EARTH ARCHITECTURE

\Photograph by Luis Gordoa

Architects: Mauricio Rocha, Taller de Arquitectura Mauricio Rocha

Area: 91,493 ft²

Year Built: 2001

City/State: Iztapalapa, Mexico City

Country: Mexico

Located in Iztapalapa, Mexico City, the Center for the Blind and Visually Impaired is designed to address the unique sensory and social needs of its users.

The center was established as part of the government’s initiative to address the pressing need for services in one of the city’s most densely populated and underserved districts. Iztapalapa not only has one of the highest populations in Mexico City but also the largest concentration of visually impaired residents making this essentially very critical.

Constructed from volcanic rock, the boundary wall encloses the complex on all sides, acting as both an acoustic barrier and a retaining wall for earth relocated from nearby areas. While its exterior is minimal and unadorned, the interior facade transforms into varied banks that shift in shape, height, and orientation, forming a series of intimate courtyards. These enclosed outdoor spaces enhance sensory experiences, offering quiet, reflective areas for users within the bustling district.

Materiality is vital in this project as it enhances spatial perception, activating the senses as sources of experience and information. Organized into rectangular prisms with concrete frames and flat roofs, each section varies in size, light intensity, and material weight to make spaces easily identifiable. Rammed earth was also chosen for its contrasting textures to the volcanic rock to provide tactile cues that aid navigation.

The floor plan functions as a series of “filters” extending from the entrance, beginning with administrative offices, a cafeteria, and utility spaces. This layout, combined with sensory materials, allows users to navigate intuitively.. Overall, this thoughtful space prioritizes accessibility and engagement, creating an environment that fosters independence, and comfort.

References:

Center for the Blind and Visually Impaired / Taller de Arquitectura-Mauricio Rocha.” ArchDaily, 11 Aug. 2011, www.archdaily.com/158301/center-for-the-blind-and-visually-impaired-taller-de-arquitectura-mauricio-rocha?ad_medium=gallery.

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From Personal Experience to Architectural Innovation

Francis Kéré’s journey to build the Gando School Library began with his own childhood experiences. As a young student in rural Burkina Faso, Kéré had to travel 40 kilometers to reach the nearest school, where he studied in poorly lit, badly ventilated classrooms. These difficult learning conditions left a lasting impression that would shape his future work.

While studying architecture in Germany, Kéré made a crucial decision: he would use his education to build a better school for his village. In 1998, he established “Bricks for Gando,” a foundation to support this vision. By 1999, despite significant economic and logistical challenges, he began designing the primary school with support from his community and foundation funds.

Smart Design for Harsh Conditions

Kéré designed the school in 1999 with four key factors in mind: cost, climate, available materials, and building methods. He knew the building needed to stay cool in extreme heat, use local materials, and be built by village residents.

The Building Layout

The school features three classrooms arranged in a straight line. Between them, covered outdoor areas serve as play spaces and extra teaching rooms. This simple layout helps air move through the building while providing shade for outdoor activities.

Natural Cooling System

Instead of using expensive air conditioning, Kéré created an innovative ventilation system. He raised the metal roof above the clay brick ceiling using steel bars and light trusses. This design lets cool air enter through windows while hot air rises through holes in the ceiling and escapes through the gap under the raised roof. The roof extends far beyond the walls, protecting them from rain and creating extra shade.

 

Local Materials, New Methods

The walls use compressed earth blocks made from local clay, strengthened to last longer than traditional mud bricks. Concrete beams support the ceiling, which uses more compressed earth blocks with special holes for ventilation. The metal roof protects everything below while helping move hot air out of the building.

 

Built by the Community

Every person who worked on the school came from Gando. During construction, villagers learned new building skills while sharing their knowledge of traditional methods. These skills spread through the community, leading to more building projects in Gando and nearby villages.

