CINVA-Ram press for compressed earth blocks
Prensa CINVA-Ram para bloques de tierra comprimida
- Date
- 1957 · confidence medium
- Place
- Bogotá, Colombia
- Credited to
- Raúl Ramírez (CINVA)
- Field
- Tools
What it is
A hand-lever press that compacts earth stabilised with a little cement or lime into regular unfired blocks. It offered a cheap masonry material of uniform quality for self-build housing, without fuel or kilns.
The press was developed at the Inter-American Housing and Planning Center in Bogotá (CINVA), backed by the OAS; earlier compressed-earth brick presses existed in Europe (Cointeraux) and the US.
What it led to
- low-cost compressed-earth houses in Latin America and Africa
- manual and motorised compressed-earth block presses
- self-help housing programmes