Equitable Earth Methodology: A Study on the Production of Compressed Earth Blocks

Yifeng Jiang, Carlos Pimienta
Prof. Ronald Rael
ARCH 269

Raúl Ramírez created the CINVA-Ram press in 1956 at the Centro Interamericano de Vivienda in Bogotá as a response to growing housing shortages in Latin America, developing a construction method that could be easily used by local communities to provide cost-effective housing for economically disadvantaged populations. This project rethinks material culture in architecture by shifting attention away from resource-intensive and exclusionary construction systems toward locally sourced, low-carbon, and community-empowering alternatives. At the center of the research is the compressed earth block, or CEB, understood not only as a building unit but as a social, ecological, and architectural tool. Produced through a CINVA-Ram press, the blocks demonstrate how simple fabrication methods can transform available soil into durable masonry components with reduced dependence on industrial materials, long-distance transportation, and specialized labor.

The wooden CINVA-Ram press developed for the project becomes an essential part of this investigation. Rather than treating construction as a distant industrial process, the press makes material production visible, tactile, and accessible. Its assembly reveals a low-tech but precise system of compression, leverage, and repeatability, allowing earth to be shaped into consistent blocks through a process that can be learned and reproduced by local communities. In this way, the project positions fabrication as both a design exercise and an act of empowerment, where residents and builders can participate directly in the making of their own built environment.

The hexagonal compressed earth blocks extend this research from production to architectural performance. When assembled into a porous wall, the blocks create a patterned system of mass, shadow, ventilation, and enclosure. The geometry allows the wall to function as more than a barrier, it becomes a breathable and climate-responsive surface. Its openings can filter light, encourage air movement, and create visual depth while maintaining the thermal mass and material character of earth construction. The alternating tones and rough textures of the blocks further express the natural variability of the soil, emphasizing the beauty of an imperfect, site-specific material.

Through the design, fabrication, and assembly of the CINVA-Ram press and prototype wall systems, the project argues for an architecture rooted in material responsibility and social resilience. Compressed earth blocks offer a viable alternative for vulnerable regions where conventional building systems may be too expensive, carbon-intensive, or inaccessible. By combining low-skill construction, local material sourcing, and climate-appropriate performance, the project proposes a more equitable model of building—one in which architecture becomes a means of ecological repair and community self-determination.

May 21, 2026May 21, 2026

Robert Holton: Earth Construction (Compressed Earth Blocks)

Robert Holton’s research on compressed earth blocks investigates how locally sourced earthen materials can support more sustainable, affordable, and equitable forms of housing in the US Gulf South. Across a series of architecture studios and technology-based courses at Louisiana State University, Holton frames earth construction as a response to several interconnected regional challenges: the shortage of affordable housing, the rising cost and carbon impact of industrialized building materials, the lack of skilled construction labor, and the increasing severity of climate-related storms in hot, humid coastal environments. Rather than treating earth as a material limited to historic or vernacular construction, the projects reposition compressed earth blocks as a contemporary architectural system capable of addressing material performance, environmental responsibility, and social accessibility.

The work began with an investigation into the properties of Southern Louisiana soil. Students tested local earth compositions, including sandy loam, loamy sand, and silty clay, to determine whether they fell within acceptable ranges for construction. Because some soil samples were near the margins of ideal building composition, students explored stabilizers and additives to improve strength, durability, and workability. These included cement, sand, hay, bagasse, coir, coconut fiber, and other natural materials. Bagasse, a by-product of the regional sugarcane industry, became especially significant as a sustainable additive that could strengthen blocks while reusing agricultural waste. Through crushing, sifting, mixing, compressing, curing, and testing, the research established a hands-on material process grounded in regional resources and climate conditions.

A central focus of the projects was the design and fabrication of interlocking compressed earth blocks. Students developed custom block geometries using molds, wood inserts, and manual compression methods such as the CINVA-Ram press. These blocks were designed not only as structural units, but also as spatial and environmental devices. Variations included L-shaped, T-shaped, U-shaped, diamond, H-shaped, Duck, Bow Tie, and Zig Zag blocks. Each geometry tested different possibilities for stacking, interlocking, bonding, porosity, light filtration, airflow, surface texture, and assembly logic.

The L-shaped wall, inspired by the windcatchers of Yazd, Iran used mirrored courses and angled voids to appear solid from the front while allowing light, air, and views to pass through from oblique angles. The H-shape block used vertical holes and all-thread rods to create a mechanically fastened wall without mortar, allowing light and air to filter through the assembly. The Duck block used horizontal voids and PVC fastening to create a more solid wall surface with improved dimensional accuracy. The Bow Tie block produced a deeper, textured surface through larger three-dimensional units, while the Zig Zag block relied on interlocking tabs and grooves, creating an undulating wall with strong visual depth but greater fabrication difficulty. Other assemblies explored solid surfaces, deep relief, undulating walls, and mechanically fastened systems.

