The McDonald Ranch House

McDonald-Schmidt Ranch House. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license.

The McDonald Ranch House in the Oscura Mountains of Socorro County, New Mexico, was the location of assembly of the world’s first nuclear weapon. The active components of the Trinity test “gadget”, a plutonium Fat Man-type bomb similar to that later dropped on Nagasaki, Japan, were assembled there on July 13, 1945. The completed bomb was winched up the test tower the following day and detonated on July 16, 1945, as the Trinity nuclear test.

The George McDonald Ranch House sits within an 85-by-85-foot (26 by 26 m) low stone wall. The house was built in 1913 by Franz Schmidt and is built of adobe, which was plastered and painted. The plutonium hemispheres for the pit of the Trinity nuclear test “gadget” (bomb) were delivered to the McDonald Ranch House on July 11, 1945.  Text via Wikipedia.

 

 

Mud is not the Villain

Reinforced concrete building damaged in Morocco earthquake

Morocco recently experienced the most devastating earthquake that the country has had in the last 60 years. To date, more than 2,600 people have died and news outlets are quick to point out that the cause of death isn’t the earthquake, but the buildings made of earth. While I am aware of the thousands of mud brick and rammed earth buildings that define the villages in the Atlas Mountains where the disaster took place, I note that the photos of the devastation often show buildings made of reinforced concrete or concrete masonry units. The tendency to villainize earthen architecture traditions is a common practice. The headline of one article reads, “Morocco’s Mud Brick Housing Makes Hunt for Earthquake Survivors Harder” and yet the cover image is clearly of a reinforced concrete building. As I scroll through articles about the earthquake, I do see many earthen buildings that have been damaged, but I also see a large number of buildings constructed of industrially produced materials. In the 1995 earthquake in Kobe, Japan, three times the number of people died, and over 100,000 buildings were destroyed in a city that was largely constructed of concrete and steel. Kobe was a magnitude 6.9 earthquake similar to Morocco’s 6.8. The 6.9 Loma Prieta earthquake in the San Francisco Bay Area caused an estimated $14 billion in damage to buildings, bridges, and highways with the majority of deaths happening under reinforced concrete structures like the Cyprus Street Viaduct.

The New York Times writes, “Mud brick buildings common to the region — some of which date back to before Morocco’s colonization by the French — were reduced to a collapsed sand castle.” France colonized Morocco in 1912, making many of the buildings older than 111 years old It should be pointed out that the seismic activity of these regions is high, and earthen building traditions have survived in seismic zones for thousands of years. The oldest buildings in every seismic zone are constructed of earth, including those found in the San Francisco Bay Area. A visit to downtown Sonoma, the Missions, the Petaluma Adobe, and countless other mud brick buildings demonstrate the longevity of earthen architecture in earthquake-prone regions. A visit to Santiago, Chile, a city with a history of earthquakes, will also demonstrate how earthen architecture has survived in many urban and rural environments while adapting to a ground that shakes.

Yes, buildings made of mud brick and rammed earth did collapse causing many deaths. However, reinforced concrete and concrete masonry units did as well — there simply happens to be more earthen buildings in that region, just as there are more reinforced concrete buildings in Kobe, Japan. And despite the reality that our continued quest to combat the forces of mother nature, we continue to find that she wins. But perhaps she is not the villain, nor is architecture made of earth. According to Bloomberg, man-made climate-related disasters due to climate change account are linked to approximately 5 million deaths per year and the concrete industry is responsible for about 8% of planet-warming carbon dioxide emissions. Earthquakes account for approximately 60,000 of those deaths, however, few of those are related to the collapse of earthen buildings. Some of those deaths are related to the collapse of buildings made with other materials, landslides, and tsunamis. Some earthquakes are a product of fracking and mining.

I do not believe that earth architecture is the villain in the tragedy in Morocco. Rather, it is the cultural perception of the building material, and the prejudices against those that live in them, within a capitalist society. Earth is an inherently ecological material, possesses excellent thermal mass properties, requires little embodied energy, and is recyclable—earth buildings can return to Earth. It should be noted that most of the recent Pritzker Prize winner Francis Kere’s buildings are constructed of mud, and as I wrote about in my book, Earth Architecture, a number of universities including the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, the University of Kassel, Germany, and the University of Technology, Sydney are advancing the technology of creating earthquake-resistant earth buildings. Let us look to solving the 5 million deaths per year due to climate change, and improve the technologies of earthen construction as humans have continued to do for the past 10,000 years of civilization before we eradicate large percentages of the population due to industrialized building practices that have not proven to safely house the planet, unlike our planetary traditions of earthen architecture.

The Adobe Paradox

Once a building material of the humble economy used by autochthonous peoples of the Southwest, adobe has become fashionable among Marfa’s affluent newcomers. Here, in this article in Texas Architect, a student with roots in the town’s Mexican-American community and and architect practicing in the region discuss the building block’s complex cultural content. Because, in a Texas Art Mecca, Humble Adobe Now Carries a High Cost, according to this New York Times article discussing how taxes are higher for adobe homes.

Stuccoed in Time at 99% Invisible

Santa Fe is famous in part for a particular architectural style, an adobe look that’s known as Pueblo Revival. This aesthetic combines elements of indigenous pueblo architecture and New Mexico’s old Spanish missions, resulting in mostly low, brown buildings with smooth edges. Buildings in the city’s historic districts have to follow a number of design guidelines so that they conform with the dominant style. Deviating from those aesthetics can stir up a lot of controversy.

But this adherence to the “Santa Fe Style” hasn’t always been the norm. For a time, there was actually a powerful push to “Americanize” the city’s built environment. Then, over a century ago, a group of preservationists laid out a vision for the look and feel of Santa Fe architecture, and in the process dramatically transformed the town.

Learn more about the controversies and conundrums of what some call Santa Fake, the history of adobe in Santa Fe, and the how preservation and tradition have been at odds with each other at 99% Invisible.

Mud Frontiers

Emerging Objects explores the frontiers of technology and material using traditional materials (clay, water, and wheat straw), to push the boundaries of sustainable and ecological construction in a two phase project that explores traditional clay craft at the scale of architecture and pottery. The end goal of this endeavor is to demonstrate that low-cost and low-labor construction that is accessible, economical and safe is possible. The project began in the contemporary borderlands along the Rio Grande watershed beginning in El Paso and Juarez and ended near the headwaters of the Rio Grande in Colorado’s San Luis Valley, which was the edge of the historic border between the U.S. and Mexico prior to 1848. The entire region has employed traditional pottery and earthen construction traditions for centuries. More at Mud Frontiers

The Farmer, the Architect and the Scientist

The Farmer, the Architect and the Scientist from The Gaia Foundation & ABN on Vimeo.

A new film, ‘The Farmer, the Architect and the Scientist’ tells the story of a seed hero. Dr Debal Deb is a pioneering ecologist committed to working with traditional farmers in eastern India to conserve indigenous seed diversity. Over almost two decades, Debal has managed to save 920 varieties of rice, all of which he stores in community based seed banks in West Bengal and Odisha for farmers. This film follows the construction of a new seed bank premises in Odisha, a venture that provides a potent symbol of Debal’s values.