Rammed Earth – Workshop Series

12 October 2021 
Gestaltung forscht: Symposium zum Potenzial von Designforschung für Gestalter*innen

20–24 September 2021

During the 2021 BurgLabs Autumn Session „re-up“, organised by SustainLab and BurgMaterial, a group of students were able to discover loam and rammed earth through different contexts alongside experts, professionals, artists and architects over the course of three days. 

Day 1: Field Trip 
Dr. Franziska Knoll

Meeting up for a quick coffee after the summer break, the group of students, „prog/rammed earth“ residents and contributors assembled on campus, ready for part one of the three day rammed earth workshop series. The day started with a presentation by Dr. Franziska Knoll, coordinator of GOLEHM, an initiative for loam construction and sustainable circular economy situated in Halle (Saale). Loam being a traditional building material, the initiative’s aim is to revive its popularity and create a sustainable, nationally visible profile for the region by recording, researching and preserving loam building heritage sites in Central Germany. 

Prior to heading out to selected sites in the region, the group was introduced to several aspects influencing the construction with loam – such as the roles of geology and climate, building techniques, resources as well as the relevance of loam within cultural history. Following, the group headed towards Mücheln. Upon arrival, we visited Mücheln’s historical center as well as surrounding buildings, architectures made from cob and mudstone. In sharp contrast to the buildings that had been constructed several hundred years ago, we then inspected a historical residential area of Mücheln constructed in the 1950s using the rammed earth technique. Stopping by a privately owned farmhouse, we made our way to a sunken road leading through a natural loess site.  After collecting several buckets of reference material, we arrived at our final stop in Kleinfahner. 

Michael Kockelmann, owner of the Lehmwerk Kleinfahner, gave us a guided tour introducing the group to modern clay quarrying and the production of a range of clay products. Next to being able to access the clay pit situated just outside the production site, we could ask questions about composites, drying processes and economic considerations when working with clay. 

After a long day of discovering the origins and multiple applications of clay as well as having had lively discussions about its potential, the group was equipped with a full range of impressions and questions for starting part two of the workshop series the following day.

Day 2: Basics 
Elise Eeraerts

After sleeping on the impressions of the previous day, it was time to get messy. We were joined by Belgian artist Elise Eeraerts on day two of the rammed earth workshop series.

Elise Eeraerts is a multidisciplinary artist working with monumental, abstract sculptures concentrating on spatial interventions. She explores material transformations that originate from the landscape, such as soil becoming a wall or mud becoming a brick.

Giving us insight about her process in particular for the projects „plan 4(4)“ and „Possible Patterns“, Elise helped us opening up to the material and made us think about new contexts for employing earth as a material, leaving the better-known applications in architecture. In addition, she helped us to quickly overcome initial concerns and questions working with the rammed earth technique and mixture. The process of ramming earth into moulds constructed from plywood casing proved to be surprisingly simple. By the end of the day, alone or in groups, the participants followed own interests and free material experiments, exploring the potentials of developing the moulds or the texture and consistency of the clay mixture, composites and humidity. 

Day 3 : Exploration
 Stefano Mori

Having gained ramming experience and a good impression of the material the day before, we were quick to get started, experimenting freely and pursuing own fields of interest. The day was balanced with an online talk in the afternoon from Stefano Mori. Stefano is a freelance architect and artist at the Mozarteum in Salzburg. While living in Austria, he collaborated with Studio Anna Heringer and Lehm Ton Erde – Martin Rauch. He is interested in using local natural materials and resources for construction and likes combining traditional crafts and digital fabrication technologies. With Stefano’s insights and vast knowledge on constructing with clay, the range of input was rounded off. 

13 October 2021
Sunanda Sharma, PhD candidate in the Mediated Matter Group at the MIT Media Lab

Sunanda Sharma was a research assistant and doctoral student in the Mediated Matter group after she graduated in biology with a focus in psychology and a master’s degree on media arts and sciences at MIT in 2016. Her research focuses on functional pigments which can be extracted from bacteria, fungi and even feathers. She explored melanin-producing bacteria that interact with chemical signals and 3D-printed them into a hydrogel. Apart from that, she cooperated with NASA and recently sent petri dishes with radioresistant and melanin producing fungi into space to find out more about their potentials. She also created her own database named color.bio, in which a pigment producing living organism can be selected based on the color of choice. Furthermore, she focuses on the question of how we, as humans, could learn empathy with microorganisms. Can color maybe lead a path for empathy?

thanks to:	Dr. Franziska Knoll, Elise Eeraerts & Stefano Mori
project:	prog/rammed earth
year:	2021/22