and we have had no problems and no ‘Near Miss’ incidents nor “accidents”.

4. We wanted to continue to use the village women to ram the earth. Writing of the women ramming right after the above note on safety reminded me of an ExxonMobil Safety Inspector coming out to see the first demonstration wall. The village women were ramming the wall in native dress and either barefoot or with ‘flip‐flops’ on. He commented that not wearing safety shoes was a hazard and suggested we give the women safety shoes. Not wanting to get into a conflict on such a minor matter compared to the bigger picture of presenting a new system to the local market, we agreed, and gave the women safety boots. Within two days the women revolted. They had never worn shoes in their lives. The boots were chafing their feet, they were hot and their feet were sweating and beginning to have damping problems. Also, the weight of the shoes was putting them off balance, and they felt insecure on the scaffolding wearing the safety shoes. I asked the women how many of them had ever hit themselves with a pestle stick and they responded by laughing at such a dumb question. I asked if they had ever hit another person, and one women asked “you mean accidently or on purpose?” So, we asked the women if they would like some tennis shoes instead of the safety boots, and they were 100% in agreement. We decided that the biggest risk was not the pestle sticks but bare feet on metal scaffolding, so tennis shoes offered the needed protection. The women finished the wall, in tennis shoes, happy and accident‐free.

5. We wanted to make sure we were more environmentally “appropriate”, more “friendly”, than traditional bricks. The traditional construction with clay bricks requires the destruction of a large number of trees in order to bake the bricks. It is certainly more appropriate to burn a tree that took 25 years to grow in order to make bricks that will last at least 25 years. However, if we can make an equally durable structure without cutting any trees, then we are ahead of the game. In Chad, desertification is the #1 environmental issue and the desert is moving south at shocking speed. In the few years I have been here I can clearly see the advance south. Also, traditional construction requires that the bricks be plastered. Otherwise, the mortar and even the bricks will not last long in the rains and weather. This plastering can be mud plaster and then re‐done each year, after the rains. Or it can be done with Portland cement plaster and last for many years. The amount of Portland cement needed to plaster the bricks is far more than the amount we use in Rammed Earth construction. Last, traditional construction builds with a brick that is approximately 90x140x250mm (3.5”x5.5”x10”) laid in a “common bond” pattern (one brick, centered on top of two, laid length‐wise). (As an aside, I have yet to figure out where this brick size came from, because it is not modular. You cannot lay them in a double wall or corner, etc, and “make bond”. A modular brick is twice as long as it is wide, including mortar joints, so that it will lay out correctly at corners, etc.) When traditional walls are constructed one brick thick, one wythe, they are miserably hot structures. The house really serves as a secure place to keep things and a place to keep the rain and sun off. The people only sleep and work inside during the rainy season, when the sun is greatly blocked by clouds and the temperature drops. Otherwise, the people sleep outside, most of the year. I have made many ‘tests’ of traditional brick walls where I go to the outside of the wall at the end of the day and feel the temperature of the wall, and it is hot to the touch. Then I go inside and feel the wall surface and it is just as hot, if not often hotter than outside. With our rammed earth construction we are making the walls much thicker and the sun is not able to well penetrate the thickness of the wall. Every time I have checked our walls, the side facing the sun is hot to the touch, while the shady side is always clearly cool to the touch. To accomplish the same thing with traditional brick would require at least twice as many brick and the consequential destruction of twice as many trees, not to mention being twice the cost and time.

6. We wanted to be economically competitive. We have done several cost comparisons and had our numbers looked at by a couple of local construction firms. It looks like our rammed earth walls are about 30% less costly than
local conventional brick walls and we are about 50% faster. I have just heard that we may be able to get lime here in Chad. I have tried to find lime but the imported bags of lime cost more than Portland cement. But I was just told that north of N’Djamena, the capital, there are very large deposits of lime. I was told that the lime is so abundant that the price is the same or lower than sand. This could really be a great improvement because lime can be used instead of Portland cement and with excellent results. If it is true that we can get access to a Chadian supply of lime, and at a lower cost than the imported Portland cement, that would help both the economics of Rammed Earth as well as make it environmentally more appropriate with a locally produced source instead of an imported one. Currently, traditional fired‐brick walls cost about 13 000 XAF/square meter ($2.40/SF), without plastering the faces, and our Rammed Earth walls are running about 8 000 XAF/square meter ($1.50/SF), and do not need to be plastered. We are also trying to pay a decent wage. The national average wage in Chad is about $1/day and we are paying between $3 and $4 per day. I might also note that, at that wage, we have people coming and standing on the edge of the jobsite looking for work each day. Sometimes as many as 20+ people are asking for work. Such is the life in the 4th or 5th poorest country on the face of the earth, and 40 to 70% unemployment (depending on whose stats you like most). In this demonstration with clay soils and sand we began by testing the mix of clay soils and sand to find the optimal ratios. We made 7 samples with Clay Soils: Sand ratios of 4:6, 5:6, 6:6, 7:6, 8:6, 9:6, 10:6. All measurements were made with ‘full’ shovels; since that is the way we were going to be measuring the mix for the
production of the wall. Our best mix was the 9:6 mix which is 60% Clay Soils and
40% Sand. For those of you with some knowledge of Rammed Earth, you may
immediately be thinking that 60% clay is far too much clay, because the traditional mix is about 30% clay. My explanation is that we are using “clay soils” and not pure clay. The clay soils are very sandy so, in truth, we are hitting about the 30% pure clay content.

After finding our best mix of Clay Soils and Sand we then made 5 samples with Portland cement to determine how little cement we could use and still get excellent results. Our samples were 5%, 2.5%, 2%, 1.5%, and 0.5% of Portland cement, measured by volume. The 5% mix was like concrete. The 1.5% and 0.5% mixes were softer than I was comfortable with. I am sure that at the end of the full 28 days curing period, which we really ought to be giving the Portland cement, that all the samples will be just fine, but at the end of one week, which is when we made our choice, we decided to not go below the 2% ratio.

Our next decision was kindred to the decision with the first demonstration with laterite soils: do it “all wrong” and see how it held up. Since this demonstration is being done in a new ‘subdivision’ area of Doba where many families are moving to, we wanted it to be good enough that it will not be a risk nor an eyesore to the neighborhood, and maybe even a finished product that we would sell. So, we were not ‘as crazy’ as the first time. This time we started with digging a footing 450mm (18”) wide by 300mm (12”) deep. We filled this with compacted gravel. Then we build the property wall right on top of the gravel. Because of the mass of the wall, about 2 000kg/cubic meter (140 lbs/CF), and the fact that we are in a non‐seismic area, the wall really only has to resist wind loads, and the mass of the wall, 250mm thick (10”) and sitting on compacted gravel is enough to resist the wind loads.

We decided to make the ‘corner posts’ and ‘interim posts’ of the 5% mix and the wall of the 2% mix. When we built the corners and interim posts, we did not bury them, as we normally would have done. We just used the stronger mix and built them right on top of the compacted gravel footing. Each post and wall segment is ‘keyed into’ the next with a 70mm (2.5”) by 30mm (1.25”) key. The wall segments are about 3meters long (10’) and we are putting a post every 4th wall segment. The corners are 500mm (20”) on each side and the interim posts are “T” shapes 750mm (30”) wide by 500mm (20”) deep. There have been lots of folks coming by to hit and push on the walls and posts and they are all still standing with lots of new found ‘believers’ walking away shaking their heads.

When we began, we first built the four corner posts. The demonstration is the property wall on a lot measuring 25meters (82’) by 40meters (131’). This is 1000 square meters, which is the rough equivalent of a 1⁄4 acre lot. The wall is 2.6 meters (8’‐6”) tall. This it ‘tall enough’ that the thieves cannot easily jump the wall, which is a constant threat here. The wall is also thick enough, dense enough, and strong enough to stop small arms fire, which is always on the minds of the Chadians; 16 years of civil war leaves a very deep, ugly, memory. As soon as the corners were built we built a wall section on each side of each corner post. Then we laid out the interim ‘T’ post on the short side wall and the corner posts for the 3 meter (10’) wide entrance gate opening. After that, we just began filling in the remaining sections of the walls. At this writing we are 2 weeks into the project and over 50% complete. We have a 3‐man formwork crew, 6 women ramming with pestle sticks, and 6 men mixing the soils by hand with shovels.

The rainy season is just beginning and it has been very insightful for the demonstration. We finished the first wall section on the day of the first rain. The rain came just after nightfall and there were a bunch of folks on the jobsite before first daylight. There were many comments about not sleeping well, listening to the heavy rainfall (about 3” per hour for 2 hours) and worrying that “their new wall” would be washed away. Again, in the spirit of doing it all wrong, I made sure that we stripped the formwork before we left and did not cover the wall. There were a lot of smiles the next morning seeing the wall section and all the corners standing straight and tall. At sunrise, about an hour later, there were lots more smiles and back‐patting and hand‐shaking when the first light of the day showed that there was only the slightest erosion on the windward side of the new wall, less than 12 hours old, and nothing on the corner posts, 2 to 6 days old. It rains every 2nd or 3rd day, with each rain lasting from 1 to 3 hours and 2 to 4 inches per hour, in intensity. When the rainy season is fully upon us it will rain every day, and can rain up to 12 hours, or more, and at the same intensity. Just as with the first demonstration with
laterite soils there were many saying that the wall would come down with the first rain. We have gained enough respect that we have already received 3 requests for quotations to build them a wall, and 2 requests for houses build of Rammed Earth.

When we build for clients we will be much more conservative. We will likely add 3 or 4 vertical rebars in the posts and a horizontal rebar at about 300mm (12”) on center, connecting the vertical bars. We will also bury the posts about 750mm (30”) in the ground and will likely put a 50mm (2”) mud slab under the gravel footing to ensure that the gravel does not get ‘pushed’ into the surrounding soils with the heavy rains. (Geotextile cloth could serve the same purpose as the mud slab, but they are not readily available here.) We will likely not make any changes to the wall sections, except for the mud slab under the gravel.

