Category: * Rammed Earth

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Betil Dagdelen: Rammed Earth Side Tables

Betil Dagdelen

Betil Dagdelen is a Turkish artist born in 1978 that specializes in combining traditional weaving techniques and practices with a more improvisational strategy in her patterning. Dagdelen studied at Koc University, located in Istanbul, and graduated with a Bachelors in political science and international relations. She however, also attended design classes and used inspiration from her life to work on furniture design. Currently, Betil works in New Mexico, on the design and weaving of furniture in order to study and understand patterns, particularly through the use of already existing materials that she believes have a story to them, for example yarn that was created traditionally. 

 

 

A lot of her work is displayed at the Cristina Grajales Gallery in New York. One of her exhibitions presented there is called OFF BY AN INCH, where part of the work presented includes the use of rammed earth to create side tables. 

In this gallery showing, Betil brings together history and the art of weaving, she creates solid structures and then weaves around them to create and elevate the structural design of furniture. In these works Betil brings together modern design with a more traditional weaving method in order to have both a visual and tactile experience. 

In this specific gallery showing, Betil includes three side tables made from rammed earth, continuing her exploration of patterns present in furniture design. In this case the rammed earth material, allows for an exploration of those combinations between texture, pattern, and material.

Rammed Earth Side Table A
Rammed Earth Side Table B
Rammed Earth Side Table C

These three side tables are all made from the same materials, which are pumicecrete, portland cement, natural dyes, and lime. Additionally, these three side tables are part of the specific section on Pattern Studies in her showing, where the material element, in this case rammed earth, was used to explore how patterns present themselves differently through technique and design using the same material components.

Resources

https://cristinagrajales.com/artists-designer/betil-dagdelen/

https://cristinagrajales.com/collection/rammed-earth-side-table-c/

https://cristinagrajales.com/exhibitions/off-by-an-inch/

https://cristinagrajales.com/collection/rammed-earth-side-table-a/

https://cristinagrajales.com/collection/rammed-earth-side-tables/

https://betildagdelen.com/mp_01_v2

https://www.instagram.com/betildagdelen/

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Earth USA

Earth USA is the biennial international conference on earthen architecture organized by Adobe in Action (AinA) in Santa Fe, New Mexico. It brings together architects, engineers, builders, and researchers to share advances in clay-based construction. Earth USA began in 2003 as “Adobe USA,” first held at Northern New Mexico College by the Adobe Association of the Southwest and dedicated to Paul Graham McHenry, and it has continued on a biennial basis since then. In 2011, the name formally changed to Earth USA for the sixth conference, held in Albuquerque, and since 2013 all subsequent conferences have taken place in Santa Fe. Key milestones include the adoption of a broader earthen-material scope beyond adobe, as well as expanded international participation.

The Scottish Rite Center hosts the conference, reinforcing the event’s Southwestern adobe heritage. The Santa Fe venue also underscores the material focus: the Alhambra Theater is a pink adobe stucco building, and local expertise in adobe construction is abundant. Site tours have included Pueblo ruins, ancestral Spanish missions, and owner-built adobe homes throughout northern New Mexico. Typical Earth USA activities have featured on-site workshops, such as plastering demonstrations, as well as earthen installations; for example, past Earthbuilders’ Guild teams have built mud-brick stages and art displays on-site. In sum, the conference’s materials and form revolve around clay-rich architecture, celebrating both the traditional thick earthen walls of Santa Fe’s historic districts and cutting-edge earth technology.

Earth USA is run by AinA, a New Mexico 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization dedicated to adobe and earthen-building education. AinA was founded by Mike Lopach and launched Earth USA to empower owner-builders. For Earth USA 2026, AinA’s Lisa Morey and Dan Krause co-preside on the board of AinA, and the Executive Director is Kurt Gardella, a certified adobe instructor who studied under Quentin Wilson at Northern New Mexico College. Gardella holds adobe construction certifications and leads AinA’s certificate program. He has been “a major organizer of Earth USA” while also teaching owner-builder courses. Lisa Morey is a civil engineer and designer, and co-founder of Colorado Earth LLC. She is the author of Adobe Homes for All Climates and holds a patent for reinforced adobe brick walls. Dan Krause is a retired ASU professor who became enamored with adobe while living in Arizona. He designed and built two of his own adobe homes, earning AinA’s Adobe Construction certificate in 2020. Collectively, the organizers combine academic and practical expertise to network experts, educate practitioners, and advance earthen construction worldwide. 

