Studio Boulouki’s News: Earth Workshop

On 19/11, we hosted in our Design Studio in ETH Zurich the final testing session of the earthen materials produced twenty days earlier during the earth workshop. It was the closing step of an excellent collaboration with the Chair of Sustainable Construction at ETH Zürich, a collaboration that took us from discussion to making to experimentation, and one that we hope to continue and deepen in the future.

The journey was built in several stations:

• An introductory lecture on sustainability by Professor Guillaume Habert at the beginning of the semester, setting the broader framework. 
• A focused lecture on earthen materials by researcher Daria Ardant, preparing the ground for the hands-on work. 
• A full-day hands-on workshop, structured in two distinct phases:
  A session devoted to understanding the soil: its different states, the effect of compaction, the role of aggregates, explored through the Carazas test, alternative Carazas versions with fibres, and the Habert Test.

A second session where students were given a range of materials (different soils, stabilizers, fibres, lightweight aggregates, additives) and asked to design their own strategies to produce earthen materials aimed at three different goals: higher strength, improved thermal properties, and increased water resistance or waterproofing.

Twenty days later, after the components had dried, we held the testing session to assess their performance. For thermal conductivity, we used a portable thermal needle system; for mechanical behaviour, we improvised a bending strength setup; and for water resistance, we adapted the simple Geelong method, as specified in NZS 4298. With these complementary approaches, students were able to follow the complete cycle: from soil assessment to material production to performance evaluation.

This type of work is central to our practice at Boulouki: learning happens not only through concepts but also through the body. Students touched the soil, shaped it, evaluated it, and made real decisions about its composition. Knowledge was transmitted through hands, tools, gestures, and collective presence. The kind of learning that leaves a deeper imprint than theory alone.

None of this would have been possible without the tremendous effort and engagement of the team from the Chair of Sustainable Construction. Our warm thanks to Daria Ardant, whose organization and coordination carried the entire process, and to Guillaume Habert, Coralie Brumaud, Yi Du, Mareike Thiedeitz, and Arnaud Evrard for their active participation in every phase.

A big thank you to all.  We look forward to continuing this collaboration.

Boulouki organizes the “ADELOS” project in collaboration with the Ephorate of Antiquities of Cyclades and the French School of Athens. The J.M. Kaplan Fund is the primary supporter of the project. The project aims to restore the traditional “Farmhouse of Markos” in Delos and study the rural heritage of the Delos, Mykonos, and Rineia island complex. Ethnographic research activities are carried out in collaboration with the anthropologist Despina Nazou and funded by the Initiative for Public Humanities of Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNFPHI) at Columbia University and the Museum of Cycladic Art Initiative, Cycladic Identity. The project is the main focus of the Boulouki Design Studio Department of Architecture (D-ARCH) at ETH Zurich.