Once the wall is finished we are planning to build a couple of “model homes”. The first will be two single‐story, one‐room structures, similar to the most modest of the village homes. One will be square and one octagonal. The traditional house in the Chadian village is round for the poorest and a square house shows you have a bit more wealth. Each room added is a sign of increasing wealth. The traditional ‘middle class’ house is 3 rooms – the ‘Salon’ (living room), and two ‘Chambres’ (bedrooms). And this will be the third model. The bath area is usually an outhouse outside. Having indoor plumbing is solidly upper middle‐class and is never seen in the villages, only in the towns and cities. We will add this in the fourth model, which will be 2‐story and octangular. We might add a small indoor bath in the third model, plus a traditional outdoor outhouse.

Round construction is the tradition for reasons not clearly understood by any villager I have yet spoken to. Every time I ask why the poorest build small round houses, all they say is because they are poor. What seems to have gotten lost in the generations is that round buildings are more efficient, in several ways. It terms of labor and material expense, a square building will require 11% more bricks to make the exterior walls than a round building of the same floor area and same wall height. The villagers have lost this knowledge. Since the round buildings they build are typically much smaller than the square ones, in their mind, round is just for smaller houses. When they get some more affluence,they immediately seek out to mimic the European, “white man”, rectilinear style.

Round buildings are also more efficient structurally. They better resist wind loadings and are simpler to roof than a rectilinear structure. They also do not expose and entire flat face to the sun to be heated up all day long, and end up being more comfortable to live in. Here in a hot, sunny climate, having less wall surface exposed to the sun to collect heat makes the building more livable.

I did find one excellent example of modern construction in the capital where the architect, a Swiss‐trained architect, came to Chad and studied the local architecture and then designed an orphanage, respecting the traditional lines, but used pre‐cast concrete panels in an octangular structure and then put a brick dome on top and protected the dome from the sun with a grass roof. The buildings are surprisingly cool inside, without any air conditioning, and the design is very pleasing to the eye.

Since octangular structures are very similar to round structures, in terms of efficiency, we will be building an octangular model. Formwork for a round building is very difficult to construct, so making a circular rammed earth structure is not very efficient. But, making an octangular structure is not too much more complex than a square one. The angles require a bit more effort and skill, but the wall segments are all formed with straight panels. A square building uses 9% more bricks to make the exterior walls than an octangular building of the same floor area. So, the difference between round and octangular buildings is only 2%, while square buildings have about 10% more exterior wall surface than either round or octangular buildings.

Building with rammed earth is very kindred to building with formed concrete. In formed concrete I am constantly aware of my first job out of college where I was working for a major US builder who self‐performed their own formed concrete work. It was my first job to work on the concrete estimating team where I quickly learned that the formwork was the most expensive part of concrete construction.

With rammed earth this is also very true. The most expensive part of the work is the formwork. So, making excellent forms that can be reused many, many times is worth the investment. Also, using a system that is flexible, so that it can accommodate a variety of floor plans, is of great value. And, last, making sure that anyone designing with rammed earth understands that the formwork is the most expensive part of the work, will help them focus on designs in a ‘modular’ manner that allows for re‐use of the same formwork and does not require the fabrication of one‐off forms.

In our demonstration, the cost to fabricate the formwork is more that any other cost – the labor to ram and the materials, sand, clay soils, Portland cement. In fact it is almost equal to all of the other costs, together. But, the forms are designed to be reused at least 100 times, so the cost per use, comes way down. To make the walls, we have 4 “sets” of wall forms. The walls are being built ‘3‐forms high’ and this allows us to set up the 4th set while the top of the last wall section is being filled. As soon as the top of the wall is filled, the crew can immediately move to the first set of forms, already in place, on the next section of wall. While the mixing and ramming crews are filling this first set of forms, the formwork crew can strip the forms off the last section, making them available for the new section and one set to move on to the next section. This allows the work to move forward continuously, and to not have to stop at the top of each wall section while the forms are stripped, oiled and
re‐set.

We are very pleased with the mix of Clay Soils and Sand vs. the Laterite Soils. The clay/sand mix is a finer mix and so the surface of the finished wall is smoother and is fine enough to reveal the texture of the wood formwork in the finished wall. Many of the people who have been to see the demonstration have commented on the natural beauty of the mass of the rammed earth wall with the texture of the wood formwork left in the face of the wall. They have said that the surface is an ‘artistic’ surface and would not want it covered up with plaster. Since the surface is durable enough to resist the weather, there is no structural reason to plaster over the wall, unlike the traditional brick walls, which must be plastered over in order to survive. We will have to come up with some method for sealing the surface, especially inside the houses, since rammed earth, like concrete, is always ‘dusting’ at the surface, if it is not sealed. The challenge will be to find something that is already here in the marketplace and does not violate the economics or environmental appropriateness of the rammed earth.

In conclusion, the second demonstration wall is better than the first and the methods, tools, techniques and materials are all readily duplicable throughout Chad.

As soon as the wall is completed, we will move on to construct two small “village” homes and, after that, two “town” or “city” homes. With the excellent reception, the excellent results, and the proven economics of the product, Rammed Earth has a real chance to make a significant and positive impact in Chad. On a closing economic note, the Chadian government is trying to carry out a program of ‘social housing’ and trying to hit a construction budget of $15/SF. So far, the best that the market has delivered is about $25/SF. We have taken the results of the second demonstration wall and done some preliminary estimating and it appears that we will be able to meet the desired $15/SF target. The next edition will hopefully provide positive evidence of such affordability.

Aaron Hauser's Book Scans and Rammed Earth Baking Studio Project

2009-05-11T19:11:00.000-07:00

Aaron Hauser in Tennessee is starting work on his first rammed earth building, a Baking Studio. In order to educate himself on the process he read the following classic out-of-print rammed earth books which he has made available to download from his web page. The numbers in brackets indicate the page count.

Farmers' Bulletin No. 1500: Rammed Earth Walls for Buildings(26)

Booklet issued by the US Department of Agriculture in the 1920s regarding rammed earth construction. It is undetermined how many homes and other structures were constructed pursuant to this Bulletin and how many are utilized today.

S.W. Johnson's Rural Economy: A Treatise on Pise Building(88) pub. 1806

Influenced by the works of Francois Cointeraux, this is the first book published in the United States regarding rammed earth construction, and it is an instructional guide for individuals interested in rammed earth, or pise de terre, construction. Note the dedication to President Thomas Jefferson, a supporter of rammed earth construction who visited Mr. Cointeraux in France prior to becoming President.

Karl Ellington's Modern Pise-Buildings (109)

Not sure why the cover photo isn't showing up, but you can click the link to see the photos.

Three cheers and best of luck to Aaron!

UK Rammed Earth Building Course

2009-02-04T09:01:00.000-08:00

Rammed Earth Building Course - Norfolk Broads - 2 Days

2 day practical & theory course - Only £99

Yes, you read that right only £99!

This Spring, builder (and inventor of Sid the Soil Sifter) Michael Thompson is giving affordable introductory rammed earth building courses in lovely Norfolk.

Rammed Earth Chicken Coop In Austin, Texas

2009-01-27T12:34:00.000-08:00

I came across this rammed earth chicken coop while flickr-ing around last fall and asked the rocking Mr. Cliff White to share his construction experiences with fellow rammed earth enthusiasts.

Where is this project?
This chicken coop is located at my son's school. Part of their curriculum is gardening; I offered to build one to allow them to keep 24 chickens.
http://www.austindiscoveryschool.org/

Why was rammed earth used?
I've built a shed and a retaining wall; this gave me an opportunity to refine my skills in rammed earth. That said, rammed earth is durable, cheap and beautiful. It's very forgiving and practically anyone can build with it. In keeping with the vision of the school, it was a natural choice.

How thick are the walls and what size is the structure?

It's 9 ft x 15 ft. The walls are the same width as concrete block: just over 7.5 inches. This is extremely thin I know but since I was not so much concerned with the thermal flywheel effect as being inexpensive and quick (less material and less time ramming more material). I used concrete block in an effort to quickly build a stem wall and that was the width of the block. My utility shed in my backyard has stood for about 3 years with no problems using the same width.There is no reinforcement in the walls.

How did you attach your doors and windows?
The windows were built in place - I don't recommend it. Sure for a chicken coop it's fine but they were not square. I used scrap wood to make a volume displacement box (as described in Easton's book) but instead of removing them, I simply left them in place (I put screws through the boards before ramming to make sure they were secure). Using these 'gringo blocks' - in Adobe parlance - I attached 1/4 inch hardware cloth and nicer trim wood to make "windows". This serves a dual purpose: allow the kids to view the chickens when they are not in the yard and, more importantly, air out the coop!
The door was built from scrap 2x4 lumber culled from disassembling the forms and walers.
I attached hardware cloth to the frame and voila! The door! The door jamb was made from (somewhat warped by then) wider walers attached to the rammed earth wall using concrete screws. I had to use many of these to provide enough friction to secure it.

What was your forming system?
One corner form made from plywood, 2 x 6 and 2 x 4.
One straight form from the same materials.
I used 3/4 inch black iron pipes and pipe clamps.
The corner form, straight form, pipes and clamps were like the ones described in David Easton's "The Rammed Earth House"

How did you finish the top of the walls and attach your roof?

I poured a bond beam -not very well I must admit. Like I said above, rammed earth is forgiving. More so than I am! I used metal angle brackets and concrete anchors to secure the wooden roof to the bond beam.

What type of equipment did you use?
I used a 4in x4in x about 3' piece of lumber attached to a 3 ft long 1 inch diameter steel pipe. For corners, I tamped with 2x4s or whatever was available and many work gloves. I used a concrete mixer to mix the cement, dirt, and water. Five gallon buckets were used to lift dirt into the forms.
Since I was trying to do it on the cheap, I did not rent a backfill tamper and air compressor. The tools would have cost greater than $100 a day. I believe it cost much more in time; if I did it over, I'd spend the money on lumber to create a single form encompassing the project and rent the power tools!