Award-Winning Impact

In 2001, the completed school won the Aga Khan Award for Architecture. The judges praised its “elegant and simple design using basic construction techniques.” More importantly, it proved that buildings could be:

• Made entirely from local materials
• Built by local people
• Comfortable without expensive cooling systems
• Strong enough to last many years
• Perfect for their climate and community

Beyond the Classroom

The primary school did more than provide a place to learn. It showed a new way to build in hot climates using simple materials and smart design. The success led Kéré to design more buildings in Gando, including teacher housing and later, the library.

A Model for African Architecture

The Gando Primary School challenged common ideas about building in Africa. It proved that:

1. Traditional materials could work better than modern ones
2. Local builders could create advanced buildings
3. Natural cooling could replace air conditioning
4. Simple design could solve complex problems
5. Architecture could grow from community needs

Growing to Meet Community Needs

The success of the Gando Primary School led to its first expansion just two years after opening. In 2003, faced with rising student numbers, Kéré designed an extension that built on the original’s proven solutions while introducing subtle innovations.

 

He kept the core elements that worked well – local clay blocks for walls, the signature raised roof for ventilation, and the protective deep overhangs.

Interior of the vaulted ceiling classroom

However, he refined the cooling system by replacing the flat perforated ceiling with a curved vault design. This new ceiling featured carefully spaced gaps in its brick pattern, creating a more effective “breathing” surface that drew cool air in through the windows while letting hot air escape through the vault. The extension, built again by community members who had gained experience from the first project, showed how Kéré’s sustainable design principles could evolve while staying true to their original purpose.

https://livinspaces.net/design-stories/featured-projects/building-for-africa-the-responsive-architecture-of-gando-school-library-burkina-faso-by-diebedo-francis-kere/

 

Name: Xiguan Lei 習關磊

Occupation: Sculptor, Painter, Poet.

Born: Dali, China, in 1994

Location: He now lives and works in Chongqing and Dali.

Xi’s art, which is always gentle – even to the point of being hard to discern, built as it often is from organic matter and placed amongst leaves, moss, stones, and bark – is also, in fact, making a very bold and visionary proposal.

Nature and Self

Xi’s proposal is this:  that Self and Nature need not be separate entities.  He is not expressing or documenting or representing either Self or Nature.  Instead, he is exploring ways that Self and Nature relate and interpenetrate.  He is actively demonstrating that one is part of the other.  Thus, his interventions into Nature are a ‘working with’ Nature’s materials and a ‘working with’ Nature’s seasons and Nature’s cycles of time.  If we see his naked body becoming part of the work, it is not to promote the ego of the artist, or to titillate – it is to make the far bolder assertion that we, as human beings, are part of Nature’s constant motion and materiality.

“The soil is part of us.  We are part of the soil.  The bamboo forest is part of us.  We are part of the bamboo forest.  We are as vulnerable as Nature, as porous, as interdependent, as constantly changing, as borderless.”

In his artistic practice rooted in human interventions into nature, the creator Xiguan Lei becomes a subtle orchestrator, leaving vanishing trails and marks that seamlessly blend with the natural landscape yet bear the unmistakable imprint of human hands. Reminiscent of land art pioneers like Richard Long or Robert Smithson, the artist engages in a poetic dialogue with the environment, crafting ephemeral installations that challenge the boundaries between the natural and the man-made.

Geometric Concepts

Xi’s methodology is influenced by Descartes’ and Spinoza’s geometric concepts including Rectangular Setup and Extension, Einstein’s theory of space, and the mathematical ideas of Euler and Gauss. He lays out the material in a particular shape, size, volume, and manner. We can see the sharp and hard edges and minimalism everywhere in the various forms of adobes and plants, with parts of the works independent of and also participating in the whole. Xi advocates that the viewer “walk through” the landscape and perceive the deep connection with nature. Put together, the images of their works both reveal the sense of mystery and miracle, where artistic phenomena are created and disappear in the rhythm of nature.

