Rendered in the News

My first clay plastering job with Het Leemniscaat has made the 'news'! I worked on the internal clay render of this gorgeous house in one of the first days in Belgium last year. (The 'before' pictures are in one of my early blog posts) Mathias let me practice clay plastering the kitchen shelves and niches before letting me loose with a trowel and pallet knife on the upstairs bedrooms. I also worked on the external lime render with red pigments during the last days in Belgium. It rained so hard that the red pigment went everywhere and the team looked as if they'd been in an abbatoir all day, my boots didn't dry out fully until after I'd already got back to England.

The house is one of 4 houses and an art space occupied by a community in the countryside outside Antwerp. This house was the first to be renovated from its dilapidated state and was designed by Peter Voss of Barchi Architects. It has a timber frame which sits inside the stone work of the original barn, a suspended floor which is insulated from below with sea shells and hempcrete. Underfloor heating is imbedded in the hemp and bamboo flooring is laid on top.  

A glass section has been incorporated into the new roof to provide natural light and a glass section of floor gives the impression of a double height atrium at the entrance. The inside walls are hempcrete and straw bale sections with clay plaster. The downstairs ceilings have been lime washed and preserve the original arches of the barn. Externally the walls have been lime rendered to protect the hemp and straw sections from weather. 

This house provided the template for the other houses which needed renovation on site and the home owners took on much of the work themselves following days spent working with the Het team.  

In the pictures below you can see the gold glints of straw in the plaster. This occurs when the clay has been sponged several times with successively drier sponges which transforms the walls from wet brown plaster to smooth, hard, glimmering gold.