erden.at, Quadernstrasse 7, Schlins (2026)

06/10/2025

Ökologische Lehmarchitektur – Intention, Gestaltungsmöglichkeiten, Baudetails. Die Fachveranstaltung "Tag des Lehmbaus" am 14. Oktober bietet weitreichende Einblicke in die Möglichkeiten von Lehmbauten. Stellvertretend hierfür stehen Gestaltung und Bau des zentralen neuen Lehmhauses und seiner Freianlagen auf dem Campus St. Michael in Traunstein.

Referent:innen: Anna Heringer, Hans Romstätter, Martin Rauch, Harry Dobrzanski
Ecological Earthen Architecture – Concepts, Design, and Construction Details. The professional event “Day of Earthen Construction” on October 14 offers in-depth insights into the possibilities of building with earth. A highlight will be the design and construction of the new central earth house and its surrounding landscape on the St. Michael campus in Traunstein.

Speakers: Anna Heringer, Hans Romstätter, Martin Rauch, Harry Dobrzanski
Anmeldung/Registration: https://www.kbw-traunstein.de/startseite/details/55270_tag-des-lehmbaus
Foto/Photo: Campus St. Michael

14/07/2025

Wind, Wasser, Frost und gewaltige tektonische Kräfte haben über Millionen von Jahren die Erde geformt. Sie schnitten Täler, falteten Gebirge, formten Ozeane – und schufen so unseren heutigen Lebensraum. Erosion ist eines der zentralen Gestaltungselemente dieser Prozesse. Sie wird nicht nur vom Klima und dem schützenden Pflanzenmantel beeinflusst, sondern zunehmend auch durch menschliche Eingriffe. Kultur und Landschaft stehen dabei in einem wechselseitigen Verhältnis: Der Mensch formt die Landschaft – und die Landschaft prägt die Kultur. Martin Rauch widmet sich seit Jahrzehnten der Transformation von Erde zu Baukunst. Sein Anspruch ist es, den nahezu überall verfügbaren Baustoff – der wie kein anderer ökologische und baubiologische Kriterien erfüllt – mittels Stampflehmtechnik in Architektur zu überführen, die keine Wunden hinterlässt, sondern Teil eines konsequenten Kreislaufs ist. Die ausgestellten Arbeiten erzählen davon.
Bundeskunsthalle Bonn
WE/trans/FORM
06.06.2025-25.01.2026
Over millions of years, wind, water, frost, and powerful tectonic forces have shaped the Earth—carving valleys, folding mountains, forming oceans, and creating the landscapes we inhabit today. Erosion plays a key role in this process, influenced not only by climate and vegetation but increasingly by human intervention. Culture and landscape exist in a reciprocal relationship: we shape the land, and the land shapes us. For decades, Martin Rauch has been dedicated to transforming earth into architecture. His goal is to work with a material that is both locally available and ecologically sound—using rammed earth techniques to create buildings that leave no scars, but instead become part of a regenerative cycle. The exhibits speak of this.
Photo: David Ertl

26/03/2025

Gespachtelte Unikate: Ob im Bereich Boden-/Wandgestaltung oder im Möbeldesign, Lehmkasein schafft eine besonders edle, robuste und natürliche Oberfläche. Die Spachtelmasse wird in unserem Betrieb nach einem speziellen Verfahren hergestellt und mit Kasein stabilisiert – einem Milcheiweiß, das in Kombination mit Kalk ein starkes und ökologisches Klebemittel bildet. Die gespachtelten Flächen werden angeschliffen, mit Leinöl imprägniert und mit Carnaubawachs poliert; dadurch wird die Oberfläche wasser- und kratzfest. Die Grundfarben Weiß, Gelb, Rot und Schwarz können untereinander beliebig gemischt werden, wodurch eine breite Farbpalette entsteht.
Nächster Workshop: 15./16. Mai 2025
https://lehmkasein.at/
Surface design: Clay casein is a versatile material that enhances floors, walls and furniture with a durable, elegant and natural finish. Our in-house produced plaster is stabilized with casein – a milk protein that, when combined with lime, forms a strong and eco-friendly binder. The surfaces are sanded, treated with linseed oil, and polished with carnauba wax, resulting in a water- and scratch-resistant finish. Available in white, yellow, red, and black, these base colors can be freely mixed to create a wide range of shades.
Photo: Hanno Mackowitz