Classic of Poetry (Shijing)

Xi gathers material on the spot including soil and plants to create his works. Surrounded by mosses, ferns, and seed plants, the hand-made adobes are arranged solidly in a structural manner. This is the most iconic series of his works whose titles are quoted from classical Chinese literature: the Book of Songs and the Songs of Chu, such as It is Nice to be in the Garden, There is a Sandalwood (乐彼之园，爰有树檀) (2019), Swoop Flies that Falcon, Dense that Northern Wood (鴥彼晨风，郁彼北林) (2020), and The Appearance and Height of the Lush Plants Match Beautifully (纷緼宜修) (2020). Xi borrows these responses from ancient Chinese philosophers to the rhythms of nature, alluding to the unity of the abstract structure and figurative content in his works, and the fusion of classical Eastern aesthetics with Western spatial geometry. Legitimately, Xi calls his works “Land Art” rather than installations or sculptures. In terms of Land Art, it uses nature as the creative medium, and always emphasizes the visual form of the site-specific context, looking for an organic integration between the works and nature. One Issues from the Dark Valley and Removes to the Lofty Tree (出自幽谷，迁于乔木) (2019) , one of the series of adobes, created in 2019 and eroded back to the land during the rainy season in 2021, which is a vivid projection of the journey of human life.

Taoism and Anthropocene era

Lei’s work does not need – and probably not always meant – to be contained in a gallery or put against a wall because this would undermine his core artistic if not philosophical purpose: this is only in nature, out in the open air, where Lei’s adobes turn to be his art. This is out there that time can do his essential share, that is slowly absorbing as a sound graft Lei’s adobes as they are designed to be. Lei’s structures, given the infinite potential of adobes, can take all sort of forms: they can be seen as burial site or places of meditation – see “1120 Conversations I had with Moss and a Rock”, “I’m Walking in the Field”.

Once build or installed in nature, Lei’s structures slowly fade away, change form and aspect over time and may eventually disappear. This is a key point about Lei’s artworks: as they are made from earth, they are designed to evolve when placed on the ground, slowly and silently, and possibly completely disappear. This gives the opportunity for the observer to witness not a still artwork but an evolution, that is the exact opposite of a still life: real life. We cannot but notice the humility of Lei’s artistic approach. From a Chinese viewpoint, the reference to Taoism comes readily to the mind when trying to understand Lei’s artistic approach. Laozi Tao Te Ching, to put it in a few poor words, teaches us that all things come from a unique energy, transforms, fades away and recycle in the “logos”.

Xiguan Lei’s artistic practice holds a significant role within the contemporary environmental discourse framed by the Anthropocene. As we grapple with the profound impact of human activities on the planet, his installations and sculptures serve as poignant reflections and catalysts for conversations surrounding humanity’s relationship with the environment in this epoch. The ephemeral nature of his works mirrors the transience inherent in the Anthropocene era. The marks left by the artist’s body and other interventions evoke the impermanence of our impact on the environment, fostering a contemplation of the evolving and often precarious balance between human activity and the natural world.

Lei considers his art “a grand and silent game of building blocks”. He also told that those adobes could be considered words. That begs the question of their meaning. Just as the stones used in ancient civilization building, Lei’s adobes talk to anyone willing to listen. But the observer has to be tender ear because Lei’s art is elegant and subtle enough only to whisper. As to what it is whispering, “The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao”. This is how much Xiguan Lei’s art can offer: a glance at eternity.

References:

[1] https://www.xiguanlei.com/

N. Dash was born in Miami Beach, Florida, in 1980. She earned a BA from New York University in 2003 and an MFA from Columbia University, New York, in 2010. Now, Dash lives and works in New York and Taos County, New Mexico.

Dash’s work in sculpture, painting, and photography is the product of a unique, multipart creative practice that seeks to register lived experience and bodily intelligence through material. Her works, primarily made of natural items such as linen and adobe, give physical form to the intangible and the imagined.

