使用泥土！馬丁·勞奇的生活與工作

奧托·卡普芬格

徐知蘭 譯

使用泥土！馬丁·勞奇的生活與工作

奧托·卡普芬格

徐知蘭 譯

節(jié)選自馬丁·勞奇的《優(yōu)雅的泥土——夯土建筑與設(shè)計》， 奧托·卡普芬格和馬爾科·索爾（編著），細部出版社，慕尼黑，2015年，第6-13頁（圖1，2）由細部出版社再版。

這本書講述了一位另類思考者的成功故事——他在字面意義上“腳踏實地”的工作方法使他通過真實的個人經(jīng)驗獲得了一種生態(tài)社會學的立場。最初，他把自己定義為對當?shù)亍案信d趣”的外來者，后來逐漸成為享譽全球的權(quán)威，人們對他具有先進生態(tài)學理念建筑的思想產(chǎn)生了迫切需要。在這本書里，馬丁·勞奇展示了他在這30年來在地區(qū)層面——及越來越多在國際層面所取得的成就。不折不扣地說，他的基礎(chǔ)研究以自下而上的方式開展。通過不斷地在不同尺度的項目中運用經(jīng)過測試的先進技術(shù)，他的這種工作方法形成了一整套知識體系，現(xiàn)在能為更多的讀者所了解，還包括詳細的建筑平面圖和說明。這本書不僅僅是勞奇用來展示他和許多著名設(shè)計師共同合作完成作品的平臺——其合作者包括羅杰·博爾茨豪瑟建筑師事務(wù)所、奧拉維爾·埃利亞松1）、赫爾佐格與德梅隆事務(wù)所、哈爾曼·考夫曼建筑師事務(wù)所、馬爾特·馬爾特建筑師事務(wù)所、米勒和馬蘭塔建筑師事務(wù)所、斯諾赫塔建筑事務(wù)所、馬特奧·圖恩和昆特·弗伊格特等；《優(yōu)雅的泥土》一書也恰好是以泥土作為材料進行當代城市規(guī)劃與建筑的教育大綱，頗具全球意義。

勞奇對生土建筑技術(shù)的了解并不是通過建筑設(shè)計，而是通過他在1970年代后期作為陶瓷藝術(shù)家、窯爐建造師和雕塑家的訓練和作品獲得的。他對工藝美術(shù)的喜愛和在設(shè)計環(huán)境時的藝術(shù)自覺，及其極端節(jié)約資源的生活方式，都形成于在奧地利偏僻而樸實無華的福拉爾貝格地區(qū)的成長經(jīng)歷。他也同樣受到來自國外的極大影響——和他的一些兄長一樣，1980年他曾在非洲開發(fā)組織參加了為期幾個月的志愿者項目。他在那里邂逅了“原始”的文化和建造技術(shù)，這些技術(shù)明顯有效地形成了緊湊的生命周期，并能由此最大程度地利用資源，并同時產(chǎn)生了一種意識，即對進口工業(yè)經(jīng)濟的、野蠻的替代性技術(shù)的意識，認識到它們都對氣候和生態(tài)環(huán)境產(chǎn)生了更惡劣的影響、都不可再生、且難以修復(fù)。

在非洲，勞奇的藝術(shù)直覺獲得了全球化的視野——他產(chǎn)生了用這些“貧窮的”、具有藝術(shù)氣息的原始材料進行創(chuàng)作的主觀沖動，由此找到了他的創(chuàng)作對象及其客觀而復(fù)雜的文化背景。勞奇對使用粘土作為手工藝創(chuàng)作原料的興趣逐漸發(fā)展為用泥土進行建筑設(shè)計，并直面由此帶來的所有挑戰(zhàn)和要求。澆鑄和燒制瓦片的工作變成大尺度的造型與建造過程——把泥土塑造成可以使用的可居住空間。1983年，他向當時維也納應(yīng)用技術(shù)大學陶瓷系系主任馬特奧·圖恩提交了自己的論文題目。這篇論文以《壤土、粘土、泥土》為題，描述了夯土技術(shù)作為產(chǎn)生自本土的文化技術(shù)形式所經(jīng)歷的現(xiàn)代化過程——無論其本土是在非洲還是在歐洲。

自此以后，勞奇開始追求一種具有普遍意義的理想，可以用幾句話來表達：

以一種能讓一座房屋在百年之后回歸“自然”的方式進行建造——不留下任何殘跡或污染——并分解為原來的材料成分；

以和自然生命周期相協(xié)調(diào)的方式進行建造，并在建筑施工、運營和拆除過程中盡可能不使用石油能源；

以可以在當?shù)孬@取的低成本材料進行建造——使用采自施工現(xiàn)場的泥土，它們應(yīng)該盡可能成分單一且未經(jīng)加工；

發(fā)展夯土建筑的思想，使它在技術(shù)和物流方面能夠跟上時代，讓全世界的大多數(shù)人都能由此利用這項技術(shù)顯著改善他們的生活水準。

1.2 《優(yōu)雅的泥土——夯土建筑與設(shè)計》裝幀與內(nèi)頁，細部出版社，慕尼黑/Book binding and inside pages of Refined Earth - Construction and design with Rammed Earth, Edition detail, Munich（攝影/Photos: Fotostudio Roth）

