Scans of old rammed earth books

The wonderful Aaron Hauser has scanned three hugely important books about rammed earth.

The three books are classics of early American rammed earth building, and I’m sure contain many hits and tips of use to modern rammed earth builders.
Farmers’ Bulletin No. 1500: Rammed Earth Walls for Buildings

S.W. Johnson’s Rural Economy: A Treatise on Pise Building

Karl Ellington’s Modern Pise-Buildings

Adobe Association of the Southwest

Adobe Assocation of the Southwest

The Association exists:

To champion earth construction of yesterday, today and tomorrow; To be a voice within the earth building community; To share knowledge about earthen construction and To participate with other earth construction organizations.

The Adobe 2009 conference is about to take place, an excellent conference. Very sorry I’m not able to attend.

Archiecture de Terre au Maroc

Moroccan blog about earth building in Morocco

http://tayyibi.over-blog.com/

The strength of unstabilised rammed earth materials

Our paper is about to be published in Geotechnique, a leading geotechncial engineering journal,  and is now available as an ‘ahead of print’ copy.

Abstract

Rammed earth is a manufactured material comprising sand, gravel and clay, which is compacted between forms to build walls. Primarily a historic method of construction, it is now receiving considerable interest worldwide owing to its zero reliance on materials such as cement, and its potential for recycling. Despite its longevity, the source of its shear strength is poorly understood. This paper presents initial laboratory test results that point to the main source of strength in rammed earth being suction, and indicating that recent advances in unsaturated soil mechanics may also be applied to this material.
http://www.atypon-link.com/TELF/doi/abs/10.1680/geot.2007.00129

Rammed Earth course

I’m giving a course to Engineers without Borders on 7th and 8th February at Imperial College, London. 

The course will cover different types of mud brick building, field testing, basic design and hopefully some practicals! 

More information on the course at http://www.ewb-uk.org/constructionindevt

Getty Earthen Architecture Initiative

The Earthen Architecture Initiative (EAI) seeks to further the conservation of earthen architecture through international activities and institutional partnerships. Advancing the discipline of earthen conservation is the organizing principle for all of the EAI’s activities—which include model projects that improve the way conservation interventions are carried out in different parts of the world, pursuing research that addresses unanswered questions in the field of earthen conservation, and disseminating information regarding appropriate conservation interventions on historic buildings, settlements, and archaeological sites composed of earthen materials.

http://www.getty.edu/conservation/field_projects/earthen/index.html

See also the Terra Literature Review : An overview of Earthen Architecture Conservation. This was recently published by the Getty.

Terra Literature Review (pdf)

I’m a little disappointed that it doesn’t include any of our recent work on suction, which helps greatly in explaining the reasons for decay of earthen buildings, and also how best to conserve them.

ICOMOS International Scientific Committee on Earthen Architectural Heritage

The goals and expectations of ICOMOS for ISCEAH are   to maintain broad membership, carry out scientific inquiries, specialized studies, and to share information thereby contributing to the development of better practice and methods for the protection and conservation of the world’s earthen architectural, archaeological and cultural landscape heritage. 

ISCEAH shall encourage the participation of any person who plays an important role in shaping, maintaining and conserving both the material and traditional knowledge (intangible heritage) of the earthen architectural, archaeological and cultural landscape heritage.

EBUK inaugral meeting

EBUK Meeting

Earth Building UK (EBUK) meeting Friday 16th January 2009

The first meeting of the new national organisation to support and promote the use of earthen construction in the UK will be held at the University of Bath on 16th January 2009. All welcome.

Details

Earth Architecture

Currently it is estimated that one half of the world’s population—approximately three billion people on six continents—lives or works in buildings constructed of earth. And while the vast legacy of traditional and vernacular earthen construction has been widely discussed, little attention has been paid to the contemporary tradition of earth architecture. Author Ronald Rael, founder of Eartharchitecture.org provides a history of building with earth in the modern era, focusing particularly on projects constructed in the last few decades that use rammed earth, mud brick, compressed earth, cob, and several other interesting techniques. EARTH ARCHITECTURE presents a selection of more than 40 projects that exemplify new, creative uses of the oldest building material on the planet.

earth architecture

Development and spread of rammed earth

I’ve just presented a poster at the Lehm 2008 conference in Koblenz, Germany.

 

Development and spread of the rammed earth technique

For more information about the development and spread of the rammed earth technique, see historicrammedearth.co.uk