OTF WEEK 10: Meeting with Wilfredo Carazas

After the Midterm review, the OTF student researchers have received a visit from architect Wilfredo Carazas, one of the most active promoters of earth architecture. The group was presented a set of general knowledge about soil and its particular properties depending on the site specifications, such as weather, altitude, sunlight conditions and many more.

Since one of the proposed themes of OTF is to 3D Print with local, natural materials, the team went on a field trip to Valldaura, home of IAAC Self Sufficient Labs, a site from which it is aimed to collect the soil for printing. This created a live understanding about differences such as calciferous soil and clear one, and it was possible to extract some samples for testing.

The exploration focused on playing with differenet granulosities of the soil, in order to gather a set of conclusions about the printability of each form. Aditionally, the clay was combined with sand, water or other additives, in order to see the chemical and physical responses of it.