Building with rammed earth is really hard work - but also strangely satisfying! A technique using old car tyres was developed by Mike Reynolds in the US who built Earthships using a variety of waste materials such as bottles, beer cans and worn out tyres. The film Garbage Warrior is a really good account of his work. We are also familiar with Earthships in the UK with a particularly good example at Stanmer Park in Brighton.
Local builder, Duncan Passmore, trained with Mike Reynolds in the US before working on the Brighton Earthship and then on an Earthship in Brittany, France covered by one of the most popular Grand Designs episodes. So when Duncan agreed to run a skillshare demonstrating rammed earth building in Totnes lots of people turned up to help.
You can see a time lapse film of the build that covers two days work in less than 3 minutes here.
Many thanks to Katheryn Trenshaw, Duncan Passmore, Zav Bowden and all the volunteers.