Episode 42: David Easton, Rammed Earth Master

The Nik Hawks Show

David Easton builds "museum quality, visual masterpiece walls that happen to support the roof." His medium is rammed earth, he's been doing this for 40 years, and if you've ever loved any kind of architecture or building you'll dig this show.

This is closer to Paleo than many of our other podcasts in the sense that rammed earth building is a "locavore" (or loca-building) method. Typically you'll use what's on site (the earth) to pour into forms, tamp into rock, remove the forms and enjoy the heck out of one of the most beautiful walls you'll ever see.

I was introduced to David Easton through his book, The Rammed Earth House, many moons ago, even going so far as to build a rammed earth wall for a garden in our backyard back in '09. As a long time fan of rammed earth & Easton's work, I'm super stoked to have him on the show to talk about one of our mutually favorite subjects: Rammed earth.

Listen for this quote, it's one of my favorite from any of these podcasts:

"Every day in some form or another, I touch earth. I don't mean I walk on it, everybody does that. I mean the earth that you pick up and touch, it's all different, you know. Some of it's granular and coarse, and some of it's silky and soft. It comes in all these different colors, it can be gold, red, brown, grey. It has an aroma. You can build things with it, you can grow things in it. It's remarkable stuff, and it's everywhere. If I were blind, I would still feel the earth."

Easton talks about starting out as an earth builder, his progression from building for hippies to building for billionaires, and his latest venture, Watershed Materials.

Enjoy!

NFH