Eco Restaurant Clapham

My Wood-fired oven business installed a new neapolitan style oven in a refurbishment of Eco last year. Eco was already an established hub on Clapham High Street but with the addition of the new hand made brick oven, it has a new centrepiece and focus for its customers. The Eco group already have the Franco Manca chain well established and this new addition will certainly pull in a new gourmet pizza crowd. I was chosen to build the oven because of my past experience and the deciding factor that I was based in the UK and not Italy. The new oven is 1.5m diameter inside and features a bright orange tile finish specified by architects and interior designers, Katz Vaughan.

recent news

my partner business www.wood-firedoven.co.uk has been contracted to build a mobile oven for the Half Moon pub in Putney, London. Recently refurbished by Geronimo Inns, part of the Youngs Brewery Group, the pub famous for its live music will have a garden oven capable of cooking anything from pizzas and flatbreads to delicate baked goods. Ray Brown, Director of Food at Geronimo Inns, is very excited about the installation which will be up and running by the first week of April.

EBUK conference 2010

EBUK 2nd Conference and AGM 18th January 2010. After last years poor turn out it was a relief to turn up to a meeting full of interested members at the ARUP offices in Fitzroy street, London. After a morning session hammering out our future role and the election of a new chair, we set about the afternoon conference replenished with a fabulous light lunch laid on by ARUP’s own caterers.
My slightly apologetic talk on rammed earth used in a landscape project in Bath went down well but my own feeling was of unease in using cement to stabilise the earth walls when the consensus seemed to be don’t use cement if you want to call the material sustainable. Learning is a process and we don’t have the benefit of hindsight when making decisions on site when faced with increasing budget and time considerations. The use of cement in external unprotected environments is widespread in the US and Australia but research here in the UK is directed at making the material cement free to lower the carbon load. Research departments in several universities have tested Lime, Alginates and Silicates to stabilise the compacted subsoil to varying degrees of success. Left to itself in unstabilised form, rammed earth is great for buildings with a roof but external weathered walls need some kind of stabliser to keep them from breaking down. I will keep my blog posted with news of developments in this area as the landscape sector could have a large part to play in promoting the material nationally and making earth building a sustainable practice externally. For more information go to http://www.EBUK.uk.com  and http://www.spacemagicgarden.co.uk

rammed earth walls

wall showing strata from layers compacted together

EBUK conference

Amrit will deliver a presentation to the january EBUK conference entitled ” the nervous landscapers guide to exterior unprotected rammed earth-a project in Bath”

The conference on  Tuesday 18th January from 2pm will follow our AGM and has several presentations and discussions. For further details please contact Louise cooke    lucooke@btinternet.com

My presentation will show slides of a garden project which included rammed earth and stone walls created from materials found on site and discussions will revolve around whether cement additives are a sustainable practice with otherwise unprotected structures.

my home wood-fired oven

I started building this last year but because of work commitments, I haven’t been able to crack on til now. I have made some progress on the brick oven core so if anybody is interested you can follow the build here http://www.flickr.com/photos/amritrow/sets/72157622810419041/ I’ll try and update as I make progress.

entry arch and beginnings of the dome

updated website

my websites http://www.spacemagicgarden.co.uk and http://www.wood-firedoven.co.uk have both been updated with new images and content. see new slideshows of recent builds.

EBUK has recently had a conference and launched a new website so I invite interested parties to join as members and join the forum for discussion on how to progress Earth Building as a practice. go to http://www.ebuk.uk.com for membership details. A recent debate has started on the use of cement as a stabiliser in rammed earth and whether the material can be still considered ‘sustainable’ as a result. Industry professional and fellow director , Roland Keeble, is adamant that it is absolutely unsustainable and should not form part of building codes when we get them. Others agree but to be ‘practical’, cement should be allowed to form part of the mix if necessary. Its a debate that will run I think.

rammed earth wall

waterfall

new forno bravo pizza oven ‘the primavera’

we are in negotiations with Forno Bravo to stock the new ready-to -go Primavera oven, a neat, pre built oven that you just unpack and fire up. It will hopefully shake up the stagnant pizza oven market in the UK. We welcome expressions of interest! We are of course UK dealers for Forno Bravo!
http://www.wood-firedoven.co.uk/enews/primavera/Welcome.html for further info.
youtube URL for video demonstration http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFXqqDSquJM&feature=related

Hello world!

Welcome to my new site. When I’ve got enough time to blog about things at length, you’ll have something to read. In the meantime, we’re making inroads as Forno Bravo dealers in the UK, manufacturers of high quality Italian pizza and bread ovens. If you’re interested get in contact!