他一直以來都對不用任何其他材料飾面或進行表面處理的夯土技術(shù)特別感興趣。表面不抹灰的粘土砌筑過程，如那些勞奇在法國和德國見到的、默默無名卻保存良好的19世紀建筑，具有突出的自我表現(xiàn)力——和低溫燒制的未上釉陶器一樣。層疊的墻面結(jié)構(gòu)形成了其自身特有的裝飾性外觀。純粹的結(jié)構(gòu)、色彩和材料質(zhì)感都在填壓和夯實的過程中得到了保留和強調(diào)。勞奇憑借其作為陶瓷藝術(shù)家對材料成分、物理化學條件及其影響效果所特有的敏感度，依靠技術(shù)進步與形式復(fù)雜性的協(xié)同作用，開始重新講述夯土砌筑的語匯，使之適應(yīng)當代標準，并再次展現(xiàn)出生土建筑材料的全部感官潛力。

由此，他設(shè)法避免了譬如為了彌補傳統(tǒng)粘土砌筑技術(shù)的某些缺陷而需要在其中添加水泥的做法，這會損害夯土建筑的某些基本品質(zhì)，如再循環(huán)的便捷程度、透氣性或具有最小熵值的性質(zhì)。作為替代方案，他盡可能地改善這種天然材料的混合成分，優(yōu)化夯實的技術(shù)過程和模板形式，并引入加固層，對傳統(tǒng)技術(shù)進行系統(tǒng)性的發(fā)展，而不舍棄其基本的結(jié)構(gòu)原則。他從零開始探索施工使用的工具、流程和模板類型，然后對它們進行評估和改進；還建造了許多試驗墻，在此過程中獲得的實際經(jīng)驗則被立刻運用到接下來的一系列試驗中。

勞奇于1982年首次在建筑中嘗試他的試驗技術(shù)，他和本土建筑師如羅伯特·費爾伯和魯?shù)婪颉ね吒窈献魍瓿闪艘幌盗袨閷夹g(shù)試驗持開放態(tài)度的家庭成員和朋友們建造的小型建筑項目。他為哥哥約翰內(nèi)斯在施林斯建造的住宅是福拉爾貝格地區(qū)第一座真正的現(xiàn)代木結(jié)構(gòu)和夯土材料建筑。約翰內(nèi)斯是一位農(nóng)場主和鎖匠，畢業(yè)于維也納美術(shù)學院，曾在贊比亞、烏干達和坦桑尼亞參加了許多開發(fā)項目。建在柏林米特區(qū)的懺悔教堂則是其建筑實踐的明確轉(zhuǎn)折點（圖3，4）。這處供人沉思的公共空間于1999-2000年根據(jù)柏林建筑師彼得·扎森羅特和魯?shù)婪颉べ囂芈L制的平面圖紙逐漸建設(shè)完成，它建在一座過去為砌起柏林墻而被炸毀的教堂基礎(chǔ)上，這里曾被稱為“死亡地帶”。這座橢圓形的懺悔教堂高7m，一層平面和祭壇空間用夯土砌筑完成，并以木結(jié)構(gòu)屋頂覆蓋。這是德國幾百年來第一座使用夯土技術(shù)建成的建筑，因此需要經(jīng)過特別的許可程序。由于當時并沒有針對夯土墻荷載的標準或建筑規(guī)范，許可部門和工程師們發(fā)現(xiàn)他們處于未曾探索的領(lǐng)域——對這座建筑提出的許多要求之一竟然還包括需要采用是正常值7倍的靜力安全系數(shù)！此外，項目還需要進行外部監(jiān)理和科技監(jiān)督——這項工作由柏林科技大學完成。經(jīng)過若干年，經(jīng)歷了無數(shù)次的試驗過程、制作了無數(shù)試驗樣品和撰寫了許多冗余的專家報告之后，這項古老而全球通用的建造技術(shù)終于能夠融入我們的技術(shù)時代并獲得首肯。

涉及到生態(tài)學標準的時候，馬丁·勞奇也許提出了許多根本性的要求，但他在其作品中所展現(xiàn)的建筑與藝術(shù)天份卻絲毫不會令人聯(lián)想起原教旨主義的思想。在完成了備受矚目的柏林懺悔教堂和為瑞士巴塞爾動物園建造的大型建筑之后，他與羅杰·博爾茨豪瑟合作，在施林斯為自己設(shè)計了一座三層高的住宅和工作室，代表了他對自己在當時已經(jīng)積累的所有經(jīng)驗的重新整合 （圖5，本刊P52）。正是在這里，現(xiàn)代夯土建筑終于能脫離幼稚的生態(tài)學的陳詞濫調(diào)，而轉(zhuǎn)向技術(shù)的成熟與形式的明晰，這在幾年前甚至無法想象。勞奇控制了幾乎所有的建筑元素——從基礎(chǔ)延伸到墻面、地面、樓板、樓梯和門窗開洞——甚至對瓦的各種運用方式、水池、壁爐的形式、以及墻面和地面的表面處理方式也同樣如此。這座3層樓建筑的每一個細節(jié)——作為與羅杰·博爾茨豪瑟意氣相投的合作成果——毫無疑問地實現(xiàn)了他的部分理想，突出了夯土材料全面的物理和審美品質(zhì)——從泥土的粗顆粒感到陶瓷般的精美質(zhì)感應(yīng)有盡有。