How did you come up with your mix?
A few years ago when I was making adobe, I tried out different mixtures here at my house. I found the nearest quarry has at least two mixes that work. I performed 'field tests' suitable for adobe blocks and the data gathered from my 3 years standing structures in my yard.
So now, I can simply have the dirt delivered if I doubt the integrity of on site dirt.
I admit that this was the most daunting task for all my rammed earth endeavors. I had no experience with knowing how good was 'good enough'. I was very cautious at that stage; once one works enough with soil mixtures one gains confidence. For instance, I can tell if a mix has too much silt by the sound it makes when I rap my knuckles on a test block! That took a lot of knuckle rapping and drop tests though!

How long did it take to build the walls?
I found I could mix, and tamp about 6 hours a day (on the weekend). I believe - and it's at least reasonably close - it took 20 minutes to collect and mix, and 20 minutes to tamp 3 five gallon buckets. On occasions when my wife mixed for me, it cut time in half and allowed me to labor longer.
I work full-time and was playing in two bands, so my time was limited to weekends and a vacation. Some injuries and inclement weather pushed this project to two years! My wife estimates 160 hours with 60% of that time was me working solo.

Knowing what I know now I'd:
1) Build a single monolithic form - or cost prohibiting - as large as possible. Forget modular as much as possible. My time and enthusiasm are more valuable!
2) Use tamper and compressor and at least one concrete mixer
3) Take two weeks off from work to prepare foundation and build the form and have dirt delivered.
4) Use a whole day on the weekend (not the whole weekend!)

I believe after the the form was up and secure, actual mixing and tamping using just my wife and me could be done in four days - four saturdays. But I haven't used the tamper so it's a guess.

Rammed Earth Eco-Shed in Norfolk

2008-10-27T10:07:00.000-07:00

I came across this video on youtube and had to know more about this project.

When and where did you first hear of rammed earth?
I first heard about it in January this year, it was used as an internal feature wall on a "Build an Eco House in 7 days" TV programme here in the UK. The house itself was primarily timber frame and straw bale, but this feature wall was amazing... I had to have a go!
What was the first rammed earth building you ever visited?
The first rammed earth building I visited was my own! I live in the UK, the chances of you being able to visit a rammed earth building are slim... The Eden Project has a rammed earth visitor centre but that's 6 hours drive for me.
What motivated you to build with rammed earth and not another building method?
At first it was the appearance of the finished walls, then when I realised it was dirt cheap it became the cost, now having single handedly rammed the walls I would say it's the connection with the earth as a building material.. it can be quite a humbling experience at times.
Is there rebar ( steel re-inforcement) in the walls?
I looked at how the Indian communities contructed single storey buildings and decided not to bother with any rebars. I have however added an additional "bond beam" between the roof joist to tie the roof joists together from each side of the 5 degree flat roof.
How did you come up with your soil mixture?
I used a "Soil Triangle Diagram" that I found on the internet, analized my own soil from the footing excavation by using a coffee jar full of water, then you add your soil sample, shake for one minute and the leave on a flat surface for 24 hours, you can then see how the soil has settled. I needed more clay silts so I imported 13 tons of sub soil from 6 miles away near the coast. I then used my invention "Sid the Soil Sieve" to grade the earth down to 12mm 0r 1/2 inch Once blended with 5%-8% cement they appeared to make the perfect soil for ramming.
Any idea of your material costs?
This is a 66m2 building with a maximum height of 2.8m, the budget for the raised footings, additional earth, roof structure and the soon to be planted out Green Roof is a mere £2,700.00 and I'm on track to achieve this budget. Notice that I am building a shed, not a dwelling, and so this was a project on a very tight budget... Pound Zero as I call it. I am a Joiner by trade and work within the building industry, so I see a lot of waste and over-engineering, this shed is just a single story building, and so the need to spend a lot of time and money was not required in my opinion... time will tell if it stands the test of time!
How long did it take to ram the walls?
It takes me about 3 hours to ram each section, each coffin former hold 200mm X 2000mm X 500mm of rammed earth so based on that you could say that it would take 15 hours to ram 1 cubic meter by hand.My Eco-shed has 60m2 of walls so it should take me about 180 hours to ram. But you can double that twice over when you add in the sieving and mixing of the earth, setting up the formers and fighting the elements etc.
Is there any insulation?
I didn't bother with the expense and extra work of insulation, the walls are too thin for starters (only 200mm or 8" thick) and this building is mainly going to be used as a garden kitchen and storage area. Also where I am the weather is pretty good, we have the lowest rainfall in the UK and the winters are mild by comparison the the rest of the country.
What would you do differently next time?
After spending three months researching and many hours designing this building to the last detail... even making scale models, I think that I have got this pretty much nailed down, maybe in a year or so I will see some areas of improvement, but so far I am more than happy with the results. I myself have found the whole experience has made me think a lot about rammed earth construction, so much so that I have decided to write an eBook information manual on building Rammed Earth Sheds this winter... watch this space for more info.

Rammed Earth in Modoc County, 1942

2008-10-21T11:48:00.000-07:00

This post comes from Flickr member Ken Pollard.

In the early 1940s, my father's parents, Ken and Phyllis Pollard, bought 80 acres about 7 miles south of Alturas, California, next to the Telephone Company's transmission station. Ken worked for the phone company. Alturas is a small town in high-desert country of Northeastern California, and is the first town I remember living in; I was born in 1957. The town’s population was about 3,000 and isn't much bigger now. Alturas is the county seat and the largest town in Modoc County. I can remember when the road out to their house was paved, so that must have happened the early 1960s. The next closest building, a house, was about 2 miles away. On a still evening, you could hear the ‘neighbors’ talking outside their home, 2 miles away. Not distinct, but you could hear voices. It was pretty quiet out there.They built their home of rammed earth in 1942. The first photo shows construction of the house looking just west of north.

You can see my grandfather standing on top of the north wall of the house, tamping at the dirt in a temporary form; he's the figure on the left. Ken had discussed rammed-earth and adobe construction with a professor at the University of California at Davis, so he knew something about it. During construction, they moistened the soil until it would just form a ball when squeezed by hand. The earth for the construction came from the site. They would shovel a six-inch layer of soil into the form, and pack it down to three inches with a large steel tamper, shovel in another six inch layer, and so on. When the form had been filled, it was removed. They could stand on the walls right away. Once, they found that one wall by the front door was crooked. Even though it had just been built, it wouldn't push over; Ken had to take a double jack to it, knock it down, and rebuild it.This wasn't easy work. Phyllis said she thought the blisters she earned building the walls would never go away.They did all the building themselves. In 1989, Phyllis wrote me: All the wood in our home -- bathroom, kitchen, closets, etc. -- was red pencil cedar (not the fragrant) milled in Adin -- 19 miles S.W. of Alturas -- and it is not the cedar that grows throughout Modoc County. Ken just finished it with hot linseed oil and it was beautiful.The second photo is a view looking just south of west; the two figures are atop the same section of wall.

The back walls were full-height rammed earth, while the east and west sides were 4 feet tall. The upper part of the east and west walls were glass. They seemed a lot taller than 4 feet when I was a little kid in the early 1960s. The south wall, which will show better in another photo, was nearly all glass, with a planter area inside.The angled wall in the front of this second photo is the greenhouse area. It was accessed from inside the house, and was full of all sorts of ferns and other exotic (to me) plants. When I saw them in the early 1960s, the panes were somewhat coated on the inside by algae or green mold from years of high humidity. One day I climbed up on that angled portion of the wall, and was sitting up there when my grandmother drove in. She was not happy with me, worried that I might fall through the glass. I felt perfectly safe, as the wall was wide, but was very unhappy to be caught.This is another view of the house, looking west.

Taken a bit later in the construction than the last photo, I think it more clearly shows the greenhouse wall as well as the half-walls on the east-side of the house. On the back of this photo, in Phyllis' handwriting is "Home on Westside Rd. 7 mi. South of Alturas. Under construction."The second photo shows the reverse, that is from the inside looking towards the east.

You can see the half-wall at the right side of the photo. It was glass and post above that when finished. Ken had narrow shelves there, and his extensive collection of telephone-pole glass insulators on display there. The two doorways are the exit, on the right, and the door to the greenhouse on the left.This photo shows the 'front' of the house; we're looking north.

You can see the greenhouse area at the right. My grandfather is standing in front of what will be the glass windows. You can see the long overhang of the roof. In the summer, the wall of glass panes was in the shade, while in the winter, being at a lower angle, the sunlight could come in and help heat the place. Modoc County is cold in the winter, occasionally beating out Alaska for the nation's cold spot.The south wall had floor to ceiling green-tinted windows that looked out over a large grass lawn rimmed with a hedge, sage brush beyond, and mountains in the distance. Inside, next to these windows, was a floor-level planter box, filled with exotic (to me) tall plants. I don't know what they were, but the some of the leaves were big and jagged. In a letter dated 08 January 1989, Phyllis writes --The indoor garden had Gardenia, Bird of Paradise, Camellia, Azalea, Begonias, Rabbit's Foot Fern, and, in a 1 ft. dia. Cedar Bark planter, from floor to ceiling-Stag Horn Fern and Split Leaf Philodendron.When I was a child, I didn't think anything of being warm in a room with a wall of floor-to-ceiling windows, but after I grew up and was out on my own, I wondered about their heating bills. I knew they had a furnace and a fireplace, and concluded that they just burned a lot of fuel. In June 1989, Phyllis told me these windows were 1/4" heat-absorbing glass plate, which explained the green tint and southern exposure I remembered. So, starting in 1941, my grandparents used solar energy to help keep their house warm. Phyllis also told me that during some of the wind storms those glass-plate windows would bend in and out, sometimes as much as six inches in the center of the plate.There was a large, 50-gallon built-in fish aquarium on the inside wall opposite the picture windows. The face of the aquarium was flush with the living room wall. I remember feeding the fish. You had to go into their bedroom and enter a closet door. In this access, the top of the tank could be opened and the fish food poured in. Later, Ken put the gold fish out in the horse trough were they grew to a large size, and they were able to survive freezing solid in the winter.Ken built a large stone fire place in the living room. It was open on the left hand side so that long pieces of wood could be fed into the fire box as they burned. This eliminated the need to chop wood to very short, firebox-sized lengths. A round metal post supported the left side of the mantle.On the southwest corner, near the fireplace, the wall further extended about 6 feet further south, to protect the picture windows from the wind. When this extension was built, Ken took his .22 rifle and fired a shot at that wall. The bullet didn't penetrate.The view from those large windows is shown in the next photo.

