In this building workshop in Benevento, Italy, Ak0 experimented with rammed earth and prefabricated wall elements in rammed earth. Check out all our tutorial videos on rammed earth to learn how to make the formwork, mix, ramming, assemble and coating.

Our Italian partner AK0 - architettura a kilometro zero is running a training program for sustainable architecture in Côte d'Ivoire. Practical workshops are at the base of a series of activities that aim at promoting the use of renewable building techniques in the rural areas of the West-African country.

self-construction and prefabrication. How can these apparently contrasting approaches be combined? This is one of the questions investigated during the LearnBI0N workshop in Benevento.

Along with the construction of fixed furniture facilities, natural coatings have been the focus of a 4 days seminar embedded in LearnBI0N workshop #5

After four weeks of training, building, explaining, redesigning and sharing, it is finally possible to use the barbecue facilities that AK0 designed as output of the practical exercise of workshop Design and Build with Prefabricated Rammed Earth.

The third LearnBIØN-workshop started this week in Benevento

The workshop participants will contribute to the realisation of a set of fix furniture for the new barbecue area of Caffè dell'Orto - Fattoria Sociale Orto di Casa Betania, a social enterprise that uses urban farming as an opportunity for persons with disabilities or social difficulties to have an independent live. All the structures will be built with raw earth, namely with the technique of rammed earth.

The techniques that will be the main vehicle for this workshop will be defined along with the design to be co-created by all the participants in the beginning of the week.

We will concentrate on some of the techniques shared abroad during the LearnBIØN program, so skills can be more easily shared with ones getting in contact with them for the first time and improved by the ones who have experienced them.

After workshop BI0N#5, we finished the construction: a rammed earth parapet was built, the wooden structure of the roof was set and the different layers of the green roof were installed. In the interior, a lime concrete slab was done on a rocks bed. The shelves were realized with ceramic tiles (made in a local small factory) and a lime plaster was done to protect each one of the niches.

Last July, during workshop #2 of the LearnBIØN-program, AK0 together with local associations and the municipality of Casaprota have equipped a training location for sustainable architecture within an abandoned building in central Italy.

As an integration to the library project developed by the local association Dehesa Tierra, AK0 was invited to work on the experimentation, which led to the construction of a small piece of fix furniture. The Rome based association partnered with Rossella Siani, adjunct professor in Parametric Design from the University of Naples, for this experience.

Second and last week of our ”design&build rammed earth workshop” have passed. During the week end we had the opportunity to know better the environment of the village with two excursions: first we were invited to a traditional walk in the country-side with Valverde’s inhabitants. During this pagan feast, they usually do a procession with horses, tractors and other vehicles, and make several breaks to have some wine and tapas. It was a great experience although we had to come back quickly to the village because of the rain..

The first week has passed at the Design and Build with Rammed Earth course in Valverde de Burguillos (Extremadura, Spain). The whole group of participants (17 people from 9 diferent countries) gathered on sunday 15th and had their first contact with the local vernacular architecture through a “rural sketching” activity.

Rammed earth is a traditional building technique present in many parts of Spain, especially in the south of Extremadura, where most of the villages are built with rammed earth and painted with lime. This beautiful vernacular architecture is today under threat of extinction in spite of the countless benefits of raw earth, a local and low transformed material with high comfort regulation properties.