這座建筑榮獲了各種國內(nèi)和國際獎項，在全世界得到宣傳出版，并為勞奇獲得更大尺度的項目打開了大門。我有幸能在2008年項目正要竣工時步入這座建筑，并為之感到震驚——令人贊嘆的震驚！我在1996-1997年間開始對福拉爾貝格地區(qū)的建筑進行研究，從此就對馬丁的作品非常熟悉。2001年，我們在一份3種語言的出版物《夯土》雜志上合作，為一家業(yè)內(nèi)領(lǐng)先的專業(yè)出版社工作——這代表著對他的工作進行第一次大規(guī)模的梳理總結(jié)。但當我在他為自己和全家設(shè)計的這座住宅和工作室里第一次親眼目睹這種建筑品質(zhì)的巨大飛躍時，我只能目瞪口呆而倍感驚喜。從室外到地面層的一切看起來都很熟悉，是我能想象到的樣子。但隨著我爬上主樓層，卻發(fā)生了令人感動的變化。從樓下顆粒粗糙的生土材料氛圍中來到樓上之后，我進入了閃爍著象牙色光澤的房間，視線在色彩明快、朝氣蓬勃的灰色上蠟夯土地面、淺奶白色的窗戶表面、用亞麻籽油和石蠟上光的移門嵌板、以及擁有天鵝絨般觸感的墻面（同時作為火炕式供暖設(shè)備）和天花板的泥土抹灰之間來回切換。頂層設(shè)有臥室、辦公室和浴室，精致的處理方法在這里得到了進一步的表達，夯土的表面產(chǎn)生了雪花石膏般光潔的效果。這一效果很大程度上產(chǎn)生于運用在燒毛地面和墻面磚上的樂燒2）技術(shù)，使其擁有富于絲緞般光澤而深淺不一的裝飾性色彩——這項技術(shù)是馬丁的太太、陶瓷藝術(shù)家瑪爾塔·勞奇-德貝維奇和他的兒子平面設(shè)計師塞巴斯蒂安·勞奇共同創(chuàng)造的。

勞奇把他的技術(shù)所具有精神氣質(zhì)的核心描述為：“環(huán)繞著我們的圍合結(jié)構(gòu)應(yīng)該能和我們的身體一樣進行呼吸和擴散。我的建筑因此刻意設(shè)計為沒有包裹或封閉的狀態(tài)，也不用人工制造或高密度、消耗大量能量的材料建成。而是讓它們以原生的狀態(tài)進行組合和修飾，就像壽司——刻意不燒煮加工。整座建筑的實質(zhì)能夠由此保持可滲透性，這意味著它能夠有效地面對使用和維護的需求，并最小程度地對抗長期的降解與再循環(huán)的過程。”羅杰·博爾茨豪瑟補充道：“這種古老而直接的手工藝和清晰的建筑語言產(chǎn)生了與景觀環(huán)境極為融合的建筑。在許多方面，它都意味著地平線得到了真正的拓展。這些原則應(yīng)該成為未來建筑設(shè)計普遍策略的基礎(chǔ)?！边@個項目切實地表達了幾乎不可思議的可能性——它不僅消除了建筑中勞動、知識和材料之間的邊界——這種區(qū)隔狀態(tài)占據(jù)了我們目前高科技專業(yè)時代的主導地位；它也可以用能夠想象到的最小熵值的材料來滿足我們對建造、居住和舒適生活的要求——并在此過程中產(chǎn)生了全球適用的范式。

對于勞奇與赫爾佐格與德梅隆建筑師事務(wù)所、斯諾赫塔建筑事務(wù)所合作的更近期的國際項目，新一輪的創(chuàng)新不僅是必要的，也是至關(guān)重要的——它包括對手工夯土技術(shù)的改進，使它能夠滿足工業(yè)化規(guī)模生產(chǎn)、預(yù)制、物流的要求，以及滿足綜合性、大規(guī)模建設(shè)項目的成本核算要求。勞奇開發(fā)了自己的機器來應(yīng)對這一挑戰(zhàn)——他發(fā)明了一個能向模板內(nèi)自動灌漿并進行機械攪拌的機器人。這個生產(chǎn)系統(tǒng)可以制作模板長度在50～80m之間的任何厚度的夯土塊。拆模之后，經(jīng)過攪拌壓實的夯土塊——與整塊模板一樣長——可以切割為任何尺度的構(gòu)件。構(gòu)件的尺寸則主要取決于如何運輸，且尤其取決于起重機的荷載能力，通常最大可達5t。這一技術(shù)已經(jīng)在最近位于瑞士勞芬的利口樂草藥中心（圖6，本刊P82）和瑞士鳥類學院的訪客中心項目中證明了其價值（本刊P88）。

