[memory] [build] Earthbag walls. (Mar 2017)

A bit less than one year ago there was a little earthbag building workshop at Quinta dos 7 Nomes, our favourite organic, everyday shopping Permaculture farm in the surrounding. I would have loved to take part in that workshop, yet I had my whole family visiting exactly around these days. Having whitnessed the whole preparation and a lot of the building process anyhow, I am taking this building technique highly into consideration for small future DIY constructions.

These are photos taken during lunch time at the farm. One can see the layers of earth bags, the tire-form and wood-form for a niche under a bench and a future window. One canalso see the DIY tampers, that where build on site for earth bag compaction.

After the workshop with ArQeas was over, I was very happy with our almost daily visits and frequent lunches to suck in as much visuals and informations as possible. Barbara, giving the workshop has a great knowledge about natural building and answers any question very knowledgeable. The days after the workshop I even managed to join in for the final inside / outside earth rendering of the finished earth bag wall and even got to mix a whole load of earth render by myself.

Here is the finished wall with the forms for the openings still in place. Once the wall is dried and settled the formes will be removed and replaced by windows. Strange how this photo looks like it had snowed. We are in Portugal at the coast.. Just an optical illution of ligth reflections and white gravel in front of the shop entrance.

The well fermented, super slimy and very bad smelling Indian fig cactus (opuntia species) additive was my favourite! So fascinated by this natural “alchemy” of earth rendering. Once finished, the wall has to cure and settle for about 2 to 3 months and will then be completed with a white lime render.

This is the fermented Indian fig slime being added to the earth render through a sieve. Its made by fermenting the chopped up Indian Fig leaves for some days after being covered in wter. Careful: STINKS!

If your interested on how the wall looks today I would be very happy to take new pictures of today with white render, doors, window and artwork.

I hope you enjoyed.
Moritz

Related posts for [memory]:
[observe] [memoy] Hoopoe, upupa epops. (Mar 2017)
[memory] First wood for our Rocket Mass Heater. (Sept 2016)
[memory] More wood. (Sept 2016)