Course No.: 848108
Teaching: Amy Ehinger
Crafting and building with earth sits at the root of human innovation, one of the oldest material practices we carry into the present.
This course explores earthen construction as both a historical building technique and a contemporary material practice, combining hands-on earth building with robotic and digital fabrication. Students will use Rhino and Grasshopper to generate robotic toolpaths for 3D printing formwork and molds, as well as for precise surface manipulation. The goal is to apply modern design to traditional techniques rather than replace them.
The course runs in two parts: four weeks of theory and technique introduction, followed by three weeks of lab prototyping, during which each of three student groups builds a physical wall-section prototype using an earthen wall technique. The course closes with a comparative review across groups..