Each Earth USA conference follows a structured program with three days of presentations and posters, along with associated social and field activities. The format typically includes a Friday welcome keynote, all-day podium and poster sessions from Friday through Sunday, and Sunday afternoon tours to regional earth-building sites. For example, Earth USA 2024’s schedule featured invited talks on topics ranging from flood-proof adobe shelters to waste-earth reuse and seismic earth block design, alongside panels on owner-builder case studies and clay plaster techniques. All conferences include a Friday night reception sponsored by the Earthbuilders’ Guild and guided tours to adobe missions, historic homes, and new earth projects on Sunday. The scope of subjects is broad, and organizers note that the program reflects a wide field of interest, including adobe, rammed earth, compressed earth block, cob, and essentially any method that uses clay as a binder.

Key themes encompass the use of sustainable materials, including earth plasters and stabilized blocks; advancements in modern fabrication techniques such as 3D printing and robotics in earthen architecture; building science considerations ranging from thermal performance to seismic resilience; historic preservation; and social projects focused on affordable housing and owner-builder training programs. For instance, Earth USA has featured a keynote from, “Mud Frontiers,” by Ronald Rael (UC Berkeley) on 3D-printed earth architecture, as well as a session on a Ghanaian rammed-earth housing prototype, “Kente House,” by Angeles Hevia. Other sessions have addressed codes and policy, including Ben Loescher on U.S. earthen masonry standards and Stephen Colley on adopting adobe in building codes. Topics also include education, such as introducing clay into architecture curricula, and innovation, including rotational tampers for rammed earth.

Earth USA is attended primarily by architects, engineers, and builders interested in sustainable construction, but also by anthropologists, code officials, and environmental advocates. The gatherings are intentionally international and multidisciplinary, as reflected in a speaker roster that includes talks on building practices from India, Japan, and Norway. Attendees leave with a sense of community, supported by nightly informal receptions and a vibrant email newsletter, EarthUSA News, which keeps participants connected year-round. In sum, Earth USA operates as a volunteer-driven conference in which the organizing committee handles logistics and content curation, while academic partners disseminate the findings.

The program is fully documented in the conference proceedings and often carries American Institute of Architecture (AIA) continuing-education credits. Speakers come from universities, nonprofits, governments, and industries worldwide, and recent years have seen participants from 15 to 20 countries. Poster sessions provide a venue for shorter papers on topics such as material testing, vernacular research, and life-cycle analysis. Throughout, the conference emphasizes process, including peer-reviewed abstracts, international volunteer committees, and field demonstrations, as much as the building form itself. Many sessions delve into construction processes such as mix design, compaction, and curing, while others focus on form-finding and earth structures shaped by heritage or innovation.

As an organization, AinA solicits abstracts internationally through a call for papers reviewed by experts and publishes proceedings. For 2026, for instance, abstracts were due in February 2026 and full papers in June 2026. Registration is open to professionals, students, and owner-builders. Earth USA’s inclusive approach is also reflected in its leadership; for example, owner-builder Ethan Novikoff both presented and served on the AinA board, bridging practitioner and organizer roles. Sponsorship comes from allied nongovernmental organizations and firms such as the Earthbuilders’ Guild, the SFCC Adobe program, supporting organizations, and architecture firms.

