Rammed Earth in Spain Videos

Via google video, videographer Paul Jaquin has ammassed a collection of videos of rammed earth in spain. Read synopsis and watch the videos by clicking below:

Rammed earth at Lorca castle, a tour of the outside of the building, and a view across the valley.

Rammed earth wall at Palma del Rio in southern Spain. Constructed around 1171, and probably 6m high.

Conclusive proof that some rammed earth is absolutely fine in the rain. Here a castle at Alcala de Guadaira is observed in the middle of a rainstrorm with no detrimental effect to the fabric of the wall.

A video tour of Banos de la Encina castle, built in 967 from rammed earth.

Rammed earth wall at Novelda in southern Spain. This is a view inside a hole in the wall, proving that rammed earth can provide some arching or tensile action. Novelda castle was built around 1171 duringthe Almohad dynasty in Spain.

A tour of the inside of Villena castle in southern Spain. Constructed in rammed earth in 1172, it is a very well preserved rammed earth castle.

Rammed earth wall in Cordoba.

Vitruvius on Adobe

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In the only architectural treatise surviving from Classical Antiquity, Vitruvius: Ten Books on Architecture refers in some detail to adobe, describing suitable earth and suggesting that adobes should be made in the spring and left for at least two years to dry. He mentions that building by-laws in Utica (near Carhage) specify that only adobes of five years old be used for building, to be so certified by the aedile (magistrate).

Oldest Mud Brick Structure in the World

The ceremonial enclosure of Khasekhemwy–Hierakonpolis’ only standing monument is built entirely of sun-dried mud brick, with walls 5 meters (16.4 feet) thick and still preserved in places to its original imposing height of 9 meters (29.5 feet). It is the oldest freestanding mud-brick structure in the world. For the third time, it has been listed with the World Monument Fund as one of the world’s 100 most endangered monuments. Decorated on its exterior with a pattern of recessed paneling or niches and originally plastered white, it must have been a striking sight in its time. Almost 5,000 years later, it stands as a testament to the abilities of its builder, King Khasekhemwy, the last ruler of the Second Dynasty (ca. 2686 B.C.), but the reasons for which it was built remain a mystery.