勞奇長期在歐洲、亞洲和非洲做各種講座和組織工作室。也許，在他各種由小到大、尺度不一的建成作品中，影響最為廣泛的并不是那些位于建筑作品豐富的福拉爾貝格地區(qū)的美麗住宅，或是與國際知名的建筑夢想家合作完成的令人矚目的作品，而是他在南非為大學項目和樣板項目所做的咨詢工作——在約翰內(nèi)斯堡或是孟加拉國。在那里，他通過教會當?shù)厝耸褂糜行У募夹g(shù)，以自己的專業(yè)知識支持、并仍在支持那些真正需要以簡單、廉價和適應(yīng)氣候的方式為自己建造房屋的人們，由此推廣了一種可持續(xù)發(fā)展的建造方法，它可以替代過去輸出的建造方式，且不需要依賴大型技術(shù)和需要兼容工業(yè)化要求的“外國援助”。勞奇在孟加拉國——一個人口極度增長、居住和生活水平非常糟糕的國家——與建筑師安娜·赫里格爾開展合作，他們共同推動的學校與住宅技術(shù)咨詢和支持項目獲得了2007年的阿卡汗建筑獎與2008年世界建筑社區(qū)獎。勞奇表示：“巨大的進步在于能向人們表明，他們可以用施工現(xiàn)場的泥土自己動手建造廉價的二層樓房屋——不需要任何附加的技術(shù)——并營造出氣候品質(zhì)最為舒適的空間。我們通過組織公共工作室和共同建造房屋作為范例的方法達成了這一目標。由于木材在當?shù)胤浅Ｕ滟F，我們最后不得不使用混凝土板。但這只占在那里建造的新住宅樓的一小部分。我經(jīng)常去南半球參加各種會議，那里的人普遍認為夯土建筑能通過加入水泥得到性能的改善，以便融入已經(jīng)建立起來的工業(yè)生產(chǎn)體系。其中唯一的問題是，為了掙得一袋水泥，工人現(xiàn)在需要增加3倍于過去的工作時間，因為需求實在過于旺盛。而純粹夯土建筑的政治意味在于，它可以應(yīng)用在任何充分獨立于政治游說、股票價格和工業(yè)價格控制的地方，只需要用簡單的手工技術(shù)就能夠建造生態(tài)環(huán)保的高品質(zhì)房屋。在我們的世界，勞動力價格特別昂貴，手工建造的夯土建筑實際上是一件奢侈品。而在勞動力隨處可得的國家，比如埃及，我在施林斯建的住宅可能會便宜大約60%，而且甚至可能成為一種標準的住宅樣式！如果我們要繼續(xù)在全世界范圍內(nèi)用和工業(yè)化國家同樣的方式建造房屋，那將是一場生態(tài)災(zāi)難。重新思考建筑的實踐，不管是在這里還是在那里，都一樣困難，因為我們的建筑工業(yè)的成本透明計算是錯誤的。它只涵蓋了一部分成本，因此也只考慮了時間上被扭曲的一瞬間——相關(guān)的環(huán)境影響和真正的次級成本并沒有被計算進來?！?/p>

2014年以來，勞奇在全球具有領(lǐng)先地位的技術(shù)大學之一教授他的知識和專業(yè)技能。他在瑞士蘇黎世聯(lián)邦理工學院作為客座教授，與安娜·赫里格爾合作，時間長達2年。此外，他們也都是聯(lián)合國教科文組織夯土建筑教席的資深專家，該教席設(shè)立在法國格勒諾布爾國家建筑學校。

《優(yōu)雅的泥土》一書的各章節(jié)松散地根據(jù)戈特弗里德·森佩爾影響廣泛的作品《建筑四要素》的分類展開：“地板”——對應(yīng)“土堆、臺地”；“墻面”——對應(yīng)“圍合、編織”；“樓板”——對應(yīng)“屋頂”，并以“開洞”作為補充。然而，森佩爾把“壁爐”或火源作為最重要和原始的“建筑精神要素”，并由此把其他要素作為“保護性的否定要素”或“保護壁爐火苗免受3種自然敵對要素侵犯的守護者”進行闡述。而恰恰是馬丁·勞奇工作室的壁爐要素促使我產(chǎn)生了對其生活與建筑哲學進行探索的原動力。在1997-1998年間，我正在編輯和排版福拉爾貝格地區(qū)的建筑導覽手冊，萊因哈德和露特·加斯納位于施林斯的工作室住宅就在這一地區(qū)。這座由魯?shù)婪颉ね吒裨O(shè)計的住宅采用木結(jié)構(gòu)框架，其間以磚塊和夯土砌塊填充；建筑的中心是一個立方形的采暖兼烹飪、洗滌裝置，以紅土建成，勞奇為它的表面打上了光滑的石蠟。這是他和加斯納合作完成的許多作品中的第一個，在這里——我們的書籍和展覽項目進行了很多年——我們一天中有許多次站在這個壁爐前喝茶或咖啡，分享點心，翻閱報紙，盛水；并且，由于我經(jīng)常被獲準在工作室上方的閣樓借宿，也常在夜里在這里晾衣服。總而言之，它是整個工作室的避難所和社交中心，而由于我們會無數(shù)次無意識地撫摸斑駁的紅色泥土表面和它光滑、卻沒有被僵硬地密封起來的邊緣；在它表面把玻璃杯推來推去；靠在上面的時候用臀部和膝蓋觸碰它；在冬天使用壁爐的時候感受它微妙的溫暖，并注意到這種材料在夏天摸起來雖然有些溫涼，卻永遠不會像混凝土、水磨石或不銹鋼那樣帶走手掌的溫度，甚至燒毛的瓷磚地面也在所難免……它就更具有避難所和社交中心的意味。許多年前，加斯納自己描述過夯土墻在觸覺上令人豁然頓悟的時刻。在他的工作室里，我通過觸碰壁爐、桌子和吧臺等看似表面如大理石、實則卻沒有其冰冷觸感的建筑元素，逐漸從一個最初的懷疑論者轉(zhuǎn)變?yōu)轳R丁的現(xiàn)代夯土工藝的推崇者。