08/05/2024

Breaking the glass ceiling – After overcoming all kinds of technical, bureaucratic, and imaginative hurdles, atop a forest of columns, our final earth-timber composite slabs now rest in the HORTUS building in Allschwil, Switzerland. These ground-breaking, eyebrow-raising floors cover 12,000 square metres of ground area. Semi-automated production, hand-crafted finishing, fully prefabricated, the vaulted storeys now offer proof of possibility. An in-the-flesh built example of horizontal building structure made from natural and regenerative materials at a commercial scale. Adding mass for improved indoor climate and energy efficiency without the carbon trade-off that usually comes with it, these floor slabs have the potential to save 40-60% of a building’s embodied CO2 if they replace conventional concrete slabs. Not to mention the stunning visual benefit. We aren’t stopping here, our work continues as we develop new design variations and refine the production process. Keep looking up. More to come.

Photo: Hanno Mackowitz
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30/04/2024

Ageing elegance – Just as a bronze patina calls to mind nature’s brushstroke, we, as in many makers’ traditions, encourage and even idealise those fingerprints of time that mark our creations. When rain trickles down a rammed earth surface, it sheds microscopic clay lamellae and deposits them downstream. The wall begins to texture as the large grains of gravel become exposed. A matte coarseness replaces the refined clay smoothness, neither uniform nor everywhere, and only in moments where the weather prevails. The rugged face now has more surface area, further inhibiting the passage of the water’s flow. Like a gentle creek that cannot break its banks, eventually, the rough surface becomes immune to washout, a poetic symbiosis between function and beauty.

Photo: Hanno Mackowitz, Beat Bühler
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04/04/2024

Exhibiting our earth – A few weeks ago, a new exhibition opened in the called “Closer to Nature”. The exhibition reflects on the competition between architecture and nature, as finite resources and growing spatial needs present an unavoidable dilemma. The construction industry’s outsized contribution to the problem raises the question: Can we build with, rather than against, nature? Invited to participate, we presented a sculpture in reference to Berlin’s Chapel of Reconciliation, one of Martin’s earliest projects. The sculpture’s two-part curved monoliths, with smooth interior surfaces and vertically textured exterior surface, reflect the chapel’s inner and outer skins. Almost a quarter century on, it testifies to the renewal and sustained appeal of European earth building. The exhibition remains open, go have a feel.

Photo & drawing: Anaïs Charlier
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15/02/2024

Project update – The Hortus project was envisioned as a new benchmark in ecological commercial architecture. Designed by Herzog de Meuron, the design centres natural and circular materials in a bid to reduce its embodied energy and end-of-life waste. In fact, the disposal fees of the demolished building were taken into account during its planning. A key feature of the project is the innovative vaulted slabs. In a conventional multistory building, more than half of the structural mass is in the floors. So a massive reduction of embodied energy can be achieved by replacing this mass with a few of these hybrid earth and timber big boys. 810 big boys to be precise. We undertook the rigorous prototyping of the novel slab. After development and testing, we teamed up with to cover the 12 000 m2 off floor space. These shots, in no particular order, are from the onsite field factory we set up. The timber elements are prefabricated and brought in to be filled with site-won material. The specialised machinery was also developed by us and is specifically designed for this slab system.

