Between a third to a half of the world’s population live in buildings constructed from earth, housing roughly three billion people on six continents. This is in addition to the numerous earthen structures not inhabited by humans, such as farm and agricultural buildings, city walls and monuments.
In fact, an estimated 80 million people live in earth dwellings in India and more than 100 million live in earth buildings in China. In France, 15 % of rural buildings are made of rammed earth and the United States is the leading consumer of mud bricks in the industrialized world.
Earth Architecture author Ronald Rael writes that earth buildings are commonly perceived to be only used by the poor, or found only in the developing world, but there are earth buildings of almost every architectural type in use by every economic and social class in both the industrialized and non-industrialized worlds.
With more than 40 different building projects from around the world, Earth Architecture provides a history of building with earth in a modern era, focusing on projects using rammed earth, mud brick, compressed earth, cob and other techniques that are becoming increasingly important with changing ecological and economic imperatives. Earth Architecture showcases new and innovative uses of the oldest building material on the planet.
The Chapel of Reconciliation in Berlin, Germany and The Chapel of Rest in Voralberg, Austria were recently constructed from rammed earth. The National Wine Center in Adelaide, South Australia contains the largest rammed earth wall in the Southern Hemisphere. The $4,000 a night Amankora Bhutan Resort in Gangtey, Bhutan, has rammed earth walls and the Nk’Mp Dessert Interpretive Center in Osoyoos, Canada has the largest rammed earth wall (363 feet long 18 feet tall and 24 inches thick) in North America.
Earth Architecture also contains a wide range of modern earthen residences from the simple to the stunningly opulent. A beautiful book for earth-based building enthusiasts.
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Visit: http://www.papress.com/
Publisher: Princeton Architectural Press
208 Pages
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