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WISE at the Centre for Alternative Technology

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WISE at the Centre for Alternative Technology

Machynleth, Wales

The rammed earth lecture theatre at CAT has fast become an iconic earth building. This outstanding organisation are just completing this large scale new build to which will seriously enhance their capacity as a teaching facility. This is the second rammed earth build they have done. The first was all straight lines, but this is a 15m diameter circle with walls rising to 7m to form their new lecture theatre.

We were consultants to the main contractor who had no previous experience of this technology. Despite this they do have in-house skills covering all the main areas needed: plant, formwork, materials handling and labour management.

The job used formwork which can be formed to curves as low as 7m diameter, but is very expensive!

After sourcing the material at a quarry detailed work was done to ensure the walls would stand up to 7m height before drying at the 500mm design thickness of wall.

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©2007 Rowland Keable