On 1-14-12 I drove with a good friend to show him the rammed earth work that was already happening in Dallas. We drove to the work being done at the facility just east of the Walnut Hill Lane Dart station. As we looked over the impressive rammed earth monument that was there, see above, Shane Holt walked up as he noticed us looking over the monument. 

He introduced himself as the owner of Way-Wall Builders from Austin, rammed earth builders. He verified that, to his knowledge, this monument and the other rammed earth work they are doing around the facility, are the first rammed earth structures in Dallas. (Our building will be the first actual building.)

We spoke for some time, sharing stories about the value and utility of rammed earth, and various resources needed in rammed earth construction. I am certain we will be talking more. He wanted to observe the progress on our building as it goes up. He gave me his card and said it could be posted on the blog: Shane Holt: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. , 512-736-1170.   The work he is doing looks very good.  I cannot help but think this will spread more rapidly as more people see the value of rammed earth.

  

Shane Holt and Bill Betzen.  Shane is in the hard hat. 

Our Builder, Anderson Sargent, has been in communication Designer, Chris Everett. This is the first draft of the building plan. I will follow below with the changes we need made to the plan. (I know this not the the most exciting stuff... but we are trying to cover all aspects of the building, planning and permitting process. I hope there are some that will find a view of the whole process valuable.) I will post the final plans when they are done and report on all the rest of the back and forth then.

 

 and a side view

This was a great start for a home office (much nicer than our current house actually). The second floor in the plan was open, that is why I did not include it. The primary purpose of this building will be an office is for a Speech Therapy practice. We do not want it to feel like a school or medical office, where these children may have experienced "failure". We want this to be a new environment where they can heal.

From a design perspective this is a great use for a rectangle. The large wrap around porch will be great for clients to relax on. The real advantage of it is that the sun will not even touch the walls on the south side of the building in our hot summers. With second story porches this will me mostly true for the east and west walls as well (except mornings and evenings). The north will be a great sitting porch in the summer. I love the simplicity of this, nothing fancy, just a great building.

What we need to change:

We like the basic layout for a home office. We asked that the second floor be restricted to space on top of the offices with a walkway in between (right above the door). This means that the open space goes all the way to the roof. The concept for this was that when people walk in, their field of vision will open up after walking in ~5 ft. We want this office to make a great first impression by opening up quickly to let people know that they have come to a healing place, a place where their children will experience success. We have given much thought into making this place feel great.

Following the same line of thought we want all supports for the roof moved out of the direct line of the windows.

To increase the floor space on the inside, we would like the stairs moved outside (meaning the second floor will have a different entrance).

We would like to doors on the offices to be on the corners of the office (opening to the center of the building). We did not like the idea of being presented with the office doors on the way in. We also thought that parents would feel better seeing the doors from the waiting area.

We needed to add a restroom and a small office snack area. A full size kitchen with the restroom would qualify this as a house, meaning more taxes, more red tape, we would have to cut our property in two, and it probably would no longer quality as a home office (being on a seperate peice of property). We are building this building as an office, not a living structure, this means we have to leave certain things out.... But we do need a place for Rachels' clients to use the restroom. So the "kitchen" lost to the restroom.

Seeing the plans for the first time makes me feel great. We are now on our way.

 

These are photos of the first rammed earth construction in Dallas. These structures are for an entryway and signage.

Merry Christmas!

There is a lot of information on the web about Rammed Earth. I am struggling with the idea of how to structure this site to be informative and easy to use. As you know we have started blogging on our Rammed earth project here in Dallas, Texas. Blogs tell a great story, but don't really make information easy to find all the time.

 

Take for instance my favorite Rammed Earth Blog (Rammed Earth is for Everyone). This is a great blog chalk full of information, however I continue to find new great post that have been there for years, just because it is a blog format and not organized by subject. I am at a loss of what categories will be good to sort post into... actually I have some ideas, but want any comments to this post to not be polluted with my thinking. I am hoping that others will think of something I have not considered.

 

As we build both this site and this blog I hope to have projects that people can follow (our projects as well as the projects of others (yes you can blog your project here). I hope to have instructions not only on building but also thoughts on working with building inspectors and builders not familiar with the medium. I hope that this will be a place that truly helps people do their own projects whether they do everything themselves or just contract everything out.

 

Don't be afraid to share what you know and we can all benefit from each others knowledge and experiences. It is our intention to make this a site that will benefit everyone that is interested in doing Rammed Earth (or using earth as a construction medium). If you have any ideas on information we need here, please let us know.