勞奇總是堅持認為，一座夯土墻保存了其內(nèi)部大部分的“活”水，并因此能夠響應(yīng)我們身體的生理特征和需求，沒有任何其他材料能夠做到這一點。它在這方面甚至比木材表現(xiàn)更為出眾——具體表現(xiàn)在它對室內(nèi)濕度的調(diào)節(jié)作用、它的透氣性、以及人們撫摸它或在它表面走動時獲得的觸感中。夯土地面、墻面和建筑擁有與我們身體（和生理）感覺系統(tǒng)最理想和最積極的共鳴。他也經(jīng)常在關(guān)于夯土建筑的辯論中提到“侵蝕”一詞，把它從一個通常認為的負面要素轉(zhuǎn)變?yōu)橹匾姆e極因素。一方面，各種孔洞開放的材料都具有再循環(huán)的必備條件，并與人的生理特征有最佳的相關(guān)度；另一方面，由于外墻暴露在風雨中，材料特別傾向于產(chǎn)生表面腐蝕，而這種傾向確實能通過他發(fā)明的細部構(gòu)造得到控制，這些細部都經(jīng)過試驗和測試——由此，沒有目前施工技術(shù)所追求的過度技術(shù)化的表面密封過程，夯土材料反而能夠取得一種“刻意侵蝕”的自然效果。

歸結(jié)起來，與密集消耗能源的人工工業(yè)技術(shù)相比，它將引導我們面對另一種類型，它能讓這種當代夯土建筑更徹底地融入有機的和無機的自然物理與化學循環(huán)過程中?！翱桃馇治g”的另一個術(shù)語也正是夯土建筑的力量所在，即這類建筑“對時間流逝痕跡‘包漿’的熱愛”。無需贅述的是，顯然，夯土建筑的老化過程不僅表現(xiàn)良好且具有尊嚴。在每一種條件下，它們都可以“在系統(tǒng)內(nèi)”輕易得到修復(fù)，因此，“老化”一詞并不能確切地形容其美學類型或其生命周期里的任何一個其他階段——而所有這些都與當代建筑試圖模仿機械制造與高科技產(chǎn)品的傾向截然相反，后者極大地消耗能源，并對天然材料進行復(fù)雜的轉(zhuǎn)換加工。雖然據(jù)說它們的維護成本十分低廉，但其并非與生俱來的光鮮外表和對歲月流逝痕跡避之不及的迷人魅力卻意味著，這些現(xiàn)代建筑并不能妥善地經(jīng)歷老化過程，而只是漸趨荒廢。

用泥土進行建造與設(shè)計——言簡意賅地說——即“低難度技術(shù)、高品質(zhì)觸感、高質(zhì)量表現(xiàn)”。通過與自然達成共鳴，尤其是與更廣泛的宇宙原始能量產(chǎn)生共振——它的影響常常激發(fā)轉(zhuǎn)變的過程，夯土建筑功能與造型的精神品質(zhì)與愿望在其中取得了完美的平衡。以工業(yè)化國家控制的壟斷無限增長為特點的經(jīng)濟全球化的現(xiàn)實，也許會反對這種對采用立等可取且實際上成本為零的材料進行推廣的思想。然而，夯土建筑的技術(shù)、生態(tài)學和美學品質(zhì)——在這一卷書中得到展現(xiàn)，并作為人們效仿和普遍進步的基礎(chǔ)——充分說明了它們自身。它們證實了，如果我們愿意選擇，正如我們必須選擇一樣，則確實存在一種替代方案，即以更堅定的態(tài)度追隨古老格言的召喚——文明是人類將泥土不斷變得光彩奪目的過程?！?/p>

譯注/Translator's Notes

1）丹麥當代藝術(shù)家/Contemporary artist in denmark

2）“樂燒”是源自日本的陶瓷燒制方法，最早出現(xiàn)在16世紀日本幕府時代，是桃山時代最具代表性的茶陶。最初由千利休定型，京都的陶工長次郎燒制而成/Raku is a kind of ceramic firing method which is comes from Japan.

Excerpt of Martin Rauch Refined Earth -Construction and Design with Rammed Earth, Otto Kapfinger and Marko Sauer (eds.), Edition Detail, Munich 2015, pp. 6 - 13 (fig.1,2)

Reprint by courtesy of Edition Detail, Munich

This publication tells the success story of an unorthodox thinker whose - quite literally -downto-earth approach led him to develop an eco-social stance shaped by genuine personal experience. Initially positioning himself as an "interesting" local outsider, he has gradually become a globally respected authority on ecologically advanced architecture with ideas much in demand. Martin Rauch presents three decades' worth of regional -and increasingly international - achievements in this book. His approach to basic research has been conducted bottom-up, in every sense of the word. Employing continually enhanced applications tested across varied scales, this approach has led to the creation of a fund of knowledge that has now been made available to a broad audience, along with detailed plans and explanations. This publication is not merely a platform for Rauch to present a body of work that he was able to achieve in collaboration with such well-known designers as Roger Boltshauser, Olafur Eliasson1）, Herzog & de Meuron, Hermann Kaufmann, Marte.Marte, Miller & Maranta, Sn?hetta, Matteo Thun, and Günther Vogt. Refined Earth is nothing less than a globally relevant educational compendium for contemporary planning and building with earthen materials.

Rauch did not discover earthen building through architecture but rather through his training and work in the late 1970s as a ceramicist, kiln builder, and sculptor. His penchant for applied craftsmanship, and for artistic autonomy in designing environments and ways of living characterized by an extreme economy of resources, was determined by his upbringing in the unpretentious, rural setting of Vorarlberg region in Austria. He was also greatly affected by foreign influences: like some of his older siblings, he volunteered for a development organization in Africa for several months in 1980. This encounter with "primitive" cultural and building technologies whose efficacy was evident in close-knit life cycles making optimal use of resources, occurred in parallel to an awareness of their brutal substitution with imported technologies from industrialized economies that were climatically and ecologically inferior, non-recyclable, and difficult to repair.

