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Fabric Formwork:

The use of fabric to re-think conventional compressive containment for rammed
earth allows the making of compressive structures through tensile means, saving weight, materials costs, and the importation of technology into ‘developing world’ situations. Fabric formwork achieves a permanent architecture that is defined with the most portable of tools.
The need to develop a system that is tested and appproved in the ‘developed West’ is
important as a way of challenging the current stranglehold that the use of cement has on developing nations. To obtain mortagage loans in many situations cement use is a prerequisite by local funders, from urban situations in Botswana to dam relocation programmes in the Punjab, where for example displaced villages are required to build with imported concrete where earthen structures could provide secure and simple architecture that can be self built and affordable. If ‘Western’ methods are available for self-builders, then the perception of earth as ‘poor’ material can be questioned, with a chance that the
cement dependent status quo can be challenged.

The research programme at the University of East London School of Architecture and
the Visual Arts led by Chandler and Keable has developed over 5 years a series of
refinements to lighter weight, robust systems for rammed earth construction. This work has received a £10,000 grant to develop the research as a ‘Fabric earthform’ product, but also as a non-profit rening programe for Southern African states to promote the development of
local variants of fabric formed rammed earth construction.

Alan Chandler and Rowland Keable

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PRL is recognised as a Research Group of the Sustainability Research Institute at UEL and a part of the London Regional Centre for Expertise in Education for Sustainable Development (RCE ESD) as a specialist in Place-based education.

Place Research Lab Community Interest Company no. 7650531

PRL 01/06/11

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