A version appeared on Architectural Record’s website:

Last, but not least, Tom Stoelker of Architects Newspaper filed this report.

The scene

As designers, we need to re-engage the act of making the things we design. Thanks to people like Martin and Anna, making will continue to enjoy an integral role in Harvard’s design pedagogy. Job sites call for a creative problem solving approach that is best learned from hands on experience, and so often the design intent we communicate on paper
is adapted on site to limitations unforeseen in the studio.

Without these experiences, how are we to prepare for the bumps in the road that shape our work? I think the way we adapt to site constraints has much to do with the final quality of our projects, and understanding the practicalities that prefigure our work is essential to our formation as designers. Exposure to construction and fabrication while in
school uniquely prepares us for success as practitioners. Hands on projects like MUDworks address the growing rift between designers and their partner professions. While the ascendancy of digital design
tools offers incredible potential, it can also distance us from the physicality inherent to building. Earthen construction is visceral enough to dissolve this rift more quickly than any other form of construction. And as we continue to pursue design excellence in our research and professional practices, it is imperative that we engage this portion of our professional territory.

I speak for many of us when I say that this project has been one of the most refreshing experiences of my year at the GSD. And I want close
by saying thank you to everyone who made it possible. Thanks.

Carrying the forms away

Loeb Jean Brownhill Lauer, Loeb affilliate James Lauer, and GSD student Alex Myer started gingerly prying off the boards. The forms proved a bit stubborn, so it was clear more force was needed. With the help of drills, makeshift levers and brute strength, they began removing the plywood that had been holding the mud in place for six days.

Alex removing the forms

It was as if they’d just uncovered a buried treasure. The wet, glistening black mud was perfectly formed, with sharp, creased corners. With the wooden shroud gone, it was possible to see the work of a 100 volunteers made visible.

Anyone lose some money?

Martin and James taking off the form

There were a few minor causalities in the course of taking down the forms. Some dirt broke off one corner and had to be repaired. But it was easy for Jean and Anna to patch by packing on wet mud by hand.

Anna fixes a corner

Streaks of gray and orange as mud dries

Jim Stockard inspecting the wall

Since construction started on Saturday, we’ve been talking with Loeb Fellow and MudWorks designer Anna Heringer about what to say, how to say it and where to say it. We settled on a s hort, just-the-facts quartet of sentences, and decided that this pretty much sums things up:

Built with EARTH and WATER.
Fashioned by the human HAND.
As RESILIENT as concrete.
This wall can be reclaimed by NATURE.

Then we had to decide where to inscribe the text. So with the help of GSD students we organized a mock-up. Oscar Malaspina and Nick Rivard took time from their hectic scheduls to print out the phrases and try various locations. This one seemed to work:

Mock-up for MudWorks inscription

But after some discussion, we decided that it was actually too prominent, and took away from the main event, the mud wall. Oscar went back to his computer and designed a new version that will wrap around the base in a single, continuous line.

The plan is to engrave the letters into the mud. That means volunteers will have to work fast. Because so many volunteers have come out to help in the last two days, work has gone very fast. The MudWorks crew expects to begin taking off the wooden forms from the main wall today.
Thanks to Loeb Fellow Ian Lockwood for these great photos:

Loeb Fellows Chris Calott and Jean Lauer working on the mud sail

Digging

Nick and Caroline

Chris Calott and Anna Heringer examine the mud slide

The project would never have made such fast progress without the help of a wide assortment of volunteers – in all sizes. Mark Goldman, a Taos, New Mexico developer and architect (trained at the Boston Architectural College), probably wins the honors for traveling farthest to participate. He spent four full days on the job site carrying pails of dirt, ramming and plastering.

Mark Goldman

Other volunteers came from nearby schools like MIT and RISD to join GSD students. One of the hardest working volunteers, Sarah, is a local resident contemplating an architecture career. Arlo, 7, and Saul, 5, Naparstek were youngest workers on the site. Hope OSHA is okay with that.

Because the work has gone so fast, volunteers have been able to start plastering of the mud sail and the mud slide. GSD students are starting to hone in on the details.

Tilly Hatcher plastering the mud sail

Smoothing the mud slide

Joanne Nerenberg and Sneha Khullar

Volunteers on the job site

http://www.eartharchitecture.org/index.php?%2Farchives%2F527-Desert-Works.html

Building the forms

In just two days, the rammed earth project at the Graduate School of Design has made enormous progress. It didn’t seem possible at the dreary start of Sunday morning. It was cold and overcast. The forms arrived late. There were problems with the delivery of the mud. But by midday, students, Loebs and assorted volunteers had formed a synchronized bucket bridgade to deliver pails of the clay-ey dirt to the ramming teams, led by Loeb Fellow Anna Heringer and earth artist Martin Rauch.

A volunteer pours dirt into the forms

There’s a reason that shoveling dirt is called back-breaking labor. It’s hard work. But so is ramming earth, as some volunteers discovered. As the pails of dirt were deposited in the forms, the rammers went to work flattening and compressing the dirt with hand rammers. After they finished, volunteers went over the surface with the pneumatic rammer. You had to pretty strong to control that tool.

Martin tests the mud

There was a brief set-back on Sunday morning. Although the volunteers had filled up close to three feet of dirt, Martin and Anna became concerned that the consistency was too wet and heavy. An emergency mock-up was organized. GSD students produced a test form in the wood shop. After it was filled, compacted and opened, the rammed earth seemed fine.

Still, just to be sure, Anna and Martin dispatched some volunteers to pick up 10 bags of gravel – 600 pounds!- at Home Depot. By afternoon, the ramming was proceeding at a fast pace. And by the end of work, the dirt was about 18 inches short of the top of the form.

The dirt is almost at the top of the form.