My grandmother's notation on this photo reads: "Southwest from house -- Westside Rd., Alturas" so the photo is taken at somewhat of an angle from the house. I think. I'll stick with my sense of direction, since that's how I think of it, and it makes the house layout easier to understand -- but I might be wrong. The last time I was there, I was 11 or 12. I'm now 51 (2008).

Historic Rammed Earth

2008-10-19T19:58:00.000-07:00

Dr. Paul Jacquin has updated his web-page to include more information about the historic rammed earth sites he's visited, and a little more science, with links to his papers and thesis.

The photos of his trip to Nepal this spring are quite wonderful.

His blog is waaaaaaay better than mine, too!

The World's Longest Contemporary Rammed Earth Wall?

2008-10-17T21:42:00.000-07:00

Is it possible that this hand-tamped laterite-cement wall near Kome, Chad is the longest rammed earth wall of our modern era?

The entire project encloses a road construction staging yard of about 1.5ha. The total length of the wall is about 500 to 600m. Each "lift" is 6m long by 0.5m tall and the wall is 200mm thick. Eight women ramming and eight men mixing produced about six "lifts" per day, aproximately 3.6 cubic meters of rammed earth or 18 square meters of surface.
About a dozen of the first sections are 3m long. All the rest are 6m, post to post.

Project head Mark David Heath writes:

"I wanted to test the limits of the material here so I built this wall without any footing, at all. The ground was cleared of vegetation and leveled and tamped solid. The forms were set directly on the ground and the wall rammed directly on the ground surface. I know that this violated common construction practice, but I wanted a severe test and quickly. Without a footing the wall has to face the full force of the rainy season. After 3 seasons it is performing very, very well. There is also no protective cap on top, for the same reason. After 3 rainy seasons, the top is only slightly eroded and there is little to no erosion nor softening at the base of the wall."

This project took ten weeks to complete.

Rammed Earth Woodstoves

2008-10-17T21:30:00.001-07:00

In Austria, Bertram and Harald Müller of Müller Ofenbau have teamed with Martin Rauch of LEHM TON ERDE to create Lehmo, rammed earth wood-burning stoves.

Rammed Earth In Chad

2008-10-10T09:34:00.000-07:00

Reader Mark David Heath sends this report, with colour commentary by REi4E:

This will offer information on a demonstration project of the use of Rammed Earth in Chad, Africa. It is believed that this is the first use of rammed earth in Chad, certainly in Southern Chad and in the recent past. No person, including persons with over 30 years of extensive construction experience in Chad, seeing the demonstration project described here, had ever seen any similar methods previously.

The use of earth in construction is the norm in Chad. Most buildings are built of earthen bricks, often fired with charcoal to increase strength and moisture resistance. (unfired bricks cost about 15 XFA/pc and fired bricks about 25 XFA/pc. They measure approximately 90mm x140mm x250mm or about 3.5” x 5.5” x 10”) The closest similar method, found to be already in the marketplace in Chad, was the use of a manually operated press to take a mixture of earth and Portland cement and press the mass into bricks under high pressure. This press was manufactured in Belgium and imported into Chad. While it produces an excellent product it required a high capital investment (more than $10,000) and delivers a finished product only slightly better, if at all better, than the well produced native fired-brick product. While it is a more uniformly shaped product than the native product, it is still used in hand-laid masonry walls and is dependent on the mortar and skill level of the mason for the overall quality of the final product.

Rammed earth, while perhaps new to Chad, is not a new technique or material. Rammed earth was used to construct ancient structures in Northern Africa, the Middle East, and Asia, with the Great Wall of China being the most dramatic demonstration of Rammed Earth. The ancient structures did not use Portland cement, given that Portland cement is a modern material having been created in the 1800’s. However, Rammed Earth can be well made with the correct soil blend, absent any Portland cement. For example, a known mix is the use of sandy soils with a binder of approximately 30% clay soils. The use of Portland cement has simply made the use of soil an overall easier technique since adding 5% to 10% Portland Cement of almost any non-vegetable soil will produce good Rammed Earth structures. Without the use of Portland cement a higher level of technical and sophisticated knowledge is required to ensure that the mix of sandy soil with the binder of clayey soils is correct to produce a strong and stable structure. In short, Portland cement just makes ‘getting the mix right’ a lot more simple and easy.

The underlying principle with Rammed Earth is similar to the underlying principle in conventional concrete. We are trying to get a mix of materials, of ever-smaller sizes, so that as we mix the materials together, the smaller particles can fit into the gaps between the larger particles. Many will be familiar with the demonstration of a bottle filled with small stones, all of a fairly similar, uniform, size. The bottle appears to be full and one could not get any more stones of the same size into the bottle. However, this same bottle that is so full that we cannot even fit one more stone into it, will receive a very large quantity of sand. We can add sand to the bottle, and by shaking or vibrating the bottle, we can get the sand to fill the voids between the stones. Again, with the bottle apparently now filled to capacity, with stones and sand, we can again add a large quantity of water to the bottle. The water will filter down through the bottle, filling the spaces between the particles of sand.

We are trying to do a similar thing with concrete. We are mixing gravel (small stones), with smaller gravel, with sand, and then with Portland cement and last, with water. The small stones fit within the larger ones, and the sand within the stones. Portland cement is finer than sand and fits within the sand. The addition of the water does two things: it activates the Portland cement, forming a paste that will soon harden, locking everything together, and the water is a surfactant or lubricant allowing the mass to be well blended and formed into the desired shape. In Rammed Earth we are doing the same with soil and clay, which is finer than common soil, or with soil and Portland cement. The clay, or the Portland cement, fills in the voids and makes a more dense mass. Both the clay and the Portland cement also act as binders; when wet they form a paste to coat everything in the mass and then they dry out to harden and lock everything together.

The ramming process in Rammed Earth accomplishes two tasks, one, it consolidates the material making it as dense and possible, eliminating all the air voids possible, so that the material is as well-locked together, physically, as is possible. Secondly, the ramming drives out as much water as possible so that there are not pockets of water that will later evaporate and leave voids and consequential weak spots in the structure. Such voids also allow for future water, such as rain, to return into the structure and soften the clay and allow the mixture to become soft and loose its’ strength, or its’ ability to resist the loads on it.

The accompanying videos show the ramming process used in Chad. In the US, for example, Rammed Earth is commonly carried out with the use of pneumatically powered tampers. These are very fast and powerful and produce excellent results. They do, however, require a power source – an air compressor. The air compressor requires a power source, electricity or hydrocarbon fuel. And all of it requires significant capital investment (Probably well over $30,000, all told). Then the operation requires both the fuel expense as well and the maintenance and repair costs. In Chad, electricity is not common, and it is expensive, as are hydrocarbon fuels. Large air compressors are expensive and rare, and pneumatically powered tampers are practically unknown. Instead, Chad has abundant and inexpensive labor (around $1/day) and an indigenous skill of grinding grains with mortars and pestles made of ironwood. Little girls can be seen grinding grains alongside their mothers as toddlers. By the time they are mature women they have muscles and skills at grinding that are ideally suited to ramming earthen structures. Further, it allows women to work in construction, which is not a common opportunity.

Rammed Earth construction has two primary needs: a good mixture of earth that will produce a dense and stable structure and a forming system that can resist the forces produced by the ramming. As discussed above, the mixture can be accomplished by the right mix of sandy soils with clay soils or, with sandy soils and Portland cement. The forms are another matter. The force produced by ramming is greater than the forces produced by pouring concrete into forms. Hence, common, conventional concrete forms are inadequate for use in Rammed Earth construction, although they can be reinforced to serve adequately.

For our experiment we found scrap steel ‘U’s. These are sheet steel, bent into the shape of a ‘U’, that were originally shipping containers used to ship and protect oil well equipment. These U’s were ideal for our Rammed Earth experiment. First because they were strong enough to resist the forces of the ramming and, second, they were scrap and the price was perfect- free. Last, we took a waste material and turned it into a new, useful product, with a long useful life, which will produce another product, the Rammed Earth structure, also of high quality and long life.

This first project was a wall, about 1.5m tall by almost 1km long, encompassing my employer's construction lay-down/staging yard. We needed some kind of fence or wall and I proposed Rammed Earth, first because my calculations showed that it would not cost any more than the proposed chain-link fence, second, because I hate chain-link fencing (I find it terribly ugly), and last, because if Rammed Earth could be shown to be economically viable it would offer a better and more appropriate construction system to Chad.

In our demonstration we used a soil material known as ‘laterite’, a reddish-brown material, with about 15% clay naturally occurring in it. We mixed 5% Portland cement with the laterite and enough water to pass the ‘ball test’ (see below). Before deciding on 5% being sufficient for our needs, we made test samples of 5%, 10% and 15% Portland cement. The video clip shows the results.

After just a few days we were able to bounce a sledge-hammer off all the samples and decided to go with the lowest-cost mixture. In the future we will attempt a demonstration of Rammed Earth using sand and clay soils. Sand is readily available in Chad and clay soils are commonly used for making the conventional adobe bricks. We made our mix by shovel because it was our decision that it was better to pay 9 men to mix by hand than to use a diesel-powered mixer, at approximately the same cost; better to pay local men to work than to pay foreign manufacturers and refiners.

Counting shovels full of material achieved the mixing ratios. Since we were seeking a 5% Portland cement to 95% laterite mix, we mixed 19 shovels of laterite with 1 shovel of Portland cement. This method of measuring is common worldwide in mixing masonry mortar, just as it is in Chad. The biggest change was to teach the greatly reduced water quantity needed for Rammed Earth vs. the higher quantity commonly used and known in mixing masonry mortar. The test for the correct amount of water is the previously referred to, “ball test”. Taking a sample of material in the palm of the hand and squeezing the material in the hand by closing the hand with muscle force performs this test. If the material will form a ‘ball’ and hold that form when the hand is opened, there is enough moisture. If it crumbles and falls apart when the hand is opened, more moisture is needed. To ensure there is not too much moisture, the ball is dropped from about waist height. The hand is closed on the ball, the hand inverted and then quickly opened, allowing the ball to free-fall to the ground, without a lot of spinning or rotating action. When the ball hits the ground, it should completely break apart. If it holds together, then there is too much moisture. To add moisture to the mixture, water is added with watering cans with ‘rose heads’, or, in other words, outlets with small holes, so that the water is better spread throughout the mix with less chance of mud pockets in the mix. If too much water is added, the mixture can be dried out by adding dry laterite and Portland cement in the same 5% / 95% ratios. A homogenously moist mixture is achieved by turning the pile of materials at least four times with shovels. This process and the ‘ball test’ are shown in the video clips.

