CLAY PLASTER — CUSTOM FINISH

Rammed earth finish

A clay plaster laid in compacted bands at 7-10 mm, so an interior wall reads as rammed earth without carrying its weight. Sixteen texture studies sit in the sample library, running cream through ochre to terracotta.

Application Hand-laid in bands and compacted; interior walls and ceilings

Build 7-10 mm

Substrate Plasterboard, cement render, block and concrete — prepared and primed

Colour 16 texture studies, cream to ochre to Terracotta TER-03; custom blends to order

Sheen Matt

Not for Floors, wet areas, or any exterior wall

Rammed Earth Finish gives a wall the strata of tamped earth on a substrate that could never carry a real one. It is applied at 7 to 10 mm, band by band, each lift laid and compacted by hand so that no two read alike — the same reason no two lifts in a formed earth wall ever match. Clayworks make it in Cornwall from unfired natural clay, and Earth Layers supplies and installs it across Dubai and the UAE with artisans on our own payroll. It is a finish, not a structure; where a project wants the real thing, we build in-situ rammed earth as well.

The work is in the horizontal. Bands are set out on the wall, laid, then compacted back so the edge between one and the next holds a slight ridge and a slight shadow. Get the rhythm wrong and the wall looks striped rather than built; get it right and the eye reads depth, sediment and time. It is a finish that punishes hesitation, which is why it stays with applicators who have laid it before rather than being handed to whoever is free.

Light does most of the remaining work. The surface is matt and takes grazing light from a wall-washer or a high window particularly well, the ridges catching and the recesses holding shade, so the same wall shifts through the day. Colour sits in the body of the plaster rather than on top of it, so a scuff exposes the same tone underneath and repairs blend in rather than patch. Like the rest of the Clayworks range it is breathable, buffers humidity to help hold a room between 40 and 60% RH, and has nothing to off-gas — useful in a sealed, air-conditioned Gulf interior, and it contributes to WELL, LEED and Mostadam submissions.

Sixteen texture studies exist in the sample library, from pale creams through ochres to a full Terracotta TER-03, and blends are made to order: the fireplace by Bedrock in Singapore was mixed to a custom Quebracho red-brown at the designer's request. The finish has also been built at MUD\WTR Gather in Santa Monica and at Stone Island in Munich, which between them show its range — a warm, domestic, tactile wall in one and a controlled retail backdrop in the other. We make sample panels at project scale before any wall is committed, because banding reads differently at 300 mm than it does at three metres.

Where it belongs

MUD\WTR Gather, Santa Monica Rammed earth finish through the cafe View the project →

Fireplace by Bedrock, Singapore Rammed earth finish — custom strata View the project →

Smooth Demi Rustic Rustic Tonal Tadelakt Exterior

We will make as many trial panels as it takes to arrive at the surface you want, on the substrate you are building on. Send the finishes schedule, or come to the showroom in Riyadh and put a hand on the range.