Rammed Earth in Architecture Education: From Theoretical to Hands-on Pedagogy

Earthen building materials are currently gaining attention among building industry as well as architecture education. Teaching university students the latest sustainable building technologies equips them with the needed tools for their professional path. The applied teaching methods are significant for achieving this goal. Despite the various learning styles and teaching pedagogies, construction courses in architecture schools primarily depend on theoretical pedagogies. Accordingly, the purpose of this paper is to evaluate the efficiency of hands-on versus theoretical approaches in rammed earth architecture education. The adopted methodology involves a three-phased pedagogical approach: theoretical lectures, 1:10 scaled model ‘Dakkah’, and 1:1 implementation. To assess students’ information retention, three questionnaires succeeding each phase were conducted. The questionnaires investigated four rammed earth construction aspects: construction capabilities, mixture, soil tests and construction process. The participants were the first semester students in the ‘Fundamentals of Building Technology’ course at the Architecture and Urban Design program in the German University in Cairo. The key findings imply that the 1:10 scaled model ‘Dakkah’ and the 1:1 implementation achieved better results in comprehending the investigated aspects compared to the theoretical lectures phase. Whilst the students’ own reflection on their learning outcomes favoured the scaled model: ‘Dakkah’.