Our project and model arises from a study about the intersection between mud with high clay content used to make adobe bricks and it’s relationship to the earth adjacent materials of wood and rockite.
This project was inspired by a corner in room 5 of the Macha Village Center, which uses all three materials in a very cohesive, layered manner. However, instead of using rammed earth (the earthen material in the Macha Village Center), our adobe was inspired by dried, cracked, sun-baked earth and its unique pattern in desert environments. Our bricks are meant to resemble the rugged natural landscape, as opposed to the clean, uniform look of many adobe brick projects.
We used a cardboard form reinforced with wood panels to create the rockite base. We used a the laser-cutter for the layers of wood. For the adobe, we used 6 thin forms and let the abode crack in natural ways when releasing the material from form. Our adobe was high in clay content, and we mixed in a lemon starry soda hoping to make the bricks lighter in color.
We were interested in our models functionality as a building; however, the unique dimensions of this project make habitability difficult. Our model is best viewed as an art piece, an homage to the ancient technique of adobe brick making and its intersection with common construction materials in contemporary buildings.
The adobe bricks to the right of our model serve as an example of the aforementioned clean, uniform abode bricks and highlight the contrast in our approach to the material.
This project consists of a series of experiments aimed at prototyping a design for a rammed-earth coffee table.
modularity for the purpose of carrying
Intended to adhere to a series of constituents concerning weight, modularity, and color, this rammed earth prototype was designed such that it could be disassembled into smaller, more manageable components. These constraints led the designers to a prototypical model consisting of cylindrical blocks weighed down by a raw stone tabletop, ensuring that each module remains in compression and does not shift. The blocks themselves are rammed into a formwork, creating handles for carrying, easing transportation. Each module weighs ~35lbs and features a mixture of pigments that create a customizable gradient.
Ratios and Gradients
This project also sought to examine the aesthetic sensibilities of rammed earth as a construction material for furniture. Prototyping rammed-earth furniture necessitated extensive studies concerning the mixture of different soils and pigments to create colorful gradients for each module.
Rough, rocky earthen qualities are achieved through a basic mixture of soil from varying regions, alongside ~15% sand, ~20% gravely clay to provide enrichment. These mixtures were then enriched with increasing quantities of pigment (including charcoal and iron) to allow each rammed layer to take on a more saturated color during the production of each earthen module.
Form-work and “Molds”
primary tools
The contents of rammed earth require a formwork to take on the desired shape after settling. The foundation of this formwork, chosen for its size, shape, and flexibility, was a concrete form tube, often known by its brand name of Sonotube. These form tubes come in a variety of different sizes, meaning that the techniques we developed to create these rammed earth pieces can be transferred based on the desired scale.
If we had just used the sonotube, the outcome would simply be a cylinder. The next step was incorporating the physical additions that allow for handling and modularity. Utilizing 3d prints as a negative, mixed in with conventional building techniques such as cut and shaped wood, inserts were created that fit into the sonotube to create indents and features in the otherwise normal cylinder. These included handling grips, for ease of movement of the final product, to central cavities, reducing the overall weight, and even attempts at projections on the top surface to fit right into the handling grips, to help with positioning and balance of the pieces once put together.
We started from the Augsburg Environmental Education Center, where rammed earth is used as an interior wall. In that project, we observed that different materials—such as wood or concrete—are typically placed next to or on top of the rammed earth. In other words, the materials remain separate, and their interaction mostly happens at the surface.
What interested us was what happens if this relationship changes.
So our main question became:
What happens when materials are not adjacent to rammed earth, but embedded within it?
Instead of treating rammed earth as a pure, monolithic material, we began to think of it as a mass that can integrate other systems and become a composite condition.
To test this idea, we first made an initial model of a curved rammed-earth wall with a grid inserted into it. This allowed us to explore the relationship between a heavy, continuous mass and a lighter, secondary system. Rather than assigning a fixed program, we understood this as a spatial condition defined by material interaction.
