The vision of The Clay Plaster Company & American Clay Europe is to create natural beauty in interior spaces for the benefit of personal health and the environment. We envision ourselves growing within the greater building industry by providing healthy and sustainable wall coverings as a common alternative for healthier homes and businesses. This means providing alternatives to conventional synthetic and plastic wall coverings with the introduction of natural materials.
The Clay
Plaster Company is excited to announce that our natural and beautiful American
Clay plasters are currently being applied to the inside of Bray Cottages at Bray on
Thames in Berkshire, UK. Thinking of taking a visit to the village of Bray?
Click here to view a photo gallery of the lovely and charming cottages which are just
steps away from the world-renowned Fat Duck and Waterside Inn Restaurants.
This particular project is using our Loma product as a base coat and a 50/50 blend of our smooth finish Porcelina and Loma for a top coat. One of the bonuses with these plasters is that you can blend them together in different ratios to change performance under the trowel and give even more finish possibilities. The American Clay line has also been tested and designed to be mixed with an exact amount of our UK local Lime putty which is also being used on the Bray project.
Anyway, there will be more
info to come on this great project and some pic's so watch this space!
I (Ben) thought it
might be nice to introduce a good friend of mine who we are hoping will be
coming to the UK to teach some Traditional Japanese Plasterwork styles sometime
this year.
Takao Kobayashi
Principle Works: Restoration
of Earthen Storehouse in Wajima, Ishikawa Prefecture; Restoration of Cultural
Heritage Buildings & Extensive experience in everything from private homes
to earthen storehouses and traditional Japanese cook stoves.
Featured in numerous
magazines: Comfort "Earth Plastering Book”, Comfort "Earth
Plastering Power", CHIRUBINTO, and others. Has also published
articles in the monthly edition of Plastering Schoolhouse
I was fortunate enough to meet up with Kobayshi-san, Sakamoto-san and Kyle Holzhueter on a project at
Harvest Haven farms out in Alberta, Canada last August (2011). On this
particular project I was educating the class on the exterior
application off Lime's, their applications in severe
climates over a variety of substrates and the use of appropriate mixes and how to manipulate those mixes depending on site conditions,
etc. Kobayshi-san was there to show us the application and processes
behind some more decorative Traditional Japanese earthen plasters, one of those being
Otsu.
Otsu is a mix of lime and soil normally in the ratio of 3 parts soil to 1
part lime sometimes with the addition of fibre reinforcement like hemp.
Due to the lime in the
mix, this finish can be brought up to a high polish, and thats exactly
how Kobayshi-san, Sakamoto-san and Kyle finished it. Another plaster
they showed the class was a seaweed lime plaster called Shikkui. A very
durable traditional Japanese lime plaster with great tensile strength and bonding
capabilities, that combines high calcium lime, seaweed extracts,natural plant
fibres and in some cases some aggregates.
Kobayshi-san preparing the seaweed, while Sakamoto-san prepares the hemp fibres. Also, a little smile form little Noah and parents Mariko and Mark.
Kobayshi-san and Kyle applying clay plaster base coat.
Kobayshi-san meticulously finishing one of the Otsu plasters.
Kobayshi-san meticulously finishing the yellow Otsu plaster.
As I mentioned before we are hoping to get Kobayshi-san over to the UK sometime this year, we are also hoping to bring in an additional line of Japanese trowels, so watch this space.
Thursday, 26 January 2012
So some of you may be interested in this new book 'Terra Europae - Earthern architecture in the European Union' I came across whilst checking out the EBUK website. Essentially its a scientific publication showing exclusive maps and texts from different regions and countries of the EU, the outcome is a great overview of the state of the art Earthern architecture in Europe.
It covers seven regions in all and talks about historical heritage and contemporary architecture. There is also a comprehensive cartography of European earthern heritage. sounds like a good one to me...
Some great news from across the pond, American Clay (AC) has launched their new website and I think you will agree it's a good one! Here is another video from AC founder Croft Elsaesser explaining a bit about their new website.
As American Clay is one of the great products we carry, we highly recommend that you take a moment to look through their new site and familiarize yourself with the latest they/we have to offer. For Architects and Designers there are sections on Submittals, LEED points and Specifications. For Applicators and Contractors there are sections on Product Information, Application and Technical information plus Material Safety Data Sheets (MSDS).
Another great thing about this new website is a full view colour pallet showing the original 43 standard colours with the addition of 11 new standard colours, plus 56 blended colours giving an outstanding spectrum of 110 colours for you to choose from. There is also a great opportunity to see the product up and on walls and ceilings by looking at the American Clay photo gallery. You can also see some of the great textures available with each one of the four clay types, by clicking on the plasters and textures icon.
For more information including where to by in the UK and applicators in your area call 'The Clay Plaster Company' at (0)7580 331 311.
