Vancouver Garden Walls – building them

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These rammed earth garden walls were built in Vancouver, B.C. and were  a community involved project. Jean who is a landscape architect decided to try the rammed earth in her own back yard first.  Part of her overall improvement plan was not only for her property but to enhance the neighborhood as well. Jean and Mike invited their neighbors to participate and many of them did and enjoyed the process.

vancouver-garden-wall

The landscaping is done around the walls and the fence posts are up.

vancouver-rammed-earth-wall

A closeup of the rammed earth, the red layer is lava and so is the thin dark black line.

The top of the wall was troweled organically, leaving in rounded to be more comfortable when people sit on it.

The following pictures show the process of building the walls.

footing-poured

The footing is poured and the curb stakes and batter boards are being removed.

adding-pigment

Adding pigment to the mix, in this case we used crushed limestone.

rammed-earth-mixing

Mixing by hand, since we had a small volume and lots of people we mixed by hand.

ramming-wall

Ramming the first wall.

rammed-earth-lava-wall

Placing some lava along the edge of the wall, the kids liked this part the best.

forming-curve-rammed-earth-wall

The curve is formed and jean is putting a finishing nail into a piece of trim we will use to make a small chamfer between the rammed earth wall sections.

remove-curve-forms

Removing the forms on the curve.

rammed-earth-vancouver-curve

The curve complete.

clamping-form

Clamping the top of the form.

tamping

Penny tamping.

tamping

John, Linus and Jean tamping.

girls-building-crew

The all girls building crew.

lava-in-wall

Placing more lava on the edge of the wall.

hand-tampers

The dance of the hand tampers.

forming-final-wall

Forming the final garden wall section.

Yoga Eco-Village Temple/Yoga Studios

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The Yoga Eco-Village Temple is the  proposed centerpiece for Yoga Eco-Village on Salt Spring Island, BC. This west coast rammed earth building has 2 yoga studios and a meditation studio configured in sacred geometry. The main yoga studio is 2 stories inside and will have a large painted mandala ceiling.

 

rammed earth yoga temple

South view, the clerestory area of the main studio is clad with cedar siding.

 

yoga temple center entrance

The main entrance to the yoga temple with decorative floral panels on each side.

 

yoga temple isometric

Isometric model view of the yoga studios from the south-east.

 

 

yoga temple studio rammed earth walls

This is a view of the rammed earth walls and wood beams with the roof removed.

 

yoga studios floorplan

The floor-plan of the yoga studios.

 

 

Gary’s Garage – Building it

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Gary’s rammed earth garage is on Salt Spring Island, BC. The foundation is done and now on to building the walls and roof. The garage walls have no insulation inside and are 1′ thick, with the exception of the pillar between the garage doors, which is 2′ thick.

 

 

rammed-earth-mix

The rammed earth mix is given a light spray as it’s turned.

 

 

shoveling

Shoveling material into the forms.

 

 

rammed-earth-pillar-chamfer

Installing the chamfers for the pillar detail.

 

 

pillar-detail

The pillar looks great with the double chamfer detail.

 

 

tamping-wall

Tamping another wall.

 

 

pneumatic-tamper-rammed-earth

The pneumatic tamper is fast, you can see the trail it leaves as it compacts.

 

 

wall-texture

A good picture of the wall texture. The highlight layers are a mix of crushed white and gray limestone.

 

 

rammed-earth-building-crew

Rudy, Clifton and Yashwant..the core building crew on this project.

 

 

rammed-earth-walls

The rammed earth walls from the south east.

 

 

garys-garage-walls

The walls for the garage are almost done.

 

 

crane-lifting-trusses

The crane is lifting the first bundle of trusses onto the walls.

 

 

trusses-walls

Guiding the bundle of trusses onto the walls.

 

 

roof-trusses

The layout of the roof trusses begins.

 

 

roof-sheeting

The roof sheeting being installed.

 

 

garys-garage-roof-facade

Yashwant working on the facade.

Rammed Earth Wall Testing

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Quality rammed earth walls have fantastic strength, for example a 2′ x 2′ pillar could hold the weight of a double decker bus. We test our walls to make sure that they are performing as expected and every test we have ever done has met or exceeded our engineers specifications. Experience in material selection combined with proper mix and curing procedures are the way to achieve consistent results. Wall testing can be done either by ramming test cylinders or by coring a finished wall. The samples are sent to a lab where crush tests are performed.

coring-rammed-earth-wall

Coring a rammed earth test wall that we had built for this specific purpose. It’s always fun working in the rain!

rammed-earth-wall-test

This is what the rammed earth wall looks like after the core sample has been removed.

rammed-earth-core-sample

The rammed earth core sample shows the inner material much differently than the outside of the wall as the stones have been cut through. Notice how there are various particle sizes, this is a characteristic of a good mix. Having a good particle size distribution allows the material to be compacted better, leading to a higher quality wall.

Stohl Lake Farmhouse – Building the rammed earth walls

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This was a great project for myself and the crew to work on; Stohl Lake farm is beautiful, the people are friendly and we had good weather to top it off.

rammed-earth-wall-layers

This is a great example of the layers in the rammed earth walls, the light is perfect, it’s early morning with the sun filtering through the trees.

spraying-rammed-earth-walls

Spraying the walls to slow down the curing in the hot summer sun.

forming-rammed-earth-curved-wall

Forming a 1 foot thick interior curved wall.

new-rammed-earth-wall

Inspecting the new wall the next morning. The wall color is dark when wet and will lighten up as it dries.

spraying-rammed-earth-mix

David spraying  some water on the mix.

round-window

A view of our volume displacement drum for a round window.

volume-diplacement-drum

Top view of the drum.

yerba-mate-building

Rudy holding a bottle of Guayaki Yerba Mate. David our client is the founder of Guayaki and kindly supplied us during the hot summer of building, Cheers!

round-window-exterior

The round window after the drum has been removed.

rammed-earth-infill

Making an infill, that’s the rammed earth under the windows between 2 larger walls.

walls

A view of the walls from up the hill.

rammed-earth-builders

The rammed earth builders super crew.

hand-tamping

Hand tamping, this whole project was done by manual power. There was a silent retreat on the farm when we started so to keep the noise down we used traditional tamping and ended up doing the whole project that way.

rammed-earth-house-roof

The house is shaping up nicely, always good to have the roof on.

rammed-earth-window-sill

Showing the fine work on the sill and around the windows of Dewey and friends.