RammTeck. Bringing the past into the future

To Open a blog again and write down what we have been up to for the past two years seems like a daunting task but just feel we should document some of the work we have done Largest Rammed Earth Structure in South Africa Hoyo Hoyo Conference center  This building surprised the client from start to finish what was planned to be a convenience store turned into the most beautiful and eye catching buildings in the Acornhoek area close to Hoedspruit    We used  a mixture of face brick and rammed earth as well as some insitu concrete beams to span the eight meter  door the Rammed earth used here has tested in the region of 28MPA which is huge strength totally unnecessary but has given birth to a very hard durable building that will be maintenance free for many years to come Eight hundred meters under roof for  Two thousand per meter   Green Building at less than a quarter conventional cost The Rustic building gave space to do an unconventional floor 

So its almost the end of a new year and all we have done is work like crazy . Running up and down from Hoedspruit to Gauteng at least twice a month We have completed our first residential units and they are awesome in Hoedspruits hot climate we have managed to build a building that controls its temperature so well, just a few minutes in these buildings and you are energized to go back into the heat. The simple design we used to maximize space internally has left us with huge rooms and an awesome entertainment area with a very large kitchen  This unit has six bedrooms four full bathrooms  two kitchens and two lounges both units take up around three hundred square m We were lucky enough on the site to get the exact line up with the setting sun in the summer to reduce heat absorption  on our north wall an important factor in such a hot climate all late morning  and early afternoon sun is kept off the walls in summer In the bathrooms it was decided to keep t

Well, I don't know where the year has gone but Rammteck has made some good progress on the sites in Acornhoek close to Hoedspruit. We closed for the holidays in December with one wall in place, just to get an idea of what to expect in the new year. These buildings are totally unique in that they are different to anything we have done before, but also follow our theme of elongated curved buildings.  We were tasked with designing a building that could house up to 6 people or two large families; these are the initial plans that were drawn up. So, the task was laid out; two 250 m2 buildings with all finishes in less than six months. The foundations and ramming went up in good time. Then accommodating the large openings for the sliding doors.   Window and door boxes were made on site for the sliding doors and windows. When the shutters come off it is always such an awesome moment to witness the revea

 An exiting new project for Rammteck with finance from the Buffelshoek Trust. These new buildings will form part of the staff housing for Acorn to Oaks School. We have followed our traditional model of hiring staff from the local communities, t o be trained and construct the buildings for us. The people from the local community that turned up for the interviews. We hired 26 new staff and were ready to start when the first hurdle arrived. This was the engineer who decided a platform was necessary to level the site for  run off. This little process from start to finish lost us a full 3 months, 2 weeks for the engineer and  two and a half months for the earthworks. While the staff waited for the platform to be completed they built a guard house u sing the new knowledge they had acquired from our training program. Guard house The earthworks people still at work and we started laying out the site. All the reinforcing cages being made for the f