The research also addressed the question of who can build with compressed earth blocks. Traditional masonry often depends on skilled labor and mortar-based construction, both of which can be costly and difficult to access. Holton’s projects therefore explored dry-stacked, interlocking, and mechanically fastened assemblies that could be constructed by students or minimally trained individuals. Mechanical systems using PVC voids, all-thread rods, anchors, nuts, and coupling devices allowed several wall prototypes to be assembled without mortar. These experiments demonstrated that earth block construction can become more accessible while still producing structurally stable wall assemblies. At the same time, the work revealed ongoing challenges, including block tolerance, surface irregularity, drying time, cracking, mold precision, and the need for further testing at larger building scales.

Together, these projects position compressed earth block construction as both a material research agenda and a design methodology. The work connects local soil, regional industry, student fabrication, architectural geometry, and housing prototypes into a broader argument for ecological and social responsibility. By combining full-scale making with architectural design, Holton’s research demonstrates that earthen materials can be reimagined for contemporary housing, offering a low-carbon, cost-conscious, and contextually responsive alternative to conventional construction in the US Gulf South.

Citations:

May 13, 2026

Wattle and Daub: Study on Application and Representation

ARCH 169- Final Project

This project was an exploration of the different applications of wattle and daub, more specifically the different densities and the permeability that can be achieved. The first step was testing the possible densities and permeability of just the wattle through both tight and spaced weaving patterns. The different patterns show that there can be different real world applications for wattle outside of just structural walls. These patterns suggest the potential for partition walls, curtain walls, doors, screens, and just regular bases for the application of daub. Next was applying the daub to the screens through two applications. The first is a mud wash on a tightly weaved screen and the second is a mud infill/casting on a screen with spaced weaving.

The applications explored above were later explored at a larger scale with a section model of a corner showing how the spaced and tight weaving meet and how they interact with the daub. The model shows the different layers that make up a wattle and daub wall, also showing the instances where the wattle can just exist without the daub.

-Project by Brianna Rodriguez-Torres

May 12, 2026May 12, 2026

Mud, Rockite, and Wood: A Study and Model of Earth Materials

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.

May 12, 2026May 12, 2026

A Study of Prestressed Earth

Caleb Adams, Fernanda Loyola Cardoso and Isabelle de Metz

The project begins with an exploration of the Kiln Tower for the Brickworks Museum by Boltshauser Architekten. Designed as a contemporary reinterpretation of the site’s industrial heritage, the tower serves as both a landmark and an exhibition structure for the museum. Our interest, however, focused specifically on how the project investigates rammed earth as a contemporary structural system through prefabrication and vertical prestressing.

Kiln Tower for the Brickworks Museum in Switzerland by Boltshauser Architekten from 2021. Source: Archello

Earth blocks in tension. Source: Arch Daily

More specifically, the tower utilizes steel tension rods to compress stacked earthen blocks, transforming them into a 9-meter-high, earthquake-resistant structure. By placing the earthen elements in constant compression, the system overcomes earth’s inherent weakness in tension while enabling a tall, stable, and fully reversable building assembly.

In an attempt to parallel the intricacy of this construction system, our team sought to create an earthen, modular prototype of the tower to explore the possibilities of earth and its compressive strength. To achieve this, our team began by experimenting with mixtures of three key ingredients earth, clay, and sand, using different ratios to produce bricks measuring 3”x4”x6” inches. A wooden formwork system was first constructed, along with a hand-made ramming tool fabricated from plywood to begin ramming the earth together. The proportions of the earth, clay, and sand were varied as the bricks were layered vertically in order to create visible striations throughout the assembly.

Next, we cut plywood rectangles matching the exact dimensions of the bricks to sandwich the central units together. Additional plywood plates, extending one inch beyond the top and bottom bricks, were then added to cap the assembly. Five bricks were stacked vertically, allowing us to drill a #10 tension rod through the entire length of the prototype. Tension was then achieved by tightening a nut and washer at the top of the rod, compressing the stacked earthen blocks together and replicating the prestressing strategy used in the original tower.

The final prototype successfully stacks five compressed earth blocks, demonstrating the structural viability of the prestressing strategy. The assembly can serve as both a vertical wall and horizontal ceiling/lintel condition. Our investigation turned towards its potential as a ceiling or lintel element, since achieving horizontal spans in earthen construction is a known difficulty due to the material’s poor tensile performance. We tested the model as a simple beam supported at two end points, and as a double cantilever supported in the center, and observed how the prestressed compression allows the earth to resist gravity loads that would have otherwise caused failure.

This study establishes a foundation for further investigations and possibilities of this novel system. There could be further testing of the module’s maximum load, determining the ideal span to depth ratios. Beyond the individual module, there’s an opportunity to explore how these modules could interlock adjacently to form a seamless ceiling or floor diaphragm. The tie rods could potentially pass through the bricks, or the plywood end plates elements might be redesigned to serve as structural joinery.

