A ‘showstopper’ wall rises in Medora, putting the Badlands’ true colors on display

MEDORA, N.D. — From its beginnings, the design concept for the future

Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library

in Medora was an ambitious one, a “journey through a preserved landscape … a continuum between past and present,” according to the international architecture giant Snøhetta, which was commissioned for the job.

The Oslo-based firm’s concept included elements it said would integrate the ethos of the man the facility was built to honor.

“Our design … is informed by the president’s personal reflections on the landscape, his commitment to environmental stewardship, and the periods of quiet introspection and civic engagement that marked his life,” Snøhetta announced.

As the exterior of the library nears completion and a grand opening is slated for July 4, 2026, the architect’s visionary concept is coming to life, highlighted during a tour of the site by a recently-completed, towering, rammed-earth wall.

The wall, which Snøhetta touted as “one of the most visually striking aspects” of its design, is daunting in scale, reaching 30 feet in the air toward a sprawling ceiling of exposed timber panels and beams, and stretching 240 feet across what will be the building’s main hall. Bearing a remarkable resemblance to the sedimentary striations of North Dakota’s Badlands, its rough-hewn surface is pocked and porous, with uneven layers, and an earthy palate of sand, stone, mud and dust.

The rammed-earth technique is an archaic one, with evidence of its use found as far back as 5000 B.C. The rammed-earth portions of the Great Wall of China are celebrated by the United Nations’ World Heritage Convention as “exceptional testimony to the civilizations of ancient China.”

The last time the technique captured North Dakotans’ attention was the 1930s, when the Works Progress Administration and Col. Paul Southworth Bliss in southwest North Dakota championed it as a fireproof and efficient means of home construction, according to a forthcoming book by Jim Fuglie and Lillian Crook.

In more recent times, the rammed-earth technique has gained newfound popularity due to its environmentally-friendly, sustainable process and energy efficient qualities, but up until last year, when Winn Construction in Dickinson took up the challenge to build it, no such large-scale rammed-earth wall existed in the state.

Willie Winn, the concrete company’s owner, and Kenny Jessop, a Winn supervisor who oversaw the project, have spent their entire careers in the construction business, but the rammed-earth technique was new to them.

In order to better understand the task at hand, Winn and his team traveled to visit large, public rammed-earth walls in Cheyenne and Sheridan, Wyoming. A consultant was brought in to help determine the critical recipe for the mixture of earth that would be used for the project as part of the learning process.

But after that, the Winn team was on their own to erect what was to be the centerpiece of the library’s interior.

“It really started at our shop in Dickinson,” Jessop said. “We started with a 10-foot-tall mock-up wall.”

Winn said a lot of trial and error went into determining the particular formula for the wall’s earthen mixture.

Tasha Carvell

Almost immediately, the team realized the local gravel they were using had too much moisture, necessitating the construction of a temporary structure on site to dry it out.

The process for building the wall is a particular and labor-intensive one. Jessop described how forms were placed first, into which the gravel mixture would be poured. Rebar was run down the middle to reinforce the wall. Then, the gravel was mixed with 10% cement, with varying pigment amounts to achieve the colored layers, as well as a small amount of water to create the particular rammed-earth formula.

After the appropriate mixture was achieved, it was fed from an auger-style mixer to a truck-mounted conveyor, or telebelt, designed to place concrete and other materials in hard-to-reach or elevated locations. From there, the mixture was poured into the forms. For safety reasons, the team worked on four feet of wall at a time, Jessop said.

“Every layer that you see was placed and compacted individually. First it’s placed in roughly 12-inch loose layers of the consistency of a good road base,” Jessop said. After that the mixture was tightly compacted, or rammed, into the final eight-inch layer.

The construction of the library’s rammed-earth walls took a 15-man crew just over three months and about 12,000 man hours to complete, Jessop said. Two million pounds of material were used in the process.

When Winn talks about the role the local company he founded in 1981 played in building the centerpiece design element of the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library, he calls the opportunity “a privilege.”

Jenn Carroll, the library’s manager of sustainability, called the team from Winn Construction “really wise” in the way they approached the daunting job.

Anna Paige / The Forum

“From the owner perspective, it’s really important to note that the willingness of Willie and his team to take on this piece of the project,” Carroll said. “We’re incredibly grateful because this is such a big piece of what we’re doing, and they were willing to learn this new craft. When we first peeled the forms back, I think for all of us there was some celebration because it’s just stunning and it’s pretty special that we can have a local artisan do this and not have to hire out outside of our area.”

While the wall is not a structural element of the building, it serves an important role for sustainability, Carroll said.

“It’s going to help with our energy, retaining heat in the winter, keep the space cool in the summer, helping with humidity and moisture in the air,” Carroll said. “Because it is a kind of porous element, indoor air quality will be improved by it. So while it has some aesthetic values, there’s a lot more purpose behind the behind the wall itself.”

“People are going to walk in that lobby and it’s going to be the showstopper,” Carroll said.