Construction of Full-Scale Prototype
During the summer of 2005 a team of students and staff constructed a rammed earth wall on the campus of MIT. The wall served as a field test in which fabrication strategies were investigated and evaluated for their technical and aesthetic qualities.
The wall is located at the back of MIT building N51 (275 Massachusetts Ave), the present home of the Visual Arts Program and undergraduate architecture at MIT, in addition to the wood and metal shops of the Department of Architecture. The wall replaced an existing chain link fence in a state of disrepair at the back of the courtyard, improving an outdoor space for use by the School of Architecture for arts and fabrication. The rammed earth wall measures seventy feet long, a foot-and-a-half wide, and six feet tall. It was constructed in two sections, divided in the middle by a twelve-foot wide gate.