In Africa, his artistic intuition took on a global perspective: his subjective urge to work with these "poor" artisticur-materialsfoundan objective, comprehensive context within which to operate. Rauch's artisanal interest in working with clay grew to a desire to architecturally design with earth, with all its challenges and requirements. The moulding of tiles and ovens turned into a process of shaping and constructing on a large scale: transforming the earth into useful and habitable spaces. He submitted his thesis project in 1983 to Matteo Thun, director of the ceramics programme at the University of Applied Arts, Vienna. Entitled Lehm Ton Erde (Loam Clay Earth), it described the modernization of rammed earth techniques as a form of autochthonous cultural technology, be it in Africa or Europe.

Since that time, Rauch has followed a vision with universal significance that can be expressed in just a few sentences:

3 柏林懺悔教堂外景，魯?shù)婪颉べ囂芈捅说谩ぴ_特/Exterior view of the Chapel of Reconciliation, Rudolf Reitermann and Peter Sassenroth, Berlin, Germany, 1999-2000

4 懺悔教堂內(nèi)景/Interior view of the Chapel of Reconciliation （3,4 攝影/Photos: Bruno Klomfar）

5 勞奇自宅外景/Exterior view of the house Rauch（攝影/Photo: Beat Bühler）

6 利口樂草藥中心外景/Exterior view of the Ricola Kr?uterzentrumin（攝影/Photo: Benedikt Redmann ）

- Building in such a way that a house can return to "nature" after a hundred years - without leaving behind any residues or contamination - and break down into its original material constituents;

- Building in harmony with natural lifecycles and using the absolute minimum of grey energy in constructing, running and dismantling buildings;

- Building with locally available and no-cost materials - using earth taken from the construction site, as pure and unaltered as possible;

- Advancing the idea of building with earth so that it is technically and logistically up to date, in the process empowering the majority of the world's population to turn to this technique and use it to significantly improve their living conditions.

He has always had a particular interest in rammed earth techniques, a process by which the material is not clad with any further materials or surface finishes. The production process of nonplastered pisé construction, such as those Rauch also came across amongst anonymous well-preserved outbuildings in France and Germany dating from the nineteenth century, leads abruptly to its selfexpression - as in the case of low-fired unglazed ceramics. The layered construction of the wall simultaneously weaves the ornament of its own appearance. The pure structure, colour, and haptic qualities of the material are preserved and heightened during the process of moulding and compacting. With the sensitivity of the ceramicist for the composition and the physical-chemical conditions and effects of his material, Rauch set about to re-articulate the language of pisé, adapting it to meet contemporary standards and once again exposing the full sensory potential of earthen building material, whereby technical advances and enhancements went hand-inhand with formal complexity.

He was thus able to avoid, for example, the need to compensate for certain deficiencies in traditional pisé techniques by adding cement, as this would diminish some of the essential qualities of earthen buildings, such as its ease of recyclability, its breathability, or its minimal entropy. Instead, he sought to improve natural material mixtures, optimized the compaction process and the shape of the formwork, and introduced layers of reinforcement to systematically develop traditional techniques without abandoning their basic structural principles. Tools, procedures, and types of formworks were developed from scratch and then evaluated and refined; test walls were constructed and the practical experience gathered in the process was immediately fed into the next series of experiments.

Rauch made his first forays into building in 1982, in the form of small projects for family members and friends who were open to experimentation, collaborating with local architects such as Robert Felber and Rudolf W?ger. The house in Schlins constructed for his elder brother Johannes - a farmer, master locksmith, and graduate of the Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna, who had been involved for many years in development projects in Zambia, Uganda, and Tanzania - was the very first modern timber and earth construction in the Vorarlberg region. The Chapel of Reconciliation in Berlin-Mittere presents a clear turning point in his practice (fig.3-4). In accordance with plans drawn up by the Berlin-based team of Peter Sassenroth and Rudolf Reitermann, a public space for reflection was gradually erected from 1999 to 2000 on the foundations of a church located in the former "death strip" that had been dynamited to make way for the Berlin Wall. The 7-meter-high oval of the chapel, with a floor and altar of rammed earth and capped with a timber roof, was the first new construction in Germany to utilize pisé techniques in hundreds of years and required its own building permit procedure. As there are no norms or building regulations for load-bearing rammed earth walls, permit offices and engineers found themselves in an unexplored territory - one of several requirements was a seven-fold increase in the normal static safety factor! The external monitoring and scientific supervision that had also been stipulated was assumed by the Technical University of Berlin. After countless test procedures, test specimens, and a plethora of expert reports had been enlisted in a process lasting several years, this age-old, global building technique could finally be integrated into -and approved for - our technological age.

Martin Rauch may make fundamental demands when it comes to ecological standards, but the constructional and artistic flair evident in all his built works does not evoke a sense of fundamentalism. After completing the high-profile chapel in Berlin and a large building for Basel Zoo, a three-storey house and atelier he designed for himself in Schlins, in collaboration with Roger Boltshauser, represented a new synthesis of all the experience he had accumulated up to that point (fig.5, page 52). It was here that modern earthen building was finally able to separate itself from na?ve-ecological clichés and move towards a technical maturity and formal clarity that, even a few years previously, would have seemed unimaginable. From the foundations that extend up into the walls to the floors, slabs, staircase, and window and door openings, Rauch had control over every element - even down to the manifold use of tiles, the water basins, the form of the hearth, and the wall and floor finishes. Every detail of the threestorey building - a product of the teamwork with the congenial Roger Boltshauser - is uncompromisingly a part of his vision, emphasizing the full breadth of physical and aesthetic qualities, from the coarseness of the earth to the porcelain-like delicacy.