We fabricated large U’s from the steel scrap and added screws fabricated from threaded rod to tighten the forms and hold them in position. This can be seen in the video clips. We then added the moistened laterite and Portland cement mix to the forms in layers of a maximum of 15 cm (6”) thickness. This maximum thickness of layers ensured thorough compacting of the material. The material was then compacted by the local women ramming the earth mixture with their pestle sticks. These sticks are made of ironwood and are quite hard. We found that the pestle sticks would grind off and become rounded after about a week, and that by taking a saw and trimming them off square again, we achieved significantly better compaction results. The women have been all their lives grinding grain with these pestle sticks and have well developed muscles and techniques.

Not the least of the techniques that assist in the ramming is chanting. The women chant in melodic rhythms and tell stories all day long, as they go. The chanting gives them a rhythm to pound to, increased camaraderie and reduces monotony with the tales they tell. Our experience showed us that few were the men that could pound all day long and keep up with the women, and none were able to do it for a week. The women would ram 8 hours per day, 6 days per week, for weeks. Half of the women were nursing mothers, and older siblings would bring the nursing children to the work site 4 or five times a day to nurse while the women were taking a break and/or eating lunch. They would nurse their babies before 7, as they were having breakfast of tea and cakes. Then they would ram until 10 and take a break of tea and cakes and nurse the babies. They would ram until noon when we would provide lunch and when they would again nurse the babies. They rammed until 14:00 when they had another tea break and nursed the babies, then finished ramming at 16:30 and went home to nurse the babies and fix dinner. When we first went to recruit the women, we were met with incredulity. The village chief and the husbands could not believe that we wanted to hire the women to "pound dirt". But, since we were paying them, they laughingly agreed.

The folks from the village came out to watch and spent the day laughing at the idea of "the crazy white man" to pay their women to pound soil into a wall. They were all very certain that it would fall down as soon as the forms came off. At the end of the day, when we stripped the forms, there was total silence. They were literally dumbfounded that the wall stood. After 4 days when we hit it with a sledge-hammer and the hammer just bounced off, there was no more laughing at the "crazy white man" and is "dirt wall". I am attaching a short video of about a dozen men trying to knock the wall over.
After they saw it would stand and was resilient, they then said that it could just be pushed over. So, after a couple of weeks, when it was good and hard, I let a dozen of them have a go at it. Then they said that the torrential rain of the rainy season would wash it away. By then, we had already had a chunk of the wall sitting baptized in a bucket of water for almost 2 months, so I knew that the rains would not be an issue. Now, three rainy seasons later, and no degradation to the walls, we have no more naysayers.

With this demonstration we have now introduced a high quality, faster, lower cost building system to Chad. The Rammed Earth uses less Portland cement than even traditional fired-clay bricks when laid with Portland cement mortar. It is faster than the brick method, and cost us about ½ of the market price for a brick wall. Further, it allowed women to work in construction. We were able to involve women without crossing traditional sexual boundaries by having the women use their ‘women’s tools’ of pestle sticks to do the ramming.

A hidden agenda for using the women is that they are simply better workers than the men. They come to work on time, they do not get drunk on the weekends. They do not give us trouble during the day and get into fights with one another. And, when we pay them, we know the money will all get to the house and not end up with much or most of it going to the local bartender or prostitute. The women use the money to feed and clothe their families and to pay for their children to go to school, since there is no free public education in Chad.

Our next steps will be to demonstrate Rammed Earth with clay soils and sand, since laterite is not widely available in Chad. We are also planning on demonstrating construction of a single-story building and, then, a two-storey building. These next steps will offer a broad enough demonstration to make the Rammed Earth system something broadly adaptable to Chad. We need to figure out an improved forming system from readily available materials, to complete the introduction of the system. We would also like to find a permanent and appropriate roofing system.

A quick note on insulation might be of interest. We rammed the walls about 200mm thick (8”) and that is just enough mass that the heat of the day cannot quite make it thorough. You can go to the walls in the heat of the afternoon and the Southern exposure will be very warm to the touch. But the Northern exposure, which has not seen the sun, will be obviously cool to the touch. We would like our future roofing system to compliment the excellent performance of the walls so that they are durable, appropriate, sustainable, inexpensive and well insulating.

With our first demonstration completed, we are well pleased with the results, and have received excellent reception by those who participated and those who have come to observe.

Rammed Earth in Eastern Australia

2008-06-18T07:35:00.000-07:00

Reader Luke Mahony has sent photos of his curved rammed earth house in Australia.

Details to follow.

In the meantime, enjoy the visuals.

More Earth Construction In Israel

2008-06-13T08:09:00.001-07:00

This one's in Kfar Shmaryahu, outside of Tel Aviv.

The client wanted to use a more sustainable material than concrete and enjoyed the raw material look of rammed earth.

The design is by Elie Mouyal.

The main challenge of this project was designing a house with 45 cm thick walls on a plot of 700 m2 while still being responsive to the client brief.

It took a four-person team three months to ram 160 cubic meters or 355 square meters of wall with one rammer.

Rammed Earth in Madhya Pradesh

2008-04-03T19:58:00.000-07:00

These photos come from our correspondent in Bangalore about a project undertaken by Chitra Vishwanath.

Where's the compressor? Where's the fancy tamper?

So where's the skidsteer? The bobcat? The roto-tiller?

The wood chamfer strips look very detailed. I wonder how it looked on the finished wall?

But, but....where's the rebar?

Those are custom made pipe clamps. Apparently China forgot to make some for India.

Next time, I suggest a wheelbarrow and shovels.

He's thinking, "This sure is labor-intensive..."

Well, this will never catch on, there's no diesel being used here.

I could make a joke about formwork with built-in plumb bobs for the amusement of my devoted Cascadian readership, but I'm trying to restrain myself since I'm playing to a larger audience. Enjoy the restraint while you can, guys.

What is diesel going for these days? It' s not getting any cheaper to run all the fabulous machines that keep everything so affordable in North America.

Best dressed rammed earth builder since Bibo of Montreal.

I would be interested to know how that little wiggle in the plywood affected the finished wall. We put tape along the seam between the waler board and the form-ply to keep soil and stones from lodging there.

Now that's some natural building.

What happened?

I think initially they were using a slip form method but found that unsatisfactory.

I look forward to posting more about this project as it develops. So inspiring.

I'm American, HA HA HA.

so long brave soul

2008-03-19T18:22:00.000-07:00

Nader Khalili, internationally renowned architect, author, and educator, passed away at the age of 72 on Wednesday, March 5th.

He died at Cedars-Sinai Medical Hospital, of congestive heart failure. Khalili was known for his innovation into the Geltaftan Earth-and-Fire System known as Ceramic Houses and the SuperAdobe Construction (sandbag and barbed wire) technique also known as Earthbag. He developed his SuperAdobe technology in 1984, in response to a NASA call for designs for human settlements on the Moon and Mars. He had been involved with Earth Architecture and Third World Development since 1975, and was a U.N. consultant for Earth Architecture.

In 1991 he founded the California Institute of Earth Art and Architecture (Cal-Earth), in Hesperia, CA, which teaches his SuperAdobe building technique. His sustainable solutions to human shelter have been published by NASA, and awarded by the United Nations, the Aga Khan award for Architecture, amongst others. (see http://www.calearth.org/, for more.)

He authored six books, including his international best-selling auto-biography, "Racing Alone," (his newest book "Emergency Shelter," available this summer) as well as two highly-acclaimed volumes translating the poetry of Rumi, "Fountain of Fire" and "Dancing the Flame."
Born in Iran as one of nine children, his quest was to empower the world's poor and refugees to build homes using the earth under their feet. He was a prominent American leader on the value of ethically based architecture, where the needs of the homeless are considered above all else.
Inspired by the mystical poetry of Rumi, (whose poems he studied and translated, from an early age) his architecture was distilled from the timeless principles of this universe and its timeless materials -- the elements of earth, water, air, and fire, and has been described as "Poetry crystallized into structure." Laura Huxley, Aldous Huxley's widow, called Khalili the "practical visionary."

He was a quiet hero and a gentle humanitarian, who wrote: "No one can prove there is a meaning to life. I must make my own life meaningful. That is all."

He is survived by his wife Iliona, son Dastan, daughter Sheefteh, eight brothers and sisters and extended family.

More photos of Calearth here.

tracker tracking

2008-03-19T18:04:00.000-07:00

I love my tracker!

Today I got a hit from someone in Vila, Vanuatu wanting to learn more about "DIY rammed earth walls".

If you are in Vanuatu and you want to learn more about rammed earth, please write, I know someone who knows more about rammed earth construction than anybody in Canada.

He also loves Vanuatu more than any place on earth, probably even more than Saltspring Island.

Rammed Earth on Vanuatu, can you imagine?

ADAMA!

2008-02-28T22:47:00.000-08:00

Dan Mouyal of ADAMA Earth Construction and Architecture has submitted photos of a recent project.

More to come.

Rammed Earth In Idaho

2008-02-22T15:43:00.000-08:00

I'm not sure if there are any rammed earth structures in Idaho, but I do know that there is a rammed earth builder in Idaho.

His name is Paul Lamon and there's a lovely article about him here.

If you need a rammed earth contractor in the uppper left hand corner of the United States (Washington, Oregon or even Montana) look him up. He isn't SIREWall certified, which is a relief, he was trained by Chandler Huston, developer of the Peb 8A.

Paul should consider having The Rammed Earth, also of Boise, Idaho, perform at his next corporate function.

