Building with Earth: Design and Technology of a Sustainable Architecture

al power. With an adequate addition of

water, one cubic metre of usable loam

could be produced in about 15 minutes

(with the help of two or three people, main-

ly to scoop the overflowing mud back into

the track). If a tractor is available, it is easy

and more effective to simply spread earth

on a field and drive back and forth over it.

For small quantities, a small garden cultiva-

tor is very useful (3.2). In modern earth con-

struction technology, forced mixers are used.

Here, the mixing is done with the help of

revolving arms that are fixed either to a ver-

tical (3.3) or horizontal axis (3.6). It is con-

venient to have a mechanical device for fill-

ing this mixer, as seen in 3.5.

Old mortar mixing machines can also be

used, like ones that have rotating rollers

(3.4). The machine in 3.6was specially

developed for preparing loam from any kind

of soil (by the German firm Heuser).

A quicker method of preparing a loam from

dry clods of clayey soil is to crush them in

37 Preparing of loam

3.1Mixing unit used
at the BRL, Kassel
3.2Garden cultivator
3.3Forced mixer
3.4Mortar mixer
with rollers
3.5Forced mixer
with loading device
3.6Forced loam
mixer (Heuser)
3.7Electrical hand
mixer
3.8Electrical crusher

3.5 3.4

3.6

3.8 3.7

3.3

3.2