From there, we moved toward a smaller and more controlled scale and developed the final objects you see below.
This object is not intended as a product or a finished design, but as a material prototype.
It consists of a rammed earth mass with an embedded element, and a central cavity that holds a light source. The inserted ring acts as an interface within the earth mass, and the light passes through this composite condition.
What becomes important here is not the form itself, but how light interacts with the material. The light reveals the thickness, the texture, and the relationship between the earth and the inserted element.
At this scale, we are able to control the variables more precisely and focus on how rammed earth behaves when it is no longer a single material, but part of a system.
So rather than designing a lamp, we are using light as a way to understand how a monolithic material can become composite, and how that affects spatial and material experience.
Section Model of Rammed Earth House Designed by Tuckey Design Studio
Project Introduction
Group Member: Wentao Lyu , Tianwu Zheng , Zuohao Qiu
This research explores the construction logic and tectonic characteristics of rammed earth architecture through precedent analysis, detail studies, and physical model experimentation. The project focuses on the relationship between rammed earth walls, timber structures, openings, and material connections.
A 1:10 sectional model and a series of material tests were developed to study fabrication methods, construction details, and the integration of different building systems within rammed earth construction.
Research Framework
01 — Fabrication Process of Rammed Earth Walls
Study of rammed earth wall construction, including soil mixture, layering, moisture control, and compaction methods.
Fabrication ProcessRammed Earth Molds
02 — Connection Logic Between Earth and Other Systems
Investigation of how rammed earth walls connect with timber structures, roof assemblies, foundations, and waterproofing details.
Foundation Details 1Foundation Details 2Connection with Timber StructuresRoof AssembliesCorridor and Timber Column Details
03 — Integration of Openings within Load-Bearing Walls
Analysis of window openings and structural transitions within thick rammed earth wall systems.
Development of a 1:10 sectional model combining rammed earth walls, timber framing, and window details to study tectonic relationships and construction sequencing.
Construction Details StudySection Model Image 1Section Model Image 2
Material Testing
Material experiments focusing on soil ratios, wetness testing, compaction techniques, and layered rammed earth fabrication at model scale.
Group Member: Zhixuan Zhou (MAAD) & Yushi Gan (MAAD)
We constructed a 1:1 scale model of a rammed earth wall corner for the Nursery School at Roches de Condrieu project. Our objective was to explore the actual construction process involved. The region where this project is situated is characterized by traditional local rural architecture built using rammed earth.
We fabricated the rammed earth molds using a combination of plywood and 3D-printed components. We then proceeded by ramming a layer of earth, followed by pouring Rockite cement; this process was repeated three times to complete the final model.
Although traditional construction methods might not typically incorporate modern techniques such as 3D printing, our fabrication process proved instructive, allowing us to gain valuable insights into the integration of two distinct construction methodologies: rammed earth and poured casting.
Asir, or officially the Aseer Province in Saudi Arabia, was incorporated into the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in 1934. has a population of 2.2 million. The province has a long history with artifacts dating to the bronze age. The region is known for its tribal independence, agriculture, and high-altitude culture, situated on a high plateau.
The Aseer region is characterized by a cooler climate with considerable seasonal rain. It has approximately 400 traditional settlements, many located on the high plateau at altitudes greater than 2000 meters. Buildings generally took the form of square, multistory towers. Four principal construction types developed based on the local microclimate and available materials: mud tower houses, stone rubble houses, stone apron houses, and mud and slate tower buildings.
Rijal Almaa is a town that emerged 900 ye ars ago and, given its strategic location on the route to Mecca from Yemen, it became a place of commercial exchange. The buildings are composed of stone, mud, and wood, and are constructed up to six floors. They are detailed with with white window frames, wooden shutterns, and decorative mofits, details that are characteristic of the region.