I look forward to posting photos of Mr Lamon's upcoming projects later this year.

Rammed Earth in Little Fairy Town

2008-02-22T11:07:00.000-08:00

If I were going to build with rammed earth in Fayetteville, the first thing I'd want to know is how close I was to that pesky New Madrid Fault Line.

Structural Engineers can be so picky about seismic stability.

I've always wanted to visit Arkansas, since they have ALL the crystals and hot springs.

Rammed Earth In Brazil!

2008-02-21T19:28:00.001-08:00

Our correspondent in São Paulo sent these lovely photos of La Igreja da Nossa Senhora D´Ajuda in Itaquaquecetuba, Brazil.

Built in 1624 by Padre João Alvares with the aid of other Jesuit priests and, of course, the natives.

The church walls are constructed of tapia de pilão or taipa de pilão which is Portuguese for rammed earth.

The church has been added to and painted a few times in the last 300 years.

That's to keep track of the solstices and cross quarter days.

I don't think these sections are made of tapia.

The walls are a metre thick.

Catechism classroom.

Yes, your house IS making you look fat!

2008-02-20T15:30:00.000-08:00

If everyone would just go back to where they came from and FIX IT, everything would be much better.

We used to live in super-sustainable Portland (and the East Village, The Wedge, The Plateau, the Mission, The Drive and other urban success stories) and it became less and less livable the more we read about it in magazines.

So we cashed in our most recently gentrified neighbourhood for an alleged Smart Growth town in Canada's Redneck Wine Country.

You can read about our efforts to build a rammed earth house of our own design on an infill lot in an agricultural town under tremendous development pressure here.

This blog is devoted to our studies of the world's oldest construction method RAMMED EARTH!

Is it for the rich? Is it for the poor? Is it for the few? Is it for the many? It's for EVERYONE!

Reading Round-Up

2008-02-14T01:34:00.000-08:00

This will be old news to some, but we now rely on our library for the latest reading materials and there was a bit of a waiting list for Design Like You Give A Damn:Architectural Responses to Humanitarian Crises edited by Architecture for Humanity.

In addition to inspiring information about figures such as the controversial Fred Cuny and Egyptian visionary Hassan Fathy, the book contains two examples of rammed earth, the Mason's Bend Chapel designed and constructed by the late Samuel Mockbee's Rural Studio, of which you've seen a million photos by now

and the Masai Integrated Shelter Project.

But you should really read it because it is a truly inspiring collection of projects, large and small, designed to make life better for the most of us.

One of the featured projects is the now dismantled Dome Village of Los Angeles which I had opportunity to photograph in 2005.

These domes were homes for 12 years before they were sold on ebay last year.

Quentin Branch on Video

2008-01-22T19:28:00.000-08:00

Quentin Branch of Rammed Earth Solar Homes shares his wisdom in a four-part video found here.

It is a thorough and succinct description of rammed earth building processes, including soil testing, formwork, rammers and design; and offers a preview of what can expect from Mr. Branch's workshops in Oracle, Arizona.

We get a lot of requests for DIY information, this seemed like an excellent resource for people to get an idea of what rammed earth construction entails for an owner-builder or contractor.

Nature is incredibly beautiful in Sublette County.

2007-12-06T09:36:00.000-08:00

Actually, nature is incredibly beautiful everywhere.

The great thing about studying rammed earth is that it offers a framework to learn about so many other things.

Cults for instance, I've learned a lot about cults. Multi-level marketing, too.

This morning someone in Beaverton, Oregon typed these words in their seach engine:

cost, aluminum, rammed, earth, forms

How much do aluminum rammed earth forms cost? How much does anything made of aluminum really cost?

I took a rammed earth builder's course that was all about aluminum rammed earth forms and here's what I learned:

YOU CAN'T AFFORD IT

No-one can, not even those who try to force others to employ their products.

I don't see the amazing patented aluminum forming system in use here despite being informed that the company in question will not support projects that do not follow their standards.

Looks like the "adaptable system" has adapted back into the good old plywood & two-by/waler & strongback system.

I guess those standards are flexible depending on who's doing the building.

Soon a big tent will go up over the construction area to keep heat in. Winter weather will soon be here and the dirt must be kept above freezing temperatures to remain workable.

Eco-building at it's greenest. Is this how they roll in Australia? Bhutan?

Does Rammed Earth Burn?

2007-10-25T10:44:00.000-07:00

Californians seeking to build in fire-prone areas should consider rammed earth walls as part of a building system with a minimum of flammable components.

I live in a very fire prone area, so my home was designed with a minimum of ignitable surfaces; RE walls, metal roof, stucco on the second floor's OSB siding. The rammed earth walls also keep things cool through the 40 degree days we sometimes get in the summer.

I've only heard of one rammed earth building that was destroyed by fire in California.

The house in question should be of interest to Rammed Earth historians as it was featured prominently in Anthony F. Merrill's seminal book "The Rammed Earth House". If I ever get my hands on another copy, I'll examine it thoroughly for construction details to share with you.

Built by artist Millard Sheets in Padua Hills, California after WWII, the house was destroyed by fire exactly four years ago today. All that remained of the rammed earth portion in 2004 were two columns.

A brief investigation indicated that there was a fair amount of wood within the rammed earth walls.

Keep organics out of your earth walls if you want them to last (cob people, don't hit me) !

Looks like Millard didn't think a little stucco or paint was such a bad thing.

Historic Rammed Earth in Spain and India

2007-10-17T08:38:00.001-07:00

Are you interested in RammedEarth? Will you be in London on the 8th of November?

Paul Jaquin is giving a presentation at the Institution of Structural Engineers in London on the 8th November at 6pm. He will present work carried out in Spain and India made possible by a travel award from said institution. Paul will talk about historic rammed earth construction techniques, how and why historic earth buildings fail, and the success of ancient and modern repair techniques.

If his flickr photoset is any indication, it will be a fascinating presentation.

Click on the poster for more details about dinner and drinks afterwards with like-minded scholars and professionals.

Don't call me a Luddite

2007-10-13T22:17:00.000-07:00

Labour costs are so high in North America.

Why not treat yourself to a nice new earth blending machine?

Rammed Earth In Germany

2007-10-13T20:46:00.000-07:00

We get more queries from South Korea, South Africa, Italy, Brazil, Mexico and Thailand than we do from Germany.

That seemed odd because all Germans speak english perfectly and are way ahead of the eco-curve, so why no questions about this groovy and traditional building method?

They have no questions, because they have the answers, and now they want YOUR answers too!

The Dachverband Lehm e.V. extends an open invitation to all interested professional colleagues to submit thematic relevant contributions and papers for the LEHM 2008 conference as well as for a poster session which will be exhibited parallel to the conference. The theme of the conference programme will include the following subject areas:

1.Earth building norms and regulations
2.Education and training in
earth building
3.Current research into building with earth
4.Information
networks in earth building
5.Current problems in earthen building practice
6.New projects and exemplary conversions forum

Candidates wishing to present a paper or poster at the conference should submit a short overview (abstract) of not more than 500 words with title and name of the author. Submissions can be in German or English.

I wonder which of our North American Experts will be presenting papers at this event?

Who Likes Barometers?

2007-10-13T00:08:00.000-07:00

If you really like barometers and rammed earth buildings, you owe it to your self to visit, either virtually or in person, The Denmark Visitor Centre in Western Australia.

photo by Bert Bolle

I'm still trying to find out the name of the construction company.

Rammed Earth In Alabama

2007-10-13T00:03:00.000-07:00

Lots of old timey goodness to be found here. A real time-eater.

Bhutan-a-rama

2007-10-11T08:18:00.001-07:00

There is much to be learned from Bhutan. While we're learning it, enjoy these inspirational photos.

photo by Marc Gibbens

photo by Marc Gibbens

photos by Marc Gibbens

photo by Marc Gibbens

photo by Anita Huang

photo by Junko Taguchi

Domes for Dads

2007-10-05T18:32:00.000-07:00

While I grapple with the enormity of the Mouyal Family Oeuvre, here are some photos not entirely related to rammed earth. Witness a dome being constructed for one of ADAMA Building and Architecture's projects in Tel Aviv.

My father is a big fan of the domes of this region, I thought he might be interested to see how they are constructed.

A lost art?

We need to start a brick dome building academy pronto! Oh wait, there already is one! Better yet, instructor Simone Swan was a student of the great Hassan Fathy.

I love these peachy colours!

It's almost like basketweaving or rug braiding.

This is a breathtaking photo.

It almost seems a shame to fill in the centre after seeing the light in that last photo.

How dry is the mortar he's standing on?

Does he get dizzy going in a circle like that?

We'll return with more on this firm.

One Time At Rammed Earth Camp

2007-10-05T15:53:00.000-07:00

The love affair with Flickr continues.

These links lead to hundreds of photos of contemporary canadian rammed earth forms, formworks, forming systems, construction techniques, strategies and tips for the enjoyment and edification of students, teachers, builders, architects and engineers.

If you are a rammed earth builder, homeowner, scholar or traveller, join the rammed earth flickr group and post your photos there.

With participation, the group can build a global database of people building with and living in earth. There's so much we can learn from one another when we share.

Rammed Earth In ISRAEL

2007-10-04T14:09:00.000-07:00

These fantastic photos come to us from ADAMA Building and Architecture of Tel Aviv, Israel.

Be sure to click on the link to see their projects completed. They are sublime and rightly so, designed as they are by Moroccan architect Elie Mouyal. Readers are encouraged to peruse Mr Mouyal's oeuvre.

We're very interested in the production details here at REi4E; the nuts and bolts, the walers and stongbacks....

Rammed in-situ pre-cast window frames.

So, uh, where's the rebar? Insulation is not necessary in the Mediterranean.

BLOODY KNUCKLES! An occupational hazard. They use the SULLAIR MBT6 rammer weighing in at a hefty 40 LBS delivering 550 BPM with a 10" stroke.

Want to see it in action?

Slip form using 2x6 tongue and groove.

No, seriously, where's the rebar?

4m high? 5?

How is this attached to the supporting walls?

How to get the soil up two floors?

Conveyor Belt!

