We were thrilled to be working on the Natural Resources Headquarters project, as we felt this type of project aligned with our values and goals for the future of green building. Many people may want to utilize rammed earth in their projects, but pour-in-place methods using on-site soils are not always an option. With this building being in the middle of the city of Sacramento, it was a perfect fit to utilize our 3” thick rammed earth panels as a way to bring the earth back into the building.

This was our largest project to date, with over 15,000 SF of paneling, dozens of custom sizes, and a heavily engineered frame redesign. While there were numerous challenges in this project, the success of the installation should be attributed to the Townsend and Schmidt crew's ability to foresee issues far enough in advance for the project management team to resolve. Their installation team, led by Alexander Morua, constantly faced changes in schedule from other trades, as well as issues with equipment availability and coordination. Through all this, they upheld their contracted pace of installation while outperforming the architectural specifications. Townsend and Schmidt brought a much needed can-do attitude to this prototypical installation; we could not have asked or hoped for a better partner in this endeavor. We also partnered with Precast Unlimited Inc, in Redding, CA to aid us with the space and manpower to complete this project. They were instrumental in helping us redesign our panel molds for better durability. We are a small business, taking hours and multiple artisans to craft one panel. Our partnership with Precast Unlimited Inc was essential to us manufacturing and delivering all the panels within the project timeline. The partnership was so fruitful that we have since expanded our facilities right across the street from them!