Pisé consists of good quality soil pounded in a series of thin layers between metal or wooden shutters. The skill involved in pounding is familiar to most people and can be perfected for pisé applications in a few hours. Window and door openings are simply blanked off with removable boxes.
Pisé de terre (rammed earth) construction is not only extremely durable, and strong under live and dead loading, but also creates large amounts of employment per unit of currency spent.
Pilot projects in Malawi, Kenya, Sierra Leone and Ghana have demonstrated that large scale commercial developments are possible. Very little mechanical equipment is required, greatly reducing front-end costs and overheads. Thus a company using the technique can maintain very low overheads while employing large numbers of people and transferring technology in a very effective way.