It certainly looks handy enogh for delivery, though we on upper left side of North America worry that automated placement might lead to a rough, boney surface.
We love our shovels!

Let's see it in action, shall we?

What lovely window and door openings! Where these a challenge to install? Manufactured off-site?

Compression tester!

Rammed Earth In TIBET

2007-10-03T10:40:00.000-07:00

Shangri La to be precise.

I came across this lovely photo set, taken by Christine Louise Rutherford in July 2007,while searching for rammed earth on Flickr, the image sharing website.

Thanks to Paul Jaquin, Flickr now has a rammed earth group. If you have photos of historic or contemporary rammed earth rammed earth structures, post them there! Sharing is Learning!

The white sprays on the wall are from workers cleaning their brushes.

I wonder if this forming system is patented?

Love those dual headed tampers, I bet the flat side is great for tight spots.
If those timbers impress you, be sure to click on the link.

So, uh, where's the skidsteer?

Rammed Earth In INDIA

2007-09-05T11:40:00.000-07:00

This is home was designed by Chitra Vishwanath Architects for Nishwath Hassan and Prakash Iyer, a Bangalore-based couple in their mid-30s. You can see more of this firm's wonderful work at www.inika.com/chitra and read more about this project here.

A. Slipform construction. Formwork is made from prelaminated plywood and mild steel angle sections to reinforce it. The formwork allows for 1 foot by 4 feet blocks.

B. The mud blocks are used as end panels here instead of having any formwork at all.

C. The formwork and how it's supported in place.

D. The walls are 9" thick. They have sufficient self weight to not need any other attachment or reinforcement. There is a nice rich mud mortar between the plinth beam (there's a beam above the stone foundation) on which the bricks rest and then the rammed earth. The bricks or mud blocks can be optionally done away with. The self weight of the wall structure is sufficient to hold it in place. In India we always have built in brick, stone and cement and reinforced cement concrete. Except for the roofs, beams and concrete columns (if there are any) steel is not used to reinforce walls. Our structural engineers say it's not necessary. The load bearing capacity of the RE walls or any walls is dependant on their own strength and by self weight they hold well in place.

E. Tamping walls by hand.

F. Scaffolding made of casurina poles.

G. Form work for RE in place.

H. Granite lintels.

I. That's the stone foundation made from locally available stone andthe rammed earth first course above it. One single course of mud blocks are first laid so that the skirting of the flooring can go overit without cutting off the rammed earth.

J. One can see the Jack arch roof/Arch panel roof between the rammed earth walls. The basement is 3 feet above the ground level to bring in ventilation. The soil that was excavated from the basement was used to build the house. It was mixed by hand with sand and 5% cement then transported without the use of machinery. The only steel reinforcement is in the Jack Arch ceilings. We have vaults made in the same Mud blocks in the house too, which do not need any reinforcement. These structures are all designed and validated by senior structural engineers. We are in seismic zone two.

K. This is the same rammer used on the walls.

L. The formwork for the corners in the centre of the photo. Just prelaminated plywood with Mildsteel angles to reinforce it. The walls here seen are of the stabilised mud blocks. They take the same mix as the rammed earth only are pressed using a manual machine.

M. These are the natural colours of the earth, no special pigments required.
N. This effect is created by ramming into a formwork of logs!

O. The finished house from outside. We design houses to suit their immediate climate. Its very important that we rely on external sources of energy least. Appropriate lighting and ventilation is necessary. Too much light would heat a structure quickly and too much air would be difficult to control during winters. Its important that the design makes way for hot air (vertically up) and brings light into the right parts without using humungous openings. Helps in controlling cost of structure too.
These Ecological homes that we make are cheaper than the conventional designer homes in the same city.

P. To the left of the door a bench upon which to sit and remove one's shoes. Cubbies beside for shoe storage are made of pipes put in place with Mud plaster and some mud blocks which are covered in mud plaster.

.

Q. View of a typical stabilized mud brick and rammed earth house from outside, a different project than the preceeding. The larger blocks are Rammed Earth Blocks. Meaning that the blocks were made aside and then placed like bricks. This was the first experiment with RE of the office. The mud mortar became necessary in this case as the blocks were bonded by the mortar. The stone used for the compound wall is a local stone that's found in nearby quarries in Bangalore.

R. The basement. The ceilings are made from 2 inch thick clay tileswhich are pre-cast with a little cement and reinforcement and placedon trusses or beams to make the ceiling. Above its filled up withplastic and such waste and with a thin layer of concrete to give the floor above _____?

S. The court inside and the steps that lead into the basement. We propose basements in our houses because that added earth that comes from that excavation can be used to make the rammed earth and the mud blocks we've used.Totally following the "cradle to cradle" theory.

Tall wall / wood form

2007-09-04T17:31:00.000-07:00

Here are some construction shots from Nk'mip in April of 2005.

Wood formwork, pipe clamps, walers, strongbacks with through ties.

$60 a sheet for form ply, it's a shame none of this got re-used.

I wonder what our friends in India make of our abundant use of lumber and machinery?

Notice the form ply running wild on the left side.

Some kind of pipe clamp / through-tie situation here. As I recall the rest of the wall was done
with a different solution. Further investigation of the archives is warranted, obviously.

No chamfers on these edges, just crisp, crumbly corners.

Dont forget to reinforce those utility boxes!

The very latest in rammed earth formwork technology

2007-09-04T07:35:00.000-07:00

Here's a link to a project our pals at Solum have underway in Penticton:

http://home-and-garden.webshots.com/album/559554471Zpfhxv

Those are some fancy aluminum forms!

Photos for Friends

2007-09-03T21:25:00.000-07:00

A reader asks for more details of bracing formwork. We are happy to oblige.

It's hard to ram under things that are attached to the formwork.

This device allows us to plumb the formwork by adjusting the angle of the brace.

Once sand and gravel start flying they can work behind the waler board, obstructing firm, even pressure and effecting the finish of the wall. Some masking tape along the boards can help keep the mix out.

That's a strongback with wedges keeping those walers tightly in place.

Hope this helps.

The Future

2007-05-18T15:32:00.000-07:00

Of COURSE there's rammed earth on YouTube.

Here (awesome!)

Here and Here

Here (careful!)

Here

Here

Here

and

Here.

WOO-HOO!!!

RAMMED
EARTH
IS
FOR
EVERYONE!!!

San Diego DIY

2007-04-01T19:36:00.000-07:00

Learn by doing!

Here's a photo essay documenting the building of a rammed earth garden wall as supervised by Birdie.

Keep those pictures coming Birdie!

Sharing is Caring

2007-02-17T18:14:00.000-08:00

It's been a little over a year now that we at Rammed Earth Is For Everyone have been throwing virtual clods of dirt at the world.

In that time, a number of blogs and virtual what-not have emerged relating to our beloved building method. This is good.

Yet, one of the sorrows of the internet is to be found in that multiplicity. The gruel gets a little thin. Things get repeated, things get passed over.

Far be it for us to suggest that Rammed Earth Is For Everyone (which has no commercial affiliation, only commercial dis-affiliations) be a central hub where people submit photos and/or links to their Rammed Earth projects--that kind of centralization went out with The Gold Standard and telling the truth.

Nevertheless, there is the occasional believer--and if believer is too strong a word, then there is the occasional participant, who shares information for the betterment of the technology as a whole.

That doesn't happen every day. When it does, we celebrate!

Here are three photos sent to us by the good folks at Rammed Earth Canada.

There wasn't much in the way of an explanation about these walls in the e-mail. As you can see they are quite fetching, with those thin lift lines, deep red colour and curves.

It's good to know that someone on Saltspring Island is still building with rammed earth, as opposed to devising ever more cunning rammed earth forming systems.

Got some rammed earth going on you'd like to share? Drop us a line: rammed.earth@gmail.com

Ramming In The Ensuite

2007-01-15T21:19:00.000-08:00

Yes. Ramming in the ensuite. It says so right here--it's part of a photo essay on the buidling of a rammed earth home in Nashua, NSW Australia.

Love that Flickr!

Virtual Rammed Earth

2007-01-15T21:09:00.000-08:00

Outstanding!

Now you can learn about rammed earth from the comfort of your swivel chair!

And it only takes 3 hours!

Rammed Earth In Quebec!

2006-11-22T18:21:00.000-08:00

Terra Sol's Mike Wilson sends us this field report:

I went to Hudson, Quebec as a Rammed Earth consultant for the first insulated rammed earth house in Quebec. I was present for the first half of the rammed earth portion of the project, to get the crew up and running.

M.A. Construction, a company intent on building environmentally-friendly, energy-efficient houses in the Montreal area, will finish the remaining rammed earth walls and the rest of the house.

The home-owners gave the architect a mandate to 'build the greenest house you can imagine'. The owners are exceptional people and obviously committed to doing something progressive with their project.

The house has been designed to capitalize on the solar exposure of the site. The building envelope is a combination of insulated rammed earth, wood framing and insulated bermed concrete. The rammed earth interior walls are the main load bearing structure for the roof, which incorporates a clerestory window running the entire length of the house. This brings light into the house and passive solar heat to the walls.

The exterior walls have detailing at the foundation to deal with the extremes of heat, cold and humidity that is characteristic of the local climate, and to ensure that moisture will not get trapped inside the wall and freeze. There was a percentage of pozzolan used in the foundation concrete which allowed the cement content of the foundation to be cut by about 25%. It also meant that the foundation formwork had to be left on for several days instead of being stripped the day after pouring. The exterior walls are also load-bearing.

The puddled earth cap for the exterior walls are separate for each wythe so that the insulation can be continuous into the roof instead of having any uninsulated bridges into the house. The Montreal area is classified as seismic zone four, so the rebar is on a sixteen inch grid with rebar crosses to tie the two wythes of the exterior walls together.

The building soil was trucked in from a few kilometers away. Compression tests came in at 13-14 Mpa with 5% cement. We were also using Xypex c1000 to increase the moisture resistance of the walls. The c 1000 is neutral for cure time because we didn’t need to worry about extending cure time due to the cool temperatures and high humidity. In fact we were adding hardly any water to the soil which sometimes made it difficult to mix in the colour really well. The walls are very dark, a deep brown colour that the homeowners requested.

