We don’t see many rammed earth buildings in the US (outside of the desert southwest) for many reasons including the idiosyncrasies of building code, but it’s a shame because the construction system produces absurdly beautiful walls and it uses extremely local materials.  To build rammed earth walls, start digging up the earth on your site (typically the mineral-rich clay-filled part of the earth, not the leafy decaying organic part) mix it with some cement or cement-like ingredients and maybe throw in some hemp fibers to absorb moisture, then tamp the mixture down in lovely wavy layers within the confines of some formwork.  The system doesn’t produce much construction waste (you can reuse formwork, etc) and because so much of the wall comes from the site itself there is less embodied energy used for transporting and manufacturing the material.  Also note that what you build out of earth will probably last for a pretty significant amount of time (see Pyramids, Mexico).

Images courtesy Meco’concept

The rammed earth technique has itself been around for millenia, but Meco’concept’s innovation is to take the formwork for rammed earth walls and reduce it down to the size of a building block.  They’ve developed a snazzy little hydraulic press that can produce 120 bricks per hour (Meco’concept).  Each block gets stamped with lego-like protrusions for ease of stacking (Brownell). If you happen to be in France, you can even rent the machine and go to work using whatever materials you find at hand. While building code in the US tends to purse its lips and peer curiously at rammed earth construction as though it were encountering an unexpected stain on a favorite silk necktie, the Meco’briq blocks can stack up to two stories and could behave similar to CMU (Concrete Masonry Units). Building code tends to assume a half-smile and gaze benevolently at CMU as though it were watching its only son excel at sports, so this new technology could potentially make inroads.

WU XING:

Earth. Hello!

Cited:

Brownell, Blaine. “DIY Earth Bricks.” Architect Magazine – Mind & Matter Blog. 02/24/11. Accessed 03/04/11. URL.