RECOVERING THE MEDITERRANEAN CULTURAL LANDSCAPES WITH RAMMED EARTH

Introduction. The earth as rehabilitation material
In the Campania region (south Italy), through time, both the constructing tradition and the material culture have widely employed the use of stone. Stone is present in all areas in various typological shapes, from those effusive, basalt, grey and yellow tufa, to the limestone ones of dolomitic origin; the abundance of this product of the great number of mountains and volcanoes in the region favoured its adoption as preferential construction material. The studies and investigations into the potential of rammed earth are very recent, the first public diffusion having been organized in an international conference during 2010. It has been noticed that, although this natural resource was rarely employed as structural material in this region, the activity of a great number of furnaces1 in the areas had demonstrated the richness in clay of some soils and thus their suitability for use as raw brick. In fact few examples of mud fabrics have been found in the province of Avellino and Benevento, and a large diffusion of soil as mortar and finishing element has been surveyed in the Salerno province.
Following the local constructive tradition, it could be possible to promote the logic of bio- regionalism and to switch on again the interest for this sustainable material, making an effort to find out which – among the different techniques and earthen solutions – would be the most appropriate to the context, in terms of both practical manufacture expertise and architectural configurations. […]