Earth USA presents a clear consensus that earthen materials are inherently sustainable, resilient, and culturally rich. Many presenters emphasize earth’s low carbon footprint and ease of reuse, as well as its climate-comfort benefits, thermal mass, and humidity buffering. There is a shared mission to reclaim these traditional techniques in a modern context. From an architectural perspective, the conference inspires both reflection and action. It demonstrates how ancient building methods can inform contemporary design, for example, how Pueblo-style thick walls inspire passive climate control, or how combining fibers and modern stabilizers can make cob livable in cold regions. On the technological side, sessions on 3D-printing clay and new tamping machines point toward a future in which even large-scale earth building is industrially feasible. The Earth USA community also exchanges practical solutions; one talk, for instance, detailed how to guide a cob house through building inspections, while others described integrating adobe into U.S. building codes. In conclusion, Earth USA galvanizes the earthen-construction movement. It has inspired new international collaborations, spurred educational initiatives, and reinforced advocates’ resolve to promote sustainable, beautiful architecture that can be made from the ground.

Citations:

  1. https://www.earthusa.org/
  2. https://www.adobeinaction.org/earth-usa-conference
  3. https://www.adobeinaction.org/
  4. https://www.earthusa.org/earthusa-news/2021/10/07/earthusa-news-bridge-issue
  5. https://www.adobeinaction.org/paul-mallory-project
  6. https://visioncreationadobe.com/2018/01/20/building-adobe-walls-in-winter/
  7. https://www.adobeinaction.org/board-of-directors#:~:text=Kurt%20Gardella%20specializes%20in%20online,Certification%20from%20The%20Earthbuilders%27%20Guild
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BC Materials

BC Materials is a Belgian company that develops, produces, demonstrates, and sells earthen building materials. Founded as a workers co-operative and spin-off of BC Architects (Brussels Corporation) in 2018, BC Materials’ goal is to facilitate the replacement of contemporary, standard building materials with earth-based alternatives in European construction. The firm was the “brainchild” of Ken De Cooman, Nicolas Coechelberghs, Laurens Bekemans, and Wes Degreef. 

Roughly 60% of earth excavated in construction is wasted due to storage and transportation challenges. To combat this, BC Materials has pioneered a “circular” method of construction with earthen materials that uses urban mineral waste from construction sites and repurposes the excavated earth to make rammed earth structures, compressed earth blocks, and earth plasters/paints. The process of making these products using recycled earth is carbon-neutral, meaning BC Materials’ products are much better for the environment than the aforementioned contemporary alternative building materials.  

Rammed earth building, BC Materials was consulted during construction. Image by BC Materials

According to their website, BC Materials is involved in 5 primary activities: 

  1. Developing materials and consulting construction partners on their use.
  2. Making bespoke materials.
  3. Designing and prefabricating objects and constructive systems.  
  4. Training contractors and craftsmen.
  5. Producing and commercializing a brand of standard circular materials called Léém. 

Léém is BC Materials premier product line that attempts to make earthen materials more accessible to both architects and builders. Offering Léém clay plasters and paints, Léém earth block masonry, and Léém rammed earth mixes and tools, BC Materials are working to transform the availability and convenience of circular earthen building materials for use in every-day construction.  

 

 

Leem Clay Paints, picture by BC Materials

 

Sources: 

BC Materials. BC Materials, https://bcmaterials.org/.

Building with Earth – BC Materials and the Revival of Clay in Construction.” Natura Mater, 10 Dec. 2024, https://www.naturamater.eu/en/post/building-with-earth-bc-materials-and-the-revival-of-clay-in-construction.

“BC Materials.” Regenerative Design World, https://regenerativedesign.world/bc-materials-2/.

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Armando Guadalupe Cortés: ¿Y LA GENTE?

Cortez performing El Descanso En La Gloria, (Rest when I am Dead), 2017

Armando Guadalupe Cortés was born in Urequío, Michoacán, México and raised in Wilmington, California. He graduated with an MFA from Yale School of Art 2021 and a BA from UCLA in 2012 .  ¿Y LA GENTE? from 2020, blends sculpture and performance to explore themes of memory, myth, history, geography, experience and materiality. 

