The use of fabric to re-think conventional compressive containment for rammedearth allows the making of compressive structures through tensile means, saving weight,materials costs, and the importation of technology into ‘developing world’ situations. Fabricformwork achieves a permanent architecture that is defined with the most portable of tools.The need to develop a system that is tested and approved in the ‘developed West’ isimportant as a way of challenging the current stranglehold that the use of cement has ondeveloping nations. To obtain mortgage loans in many situations cement use is aprerequisite by local funders, from urban situations in Botswana to dam relocationprogrammes in the Punjab, where for example displaced villages are required to build withimported concrete where earthen structures could provide secure and simple architecturethat can be self built and affordable. If ‘Western’ methods are available for self-builders,then the perception of earth as ‘poor’ material can be questioned, with a chance that thecement dependent status quo can be challenged.The research programme at the University of East London School of Architecture andthe Visual Arts led by Chandler and Keable has developed over 5 years a series ofrefinements to lighter weight, robust systems for rammed earth construction. This work hasreceived a £10,000 grant to develop the research as a ‘Fabric earthform’ product, but alsoas a non-profit programme for Southern African states to promote the development of localvariants of fabric formed rammed earth construction.
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