Finally, the long-term interaction between the wood, metal, and earth offers a compelling study in differential weathering. The accelerated erosion of earthen components will affect the tension of the steel rods, and together with the slower erosion of the wooden plates may affect the strength of the overall system over time. However, the different rates of erosion may create beautiful aesthetic contrasts.

May 11, 2026May 11, 2026

Prototyping Modular Rammed Earth Furniture

Timeline

Spring 2026 – Summer 2026

Project Description

This project consists of a series of experiments aimed at prototyping a design for a rammed-earth coffee table.

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”

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.

May 11, 2026May 11, 2026

Project Lithos — (3d Printed Form Work)

Group Member: Chuhan Zhao, Yiluo Li

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.

Hess / Talhof / Kumierz Website: Umweltbildungszentrum
Augsburg – Transition from Botanical Garden

Hess / Talhof / Kumierz Website: Umweltbildungszentrum
Augsburg Interior

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.

May 11, 2026

Inlaid Earth Artifact

The project begins with two references: the earthen wall of the Valéria Cirell House and Studio Moffitt’s prototype-based model approach. While the Valéria Cirell House demonstrates how rammed earth can function as both structure and material expression, Studio Moffitt’s work proposes a different way of understanding architectural models, not as literal representations of buildings, but as prototypes that isolate and test specific architectural ideas through fabrication and abstraction.

Valéria Cirell House

Studio Moffitt’s prototype-based model

Inspired by these two approaches, the project does not attempt to reconstruct the original house through detailed representation or structural replication. Instead, it extracts the tectonic and material logic of earthen architecture and reorganizes it into an abstract wall prototype. The project therefore operates simultaneously as a fabrication experiment, a material study, and an architectural interpretation.

The physical prototype is constructed using rammed earth techniques. Clay is mixed with different fibers and aggregates to form the primary body of the wall, while various stones are embedded within the surface. Through layering and compaction, the materials are compressed into a dense monolithic mass. Rather than functioning as decorative additions, the embedded stones become integrated into the wall itself, producing a textured surface that emerges directly from the internal material composition.

Material testing became an important part of the process. Different soils, granular materials, fibers, and stone fragments were explored in order to understand how texture, density, and structural stability could coexist within a single fabricated object. The goal was not to display isolated samples, but to investigate how multiple unstable materials could be transformed into a cohesive architectural system through compression and fabrication.

Beyond material experimentation, the project also explores a process of architectural abstraction. Instead of reproducing the original earth structure in detail, the prototype reinterprets it through a simplified geometric language. The project is interested in how modern architectural abstraction can translate primitive construction systems into reduced formal objects. In this sense, the prototype does not simply represent the original architecture, but reconstructs its essential relationship between mass, material, and structure in a contemporary form.

The wall therefore becomes more than a fragment of architecture. It operates as an artifact that records the interaction between material behavior, fabrication techniques, and formal abstraction. Texture is not applied afterward, but generated through the internal logic of layering, compaction, and embedded matter. The prototype ultimately positions rammed earth not only as a historical construction technique, but as a contemporary architectural language capable of integrating material expression, fabrication, and abstraction into a unified system.

May 11, 2026

From Waste to Earth——Experimental Material Test of Compressed Earth Block

Group Member: Yuxin Chen & Yufan Jiang

This project explores the potential of compressed earth blocks as an experimental architectural material infused with organic waste additives.

Inspired by the textured earthen surfaces of the Beijing Teahouse by Kooo Architects, the research began with testing different types of tea leaves and later expanded to include coffee grounds and plant fibers as additional material components.

Through a series of hand-crafted molds and compression tests, the study investigates how these organic materials influence the color, texture, density, strength, and tactile qualities of soil bricks.

Beyond material testing, the project also explored the architectural application of the bricks through the fabrication of a full-scale 1:1 prototype and a 1:4 mock-up model. These models were used to study brick geometries, assembly methods, and the spatial and atmospheric potential of the material as an interior wall finish.

By combining waste materials with traditional earth construction techniques, the project examines new possibilities for sustainable material reuse while emphasizing the relationship between craft, material experimentation, and architectural atmosphere.

May 9, 2026May 9, 2026

Detail Study & Modeling Of Rammed Earth House

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.

02 — Connection Logic Between Earth and Other Systems

Investigation of how rammed earth walls connect with timber structures, roof assemblies, foundations, and waterproofing details.

03 — Integration of Openings within Load-Bearing Walls

Analysis of window openings and structural transitions within thick rammed earth wall systems.

Modeling & Material Experiments

Sectional Model

Development of a 1:10 sectional model combining rammed earth walls, timber framing, and window details to study tectonic relationships and construction sequencing.

Material Testing

Material experiments focusing on soil ratios, wetness testing, compaction techniques, and layered rammed earth fabrication at model scale.

EARTH ARCHITECTURE

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