This building has garnered national and international awards, been published worldwide, and opened the doors to further projects of greater dimensions. When I was able to step inside the building shortly before its completion in 2008, it was quite a shock - a positive kind of shock! I had been familiar with Martin's work since 1996 - 1997 upon beginning my research for the architecture guide for Vorarlberg region. In 2001, we collaborated on the trilingual publication Rammed Earth for a leading specialist publishing house - this represented a first large-scale summary of his agenda. But when I firstwitnessed this quantum leap in quality manifested by the house and atelier he had built for his family, I could only gape with amazement. From the exterior and on the ground floor, everything seemed familiar and as I would have anticipated. But on ascendance to the main floor, a sensational shift occurred. Coming up from the coarse-grained, raw-earth atmosphere below, I emerged into ivory-coloured, gleaming rooms, alternating between the light-coloured, vibrant grey of the waxed rammed earth floors, the bright casein finish of the window apertures and sliding door panels, treated with linseed oil and wax, and the velvety, tactile earth plaster of the walls (which act as hypocausts) and ceilings. On the third floor, comprising the bedrooms, office, and bathrooms, this process of refinement was further elaborated to produce an alabaster-like effect in the earth. This is achieved in no small part by the raku2) technique applied to the fired floor and wall tiles, with their satin-sheened, light-and-dark ornamentdeveloped by Martin's wife, the ceramic artist Marta Rauch-Debevec, and his son Sebastian Rauch, who trained as a graphic designer.

Rauch describes a central plank of his technical ethos as follows: "The envelope that surrounds us should be able to breathe and diffuse in the same way as our bodies. My buildings are therefore deliberately not encapsulated, sealed, or made smooth with synthetic or high-density, energyintensive materials; rather, they are assembled and finished in raw form, like sushi - left uncooked! The entire building substance remains permeable, meaning that it is sufficiently resistant to the demands of usage and maintenance and minimally resistant to long-term degradation and the recycling process." Roger Boltshauser adds, "The archaic, direct workmanship and clear architectural language resulted in a house that melds extremely well with the landscape. In many aspects, it represents a true broadening of the horizon. These principles ought to be the basis of a universal strategy for future architectural design." This project represents a concrete expression of an almost inconceivable possibility: the chance not only to offset the division of labor, knowledge and material coincidence in architecture, a compartmentalization that dominates our high-tech, specialized world, but also to do so using the lowest level of entropy imaginable to satisfy our requirements for building, dwelling, and living appropriately - providing a globally relevant paradigm in the process.

For more recent international projects with Herzog & de Meuron, Sn?hetta, and others, a new wave of innovation was both necessary and of vital importance - including the adaptation of manually rammed earth techniques to suit the demands of industrial-scale production, prefabrication, logistical requirements and costs calculations of complex, large-scale construction projects. Rauch developed his own machine to address this challenge - a robot that automatically feeds material into the formwork and compacts it mechanically. This system can be used to produce formwork lengths of 50～80m in variable thicknesses. After removing this mould, the rammed course - one full length of the formwork -can be cut into elements of any size. This is primarily dependent on how the pieces can be transported, and in particular, on the load-bearing capacity of the crane, which is usually a maximum of five tons. This technique has proved its worth in the recent construction of the Ricola Kr?uterzentrumin Laufen (fig.6, page 82) as well as the visitor center at the Swiss Ornithological Institute (page 88).

Rauch has long served as an lecturer and has led workshops in Europe, Asia, and Africa. Perhaps the most far-reaching fruits of his range of small and increasingly larger-scale built works are not so much the many beautiful single-family homes in the architecturally rich Vorarlberg region or the spectacular collaborations with internationally renowned architectural visionaries in various locations, but rather his consulting work for academic and prototype projects in South Africa - in the townships of Johannesburg - or in Bangladesh. Here his expertise has supported, and continues to support, people who truly need construct their own simple, low-cost, climatically appropriate buildings by teaching effective techniques, thus promoting a sustainable alternative to exported methods of building, one that is not dependent onlarge-scale technologies and industry-compatible visions of "foreign aid". In Bangladesh, a land undergoing enormous population expansion and with disastrous housing and living conditions, Rauch received the 2007 Aga Khan Award for Architecture and the 2008 World Architecture Community Award for technical consultancy and support on school and housing projects developed together with architect Anna Heringer: "The big step forward was being able to show people how they can use the earth from the construction site to build low-cost two-storey structures themselves - without any additional technology - and create spaces that are of the highest quality climatically. We managed this via public workshops and using the structures that we built together as an example. As timber is rare in the region, we were forced to use concrete for the slabs in the end. But this is just a fraction of the amount that is utilized for new residential projects there. I have frequently attended conferences in the southern hemisphere, where the idea gets pushed that earth building can be improved with cement in order to better integrate it into established construction industry practices. The only problem is that, to earn a sack of cement, a laborer now has to work three times longer than he did ten years ago, because demand is so high. The really political aspect of pure earth building is that it can be implemented anywhere fully independently of lobbies, share prices, and industrial price controls, with simple craftsmanship being used to construct high-quality, ecologically appropriate buildings. In our part of the world, where labor is particularly expensive, manually crafted earth building is practically a luxury product. In countries where labor is readily available, for example, in Egypt, my house in Schlins would have been approximately 60 per cent cheaper and could even be a kind of standard dwellings! If we were to keep building all around the world inthe same way we have in the industrialized nations, it would be an ecological catastrophe. Rethinking practices is just as difficult here as it is there, because the cost transparency of our construction industry is incorrect. It only captures a brief and therefore distorted moment in time: the associated environmental impact and the real secondary costs are not taken in consideration in the calculations."