During 2010 to 2020, N. Dash’s work started to be included in group exhibitions in many different museums. Dash also has presented solo exhibitions at White Flag Projects, Saint Louis (2013) and Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (2014–15).

In 2022, N. Dash has one solo exhibition in Europe at Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst (S.M.A.K.), named “earth”. In this exhibition, she still uses what could be considered common materials, such as jute, mud, and string. But the earth referenced in the exhibition title is a constant, often used as a ground, which is a capstone in earth art.

Dash composes her works—which are usually Untitled—using discrete units, never disturbing the integrity of a given unit. Her works always used nature material and create without meaning which explains that “Art can be no meaning.” By looking her works in two different viewing positions, people can get very different feeling.  For example, this work named Unititled, looks like a light-blue panel is placed high up on the wall, and it is only when we move in closer that we perceive the skeins of string that are suspended from the panel. This kind of formal play has charged undertones in our time. The subjection of the natural world to the present economy of images transposes materials into essentially aesthetic contexts.

 

Citation

 

• Dieudonné. (n.d.). N. Dash. Retrieved from https://www.dieudonne.org/n-dash
• Wikipedia. (2023, October 28). N. Dash. Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N._Dash
• Artforum. (2023). N. Dash: Event. Retrieved from https://www.artforum.com/events/n-dash-4-250499/
• Guggenheim. (n.d.). N. Dash. Retrieved from https://www.guggenheim.org/artwork/artist/n-dash

 

Ana Mendieta was a Cuban American performance artist, activist, sculptor, painter, and video artist. Born in Havana, Cuba, in 1948, she then moved to the United States in 1961 at the age of 12, as part of Operation Peter Pan, a U.S.-sponsored program that relocated thousands of unaccompanied Cuban children, driven by Cold War tensions and fears.

Mendieta’s sense of identity was profoundly shaped by her separation from her family, a theme that permeates her artwork. The experience of exile and the trauma of being uprooted from her homeland inspired her to explore questions of identity, spirituality, and her deep connection to the earth.

Her work reveals a spectrum of feminist concerns brought on by multiple differences and intersectionalities of race, class, gender, and sexuality within a collective discourse of feminism.

Much of Mendieta’s work incorporates earth as a medium to explore her connection to the natural world, reflecting her desire to reconnect with her homeland. In her Silueta series and across her earthworks, body art, performances, photography, and films, Mendieta reveals her bond with nature through the lenses of gender, identity, ritual, and cultural beliefs.

In the Silueta Series, Mendieta lay directly on the earth, creating silhouettes of her body. She documented these imprints using various materials, including paint, blood, and natural objects like twigs and flowers, capturing the results through photography. This process emphasized her connection to the landscape and explored themes of identity and the body within nature.

In Flowers on Body, a key piece in her Silueta series, Mendieta prompts us to consider our bodies returning to the earth. By “plugging herself into an earthen cavity,” she becomes part of the landscape, emphasizing her need for belonging (LadyKflo). In this instance, the subject can be seen as either male or female, but it only feels feminine because we are aware of the artist’s identity. This challenges a gendered perception and reminds us that everyone wants to feel connected and like they belong (LadyKflo).

Made of sand and laid on a wooden base, Nile Born is a piece of Menideta’s work that also utilizes the female body as a representation of all women universally, she stated “the way I re-establish the bonds that unite me to the universe. It is a return to the maternal source” (MoMa).

“My art is grounded on the belief in one universal energy which runs through all being and matter, all space and time.” – Ana Mendieta

References:

Ana Mendieta, The Museum of Modern Art, www.moma.org/artists/. Accessed 29 Oct. 2024.

Katherine. “Flowers on Body (Silueta Series) by Ana Mendieta – LadyKflo.” LadyKflo, 10 July 2022, www.ladykflo.com/flowers-on-body-silueta-series-by-ana-mendieta.