London is a great place, it is the New York of Europe, even the smell is similar
– which is not necessarily a complement.
It’s a diverse city which has everything from „A“ to „Z“ and as you might already have guessed , I stick at „R“, for „rammed earth“.
And thanks to Google – I have found two places in London where rammed earth buildings should be located.
The first place is a dead-end.
No rammed earth building to be found anywhere – but perhaps a rammed earth worker might be living there… but should i just ring and ask!? No, I’ll rather move on.
„Ecolocy Center“, Hollands Park, sounded more hopeful to me – and so it was.
This is a very nice building and it has a well made bench for sleeping on – zzz…
There are two philosophies of making rammed earth –
one is to use just a mixture of clay and gravel, also called un-stabalised rammed earth, the second goes with an addition of cement to this mixture, which is then called stabilised rammed earth.
For me is „stabilised“ rammed earth not a proper name and I count it as an euphemism , because it suggests something positiv and an increasing of quality but in fact it reduces the qualities and advantages pure clay naturally has.
They are f.e.:
-less grey energy
-endless reuse-able (mixing dry clay with water makes it formable again)
-its a living/personal material
-brings the air humility to one level
-neutralises bad smell
-it is skin friendly
-it is a positiv sensual experience, working with
-you may ad to this list still a lot of personal and also objective advantages and benefits of unstabalised/natural rammed earth which i did not mention -i would be happy to finde some of those in the comments below.
This Ecology Center has been build with stabilised rammed earth. The reason might be, that the architects did not now enough well made rammed earth projects and so they felt not confident enough to use unsabelasised rammed earth
I love unstabelised rammed earth buildings, but i am also aware that It seems, that there were not enough long lasting and good working un-„stabilised“ * rammed earth buildings around and so they felt maybe not confident enough to build the Ecology Center with pure Rammed earth mixture -but aded cement to it
from my point of view it is regrettably, because threw the rammed earth buildings i know, i have gained the
Even so, this visit made my day and still fills my heart with joy. Not only is the building natural and having beauty and the calm power of structured earth, but the people at the Ecology Center were passions in generous and answered me every question and allowed me to take Photos.
A special „Thank You“ goes to David Ridge, who has helped be, writing this report in a proper english and understandable!
Thanks for reading the report and all the best from kollektiv.LEHM.erleben !
the „Ecology Center“ has been build 2013, Architects: Munkenbeck & Partners
Pictures from the building process:
http://rammedearthconsulting.com/rammed-earth-holland-park-eco-centre.htm
Ecology Center, Hollands Park:
https://www.rbkc.gov.uk/subsites/wildlife.aspx
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kollektiv.LEHM.erleben 