Since 2014, Rauch has communicated his knowledge and expertise at one of the world's leading technical universities. His guest professorship at the ETH Zurich, in collaboration with Anna Heringer, lasts two years. Furthermore, they both serve as honorary professors at the UNESCO Chair of Earthen Architecture, which is based at the Grenoble National School of Architecture.

The chapters of Refined Earth loosely follow the classifications in Gottfried Semper's seminal text The Four Elements of Architecture: FLOOR - corresponds to Mound, Terrace; WALL - corresponds to Enclosure, Weaving; SLAB - corresponds to Roof, supplemented by the category OPENING. However, Semper identified the HEARTH, or tamed fire, as the first and original "moral element of architecture" in order to categorize the other elements as "protecting negations", or "defenders of the hearth's flame against the three hostile elements of nature." It was precisely this sort of hearth element from Martin Rauch's workshop that prompted my initiation into his philosophy of living and building. In 1997/98, I was working on the editing and layout of my architectural guide to Vorarlberg with Reinhard and Ruth Gassner out of their studio house in Schlins. The house designed by Rudolf W?gerwas executed in timber framing, infilled with both bricks and rammed earth components; at its center was a cubic heating-cooking-washing element of reddish-brown earth, which Rauch had constructed with a smoothed wax finish. In this, the first ofmany collaborations with Gassner - our book and exhibition projects spanned many years - we stood at the hearth several times a day drinking tea and coffee, sharing snacks, leafing through newspapers, drawing water, and, since I was often allowed to spend the night in the lofted roof space above the studio, laying out my clothes in the evening. In short, it was the haven and social heart of the atelier, even more so because we would subconsciously touch the mottled red, earthen surfaces and the smooth yet not rigidly sealed edges of this element countless times; pushed glasses across its surface; touched it with our hips and knees as we leaned against it; sensed its subtle warmth in winter when the oven was in use, and noticed that in summer touching this material felt slightly cool, yet never extracted warmth from the hands, as a concrete, terrazzo, or stainless-steel surface, or even a sintered tile floor, certainly would. Many years previously, Gassner had himself described the experience of his tactile "aha" moment with rammed earth walls. In his atelier, through the exposure to the hearth, table, and bar elements that looked like marble but did not have its cold quality, I too gradually transformed from an initial sceptic into an advocate for Martin's contemporary rammed earth artistry.

Rauch always argues that a rammed earth wall retains a large portion of "living" water inside it and therefore corresponds, like no other material, and even more so than wood, to the physiological qualities and needs of our physical beings -expressed in its regulation of room humidity, in its breathability, and in its haptic quality when touched or walked on. Earth floors, walls, and buildings have the most ideal, active resonance with the physiological systems of our physical (and psychological) senses. He also frequently discusses the term EROSION in the debate on earth building, turning it from a commonly accepted negative into an emphatic positive. On the one hand, openpored materials are a prerequisite for recyclability and also provide the optimal correlation to human physiology; on the other, surface erosion that exterior walls exposed to wind and rain are particularly prone to can indeed be well controlled by the tried and tested details he developed - and then, instead of the over-technologized hermetic sealing pursued by current construction practices, a natural "calculated erosion" can be achieved.

This leads us, in conclusion, towards another category, one which, in comparison to the energyintensive artificiality of industrialized technologies, integrates this kind of contemporary earth building much more thoroughly into physical and chemical cycles of organic and inorganic nature. Another term for calculated erosion, which is the strength of building with earth, could be the PATINOPHILIA of this kind of architecture. Without going into further detail here, it is clear that earth buildings do not just age well and with dignity. In each and every condition, they can easily be repaired in the system, so that "aging" does not actually describe an aesthetic category or any other stage of their life cycle - and all of this is diametrically opposed to the tendency of contemporary architecture to emulate the model of mechanized and high-tech production, with its high levels of energy expenditure and complex transformations of natural substances. Allegedly lowmaintenance, their extrinsic brilliancy and patinaphobic glamour means that these modern buildings cannot age but only fade into obsolescence.

Building and designing with earth is - to put it succinctly - "low-tech + high-touch + highperformance." The ethos and Eros of using and shaping are in perfect balance, in resonance with our nature, in particular, as well as with the larger Eros nature of the cosmos in general, whose influence actuates constant transformation. The reality of economic globalization, characterized by the ever-increasing monopolies controlled by the industrialized nations, perhaps argues against a concept that cultivates resources which are readily available at practically no cost (!). However, the technical, ecological, and aesthetic qualities of building with earth - presented in this volume and offered as a basis for emulation and universal advancement - speak for themselves. They substantiate the fact that there is an alternative, if we choose, as we must, to follow the call of an ancient dictum in more determined fashion: Civilization is the sustainable transformation of the earth into a relief at the disposal of humankind.□

Use the Earth! The Life and Work of Martin Rauch

Otto Kapfinger

Translated by XU Zhilan

作家、建筑評論家

2016-09-09