admin – Page 31 – EARTH ARCHITECTURE

February 26, 2008September 3, 2024

About EarthArchitecture.org

EarthArchitecture.org began February 22, 2003 as the research of Ronald Rael—currently Professor and Eva Li Memorial Chair in Architecture at the University of California Berkeley. The compilation of the research on the earth architecture website led to the publication of Earth Architecture (Princeton Architectural Press, 2008, paperback edition, 2010), which examines the contemporary history of the oldest and most widely used building material on the planet—dirt.

The book provides a history of building with earth in the modern era, focusing particularly on projects constructed in the last few decades that use rammed earth, mud brick, compressed earth, cob, and several other interesting techniques. Earth Architecture presents a selection of more than forty projects that exemplify new, creative uses of the oldest building material on the planet. With more than three hundred images, Earth Architecture showcases the beauty and simplicity of one of humankind’s most evolved and sophisticated building technologies. The research was funded by the Graham Foundation for Constructed Topographies: Earth Architecture in the Landscape of Modernity, and the Architectural League of New York’s Deborah Norden Competition for Wadi Hadramut: Cities of Earth (2000).

The website reaches far more broadly, looking at all aspects of humankind’s relationship to making things with mud, dirt, dust and the effects that our making traditions have impacted contemporary culture, from music, architecture, art, pottery, and 3D printing.

In 2009 Eartharchitecture.org was ranked among the top 20 most important blogs on architecture worldwide measured by the number of subscribers (Google Reader + Bloglines) and the number of hits in Google (Google + Google Images). In 2014 the website was abandoned, but is now an online resource that will continue to be updated regularly and hosted under the hospice of the non-profit organization, Adobe Archipelago, a 501c3.

February 22, 2008

Midwest Earth Builders

Midwest Earth Builders is both a manufacturer of Compressed Earth Blocks (CEBs) and a builder of homes utilizing CEBs and other materials.

February 12, 2008

Ancient Building Blocks of Dirt

Consider dirt. It’s old, and it’s making a comeback as a construction material under a new name: rammed earth.

February 3, 2008

Poor Haitians Resort to Eating Mud Cookies

AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos

It was lunchtime in one of Haiti’s worst slums, and Charlene Dumas was eating mud. With food prices rising, Haiti’s poorest can’t afford even a daily plate of rice, and some take desperate measures to fill their bellies. Charlene, 16 with a 1-month-old son, has come to rely on a traditional Haitian remedy for hunger pangs: cookies made of dried yellow dirt from the country’s central plateau mixed with salt and vegetable shortening.

January 31, 2008

The Rammed Earth House: Revised Addition

The Rammed Earth House: Revised Editionis an updated version of his original classic. Author David Easton and photographer Cynthia Wright have spent 30 years building and designing more than 100 residential and commercial buildings using earth, water and a little cement. This newly revised edition describes this environmentally sustainable building technique in detail, with photos of both modern and ancient buildings.

January 26, 2008

Box Box House

Ronald Rael and Virginia San Fratello. Ocotillo, mesquite, yucca and sotol serve as the backdrop and the view of the landscape from the house extends out to the Davis Mountains in the distance.

The name of the house comes from the large, earthen box that inside contains a smaller box that houses the major utilities of the house (kitchen, bathrooms, storage, boiler, etc). The contrast between the thick, earthen walls and the concrete lintels that interpenetrate the facade to create openings, as well as the use of stainless steel in contrast with the earth, create a tension between old and new, rough and smooth, industrial and non-industrial. Inside, a large courtyard opens to the interior and to the sky.

January 26, 2008

Salma Samar Damluji

Salma Samar Damluji, 51, is an architect, author and the leading authority on mud brick building in Yemen and the Middle East. Her exhibition, ‘The Architecture of Yemen’, is at the Royal Institute of British Architects, Portland Place, London until February 9. Divorced with a son of 27, she lives in London but is creating a home as well as a hotel in Masna’ah, Yemen. Her book The Valley of Mud Brick Architecture is a scholarly book concentrating on the architecture and town planning of two towns in the Hadhramawt, Shibam and Tarim, Yemen.

January 25, 2008

Arcitetture di Terra in Sardegna

The book Arcitetture di Terra in Sardegna, the first of its kind on the subject, presents the results of new research into Sardinia’s indigenous tradition of earthen architecture. Author Enrico Fodde explores the cultural context of these buildings and describes practical techniques for the conservation of this unique and rapidly diminishing heritage. By interviewing craftsmen with first hand knowledge of working on these structures and by means of laboratory analysis of the materials involved — principally mud brick and lime — Dr Fodde explores the mechanisms of decay and proposes methods suitable for repairing buildings in need of restoration. Case studies are presented to show how different methods of repair have worked out in practice. Finally, consideration is also given to ways in which the results of this work might form the basis of research into other building traditions in the Mediterranean basin and elsewhere.

January 25, 2008

Vault Building Workshop

Jesusita Jimenez, master mason and project manager,
hands-on instructor.

The Adobe Alliance offers a vault-building workshop from March 6 to 11, 2008, or longer by arrangement. We will dig the foundation, build walls with 18″ adobes, and the roof with smaller adobe bricks. Adobes will be delivered from Ojinaga, Mexico, and mortar is mixed on site at Swan House and Lab, 9 miles east of Presidio on farm road 170 east and 1.5 miles north on Casa Piedra road.

Fee: $350 for 3 days and includes lunch. Check payable to non-profit Adobe Alliance, mail to P.O. Box 1915, Presidio, TX, 79845. Lodging is nearby at motels or RV park Loma Paloma. Bring plenty of potable water, gloves, one bucket, total solar protection. Dogs welcome. Internships negotiated individually.

January 23, 2008

Johanna House

The Johanna House, designed by Nicholas Burns, is a 4 bedrooms, 2 bath house with an open kitchen, dining/living room and cellar located on Johanna beach, Victoria, Australia. The site is on a secluded 100 acres of pristine bush land adjoining the national park with extensive views of the ocean, protected wilderness with known endangered flora and fauna. No trees were cleared in the construction of the house.

Materials used were rammed earth, concrete, glass and steel to create a discrete insertion into the landscape, a journey of gradual and layered concealment and opening of the landscape and ocean; contrasting contraction and expansion, heavy and light, opaque and transparent. Pure geometry and detailing to create a stillness, a dematerialising interconnection with nature, landscape and the passing of time, place and present. More pictures of the construction process and the final result available here.