David Carr Easton

1948 - 2021

David Carr Easton

1948 - 2021

David Carr Easton – earth builder, innovator, inventor, long time resident of the Napa Valley, died at his home on February 4, 2021 at the age of 72.

Born on February 25th, 1948 in Fullerton, California to George and Jane Easton, he was the great nephew of Elbert Hubbard, the founder of the Roycroft artisan community and the grandson of Arts & Crafts architect Louis B Easton.

Easton studied engineering and architecture at Stanford University where he received a BS in Product Design in 1970. Shortly after his college graduation, Easton fell in love with earth construction. He went on to become a fierce and life-long advocate for earth as a building material. His interest in rammed earth grew while searching for ways to build his own low-cost home. While little was known about rammed earth at the time, Easton rediscovered how moist clay soils compacted directly into movable forms could yield immediately load-supporting walls. It was, for him, an irresistible technology. As an industrial engineer, Easton strove to increase efficiencies. Unlike adobe, rammed earth involved no waiting for bricks to sun-dry.

In 1978, Easton founded and directed until his passing, Rammed Earth Works. He is credited with inventing the California forming system, a method now in use on five continents for rammed earth. In 1982 Chelsea Green published Easton's The Rammed Earth House, with photographs by his wife Cynthia Wright. Easton was the first to obtain building permits for stabilized earth construction issued in California's seismic zone 4. Some years later, he developed the PISE method of high-pressure air installation for earth walls. He and his company were involved in the design, permitting, and construction of over three hundred stabilized earth residential and commercial projects including clients such as SosteNica, Fetzer Vineyards, Stags Leap Wine Cellars, Long Meadow Ranch Winery, the Las Vegas Springs Preserve, Disney Worldwide Services, River Ranch Farmworker Housing, Camp Arroyo Environmental Education Center, the Windhover Contemplative Center on the Stanford campus, the Rukinga Garment Factory in Kenya, Natural Resources Headquarters in Sacramento.

On numerous occasions, Easton and his wife took earthen construction overseas, including to Nicaragua, Japan, Brazil, Mexico and Africa, to teach and build orphanages, schools and other structures for communities in need. One of Easton's greatest ambitions was to find a low-cost method for building high quality, attractive and livable homes for the third-world.

Thirty years after founding Rammed Earth Works, concerned about the impacts of global climate change, Easton co-founded Watershed Materials. Seeking to reduce carbon emissions from cement, he invented the Watershed earth block which achieved a 50% reduction in cement and a 65% reduction in embodied energy compared to conventional concrete masonry.

What began as a passion for durable, recyclable, healthy building materials eventually evolved into a medium for artistic expression. Beginning in 2014, Easton and his sons collaborated with artist Andy Goldsworthy on three projects. In recent years Easton and his son Khyber have gained notoriety for producing and installing four inch thick precast panels as lobby art and cladding.

Easton is survived by his two sisters Janet Kavanaugh and Miriam Rutz, his wife of 30 years Cynthia Wright, his four birth children, Darth, Khyber, Terra and Taj and wife Cynthia's two sons Jack and Evan. He also adored his three granddaughters Adiya, Juniper and Hana. A series of memorial work projects are being planned for a later post-pandemic date.