Rijal Almaa Heritage Village consists of around 60 traditional stone, mud, and wood buildings.White window frames and checkered details
Typical houses in the mountainous Asir province were made of mud reinforced with camel hair. The lower areas of the buildings were made from stone, with smaller flat stones wedged between bigger ones. The upper areas have a local flat stone between the bricks. Plaster was usually applied to the outside of the building to cover the mud bricks.
Al-Qatt Al-Asiri is a traditional interior wall decoration of the region. It is a spontaneous art technique carried out largely by women. It is typically practiced on rooms of visiting guests. Women invite female relatives of various age groups to help them in their homes, thereby transmitting this knowledge from generation to generation. The base is usually white gypsum and the patterns consist of icons of geometric shapes and symbols.
The Saudi government has developed set of architectural and urban guidelines and requirements that help guide the design and urban development process to align with the authentic local architectural style of each geographic area across the Kingdom. Guidelines, maps, and more information can be found here: https://architsaudi.dasc.gov.sa/ar
Shido Soil Museum was designed by HIRAMATSUGUMI, an architecture practice based on Awaji Island, Japan. They are exploring a form of architecture that naturally emerges from the land on which we now stand—architecture in its essential state. The project was developed in collaboration with Kinki Kabezai, a long-established manufacturer of earthen wall materials, as a space dedicated to the exploration, display, and public rethinking of soil as an architectural medium.
Project Information
Location: Awaji, Hyogo, Japan Completion: 2022 Opening: 2023 Area: approx. 181 m² Program: Museum / exhibition space / material experience center
Shido Soil Museum is not conceived as a conventional museum, but as an immersive environment where soil becomes the main subject of space, material expression, and public engagement.
The project reconsiders soil not as a hidden or secondary construction material, but as a visible and experiential medium. Rooted in the idea of “Jimon”—patterns and traces formed by geological movements, topography, and the surface of the earth—the museum translates the imagery of strata, erosion, rupture, and terrain into architectural space.
Rather than presenting soil as a nostalgic or purely vernacular material, the design frames it as a contemporary spatial language. Walls, floors, and surfaces evoke excavated ground, exposed layers, and cracked earth, turning the building into a spatial interpretation of the land itself.
The project makes extensive use of Awaji soil, drawing on the island’s long history of earthen construction and craft. Soil is employed not only as a building finish but as the central medium through which color, texture, thickness, and tactility are expressed.
What is especially significant is that the project does not rely on a single earthen technique. Instead, it presents a broad spectrum of soil-based applications, including rammed earth elements, layered earthen walls, thick plastered surfaces, carved textures, and earthen flooring. Through these varied treatments, soil is revealed as a material of both technical and sensory richness.
One of the most compelling aspects of the museum is its use of localized wall-making techniques to produce distinct spatial atmospheres. Certain walls recall rammed earth construction, where compacted layers create a sense of geological depth and mass. Others are formed through thick earthen plaster and hand-finishing techniques, allowing cutting, scraping, cracking, and layering to remain visible on the surface.
This wall directly adopts the logic of traditional Japanese rammed earth construction. Soil is placed into formwork and compacted layer by layer, producing a dense, stratified mass. A deliberate vertical cut is then introduced into the wall, intensifying the image of a fractured geological layer. This technique emphasizes mass, compression, and stratification, while turning the wall into a spatial representation of tectonic rupture.
One-Cut Rammed Earth Wall
2. Red-Ochre Wall(赭土の壁)
This wall is made by mixing a small amount of iron oxide into Awaji soil. Its surface is then carved and shaped with a trowel to produce textures resembling a cut mountainside or exposed earth section. Here, the focus is less on structural mass and more on color modulation and sectional expression, allowing the wall to evoke the visual depth of geological terrain.
Red-Ochre Wall
3. Dragon-Scale Wall(龍鱗壁)
The Dragon-Scale Wall is formed through repeated plastering and carving, generating a highly articulated surface texture. Rather than presenting soil as a flat finish, this method highlights its capacity for ornament, rhythm, and tactile richness, transforming the wall into a textured field that captures light and shadow.
