When we think of sustainability, one of the first things we think of is building with natural materials. When we think of natural materials, one of the most obvious choices is the ground beneath our feet - earth. Earth has been used as a building material for millennia - taking different forms such as Cob, Adobe and Rammed earth.

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Earthwork is a collaboration-network of earth building experts and enthusiasts led by Hanno Burtscher and Tobias Fritz. A two week intensive rammed earth workshop where our team of 17 people built a garden tea house for a family in the small town of Nenzing in the Austrian Alps.

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We got our hands dirty! 22 tons of rammed earth mix were poured and rammed into this little garden hideout, complete with a lavender scented niche and a pizza oven. A 54cm thick rammed earth wall has the same density as concrete - a weight of something like 2 tons per cubic meter- and their stability is equivalent to a load bearing brick wall of the same thickness. Clay fulfils ecological and building-biology criteria like no other building material. It is locally available everywhere, acts as a thermal insulator and thermal storage, does not emit pollutants, and maintains relative interior humidity at a constant 45-55%. Concrete or brick buildings require 10-20 times more energy for production, processing and transport. In terms of sustainability, due to the lower level of primary energy and its unlimited recyclability, clay is even more efficient than wood.

 

www.earthwork.at

www.earthman.at

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Photographs: SG, David Moritz, Hanchao

2018