of the earth

In Liz Galvez's ARCH 503 studio, "insideout," students were asked to consider the nuanced relationship between interiority and exteriority through the program of a primary school in the Houston Heights. I took this as an opportunity to explore the potential of rammed earth—a construction system that has been used elsewhere in Texas but which remains untested in Houston. These explorations included soil testing and rammed earth samples with dirt collected on site. The resulting primary school proposal is a compound of rammed earth classrooms situated on the edges of a landscape shaped by the material excavation process. An expansive sawtooth roof covers the classrooms and parts of the landscape with varying degrees of shade and exposure, creating spaces with a variety of climatic conditions. This allows the internal landscape of the project to be used for extensive programming throughout the year, so that the climate controlled classroom spaces only need to be used for the most focused tasks. Even when students are in those conditioned classroom spaces, they’re still surrounded by the earth.