The Rammed Earth House began as an exercise in programmatic cores as a minimal dwelling. Set in the desert of Arizona with a minimal footprint, the efficiency of the plan leads to an opportunity for openness, fluidity, and even ambiguity in space.
The idea of the Rammed Earth House allows for two competing tendencies to play out simultaneously. On the one hand, the efficient packing of services into coherent core walls creates a concise use for that room. On the other hand, the cores are minimized to such an extent that they dissolve the boundaries between discrete rooms and offer a more fluid and multi-programmed sequence of spaces. By revealing the cores as volumes that define spaces, corridors dissolve into an ample shared space.
Held within stacking glass partitions which pocket into the rammed earth walls, an uninterrupted flow between interior and exterior emerges. The envelope of the house dissolves into the structure, rendering the house into an open air pavilion. The rammed earth walls, comprised of the same aggregate that the structure sits upon, rise from the ground plane to hold a large roof overhang which creates a covered patio and outdoor dining space.
