RAPID AND ECONOMICAL METHODS OF HOUSE BUILDING. 
Rapid and Economical Methods of 
- House Building. 
PIS DE TERRE.* 
By CLOUGH WILLIAMS-ELLIS. — 
During the past few months a great deal has appeared in various 
newspapers about pisé de terre. Much information has been given, 
but not all of it is accurate. The public has, for instance, been 
informed that pisé de terre is the same as cob, that it is a method of 
building with pulverized-breeze, and that it is, at the same time, 
“monolithic,” and built up of blocks cemented together. All these 
things are interesting, but not true. The following is the veracious 
history of pisé de terre, as far as I know it. : 
We first hear of pisé de terre in Pliny’s Natural History, where 
he remarks that Hannibal, three hundred years before, had built watch- 
towers in Spain of earth rammed between shutters, and that these 
towers still stood intact. It has been widely used in the district round 
Lyons, where houses three stories high, and even churches, are built of 
pisé. Recently, it has been employed in India, in New South Wales, 
and in Rhodesia, and in 1915 experiments in pisé were made in this 
country by Mr. Strachey at Newlands Corner, Merrow, near Guildford. 
This year I have built a pisé small-holder’s house and steading for 
Mr. Strachey, and it is to the interest aroused by this house and the 
publication of my book that the curious paragraphs above referred to 
have been mainly due. 
Pisé is merely earth to which nothing whatever is added. The 
earth is dug and thrown between wooden boards and rammed till it is 
perfectly hard and compact—until, in fact, what is practically an arti- 
ficial sandstone has been created. ‘The earth is thrown into these 
shutters in layers of 5 inches or 6 inches, and then rammed (by mew 
standing inside the casing) until it is thoroughly solid, before 
another layer is added. When the mould is full of rammed earth, and. 
the rammer no longer makes an impression, the casing is taken apart 
and re-erected on the top of the wall just completed. 
As to the soil, if it is too sandy it will fret away, while a pure clay 
soil will crack in drying, and both these exceptional extremes should, 
therefore, be avoided. Any other soil, however, is more or less suitable, 
and even clay and sand may be used if they are mixed together, the 
peculiarities of the one counteracting those of the other. ; 
The plant for pisé building consists, of two pairs of casings or 
shutters, with stops that may be inserted in such a way that gaps in 
the walling can be left for doors and windows; a “corner-piece,” an 
“end-piece,” and a set of two or three wooden rammers. It is most 
important that the shuttering should be perfectly rigid and true, as 
upon its rigidity depends its ability to withstand proper ramming, and 
consequently the straightness and strength of the walling. The gshutter-. 
ing described in the old books upon pisé was extremely primitive. 
SO ES 
* This article is reprinted from the Architects Journal and Architectural Engineering, Vol. L., No. 1304, 
237 ie 
