KALÁKA-PART II: Building a tiny house using mixed-methods earthwork

Welcome to part 2 of Kaláka, a series of films that loosely document the process of building a tiny house using techniques in earthwork.

The process of building with earth is highly weather dependent as it requires warm temperatures and relatively dry conditions. This means that in Hungary, where the structure is being built, the only realistic window of time to build is during the hottest days of the summer months. As such, the half-built structure had to remain covered over a winter and construction could only begin in late august, mostly due to scheduling conflicts. Indeed, the question of availabilities played a huge role in determining the exact time of the second phase of construction, mostly because an earthen structure that is in the process of being built is rather vulnerable to rain until it is properly sealed, meaning that once one starts a certain phase of construction, it is rather important to complete it. Additionally, gathering enough willing hands who could dedicate a full week from dawn til dusk to not only physical labour, but also a high level of communal spirit was a challenge (but certainly not impossible). These factors only strengthen the notion that Hungarian rural communities of old who used to build with these techniques relied not only on embodied knowledge and expertise in order to build their structures, but also high levels of social cohesion that enabled the coming together of friends, neighbours and family for something that required many hands.

Part 2 of Kaláka introduces another popular technique and material traditionally used in parts of Hungary–adobe brick. The last layer of the rammed earth walls had reached a height that made it rather unsafe for us to continue without proper safety gear, and the process of manually shovelling soil in between the wooden formwork had become especially gruelling. This meant that we again took a page out of traditional Hungarian building processes' book and decided to continue building up the height of the walls using adobe bricks. As seen in the film, the lightly soaked bricks were passed individually up onto the wall and were bound to each other using a mixture of soil, wood shavings and sand. Conventional bricks were used in each corner to fortify the structure, which is yet another example of how contemporary techniques can be used alongside more traditional ones in relative harmony. Once four layers of bricks were laid to complete the last c. 45 cm of height, both the external and internal walls were coated with three layers of daub made out of a mixture of soil, woodshavings, and sand in varying degrees of wetness.

The structure has since gotten a pitched roof with conventional red brick tiles and has been whitewashed with lime in three layers to protect and seal the earthen walls from the weather. The windows and doors are in the process of being installed, and the next phase in the life of this structure will be to start working on the interior.

The continuation of this project was made possible by the labour of many, who are listed in the credits, as well as the enthusiasm of Rikunj Shah of Studio Reverence, who provided sound structural advice for the second phase and introduced the first phase of Kaláka to the academic world via his brilliant MA thesis on earthenware structures at Kunsuniversität Linz. Special thanks goes to artist and photographer and László Maczky, who provided the drone footage. You can check out more of his work here: http://www.fotoart-maczky.eu/index.ph....

To find out more about the project and to follow along other creative research projects feel free to visit https://culturingcare.org/ or follow along on Instagram @culturingcare

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