Guest post: Hybrid alternative and natural building blocks at the Delft ECD (Early Childhood Development Centre)

In Delft, an impoverished township on the outskirts of the Cape Flats, local government is changing its approach to building early childhood development centres with a pioneering project showcasing a hybrid of natural building methods and up-cycled waste materials. By...

Q&A with Paul Marais, award-winning architect specializing in rammed earth

We catch up with Paul Marais about his award-winning off grid, rammed earth house in Maun, Botswana. First off, congratulations on winning the Afrisam-SAIA Award for Sustainable Architecture + Innovation for Sustainable Product/Technology for your design of the rammed...

TERRA Award ~ first international prize for contemporary earthen architecture

The TERRA award is a collaborative effort on an international scale to enable both professionals and the general public to fully appreciate earth’s increasing popularity as a building material of high aesthetic and technical quality.  Earth is becoming...

Understanding earth III: Plaster and mortars mixes

(Please note that in order to understand what is written here you will need to have read my previous posts on understanding earth and testing earth) Plasters and mortars are by far the process that I get asked about the most, and for good reason as plasters are what...

Understanding Earth II: Testing earth

By Peter McIntosh (Please note that in order to understand what is written here you will need to have read my previous post on understanding earth)   Earth requires two properties to make it strong enough for building, compressive and tensile strength. In much the...