Photo: Sami Akkach
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08/02/2024

Dirtini, stirred not tumbled – The only way to stop a bad guy with a concrete mixer, is a good guy with an earth mixer. Or something like that. Here’s a big tip for mixing rammed earth material: don’t use a tumble mixer. Tumble mixers are made to turn liquid mixes like wet concrete. But for a crumbly mix of gravel, sand, and clay in an earth-moist state, tumbling the material makes the individual grains bounce off one another. The clay parts start to bind to each other rather than the aggregate. Continue tumbling and the snowball effect comes into play. Small clay clumps begin to roll within the mixer and gather more clay, turning into clay balls. The gravel gets a little dirty but not coated. The result is a non-homogeneous mix. Without the aggregate coated well throughout the mix, the particles don’t bind together later under compaction.

Unfortunately, there isn’t much of a machinery selection out there specifically for earth mixing. We use a forced-action mixer. Also known as a vertical axis mixer or pan mixer. The paddles inside squash the components together against the bottom of the pan, avoiding the tumbling issue. Without one of these beauties available, rather than using a tumble mixer, it’s better to mix the old school method with rakes and shovels (or a front loader) on a hard slab.

I’m curious to know, though, have other earth builders had different mixing experiences?

Photo: Hanno Mackowitz, Markus Bühler, Derek li Wan Po
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23/11/2023

Dirty didactics – ‘Learning by doing’ is the path almost all earth builders take to learn their craft. Over the years, to pick up the tricks of the trade, many have passed through our doors, and windows and chimneys if needed. Offering that opportunity is something we relish but seldom find the time for. By collaborating with others in the clay community, we can sometimes create a process that allows us to be both teacher and builder at the same time. Designed in-house by Erden Studio, The Haberkorn Garden pavilion was one of these projects that brought together professionals and pupils in a hands-on, didactic setting. Together with the irreplaceable help of and students from the studio at University of Arts Linz, two monolithic earthen podiums were rammed in situ forming the main architectonic elements of the design. Co-constructing this project with students embedded an aspect of social sustainability alongside the ecological focus of the project. Unseasoned earth building amateurs came in, mud marinated masters came out. We regularly partner with BASEHabitat and their next course is starting in March. Applications are still being accepted. The link is below if the mood strikes you.

https://www.basehabitat.org/study/postgrad/

Photo:
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10/10/2023

Technical Tuesday – The final stage of developing a recipe requires laboratory testing to verify the strength of the mix. Once we’ve optimised a recipe, we mix a larger batch of material accordingly, covering and leaving it to rest overnight to ensure moisture diffuses throughout. From that material, we produce a series of test blocks according to the current test standards for compressive testing. It differs from country to country but, typically, it’s a specifically sized cube or cylinder, similar to that of concrete testing. We make a minimum of four test blocks for each mix we want to test and set them aside in a stable environment – with even airflow and no direct sunlight – to dry. Each block is crushed by the lab and the average of results gives us reliable data to work with. Our own standard for the compressive strength of our material is 2.4 N/mm2 or 2.4 MPa. The static engineers can begin their design and calculations with this figure until the lab results come in confirming this benchmark is met. These photos are from our FFG research project with where about 200 blocks were tested for the mechanical properties of load-bearing unstabilised rammed earth.

Photo: Courtesy of gbd constructive thinking
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21/08/2023

Meditative Monday – Through the tacit knowledge that only one’s hands can offer, touching the patterned surface of an earthen monolith renders an understanding of the material. You feel its coarse texture, its dryness wicking your sweat. Your warm touch is absorbed into its cool depth and your eye is caught in the kaleidoscope of stones and sediments that catch light and streak shadow across its face. The material is intimate and magnetising, such is the human connection to earth. Enter a space with an earthen wall and an impulse runs your hand over it, turning your palm up after to examine for residue. It’s soothing massiveness engulfing you like a hug from grandma. Primordial minerals seemingly soak stress. Crafted earth, ancient and familiar, is made for human living, humane existence.

1. Haus Rauch, AT – Beat Bühler
2. Vigilius Mountain Resort, IT – Martin Rauch
3. Erden Haus, AT – Michael Kreyer
4. Wohnhaus Flims –
5. Gartenpavillon Lehmo, CH –
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