An ancient building medium becomes today's state of the art in earthbuilding technology.

WeddleGilmore Architects designed a prominent structure in the desert Southwest. The design was developed in conjunction with the owner's particular needs.

Constructed with 24" thick Cast Earth walls utilizing soils from nearby provided a link between the owners, the structure and site.

General Contractor for the project is Au Authum Ki, a Native American owned company.

Cast Earth is supplied by Mountain Earth Technologies.
Cast Earth in the Large Project

Massive two foot thick walls of up to twenty feet in height provide profound quietness and peaceful surroundings. The high walls include two bond beams, a standard practice in masonry construction of any type.

Other Cast Earth structures are adjacent to the main structure, although they are not illustrated here.

The entire project is now complete. Below are some images of construction, showing the first half walls completed with the second half being placed using a large boom pump.

This was the first project to employ industrial level techniques, with the pumping done by a high capacity hydraulically operated boom, placing into industrial, crane-moved gang forms. The placing rate was the highest yet sustained and is a preview of the capability of the process at large scale production of multiple homes in subdivisions and on large commercial level buildings such as this one.

North portion.

A new and important development in this project was the first use of a boom pump to place Cast Earth. The adjacent image shows this large unit in the process of pumping Cast Earth mix into the forms of the North Building. This marks a new phase as the process moves to the truly industrial level needed for large structures and residential subdivisions.

This small building is adjacent to the main structure. Instead of placing Cast Earth via a boom pump, the mix in this small building was placed with a concrete grout pump and manual hose manipulation. A construction scene follows:

Credits

WeddleGilmore Architects

Au Authum Ki, General Contractor

Mountain Earth Technologies, Cast Earth

All renderings of the Memorial Hall courtesy of WeddleGilmore; photos courtesy of Au Authum Ki.

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