Why we pair rammed earth walls with simple stone paving

Rammed earth and stone paving are two of the oldest materials in the region, and they still solve the same problem: keeping a house cool through a long, hot summer.

We come back to the pairing on almost every residential project. Not because it is fashionable, but because it works without machines, it ages well and it can be built by local crews who already know it.

Why earth walls stay cool

A rammed earth wall is around eighteen inches thick. It takes most of a day to warm up and most of a night to cool down, so the rooms behind it stay close to the same temperature from morning to evening. In practice that means the air conditioning runs for weeks, not months.

We mix the earth from the site where we can, with a small amount of lime for strength. Each layer is rammed by hand, and each layer dries a slightly different colour. Clients often ask us to hide the lines. We usually persuade them to keep them.

A floor that can take the heat

Stone paving finishes the job. Laid on a lime bed, it stays cool underfoot, it can be washed down after a dusty week and it repairs one slab at a time. We use large, simple formats and run them from the living room straight onto the terrace.

The best climate control we know is a thick wall, a deep roof and a floor you can walk on barefoot in July.

Together the two materials make a house that feels settled from the first day. Ten years later they look better, not worse, which is rarely true of anything we can order from a catalogue.