Sixty centimetres of earth, ten centimetres at a time. What our builders taught us in three years of putting the kasbah back together.
Pisé is the oldest way of building in Morocco and one of the simplest: earth, a wooden frame and a lot of patient work. There is no kiln and no cement, and nothing travels further than the edge of the field.
The earth
Not every soil will do. It needs enough clay to bind and enough gravel to stay strong. Our builders tested the ground by rolling it between their hands and dropping it from shoulder height, the way their fathers did.
The frame and the rammer
A cedar frame holds the earth while it is beaten with a wooden rammer. Each layer is about ten centimetres deep and rammed until it rings. Those layers are the lines you see on every wall in the house.
Why it stays cool
Thick earth is slow. It takes the day's heat and gives it back at night, and it breathes with the humidity of the ocean. In August the rooms stay cool with very little help.
