James Rennie, university of Nottingham, architecture K100, 2011, unit 1A,
This blog site aims to document my experience at Eco-build 2011. I was there from Monday to Wednesday morning . I then explored and researched some of the ideas presented further. It is important, I feel to have an awareness of new technologies, assess their impact and their uses. I wanted to ask how I could apply some of the technologies seen to studio design projects. I also wanted to assess there aesthetics, sustainability factor, their use in design and to criticallycomment on how it impacted my structural knowledge and my outlook on eco design and structure.
The audios where recorded on my Olympus DM450 recorder and uploaded them to dropbox and , I ask questions and recorded the replies, I have annotated the audio, and expanded on the information explained in the audio. The recorder was an extremely useful note taking tool. enabling me to record my interaction at Eco build. The clips are between 2 minutes and 30 minutes but I have highlighted important aspects of the clip, if you have the time I encouraged you to listen to the whole of the clip as you get a feel for the process and the way I experienced the show.
I wanted to produce a blog as it allows me to share useful links, information and audios. It is an excellent research tool good allowing me to go back update and add to information as required.
Blog contents
1.lighting v.s nature
2.Straw bale construction
3.How PVs work
4.Green roof construction
5.Rammed earth, the process
6. Glulam beams
Monday, 9 May 2011
Rammed earth
I had the pleasure of helping set up the rammed earth building stand (s1260) The hands-on experience helped enormously in understanding the processes and stages involved
The stages
1. Erection of formwork
2. mixing
4. filling
5. ramming
6. removal of formwork
Mixing
the video shows what we did but on a larger scale- we used shovels and a watering can instead of a digger and hose, it has the same effect and achieves roughly 10% water mix by weight. this is considered best practice. A rule of thumb test can be done by dropping a 1cm size chunk of mixed earth from head height, if it breaks into 4 or less clean pieces it is ready to be filled and rammed
Corners in the formwork are often achieved with different tools- there are delicate indentations, a thinner rammer that is shaped appropriately would be used for corners
The art of an even and uniform result is achieved by following the sequence fill-ram, fill-ram etc., circulating the wall using this sequence to attain a moderate and even density. By bringing the walls up evenly there is less pressure on the formwork and the walls can be moderated and start to support themselves.
Measuring tool. The measuring stick rests at the base of the wall or on an area that has been rammed. A filler would fill to the appropriate depth, the depth that is used continuniosly throught the project at each point on the wall. 60cm for example.
We where taught that when filling we should push the earth against the edges of the formwork, this stops the stones from forming the visable face of the wall. (achieving the opposite of what happened in picture 8)
The importance of force- by pushing the rammer down you ram everything that’s just been filled, so not just the top layer is effected, this application of strength and thoroughness is very important, the effectivness of this is denoted by the change in tone the rammer makes when it hits the compacted earth, this is demonstrated at 12.00 of the audio above
This process of fill ram, fill ram continues up methodically until the wall or building is completed, the formwork is then moved (on the wall we were constructing we filled on one side then rammed then filled and rammed the other side then returned to the previous side to fill and ram and so on (see picture 2) the result Is a solid load bearing wall.
Adding colour audio DM450010 We were briefly shown methods on adding colour and embossing logos onto the walls. interesting questions are asked in this video about shape, formwork and how different finishes or paints would react to the wall
There are many advantages to rammed earth construction however labour intensive it is. I spoke to Rory the person leading the workshop about client issues with this method. he said one of the biggest issues he finds is that they don't realise how the colour changes and "dulls". After 6 months when the building has fully dried and combined they expect what was erected in the first place to be the final place.
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