by hermiedelport | Jun 29, 2014 | Adobe, Clay, Earthen Schools, Heritage, Hermie Delport, Indigenous Architectural Knowledge, Indigenous Building Systems, Insulation, Lesley Freedman, Local materials, Mud brick, Natural building, Natural building methods, Sustainable building, Thermal performance, Wattle and Daub
I had the pleasure of recently visiting a really magical place, Mdumbi in the former Transkei. Mdumbi is about 30km north of Coffee Bay in the typical rolling green landscape. Travelling with fellow architects Carl Morkel and Wim Els at a slowish pace, either walking...
by Peter McIntosh | Jun 3, 2014 | Adobe, Clay, Cob, Compressed Earth Brick (CEB), Earth testing, Earth theory, Mud brick, Natural building, Natural building methods, Peter McIntosh, Rammed Earth, Sand, Sandbag, Strawbale, Sustainable building
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...
by Peter McIntosh | Apr 20, 2014 | Adobe, Clay, Cob, Compressed Earth Brick (CEB), Earth theory, Mud brick, Natural building methods, Peter McIntosh, Rammed Earth, Sand
By Peter McIntosh One of the challenges of working with earth is that no two sites are the same. The recipes one learns on one site may not work on another, because the earths’ found there are composed differently. Most earth building relies on a mix of sand and clay,...
