page_title: Rammed earth
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Rammed earth / History
caption_attribution_description: Nk'Mip Desert Cultural Centre - main entry with rammed earth wall and hills of the Okanagan Desert behind.
context_page_description: Rammed earth, also known as taipa in Portuguese, tapial or tapia in Spanish, pisé in French, and hāngtǔ in Chinese, is a technique for constructing foundations, floors, and walls using natural raw materials such as earth, chalk, lime, or gravel. It is an ancient method that has been revived recently as a sustainable building method.
  Edifices formed of rammed earth are on every continent except Antarctica, in a range of environments including temperate, wet, semiarid desert, montane, and tropical regions. The availability of suitable soil and a building design appropriate for local climatic conditions are the factors that favour its use.
context_section_description: Evidence of ancient use of rammed earth has been found in Neolithic archaeological sites such as those of the Fertile Crescent, dating to the 9th–7th millennium BC, and of the Yangshao and Longshan cultures in China, dating to 5000 BCE. By 2000 BCE, rammed-earth architectural techniques (夯土 Hāng tǔ) were commonly used for walls and foundations in China.
  In the 1800s, rammed earth was popularized in the United States by the book Rural Economy by S. W. Johnson. The technique was used to construct the Borough House Plantation and the Church of the Holy Cross in Stateburg, South Carolina, both being National Historic Landmarks.
  Constructed in 1821, the Borough House Plantation complex contains the oldest and largest collection of 'high style' pise de terre (rammed earth) buildings in the United States. Six of the 27 dependencies and portions of the main house were constructed using this ancient technique which was introduced to this country in 1806 through the book Rural  Economy,  by S. W. Johnson
  An outstanding example of a rammed-earth edifice in Canada is St. Thomas Anglican Church in Shanty Bay, Ontario, erected between 1838 and 1841.
  From the 1920s through the 1940s rammed-earth construction in the US was studied. South Dakota State College extensively researched and constructed almost one hundred weathering walls of rammed earth. For over 30 years the college investigated the use of paints and plasters in relation to colloids in soil. In 1945, Clemson Agricultural College of South Carolina published the results of their research of rammed earth in a pamphlet titled "Rammed Earth Building Construction". In 1936, on a homestead near Gardendale, Alabama, the United States Department of Agriculture constructed an experimental community of rammed-earth edifices with architect Thomas Hibben. The houses were inexpensively constructed and were sold to the public along with sufficient land for gardens and small plots for livestock. The project successfully provided valuable homes to low-income families.
  The US Agency for International Development is working with undeveloped countries to improve the engineering of rammed-earth houses. It also financed the authorship of the Handbook of Rammed Earth by Texas A&M University and the Texas Transportation Institute. The Handbook was unavailable for purchase by the public until the Rammed Earth Institute International gained permission to reprint it.
  Interest in rammed earth declined after World War II when the cost of modern construction materials decreased. Rammed earth was considered substandard, and still is opposed by many contractors, engineers, and tradesmen who are unfamiliar with earthen construction techniques. The prevailing perception that such materials and techniques perform poorly in regions prone to earthquakes has prevented their use in much of the world. In Chile, for example, rammed earth edifices normally cannot be conventionally insured against damage or even be approved by the government.
  A notable example of 21st-century use of rammed earth is the façade of the Nk'Mip Desert Cultural Centre in southern British Columbia, Canada. As of 2014 it is the largest rammed earth wall in North America.
caption: Nk'Mip Desert Cultural Centre in Osoyoos, British Columbia, Canada, completed in 2006
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