posted 5 years ago
I second the person above who suggested that you make some trial blocks, dry them, and then kick, drop, rub and soak them to see how they do. That's how we started building with rammed earth at our school, and it worked great. We didn't even realise that the stuff we were calling clay was technically a fine silt. It worked great for construction.
In our rammed earth we didn't use any straw or other biomass, because none was available at all in our barren desert region, and for rammed earth it was not a problem. We are still using the same technique 25 years later. As others mentioned above, if you have a frame of any kind, maybe wood, and if the earthen material will only be infill, then you can be more experimental and not worry much about strength. But make some blocks with different proportions of materials you might have access to, and test them.
Works at a residential alternative high school in the Himalayas SECMOL.org . "Back home" is Cape Cod, E Coast USA.