Solidifying Grounds: The Intricate Art of Foundation Building

Abstract

Modern thinking about the ground tends to take it as a purely material base for the unfolding of history and ideas emerging on its surface. In this article, I question above-ground visions of city building by drawing on both the history of ground engineering and ethnographic fieldwork carried out in Paris with geotechnicians. I address the difficulties that theorists have faced over past centuries in modelling soils, and the contemporary practice of building piles underneath buildings to anchor them. From this unfolds an understanding of the ground as produced through an equilibrium between forces and materials in which buildings become participants, rather than a solid base upon which they stand. Looking at the activities of foundation builders, we find that the inertia of the urban soil no longer betokens an absence of activity or movement, but is rather a continuous achievement, a slow and dangerous process of balancing tensions.

Sustainable Eco-Friendly Building Material – A Review Towards Compressed Stabilized Earth Blocks and Fire Burnt Clay Bricks

“…In 18 th century, it was said that the machines for compressing dirt were invented and refined. It was not until the 1950s that the presses and the compressed earth bricks became widespread for building and architectural purposes [17]. This brick differs from the traditionally-burnt bricks because the former is manufactured following a different process.…”