Painted into a corner on a remote mountainside, a novel way out is the only hope. Regular wood framing never made sense to me. For mounting an appropriate response to climate at nine thousand feet, it wasn't going to be a common way for there are none. I was humble enough to look for a way, and rammed earth struck my fancy. What could make more sense than under one's foot being one's basic bulk building material. The fractured granite soil that derived from granite chunks being banged on by an old track loader was ideal. What fun to scoop up banged out rock soil, pick it up all the way in the tractor bucket, and dump it on a slanted expanded steel clad welded frame. Decently screened dirt under and a pile of rocks tumbled to the side. I liked rammed earth and still do.

Things got more intense on the manual end when it came to the roof. For me, the only kind of roof I'd consider was concrete, as a bonding tieing together top diaphram.

Being a degreed engineer, though way laid on not a road but a mining path less traveled, there's no rocket science for forming up an elevated slab and placing rebar. Since I had a big concrete mixer originally intended for mixing portland cement into rammed earth, mixing my own concrete is a natural. The path to the roof was to fill twelve five gallon buckets with regular concrete, lug them as close as possible into the tractor bucket, stack two high, slop some out, and tractor them to the roof edge. With the bucket fully raised, I'd climb up the tractor arm into the bucket and carry them to point of application. I was the only one in a mile radius for thirteen years. My guardian angels were giddy with happiness as I kept them very busy. They don't prevent internal breakdowns though so the inevitable bucket lugging hernia brought me back to earth.

If there was such a thing as lightweight concrete, the load would be more palpable. Not only does progress put a man on the moon, but enables lightweight concrete also. With such an obvious manual advantage, why wasn't it ubiquitous? Turns out it's not needed because awesome ready mix trucks and incredible pumping machines move concrete mechanically most the time. Lightweight concrete is more tricky to pump and the aggregate costs more. What good is that?

For me in my location, it was very good. The drudgery of regular concrete turned into the child's play of lightweight concrete. From 145 pounds per cubic foot down to 82 pounds per cubic feet was magic for me. It got me thinking that instead of dealing with a slow humidity induced warpage into wood door and window frames, making those frames from lightweight concrete would be better. Trying to come up with a way to tie the frames into a rammed earth wall incrementally advanced me to coming up with this cavity wall system. Good earth ramming soil is not common. The variables prevent it from becoming a global panacea. But a concrete enclosure, like a cavity wall, especially made with water, fire, insect damage proof lightweight concrete, that can be filled on a two to one ratio with native bulk material seems a great idea, at least to me. The key is to use an easily constructed geometry to keep use of it as simple as possible. What is the minimum number of parts for the maximum versatility? What is the most aesthetic and practical proportioning? It's at it's fundamental bare boned simplicity in the cavity wall system.