Rowland Keable set up In Situ in 1998 to start building engineered earth structures in the U.K. At that time there were no earth structures being built outside very defined traditional boundaries, architects were not encouraged to think about alternative materials as anything other than aberrations and engineering followed that lead. The Eden Project was the first building to use earth in an innovative way and began a process of re-evaluating materials long thought of as obsolete. As the message of climate change has begun to slip into the general consciousness the utility of these materials begins to give them new lease of life, as designers start looking at possibilities never previously considered. Rowland will talk through two recent projects and put them into a wider context of working in an industry struggling with change.