Dragon-Scale Wall
4. Magnificent Collapse(土崩壮麗)
This technique uses an unusually thick earthen coating to evoke the dramatic face of an excavated cliff or collapsed earth section. Its significance lies in its exaggerated thickness and sculptural presence, pushing earthen finishing beyond conventional wall treatment and toward an effect of erosion, weight, and exposed terrain.
Magnificent Collapse
5. The Bare Skin of the Earth(大地の素肌)
In this treatment, common additives such as reinforcing fibers or stabilizing materials are intentionally reduced. The wall is allowed to dry and crack naturally through the interaction of soil and water alone. Instead of concealing fragility, this method turns shrinkage, cracking, and imperfection into the very expression of the surface. It presents earth in a more raw and vulnerable state, where instability itself becomes an aesthetic quality.
The Bare Skin of the Earth
6. Earthen Steps of Hierarchy(土階八等)
This installation takes its motif from the four-character phrase “Doka Santō”—a reference to the humble palace life of Emperor Bi of Qin, who is said to have governed an era of peace while living simply. Drawing from this idea, the design expresses a presence that is materially modest yet spatially dignified, like a palace in character.
This technique is less about wall-making itself and more about the symbolic use of earthen mass as architectural form. By shaping soil into stepped geometry, it gives earth a sense of monumentality and ceremonial presence, showing how a humble material can still convey gravity, order, and spatial authority.
Earthen Steps of Hierarchy
7. Awaji Armor Wall(淡路鎧壁)
This work adopts the yoroi-kabe technique—traditionally used in earthen boundary walls for cultural heritage sites and vernacular architecture—but reinterprets it here by reversing its usual vertical orientation. Through this inversion, the wall more strongly emphasizes a sense of weight, density, and the raw ruggedness of the earth.
Awaji Armor Wall
8. Fertile Earthen Floor(豊沃の土間)
The dramatically undulating earthen floor represents the earth itself as a swelling, rising ground plane. In doing so, it overturns the conventional assumption that an interior earthen floor should be finished flat according to architectural norms.
Fertile Earthen Floor
9. The Rust of Clay Tiles(窯土の寂び)
This work incorporates Awaji clay roof tiles, one of the island’s local ground-based industries. The tiles on the wall are intentionally left unfired so that, over time, they darken with age, expressing a weathered quality akin to the patina and quiet austerity associated with a tea room.
This technique is especially compelling for its emphasis on time and material aging. By refusing to complete the tiles through firing, the project allows change, darkening, and imperfection to become part of the design. It presents earth not as a fixed finish, but as a medium that continues to transform, carrying associations of patina, memory, and wabi-sabi-like atmosphere.
The Rust of Clay Tiles
Sensory Experience and Related Activities
The museum also hosts a range of hands-on art workshops that invite visitors to touch and work with soil. In the café, several foods are designed to mimic the visual appearance of earth, and some even incorporate edible soil-like material, including diatomaceous earth.
“Touch” – soil texture art workshop“Eat” – diatomaceous earth
Meeting Point, a shelter designed by Fuinneamh Workshop Architects in Cork, Ireland, is a quaint pavilion-like building. It was designed to house gatherings to discuss the environment and biodiversity in Tramore Valley Park. The architects desired to create a building that captured and framed the surrounding area, while also operating as a mechanism to draw park visitors into the space to observe and contemplate.
Formally speaking, the design is “deliberately rudimentary.” Its fundamental composition is two end walls and four columns, resting atop a hoggin floor(earth, sand, and stone mix), and covered by a traditional Irish hipped roof structure.
Longitudinal section“The plan of the building references the architecture of a miniature temple. “
The materials for this project were also locally sourced. More specifically, the earth used to make the walls, columns, and floor. In addition, its roof is an open timber frame with a reed thatched finish.