Rammed Earth Columns before the performance

¿Y LA GENTE? (And the People?)
2020
Installation and performance
Clay, earth, iron oxides, stoneware
Each pillar 64” x 24” x 24”

Film still of the performance at ASU Art Museum, 2020

During the performance of ¿Y LA GENTE? Cortes excavates the rammed earth columns surrounded by musicians and dancers of his native Mexican heritage. Once revealing a gold ceramic sculpture within each column, one resembling a nopal cactus and the other a milling stone, Cortes exits the gallery leaving the deconstructed pillars to remain for the rest of the exhibition.  

Revealed Nopal Cactus
Revealed milling stone

Through blending performance and sculpture, he is able to question the dichotomy between myth and fiction as an antonym to history. Growing up in two worlds has lead Cortés to a fantastical take on the ordinary. He incorporates the multitude of symbols and identities from his family of farmers, migrants, manufacturers, office professionals, and professors in his material palette and choice of dress. In contrasting the mythical or in this case the colorful and culturally rich materiality with his business casual clothing, he illustrates the parallelism and tension within his life and work. This re-assembling of materials and cultural symbolism is crucial to how Cortes seeks to challenging notions of spectacle and viewership.

Sources:

Artist Website: https://armandogcortes.com/Y-LA-GENTE-2020

Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/402306364?fl=pl&fe=cm

Bemis Center: https://www.bemiscenter.org/residents/armando_guadalupe_cort%C3%A9s

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Australian Exhibition at Venice Biennale

Australia‘s first all-Indigenous curatorial team at the Venice Architecture Biennale brought a distinctly Aboriginal design approach to its pavilion, a calming and inclusive space focused on the theme of Home. The three main creative directors are Michael Mossman, Emily McDaniel, and Jack Gillmer-Lilley.

The Home pavilion is centred on a circular rammed-earth structure that serves as a gathering area and is surrounded by a display of small, sculptural objects.

Visitors to the pavilion are invited to engage in reflection while touching and holding the objects, which were created by architecture and design students from across the country in response to the idea of home.

The installation features a curved rammed earth wall and bench seat that wrap a circular, sand-filled ceremonial space at the centre of the pavilion.

The pavilion came together through the application of the Australian First Nations practice of “yarning” – a purposeful way of relating to others and sharing knowledge that often happens in a yarning circle.

The Australian pavilion centred on a circular rammed-earth structure

The student workshops began with two days of yarning, while the pavilion’s creative directors – Michael Mossman, Emily Mcdaniel and Jack Gillmer-Lilley – also took a similar approach over nine months to connect with a wider “creative sphere” of four First Nations architects and practitioners, all of whom came together to build the work in Venice with their own hands over many weeks.

They used materials entirely from Venice – mainly sand, soil and plaster – as they wanted to show respect for the land that they are visiting, rather than importing materials from Australia.

 

Around the structure was a display of objects made in response to reflections about home

In the student workshops, the yarning approach meant not just sharing First Nations knowledge but inviting students to reflect on their own culture and how it related to their idea of home.

The 125 students involved were asked to find artists and artworks that they connected with, to converse, journal and draw, and to consider the acts of asking for permission before using materials and taking only as much as required.

Their works – dubbed “living objects” – show a multiplicity of ways of thinking about home. A black gypsum cement orb, titled Shanshui (Prophecy), is a meditation on geology and cultural tension, while the delicate teabag sculpture, sewn together with teabag threads, honours the forgotten and quotidian.

With both the student workshops and the pavilion itself, the curators have sought to expand understanding of Australian First Nations cultural practices to something based on values and approaches rather than a set aesthetic.

“We didn’t want to bring a false sense of Australiana to the pavilion,” Kerr said. “We wanted people to be able to find their own sense of place, their own sense of belonging, their own memories and their own identity. We didn’t want to impose an emotion.”

