FIRE gives warmth.
FIRE gives light.
FIRE gathers people.

The fireplace marks the center.
Around the fireplace life takes place.

The floor underneath the fireplace is raw earth.
The fire is directly on the ground, as you make the fire in the nature.

The fireplace is made out 2,5 tons raw earth taken from in front of the house.

The shape of the fireplace is a crystal, a raw diamond.
The reflected light shows the shades of the 24 angled facets of the earth crystal.

Collaboratorio has renovated their office space in Kapteeninkatu, Helsinki with natural and less processed materials.
In collaboration with Vihdin Betoni and Hanno Burtscher Earthman they managed to make the first rammed earth floor (using Finnish clay, sand and stones) in Helsinki. The walls are clay painted and new partitions clay plastered. Furniture is hand made from wood and iron.

A clear statement to prove the vision of collaboratorio architects!

The renovation of the world famous Sedlec Ossuary  was partially given to a young and ambitious group of architects - RCNKSK architekti - who take a very sensitive approach with deep respect of the existing structure.

The consequence was to incorporate earth as a building material and thus rammed earth as the technique, a beautiful and archaic expression.

The original house was built in 1973. In the year 1993 an extension took place.

Location of the house is Fontanella, a village with 500 inhabitants in the western part of the Austrian Alps.

In 2018, -45 years after the construction- the house was in a poor state. We decided to renovate the house instead of demolish it.

The philosophy for the project was to use natural materials, ideally locally sourced.

This simplicity and consequence of material and detail solution was the spirit which carried us throughout the entire project.

The vision was to replace unhealthy materials with natural, healthy materials. The aim was to create a healthy and natural space.

Looking at the result I can say that we succeeded!

My brother, who has been living in Paraguay for the last 9 years, urged me to build a living space on the 22nd floor and an office space for his company... with a lot of earth.

The result is breathtaking!

To create a space to honor the past, bring into close conscious where we are at the present moment and to spotlight visionary ideas which have the potential to create a bright future where life as we know it today is coexisting in equilibrium.

The Cultural Center will provide for a wide range of activities serving the local population and becoming a cultural landmark on both a regional, national and global horizon. When completed, the project will contain diverse cultural facilities, including an auditorium, cinema, library, exhibition hall, museum and archive.

Rammed earth has been chosen to create a link between the ancient construction material - earth - which was used in most parts of Saudi Arabia until the seventies, but got replaced with concrete buildings.

The rammed earth elements in this project show up how sophisticated an ancient technique can be shaped.

The dimensions of the earth walls are impressive.

The Ricola Kräuterzentrum (herb center) in Laufen was designed by the Basel based architects Herzog & de Meuron and inaugurated in 2014. The building is a high-volume long building with flat roof and façades respectively 110 m and 30 m long, built as a continuous rammed earth wall. Lehm Ton Erde worked closely with the architects to develop the project, which now stands as Europe’s largest earth building. The prefabricated earth elements were manufactured in a nearby factory out of earth extracted from local quarries and mines.

The task was to build a home for a Yoga teacher.

The vision was to create three independent spaces shaped as an octagon and to connect them with bridges.

The choice of materials were clear: Bamboo / Earth / Gras, all as local as possible.

An open space with plenty of airflow which brings a fresh breeze into the living space and reduced humidity.

The project was realized with local workers. Balinese craftsmen are already skillful in Bamboo work. My main task was to train them to build rammed earth walls, rammed earth floor and to figure out the interface of bamboo and earth.

Markus Roselieb and his wife Yodphet Sudsawad are founder of the Panyaden school in chiang mai.

Panyaden School is an international "green" school based on Buddhist principles and situated in Chiang Mai, the capital of northern Thailand.

The first phase of the school was built in 2010-2011 and as it has outgrown its initial plan, new buildings were erected. Panyaden is a green school not only because it is situated in an orchard in the middle of mother nature and teaches how to live with nature, how to plant and harvest rice and vegetables, how to recycle and save energy ; but also because it is entirely built form earth and bamboo only.