PRITHWE

The vast legacy of Earth Architecture has been observed in the traditional and vernacular architecture since ages. Even today, Earth is a local resource of building material. It is neither manufactured nor transported. It can be found everywhere nearby. That’s how it helps in saving energy and reduces environmental pollution. Earth is a 100% eco-friendly building material. Earth has different size of grains in its components namely clay, sand, silt, gravels. Earth architecture consists of different building techniques which needs certain proportion of these components. Variety in the different sizes identifies the quality of the earth. It is very essential to identify the earth in terms of its organic contents.

A wall made from raw earth serves as a natural air conditioner, being warm in winter and cool in summer. When the building is demolished, the earth returns to the soil and can be recycled indefinitely. It is reusable, sustainable, affordable and practical technique of construction. As far as aesthetics are concerned earth construction can be made pleasing by using different variety of clay available in diversity in our country due to presence of iron oxides mixed with clay to give it this highly variable coloring earth.

At Prithwe Earthing Centre, we have studied about details of advantages, components of earth, how to test the clay with effortlessness and practicing different techniques of earth construction with our hands-on experimentation and expert recommendations. The main techniques, traditionally used all around the world for building with earth are ‘Rammed Earth’, ‘Straw Bales’, ‘Wattle and Daub’, ‘Adobe’, ‘Cob’, ‘Hyper-Adobe/Earth Bags’, ‘Stabilized and Compressed Earth Blocks’.

While for some people, the concept of eco-friendly architecture may be associated with structures covered with concrete alternatives, solar panels and equipped with triple glazing windows, we preserve that term strictly for designating natural building methods that utilize the raw materials of the earth.