The pavilion was Australia’s first to be curated by an all-Indigenous team

https://www.dezeen.com/2025/05/16/australia-pavilion-home-venice-architecture-biennale-2025/

https://www.unsw.edu.au/canberra/about-us/equity-diversity-inclusion/unsw-canberra-community-circle

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Trina Michelle Robinson: Open Your Eyes to Water

Trina Michelle Robinson is an artist from Oak Park, Illinois who is currently working in San Francisco. Her art originates from from personal and historical archives, reflecting on her own ancestry to create immersive and deeply personal spatial encounters that materialize the complexity of emotions and layered geographies of Black migration. Her works often begin by tracing the steps of her ancestors, gathering materials from their homes and homelands, using this tactile act as a means to connect with them and gather their fractured and lost memories. In particular, she often collects dirt from these sites of personal significance, transforming that earth into a charged object within her compositions. Her installations are undefinable, hovering somewhere between an altar, a model, or a garden; a collection of objects that become spatial poetry. Trina received her MFA from California College of the Arts in 2022.

Her work Open Your Eyes to Water was exhibited in San Francisco at the 500 Cap Street Foundation and at Root Division from February-May 2026. The work is an expanded version of her previous installation titled Elegy for Nancy (2022) – a tender tribute to her oldest known ancestor, a woman named Nancy who was born in 1770s Kentucky, then still part of Virginia. Open Your Eyes to Water is a living installation tracing her years-long cross-continental engagement with family lineage and movement from Senegal, to Kentucky, Chicago, and California.

 

The Installation merges with the atmosphere of the gallery, charging the space with a melancholic yet restorative energy. At the center, a rammed earth block holds the room with a potent presence, atop which sits a reproduction of a will from the previous owner of her enslaved ancestors, written with handmade ink (a mixture of soil collected from Senegal and charred cedar charcoal) on paper she fabricated from cotton picked at a farm her ancestor used to be enslaved at in Oklahoma. Every mention of her ancestor’s enslavement has been redacted with sewn lines of sisal thread from Zimbabwe, reclaiming this history for herself, freeing her ancestors, speaking for them in the present moment.

The rammed earth block is composed from various soil samples from significant places tracing her family history through time and space, compressed together into a unified block, supporting a document of their liberation. The block sits in an analogous landscape of dirt and grass plumes, harkening to the various landscapes natural, agricultural, and urban landscapes her ancestors have traversed across the world.

 

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Karim+Elias: From This Earth Installation

Location:  Diriyah, Saudi Arabia
Year:  2024
Project Type:  Temporary installation / pavilion
Area:  220 m²
Architects:  Karim+Elias
Lead Architects:  Karim Tamerji, Elias El Hage
Photography:  Elias El Hage
Event Design and Coordination:  Design Lab Experience

Project Overview
From This Earth Installation is a temporary installation by Karim+Elias in Diriyah, Saudi Arabia. Completed in 2024, the 220 m² project was presented as part of Layali Diriyah and consists of a series of porous earthen screens assembled from more than 1,400 hand-sculpted spheres. Rather than treating earth as a heavy and continuous wall, the installation reimagines it as a modular, open-air spatial filter. In this sense, the project is significant not only as an installation, but also as a contemporary experiment in earthen material practice.

Site and Cultural Context
The project is deeply tied to its location. Diriyah is described by its official destination platform as the “City of Earth,” and it is presented as the birthplace of Saudi Arabia. Within this context, From This Earth operates as more than a temporary pavilion: it becomes a material response to a place historically associated with earthen building traditions. The architects state that the work celebrates Diriyah’s craft of building with earth, so the project should be understood as a contemporary reinterpretation of local architectural memory rather than as an abstract sculptural object placed in a neutral site.

Material and Construction Logic
Karim+Elias describe their broader practice as a contemporary exploration of “sculpting with sand,” using locally sourced earth, clay, and water in custom-made moulds. In From This Earth, this material approach appears through a system of over 1,400 hand-sculpted modular spheres made from local material and stacked into earthen screens. This construction logic is important because it shifts earth away from its more familiar role as a monolithic mass or thick wall. Here, earth becomes a repeated unit, a surface condition, and a space-making device. The project therefore demonstrates how traditional earth-based craft can be translated into a contemporary modular language.

