Rammed Earth Works

✨ When nature meets modern design ✨

Swipe to see how our hand-crafted rammed earth panels transformed this Colorado office space! Each panel tells its own story through unique patterns and natural textures.

The best part? These gorgeous walls are helping save the planet:
🌱 Made from up-cycled materials
🌱 Uses 60% less cement
🌱 Handcrafted by our experienced artisans

Design doesn't have to cost the Earth. 🌍

We were thrilled to be working on the Natural Resources Headquarters project, as we felt this type of project aligned with our values and goals for the future of green building. Many people may want to utilize rammed earth in their projects, but pour-in-place methods using on-site soils are not always an option. With this building being in the middle of the city of Sacramento, it was a perfect fit to utilize our 3” thick rammed earth panels as a way to bring the earth back into the building and see this project earn LEED Platinum status.
© Garry Everett Landscape Photography

This was our largest project to date, with over 15,000 SF of paneling, dozens of custom sizes, and a heavily engineered frame redesign. While there were numerous challenges in this project, the success of the installation should be attributed to the Townsend and Schmidt crew's ability to foresee issues far enough in advance for the project management team to resolve. Their installation team, led by Alexander Morua, constantly faced changes in schedule from other trades, as well as issues with equipment availability and coordination. Through all this, they upheld their contracted pace of installation while outperforming the architectural specifications. Townsend and Schmidt brought a much needed can-do attitude to this prototypical installation; we could not have asked or hoped for a better partner in this endeavor.

© Garry Everett Landscape Photography

These panels are going inside of a multi-story executive office building. Up close you'll see that the finish on our panels alternates between smooth and rough. Panels appear darker in the shade and lighter in the direct sunlight. You'll also note the changes between layers where the source material in the mix design changes.In the second photo, you'll see the importance of filling in seam lines when the colors change within the panel. Since these panels required returns on each end, you’ll see an example of a butt joint return going all the way up into the ceiling. You’ll also note in the middle where the bottom panels meet the top. All panels are floor-mounted so this client had to ensure the floor’s foundation could handle the weight of their full size panels.

This client wanted a very vibrant red color scheme for their 8” thick solid rammed earth monument sign. They sent us a cylinder to our manufacturing facility to go through our color matching process. This sign had to be poured upside down to create an angled top the clients were looking for. The metal sign panel was applied after delivery by BSC signs and dropped into the ground with our footer pre-attached.
This project was done in collaboration with Arthouse Design, Diverse Project Consultants, and BSC Signs.