#Rammed earth

[keepingitneutral]

Hideaway Artist Retreat, Beja, Alentejo, Portugual

Designed by Modernist Architect Bartolomeu Costa Cabral

Bartolomeu Costa Cabral is considered one of the key figures in the turning point of the modern movement in Portuguese architecture (1929–2024).

[arc-hus]

Le Vau Pavilion, Paris - L'Atelier Senzu

[subtilitas]

Roger Boltshauser & Students from TU Munich - Kiln Tower for the Brickworks Museum, Cham 2021. Via, photos (C) Kuster Frey. 

[timelessarchitecture]

DÉCHELETTE ARCHITECTURE - QUATRE CHEMINÉES

[homeisaplaceinthehills]

Martynas Katauskas

[raffaellopalandri]

Dream Home - Part 2

Today I want to continue the description of the ideal home my partner and I envision. I copy here again what I said about it in the first part of this post, here. In that first part, I shared with you our idea for the home itself, while today I am going to speak about its sustainability, a topic that deeply resonates with us. Photo by Emre Can Acer on Pexels.com Part 1 – The House Here is a…

[mehanizem]

Taller Héctor Barroso uses rammed earth to create Mexican tennis venue

[egyptian-architecture]

It's really worth mentioning that as I delve more in research I keep finding my previous notes to be absurd.

I wonder what I will say in the future. It is as if research were a process of minimizing absurdity.

[bennettmarko]

[haizaaki]

Phoenix Desert Look Photo of a sizable, rustic, concrete paver-landscaped side yard in the desert with full sun.

[heroicfictions]

Loft-Style - Contemporary Living Room Example of a mid-sized trendy loft-style light wood floor and brown floor living room design with beige walls, a standard fireplace and a stone fireplace

[keepingitneutral]

Cabo Sports Complex, Los Cabos, South Lower California, Mexico,

Taller Héctor Barroso

[subtilitas]

Studio François Nantermod & Madeleine - La Recette, the transformation of a former pigsty, Chavornay 2022. Photos (C) Séverin Malaud.

[timelessarchitecture]

H ARQUITECTES - CASA 1736

[emily-tozer]

Rubble, and Rammed Earth in Architectural Design

During World War Two, rubble was created from the Blitz Bombings, where hundreds of buildings were flattened. Due to the density of Portsmouth, any bombs that dropped caused devastating amounts of damage.

A lot of the most historic buildings across the city were destroyed in the bombings, and the buildings that took their place never quite matched what was there before (The Portsmouth Blitz, 2022).

However, some of these bomb sites were turned into sites of hope. Sites which became playgrounds, markets, and garden parties. They reminded people of what had happened, but inspired people, leaving them hopeful about the future of the war (Staveley-Wadham, 2022). The bombings unleashed layers of soil that had previously been built over, and were turned into spaces where flowers could bloom and flourish.

People often began to innovate, and create new methods of cooking food from artefacts that you may find at a bomb site. At Stanton County School, in Burton, Derbyshire, the Swadlincote and Stanton Civil Defence cooked meals 'consisting of cottage pie, peas and carrots, followed by a sweet and a cup of tea' (Staveley-Wadham, 2022) using these materials, showing that even the rubble from a bomb site can be put to use for good.

However, the leftover bomb sites were also hazardous, as they became a dumping ground for rubbish and other waste, germ infested, as well as being an inviting place for rats as well. There had been a lot of deaths directly due to these bomb sites, where broken walls had given way. People protested about how they needed homes, not bomb sites, trying to get the government to do something and start the process of rebuilding. So while the bombsites had momentary positives, on the whole, they were scars on the landscape, which is why most of these sites were hastily rebuilt over (Staveley-Wadham, 2022).

Across the UK, a lot of the rubble left in cities was transported to other countries, used as weight for the ships. Some of the UK's rubble was used in expanding the land mass of Manhattan, New York. In Liverpool, a lot of the cities rubble was put on Crosby Beach, and you can still see bricks and rubble there to this day. Some of the rocks and stones along this beach hold deeper clues, as some are parts of old gravestones (Schultz, 2019).

It is likely that in Portsmouth, the rubble was moved off Portsea Island due to the lack of space. It may have been used to solidify the Southsea coastline, to prevent erosion and damage to the defence structures (Why – Southsea Coastal Scheme, n.d.).

Through researching into the rubble that was left over from the World War Two bombings, I started to think about how rammed earth could be used as a building tool.

Portsmouth as a city lacks the open green space where traditionally you may source more sustainable building materials from such as wood. However rammed earth in construction may be a solution to this, and could have been adopted after the war if the knowledge of this method was wider known.

Rammed earth architecture occurs in places where the soil is suitable to be used for this purpose. It is more suitable in warmer, drier places, as opposed to the UK. It is often used in Australia because of this reason. It involves ramming soil, stone, gravel and clay into formwork structures, which, when the earth is dry, are then removed to leave the constructed wall. It has been used for thousands of years due to the lack of skill needed to complete it. It has been used in Morocco a lot, where the red soil is formed into red-tinged structures on top of hills. Testing would need to be done on the rubble and leftover soil from the Blitz to determine whether it would have been suitable for construction in some form (A Guide to Rammed Earth Construction - First in Architecture, 2019).

It is interesting to think about whether I could incorporate rammed earth into my design, but I think with the quality of soil that is required, it is not feasible to do this in the UK.

A Guide to Rammed Earth Construction - First In Architecture. (2019, July 23). First in Architecture. https://www.firstinarchitecture.co.uk/rammed-earth-construction/#:~:text=Rammed%20earth%20construction%20is%20suited

Schultz, I. (2019, November 6). Liverpool’s Crosby Beach Is a Mile of World War II Blitz Rubble. Atlas Obscura. https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/liverpool-beach-war-archaeology#:~:text=Tons%20of%20the%20rubble%20were

Staveley-Wadham, R. (2022, May 19). The British Newspaper Archive Blog Bomb Sites In The 1950s | The British Newspaper Archive Blog. Blog.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk. https://blog.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/2022/05/19/living-with-bomb-sites-in-1950s-britain/

The Portsmouth Blitz. (2022). Welcometoportsmouth.co.uk. https://www.welcometoportsmouth.co.uk/the%20blitz.html

Why – Southsea Coastal Scheme. (n.d.). Southseacoastalscheme.org.uk. Retrieved April 14, 2023, from https://southseacoastalscheme.org.uk/project-overview/why/

[sustainablemountainarchitecture]

French architect Patrick Bouchain says “I don’t do any new buildings, I only transform the existing fabric”. Likewise, in SMA, we opted to transform the 3 small existing buildings. Surely, convincing the principals was a tad bit challenging but eventually, they got on board as this approach is environmentally better. 

We transformed one foundation and two small existing buildings into semi-open reception, open foyer, admin/ fin. office, topped by a lovely cafeteria with a view. 

The principals of KORA retreat wanted to do something related to halotherapy – a salt room. Why not design it more prominently? So, Jeenus, Janek and Anne came up with the idea, got to work and found out more on halotherapy: it became a Salt Cave! Located just beside swimming pool and bar area, it completes the whole process of bodily movements, relaxation, healing and wellness. 

More updates soon!