Spatial Experience
The installation’s spatial effect comes from porosity. The stacked spherical modules create filtered views, partial enclosure, and changing patterns of light and shadow. Designlab Experience describes the screens as evoking the traditional mashrabiya and recalling Diriyah’s vernacular triangular wind openings and rooftop silhouettes. Because of this, the project does not simply represent earthen architecture visually; it performs some of its environmental and perceptual qualities. Air, light, depth, and visibility are mediated through the earthen surface, allowing visitors to experience earth not only as a material, but also as an atmospheric interface.

Significance to Contemporary Earthen Practice
This project is relevant to contemporary earthen architecture because it expands the definition of what an earthen work can be. It does not reproduce a traditional mud structure directly, nor does it use earth only for symbolic effect. Instead, it repositions earthen craft within a temporary cultural installation and demonstrates that earth can function as a contemporary design medium. From This Earth shows that earthen practice today can move across architecture, installation, art, and public event design while still remaining grounded in local material and cultural context.

 

References

  1. ArchDaily  https://www.archdaily.com/1014728/from-this-earth-installation-karim-plus-elias?ad_source=search&ad_medium=projects_tab
  2. Designlab Experience  https://www.designlabexperience.com/projects/layali-diriyah-2024
  3. Diriyah official website  https://www.diriyah.sa/en
  4. Karim+Elias official website  https://www.karimelias.com/about
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Robotic Ramming

Digital Futures 2025 Workshop
CAUP, Tongji University
Institute of Structural Design, TU Braunschweig

https://www.tu-braunschweig.de/ite/research#robot-aided-fabrication-of-rammed-earth-elements

June 2025

Robotic Ramming – Digital Futures 2025 was held in June 2025 at CAUP, Tongji University, and led by the Institute of Structural Design at TU Braunschweig. The workshop was directed by Dr. Samim Mehdizadeh, Joschua Gosslar, and Noor Khader under the academic leadership of Prof. Dr. Norman Hack and Prof. Dr.-Ing. Harald Kloft.

The workshop investigated the integration of robotic fabrication with rammed earth construction. Moving beyond traditional in-situ methods that rely on rigid formwork and horizontal layering, the project employed a robotic arm equipped with a pneumatic ramming end-effector. This system enabled digitally controlled compaction and expanded the geometric possibilities of earthen construction.

Participants developed a complete design-to-fabrication workflow. Using Rhino and Grasshopper, they generated toolpaths through boundary definition, sectional slicing, voxel allocation, infill pattern development, and sequential ramming strategies. Digital modeling was directly linked to material performance and robotic execution.

The workshop culminated in a large-scale demonstrator composed of three rammed earth components, each approximately the size of a Euro pallet and varying in height. The installation demonstrated scalability, structural articulation, and the potential of robotic ramming as a sustainable construction method.

A video documenting the fabrication process accompanies this article.

 

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Backyard Community Club: DeRoche Projects

 

Source: DailyArch

DeRoche Projects was founded in 2022 by Glen DeRoche after a decade-long stint at Adjaye Associates. After leaving Adjaye Associates and completing his M.Arch at The Bartlett School of Architecture, Glen relocated to Ghana where he began working with Jurgen Benson-Strohmayer. Now building his own practice, De Roche’s work places an emphasis on heritage, sustainable construction, and community. With a background in photography it comes as no surprise that his practice now works between Architecture and Art- with photography still being a large part of his creative process.

Source: Stir World
Source: Azure Magazine

Four- meter rammed earth walls surround the Backyard Community Club’s tennis court in Accra, Ghana. The Backyard Community Club meets a need for public space in, utilizing a site strategy that DeRoche Projects calls “deliberately open-ended, where lines between sport, gathering, learning, and rest are blurred.” The court is bordered on one side by a garden of edible and medicinal plants along with restrooms and changing rooms. The remaining sides are bordered by either concrete or rammed earth walls that meet the surrounding neighborhood. 2

Source: Julien Lanoo

This project is the first instance of precast rammed earth modules in Ghana. Each module was designed with a perforation and taper, this design creates triangular fenestrations across the whole wall. 3

Source: DailyArch

DeRoche’s use of rammed earth walls pulls from a long history of earth building in Ghana. Indigenous peoples in this area typically used wattle and daub as well as the Atakpame method- a way of building with earth creating monolithic earth walls that provided thermal mass to cool interiors. 4 DeRoche also has a personal connection to rammed earth walls, saying in an interview with PINUP, “I see texture as a way of deepening the sensorial qualities of architecture. It allows for depth, richness, and this poetic dance between light and shadow, which create emotive and surreal ways of making and experiencing space.” This is exemplified by the rammed earth modules in this project which cast deep shadows across the tennis court or garden depending on the time of day.

