Working with Adobes…..Yay!!!!!

adobe experiment
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We know blogs have been silent for a while, but work at Sacred groves is on with full power!
Henceforth, we try to revive our blogs to keep everyone updated of the latest research, developments,struggles at Sacred Groves.
Now that the houses are growing pretty fast, excitement seems to be increasing every minute….
As we all were and are aware of is our beautiful relation with Cob…The undying spirit while making batches, the struggle with Pitch fork while taking out chunks, the team spirit while passing the chunks on the walls, herculean task of laying the cob on walls with full power, the shooing, the merging, covering…such enchanting earthy colors with beautiful texture where one could really feel the human touch in each and every inch and corner of the houses.
So many months of all the interns and volunteers at Sacred Groves developed a divine relation with Cob but now it was our time to experiment with a different method of building with Mud…Sun dried bricks or rightly called as Adobes…
Working with Adobes not only fastens the execution but also helps us work with a controlled standard of quality and well… different learning opportunities.
For the higher floor i.e. the second floor in the family house, we all decided to continue with Adobe walls with centrally located Palmyra columns. Reason to shift to Adobe from cob was quite worth a structural insight for all us at sacred groves site. The upper floors need to be lighter for lesser loads and execution to be faster, thus the solution of Adobe bricks.
The challenge was to get around 3500 bricks ready in few weeks when we didn’t even know the right mix…
It all started with testing various samples of soil and proportions of Earth: Binding Fiber: water.
The whole research depicted in one photograph pulled right out of the Sherin’s volunteer portfolio.
After months of research by our own scientists, Sarin and Minky, we finally had cracked the code of crack free, load bearing, beautiful unstabilised mud blocks.

And today we disclose the secret recipe in the form of sketches….straight out of the sketch log of Gayathri….ohh yeah…now we have sketch logs for all our interns and volunteers…their own personal sacred groves diaries.
We start with adobe mud mixing….

and proceed to brick making…
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Adobe walls are reaching new heights as we speak!
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