The Adobe Alliance is an organization committed to building low-cost energy efficient housing that is climatically and environmentally compatible and to fill widespread needs for sustainable, salubrious housing while enhancing the unique landscape of the Big Bend region of West Texas and other desert environments through the utilization of mud-brick as a primary material in these endeavors
Vault Building Workshop
On November 4-6, 2005, The Adobe Alliance will offer an intensive vault-building workshop. The group shall be limited to 20. We will build, as usual by hand, the beginnings of a vault since it takes two weeks to complete one. The first courses are the most difficult as it is essential to master the technique of inclining the first bricks properly against the back wall which will support part of the load of the vault (most of the load descends in exquisite equilibrium into the 18″ width of the earthen brick wall.) Hands-on instruction is given by project manager/ adobera Jesusita Jimenez and theory by Simone Swan, designer.Bring work clothes, hat, gloves, heavy shoes, sun protection, a bucket, a float and water. Primitive camping available on site but without water. Lodgings are available in Presidio and Ojinaga, Mexico (across the bridge). Potluck meals at Swan House and/or Thai catering. Participants are also invited during the three weeks prior to the workshop in order to build the sustaining walls for the vaulted roof. Interns receive room and board, first come first served! If an intern wishes to join our work in plastering between November 6th and 10th, please write us. Cost is $250 by October 20, $300 thereafter. Scholarships available. Download poster (PDF)
AREA: Design + Build in Marfa, Texas
PROGRAM DATES FOR AREA SUMMER DESIGN+BUILD
June 1 – July 1 2005
AREA is a summer research+build workshop that engages a 90 year old abandoned mud-brick building, located in the town of Marfa, Texas, as the testing grounds for questioning the notion of detail, the theme of this years inquiry. Through a series of explorations that examine the process of making and unmaking in architecture, participants will design and build full-scale interventions that respond to a critical examination of place and program while addressing local/global and industrial/non-industrial agendas for architecture by employing raw earth as the primary building material in these investigations. Marfa serves as an ideal laboratory from where to study these issues. It is a town constructed almost entirely from mud-brick and transformed by rich historical, cultural and geographic forces. At 5,000 feet above sea level, it is one of the oldest cultivated areas in the United States. Located 60 miles from the U.S./Mexico border, Marfa is also home to the Chinati Foundation, an internationally renowned contemporary art museum, founded by Donald Judd, whose emphasis is on works in which art and the surrounding landscape are inextricably linked. Participants will have the opportunity to visit this extraordinary cultural and geographic landscape through a series of directed and self-guided field-studies. AREA is an initiative of the School of Architecture at Clemson University and made possible in part by the Adobe Alliance, a non-profit organization committed to the dissemination of traditional earth building technologies.
MORE INFORMATION AT: www.areainstitute.org
Adobe Alliance Workshop
The Adobe Alliance is pleased to announce the 7th annual workshop in Presidio, TX. Vault building and earth plastering will be featured during the workshop which takes place February 18-20, 2005. Demonstrations on applying a water-resistant exterior plaster of clay, straw, cactus juice and horse manure which breathes with the environment, which has withstood superbly in the unseasonally heavy rains of summer 2004 in the Big Bend.
Lodgings are easily booked at The Riata (432 229 2528) in Presidio, the Three Palms (432 229 3211,) or you can explore across the bridge a few minutes into Ojinaga, Mexico, a city of 25,000 people. The Paisano Hotel in Marfa is 60 miles to the north. There are many restaurants on both sides of the river.
For more information contact the Adobe Alliance.
Survey Finds 200 Historic Adobe Homes in South Alpine
A report by an historic preservation consultant, due to be released this summer, will declare South Alpine to have the largest collection of historic adobe homes in Texas outside of El Paso.
Design + Build in Marfa, Texas
NEW PROGRAM DATES FOR AREA SUMMER DESIGN+BUILD
JUNE 1 – JULY 1 2005
AREA is a summer research+build workshop that engages a 90 year old abandoned mud-brick building, located in the town of Marfa, Texas, as the testing grounds for questioning the notion of occupation, the theme of this years inquiry. Through a series of explorations that examine the process of making and unmaking in architecture, participants will design and build full-scale interventions that respond to a critical examination of place and program while addressing local/global and industrial/non-industrial agendas for architecture by employing raw earth as the primary building material in these investigations. Marfa serves as an ideal laboratory from where to study these issues. It is a town constructed almost entirely from mud-brick and transformed by rich historical, cultural and geographic forces. At 5,000 feet above sea level, it is one of the oldest cultivated areas in the United States. Located 30 miles from the U.S./Mexico border, Marfa is also home to the Chinati Foundation, an internationally renowned contemporary art museum, founded by Donald Judd, whose emphasis is on works in which art and the surrounding landscape are inextricably linked. Participants will have the opportunity to visit this extraordinary cultural and geographic landscape through a series of directed and self-guided field-studies. AREA is an initiative of the School of Architecture at Clemson University and made possible in part by the Adobe Alliance, a non-profit organization committed to the dissemination of traditional earth building technologies.
MORE INFORMATION AT: www.areainstitute.org
Texas Rammed Earth/South Carolina Origins
Southwest School of Art & Craft, with roots dating to 1848, when the Catholic community started building the Ursuline Academy, an elite, private girl’s school, it is one of the oldest education sites in San Antonio, Texas. It was recently declared the largest and most significant example of French-influenced architecture in the state by the French Heritage Society. Early buildings on the campus were designed by famed architect Francois Giraud, the city’s first surveyor who is responsible for many of the city’s distinct buildings, including the French Gothic style addition of San Fernando Cathedral. Giraud, who was born in South Carolina to French immigrant parents, chose a construction method called pise de terre, or rammed earth, for the buildings. Skilled pise worker Jules Poinsard worked as a subcontractor on the project.
The Adobe Alliance
The Adobe Alliance, led by Simone Swan, is an organization whose goals are to to build low-cost energy efficient housing that is climatically and environmentally compatible and to fill widespread needs for sustainable, salubrious housing while enhancing the unique landscape of the Big Bend region of West Texas and other desert environments.
Adobe Architecture
The North Texas Institute for Educators on the Visual Arts offers a concise history and explaination of adobe architecture.
Adobe Workshop
The Adobe Alliance is holding the 5th annual Adobe Plaster Workshop in Presidio, Texas March 21 – 23. For more information visit the workshop web site, or click here to download the workshop poster.