 

Plan
Section

Sources:

  1. Harvey-Ideozu, Angel. “An Architecture of One’s Own with Glenn DeRoche.” PIN–UP Magazine, PIN–UP Magazine, www.pinupmagazine.org/articles/glenn-deroche-interview
  2. Dezeen. “DeRoche Projects Encloses Accra Tennis Court with Rammed-Earth Walls.” Dezeen, 17 Nov. 2025, www.dezeen.com/2025/11/17/deroche-projects-backyard-community-club-accra/
  3. DeRoche Projects. DeRoche Projects, derocheprojects.com/.
  4. Souza, Eduardo. “Colors Of the Earth: Ghana’s Incredible, Rammed Earth Walls.” ArchDaily, 18 Nov. 2021, www.archdaily.com/914736/colors-of-the-earth-the-incredible-designs-of-rammed-earth-walls-in-ghana

 

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Nursery School at Roches de Condrieu

About Architect

Brenas Doucerain Architectes is a Grenoble-based firm dedicated to the “frugality” and “essentiality” of construction.Their work focuses on the dialogue between architecture, local landscape, and human life. They believe matter is the substance of architecture. By using site-specific raw materials like rammed earth (pisé), they express the sensory and poetic qualities of the land without relying on artificial technology. The firm advocates for energy sobriety and low technologies. They treat architecture as a “frugal” tool—using only what is necessary to create human-scaled, adaptable spaces. Their designs utilize archetypal elements to bridge the gap between historical heritage and modern living, ensuring buildings are sustainable “traces in time.”

Program & Form

The site of the project is that of the courtyard of the current school group located in the center of town, dense tissue organized around the place of arms. The outdoor area reserved for elementary school children is closed between a dead end in the west and the existing Jules Ferry building in L to the east and north. Two beautiful plane trees inhabit this space.

Materials & Process

Traditional local rural architecture is built of rammed earth. The facade walls along the impasse, now demolished, had once been built with this local resource. The school group dating from the nineteenth century is built in masonry and the town hall located across the street. The new nursery school slips into an existing dense fabric, with a shoehorn, gently, between adobe walls and plane trees.

The project consists of a volume of R + 1 masonry and coated, slightly skewed to escape the plane trees of the yard. It is built along the impasse by a rammed wall forming basement which allows reconnecting with the vocabulary of the old walls, to implement an available resource on the spot, a clay and ocher earth.

On the courtyard side, a lower wooden structure leans against it and offers a covered space, the courtyard and an additional outdoor area, on the terrace, accessible to children for accompanied and supervised educational activities. It helps to decongest the yard on frequented during recess. It is deformed at the right plane trees to avoid their extended roots, slips under their rowing to enjoy their shade. The structural principle is simple and implements pieces of local solid wood, stacked, juxtaposed, superimposed, like the construction game for children. The upright timber uprights act as a sunshade in the east.

The organization of the spaces is done in a voluntarily long and stretched volume, which closes the courtside North while encroaching as little as possible on its surface. The distributive principle mono-oriented allows lighting the circulation naturally. Classrooms and activities are superimposed according to their decibel production; the changing room above the canteen, the library above the desks, the big classes above the little ones, and nothing above the restroom.

Inspiration

This project proves that rammed earth, an ancestral material, can meet rigorous modern public building codes through contemporary design. It is not only sustainable (low-carbon, recyclable) but also provides a warm, sensory environment that offers children a profound sense of psychological security. The architects demonstrate how to utilize “the soil beneath our feet” to create modern public spaces, moving away from a total reliance on concrete or industrial materials.