Category: Uncategorized

The Royal Institute of British Architecture is hosting a series of earth architecture related lectures in their series: The Art of Mud Building: Heritage and Sustainability. Here is the lineup:

Down to Earth, Paul Oliver
Talk Tuesday 2 March, 18.30
RIBA
Join Paul Oliver, acclaimed academic and Emeritus Professor at the International Vernacular Architecture Unit, Oxford Brookes University, for a stimulating talk about the future of vernacular building traditions and their role in creating sustainable, culturally vibrant, people orientated places to live.
Part of the International Dialogues talks programme.
Tickets: £8.50/£5.50

The Future of Mud: Tales of Houses and Lives in Djenné
Film Monday 8 March, 19.00
SOAS, Russell Square, London WC1H
A documentary film that explores the challenges and choices faced by a mason’s family, raising vital questions about heritage and changing traditions. French and Bamana with English subtitles.

Restoring Mud Mosques in Mopti, Djenné and Timbuktu
Talk Thursday 11 March, 20.30
The Ismaili Centre, Cromwell Road, London SW7
Join Christophe Bouleau from the Aga Khan Trust for Culture as he talks about the restoration of the extraordinary mud mosques of Mali.

Restoring the Splendour of Djenné
Talk Thursday 18 March, 19.00
SOAS, Russell Square, London WC1H
Join Rogier Bedaux and Annette Schmidt, Volkenkunde Museum and the architect Pierre Maas, to discuss the cooperative venture between Mali and the Netherlands.

Behind the Façade in Djenné
Talk Thursday 25 March, 19.00
SOAS, Russell Square, London WC1H
Join Michael Rowlands, UCL and Charlotte Joy, Cambridge as they discuss how to create local value for cultural heritage through sustainable architectural tradition.

Economic and Environmental Sustainability
Talk Thursday 29 April, 19.00
SOAS, Russell Square, London WC1H
Join Rowland Keable, Ram Cast CIC, for an expert presentation on structures, standards and models for earth building in the 21st century.

Clifton Schooley & Assoc. Rammed Earth Designers & Builders specialize in the construction of insulated rammed earth walls and are available to build anywhere in Canada. This twist on a traditional Japanese gate used material sourced 7 minutes from the building site and was designed by the Japanese Garden Society of Salt Spring Island, BC, Canada.

“…an engaging new book….a lesson in how one of the world’s oldest and most popular building processes can be renewed in a high-tech age, lending its ancient beauty to architectural works of contemporary imagination.”—The Globe and Mail

Read the entire review…

Valentina Del Fuoco authors a review of Earth Architecture on Building Design: The Architects Website.

The Earthbuilder clasps a clump of clay-rich earth, with hands work-hardened,
earth mixed with chaff and chopped straw, all just dampened,
then moulds the soil that one hand holds, confidently shaping a rustic ball.

The Earthbuilder looks into the ball as if to watch futures revealed,
to witness the world to be rebuilt, an earth to be healed.
There are familiar spirits here, we hear their call.

This cob is placed on the foundation, on those good shoes.
At this signal many more hands join in, each muddy handful pressed onto growing rows.
A community evolves and a home begins to rise this way.

It is a simple and ancient thing, a child’s game at times, to build with earth this way,
being both right work and equally right play.
The goal is as serious as dirt, as wise as clay.

Walls moulded by a gathered strangers to hold a family and their friends.
If newly improvised rituals of earthbuilding gain good ends,
the home will be a fertile soil to enfold and nurture the lives of those within.

With many hands sculpting the mass, the house grows from of the land.
With good shoes and a good hat, a home will stand.
Work goes on as hours pass, and new days begin.

A community evolves as a human home rises, ex humus, out of the soil:
a home evolves as a human community rises, ex humus, out of the soil,
Humans grow from the clay, ex humus, into the light of a new day.

Poem ©Chris Green, Feb. 2009

Earth Architecture—The Book was recently reviewed by Architects Newspaper. Click here for a larger image.

Earth Architecture—The Book is reviewed by John Hill, the editor of the prominent and (almost) daily blog, A Daily Dose of Architecture. The review can be found here

The Toxicwall, designed by Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute architecture student Henry Louis Miller, is a response to the bullying, isolationist tone (as he sees it) creeping into the national debate on immigration. It’s a simple idea. Collect earth from polluted brownsites. Use it to make toxic bricks. Form these bricks into a wall along the nation’s southern border. Prevent illegal immigrants from crossing by forcing them to risk contamination.

To maintain the toxicity of the brick, it seems that the bricks are likely mud-brick as vitrification of fired brick might reduce the effect. The toxic mud brick wall seems equally as harmful as architect Antoine Predock’s rammed earth border wall.

The Earthen Architecture Initiative (EAI) seeks to further the conservation of earthen architecture through international activities and institutional partnerships. Advancing the discipline of earthen conservation is the organizing principle for all of the EAI’s activities—which include model projects that improve the way conservation interventions are carried out in different parts of the world, pursuing research that addresses unanswered questions in the field of earthen conservation, and disseminating information regarding appropriate conservation interventions on historic buildings, settlements, and archaeological sites composed of earthen materials.

The Rehabilitation of the City of Shibam is part of a project that focuses on the preservation of this unique place as a living community, with architectural restoration integrated into the creation of new economic and social structures. The Award recipients are the Yemeni government and its cultural agencies, the German Technical Cooperation (GTZ) and the community of Shibam.