The end panels for the rammed earth forming system were built using 2x4 and the same paper faced MDO form-ply used for the rest of the formwork. There were no chamfers in the end panels because the homeowners wanted clean, solid 90 degree corners at the ends of the walls. The corners came out out of the forms looking great. "Corner protectors" were constructed to protect the corners for the duration of the building process .
2x10 walers and 2x12 microlams were employed as strongbacks. Forms were built for three walls, partly so that we could leave the formwork on the wall for a few days to get some extra cure time and insulation before stripping.

The formwork went up pretty well apart from the fact that the foundation people hadn’t done a great job making everything straight and level. So we attached ledgers to the stem walls and snapped lines on them so that we could sit the main panels straight and level. Also the interior walls were pretty high….. 12’6 – 14’ off the footing which meant a bunch of associated extra time, expense and logistics. Just getting the formwork up that much higher is quite a bit of extra work as well as having to have the telehandler or ‘zoom boom’ to get the soil up there because the bobcat didn’t reach. The end panels were so tall, to get the braces and strong backs on them required the use of a very high step ladder. Building the end panels with garden variety 16’ 2x4s meant that they weren’t perfectly straight and so we had to plumb things up as we progressed with ramming.

That said, the walls came out really plumb and square, no more than ¼” out over 12’6” but usually they were perfect. Pretty impressive what you can do with what some people like to condescendingly label ‘agricultural formwork’. One other thing that made the building a little complicated was that the interior walls at one end of the house were very tightly packed, which made building subsequent walls a bit trickier. Other than that, the ramming went well. The sheer size of the walls meant that even with four rammers working, the days were long. Martin of MA construction didn’t want any cold joints, so we pushed the ramming crew, sometimes well past dark. There was only one cold joint at the top of the first wall, and I think due to the cool temperature and humidity, when we stripped the formwork, no one could tell that we had stopped at all at that level.

Generally everything went well, the weather has co-operated so far. The walls arecuring perfectly , completely dry after a few days out of the forms. As long as the real cold doesn’t hit until at least a few days after the last wall is rammed, they should be able to cover the walls and continue getting the rest of the house and roof up.

It was a pleasure to work with those guys, everyone involved worked really hard and with good humour. They were all really interested with the rammed earth, the motivation of the project and green building in general. I can't wait to see the place when it is finished.

Rammed Earth South Korea!

2006-11-05T21:45:00.000-08:00

Awesome.

The "Honduras House"

2006-10-16T19:07:00.000-07:00

Christian Aid is working with Diarmuid Gavin who is an award-winning garden designer and star of the BBC's hit tv show
The Home Front.

Together they designed a "dramatic feature" at the October Grand Designs Live NEC show, on 6-8 October 2006 ("the ultimate exhibition for people in the heart of England passionate about home and garden design" i.e. a big trade show)

Here's a description of the rammed earth part:

The display will show how communities in the developing world are embracing an eco-friendly way of life. Eco-design features include walls that are built using sustainable techniques that not only safeguard the environment but also protect their inhabitants when disaster strikes. The Honduras home features a strengthened rammed-earth wall, insect-repellent decorative paint taken from local plants and tree replanting. In the Asia section, visitors will experience a home raised on stilts to avoid flooding, featuring biogas and emergency assistance packs. While in Africa the homes include ventilation systems, rain-water collection and solar panels.

(thank you reuters).

* * *

Sounds like quite a trade show. As such, one can't help but wonder how much more "in the mainstream" or "in the public consciousness" does rammed earth really need to be? You don't need this site--just go to Google News and type in rammed earth. There is always something. Ding Dong! News flash--RAMMED EARTH IS A HOUSING OPTION THAT IS AVAILABLE. (Now we definitely all know.) So what is the big hassle? Why isn't rammed earth as popular as vinyl? Yes, rammed earth is special, but it can be as mundane and frumpy in its functionality as anything else.

Are the Hondurans who live in these houses with the rammed earth walls paying $350 a square foot? (Answer = no)

Is Honduran strengthened rammed earth weaker than our mighty North American rammed earth?

How is it that rammed earth is an economical way to build in Honduras, but so bloody expensive in North America?

Is the price difference all in the cost of labor? Really? Or are there some design hang-ups that make rammed earth houses needlessly expensive?

Rammed Earth Is Art

2006-10-02T21:43:00.000-07:00

LOIS DELLERT; Toronto
Golden Delicious, from the series Landscapes; 2000
Rammed earth
13” x 12.5” x 7”

View the Artist Statement here.

Plans that employ Rammed Earth

2006-10-02T21:29:00.000-07:00

Here's a nifty site for those who can't quite afford the services of an architect, or want to start visualizing a plan on their own.

It may have been mentioned in an earlier entry, but it bears repeating that Adobe Houses for Today, Flexible Plans for Your Adobe Home by Laura and Alex Sanchez features 12 plans for compact, beautifully-proportioned adobe homes in modern and traditional styles that would readily adapt to rammed earth construction.

Rammed Earth In Canada

2006-10-02T21:24:00.000-07:00

"St. Thomas Church, Shanty Bay, Ontario, constructed 1842. One of the oldest remaining buildings constructed of rammed earth in Ontario."

Where are the rest of the remaining buildings? Who built these structures? Do we have to go all the way to ON-SCARY-O just to find out?

I don´t know what it says but it looks great!

2006-10-02T21:17:00.000-07:00

People are building with rammed earth all over the world. This Korean blog features all kinds of amazing architecture from Asia. The rammed earth house is located on the second page (scroll to the bottom of the first page to find the page bar) It may take a while to load but it's worth it for the pictures, if you can make out a word of the text, please let us know what it says....

Art Star Pottery Studio Construction!

2006-10-02T21:12:00.000-07:00

Check out the funky rammed earth stylings of this project!

Leave it to potters to pull out all the stops with such an elemental building material.

Cool rammed earth motel in Denmark

2006-09-02T16:58:00.000-07:00

Cool rammed earth motel in Denmark, originally uploaded by dragonflypictures.

Here's one from flickr. Rammed earth in Denmark!

In the News

2006-09-02T12:08:00.000-07:00

The word "news" brings with it the expectation of "new" information. When we ask "what's the news" really what we're asking is "what is new."

In that instance, it's always disappointing when the news isn't new.

Take this article for instance: Green homes go mainstream as costs climb. Wow, big surprize. You mean this oil stuff won't last for ever, and less there is the more it will cost? Crazy!

The article talks at length about Negawatt--though in the article there is no connection made between rammed earth and Negawatt. Rammed earth comes in at the end of the article--amost as an afterthought:

"An organisation in the US called Earthship oversees the building of houses made of car tyres, filled with compacted earth to form a rammed earth brick encased in steel belted rubber"

And another thing--Negawatt (tm) should not be confused with negawatt, which appears to be a name for a much broader concept.

* * *

Riffing on this ho-hum theme of the end of oil, the Wet Mountain Tribune ran this article. As it turns out:

"As foreign oil supplies become increasingly unreliable and as our domestic Trans-Alaska Pipeline goes off-line, we feel a bit anxious."

Anxious? Relax!

A group called "Sustainable Ways led by Tyler and Kimberly Stein" is using rammed earth to allay the anxiety:

"First, on the tour was an off-grid, rammed-earth home built by Dave and Ann O’Conner, in Centennial Ranch. With rammed earth construction, dirt plus five per cent concrete plus a very little water is rammed between forms.
According to Dave O’Conner, you can tamp the dirt into the form in the morning and take the forms off in the afternoon. The forms are wide - wide enough for a person to stand inside the form when using the compactor. Sun, wind and battery power keep the O’Conner house humming."

(doesn't that sound complicated?)

* * *

Not to be out done by anyone in Colorado, the good folks of Marfa, Texas with a little help from Liz Lambert are getting El Cosmico ready for consumption. But what is El Cosmico you ask?

"El Cosmico will be a Trans-Pecos kibbutz for the 21st century - part yurt and hammock hotel, part residential living, part art-house, greenhouse, amphitheatre and farmer's market - a community space that fosters artistic and intellectual exchange."

The article goes on to mention

"yurts, hammocks and rammed earth buildings to the property to create El Cosmico's unconventional hotel."

* * *

Speaking of oil, what would you rather have--a world without petroleum or a world without olive oil? Mercifully, the more important of the two (olive oil) is sustainable. This article tells the story of the good people at Long Meadow Ranch who keep the important oil flowing. (As an aside, they also apparently have some rammed earth on their property.)

* * *

Once you've topped up the tank on olive oil, why not slide on down to The Dancing Rocks Permaculture Community. There you can learn a thing or two about not being a earth killing death loving energy pig. If you behave, perhaps you get to see or even stay in one of their 5 rammed earth houses: "Some have connections to Marana's utilities grid, some don't. All use permaculture techniques."

* * *

The big news, however, is to be found in Old Blighty. And by big we mean "rammed earth walls 7.2m high – the highest in the UK." Clearly to build walls that high you need to call in the experts--the Australians.

In this article entitled "CAT Earth Building Gets Aussie Expertise" you can read all about the goings on at the Centre for Alternative Technology.

* * *

Rammed Earth Builders Course

2006-08-14T21:58:00.000-07:00

It would appear that the outstanding Rowland Keable of the building company In Situ is teaching a rammed earth building course in the UK this August 18th to the 20th.

It would also appear that the price is sliding scale from 120 Pounds for student/unwaged to 180 Pounds for waged. ($255.97 to $383.99 CDN @ 1 Pound = $2.13 CDN.)

Short notice, I know, and I apologize.

Hey, but if you aren't able to jet off to the UK at the drop of the hat, GOOD NEWS!

It would appear that Rowland Keable's is teaching a rammed earth building course this September 15th to the 17th.

It would also appear the price is sliding scale from 160 pounds for non-waged ($341.10 CDN) to 250 pounds for waged ($533.04 CDN) and 300 Pounds for high waged ($639.64 CDN.)

Maybe there's still room! Make the dream happen!

For those who don't know Rowland Keabl e, perhaps this is a good introduction. In PDF for instant download no less!