Locally sourced rammed earth.
Being environmentally conscious and site-specific is a typical trait of Fuinneamh Workshop Architects’ buildings; As such, the architects took great care in being deliberate about materials; the hoggin floor references the style of streets of Cork up to the beginning of the last century. Earth, timber, and reed were chosen as the primary materials because of their organic properties, allowing them to be returned to the landscape at the end of the project’s lifetime. Finally, the surrounding subsoil properties were analysed and researched, graded, and tested to ascertain the optimum soil mix for application in construction. This was integral to the success of the project. Without these measures, the structural stability of the project would have been compromised in Southern Ireland’s wet, windy, and unforgiving environment.
Project data
Start on site July 2022 Completion May 2024 Gross internal floor area 40m2 Construction cost £24,725 Construction cost per m2 £620 Architect Fuinneamh Workshop Architects Client LennonTaylor KinShip, Cork City Council, and Creative Ireland Structural engineer Civil and Structural Engineering Advisors Project manager Seán Antóin Ó Muirí Principal designer Seán Antóin Ó Muirí Approved building inspector Kieran Ruane Earth Analysis Department of Engineering, Munster Technological University Main contractor Wiseman Construction Services CAD software used LibreCAD Predicted design Life 50 years
Salara Hotel located in Baja California Sur, Mexico is a hotel that was designed by Taller Héctor Barroso, with the vision to connect living with what emerges from the sand. Consisting of various residences ranging from 14,000 to 20,000sqft, it establishes a shared environment of both community and nature.
Completed residential unit
All the buildings are created with rammed earth. Allowing the natural raw materials that are available on site such as earth, chalk, lime or gravel, allowed a cost effective method to creating these vacation homes. The rammed earth also regulates the interior heat within the residences.
Creating the foundation and establishing electrical.
The main focus of the use of material not only focused on sustainability but allowing guests to interact with light shade and surrounding vegetation as well as highlighting aspect of the geological features.
Proposed space highlights the geography of Baja alluding to the material.
Exterior pathways to each unit
Pathways connect the various 10 spaces allowing those to relax in their lifestyle while accessing each others units in community. The sand covered court allows for local tournaments and spaces to bring one another together.
Sandwiched between the inhospitable Chihuahuan Desert and the majestic Davis Mountains, the Marfa Ranch is situated on a low rise with dramatic views of pristine desert grassland in all directions.
The house, which cuts a low profile, comprises eight structures organized around a central courtyard shaded by native mesquites.
“The design leans into an early regional paradigm found commonly on the ranches of far West Texas, where casual, low-slung homes partially enclose an inner court”
“These homes are often stone, brick, or adobe, one room wide and U-shaped — opening to an inward veranda and surrounding the court that opens to the east, shielding against the seasonally persistent north-western winds.”
Borrowing from the area’s earliest structures, the rooms of the house are organized around a courtyard, a cool respite from the sun-drenched desert grasslands beyond the walls. The house embraces the expansive landscape with lightweight breezeways and porches made of recycled oil field pipe.
Built of two-foot-thick rammed earth walls, the home protects its inhabitants from the extremes of the region — heat, cold, and wind — while allowing them to connect with the landscape through lightweight breezeways and porches, a mirador perched above the main bedroom, and an outdoor walkway connecting to a pool and hot tub.
The studio used three million pounds of earth to create the rammed earth walls, which were chosen to reflect a connection to the landscape. This material was used for the structure as well as for the finishes.
“Rammed earth is a simple material that reinforces the connections to the land and the landscape,” said Harris. “It is a labor of love to commit to the use of earth when building, and the craft of the construction is evident throughout.”
“As a counterpoint, most all the surrounding rooms open to both the interior and exterior landscape and are positioned to accept the cooling breeze reaching out to the exterior foreground and distant horizon.”
The bedroom opens onto a covered porch with views of the surrounding landSliding rusted steel doors lead to additional semi-outdoor areas
