Winners of Buildner's Rammed Earth Pavilion competition explore the beauty of alternative materials

Buildner Architecture Competitions has announced the results of its Rammed Earth Pavilion competition. Part of the organization’s series exploring the unique benefits of various building materials, the competition tasked participants with the design of a pavilion to be constructed from rammed earth in a location of their choosing.

The winning schemes hailed from Switzerland, the United Arab Emirates, Germany, and France, with functions ranging from a brickworks museum to a greenhouse. The winners were chosen by Buildner’s 12-person jury, who “sought creative designs exploring the potential for this ancient and sustainable building materials.”

The winning entries have been published below.

First Prize: Kiln Tower for the Brickworks Museum by Roger Boltshauser

Jury comment excerpt: “The Kiln Tower for the Brickworks Museum in Cham, Switzerland is a prestressed clay-wood structure and the world's first prestressed building in clay. It is a built project designed to document the history of a local brickworks hut - a listed architectural monument. The clay tower enables visitors to gain an overview of the site, allows staff to fire bricks with a kiln, and displays exhibits of the museum. The material is clay in its unfired form and demonstrates the archaic rammed earth building method in contemporary development.”

Second Prize and Buildner Sustainability Award: Hooke Garden by Farid Younesi, Amina Yusupova, and Thanatcha Cholpradit

Jury comment excerpt: “Hooke Garden is a greenhouse pavilion in the UK that makes use of earth excavated from the site to form its full-length rammed earth wall. It also uses forest timber and lime in lieu of cement for more sustainable construction. The wall is supported by six dual posts arranged 1200mm apart to form the mold, and the posts extend above the wall to support the timber roof. The wall performs as a thermal insulator for the greenhouse as it absorbs heat during the day and releases it at night for the continuous cycle of growth for fresh fruits and vegetables within, a source of food for locals.”

Third Prize: Hands On! by Oliver Giebels and Alessandra Esposito

Jury comment excerpt: “Hands On is a proposal for a temporary pavilion designed as a traveling exhibition, a space for public workshops focused on rammed earth as a building material. The clay for the pavilion is collected from building site excavations and the aggregate from demolition waste material. The pavilion facade is constructed of modular rammed earth blocks, spaced to yield a pattern of joints and permit the entry of daylight within. The pavilion is an open-air courtyard of sorts with four perimeter walls topped by a small fabric roof to protect the rammed earth from direct rainfall.”

Buildner Student Award: Corridor Gallery by Florestan Lacroix (Ecole Nationale Supérieure D'architecture De Grenoble)

Jury comment excerpt: “‘Corridor Gallery’ is a proposal for a temporary, mobile, and prefabricated linear pavilion designed for a site in Lyon, France. Lyon has been chosen for its historical connection with rammed earth, where evidence connects this material to constructions dating from the Middle Ages. Self-standing modules are placed alongside one another and topped by a pitched timber roof to create a temple-like exhibition hall on a public plaza. Perpendicular elements in rammed earth form buttress-like projections that give the structure a strong articulation and visual rhythm.”

More information on the competition series can be found on Buildner’s official website here.