Category: * Super Adobe

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Matthews Residence: Exploring Modern Adobe Architecture in the Desert

Will Bruder is an American architect known for his innovative use of materials and site-specific designs. Born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in 1946, Bruder’s background spans art, sculpture, and architecture. He studied at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, earning a degree in Fine Arts, and later apprenticed under visionary architect Paolo Soleri, which significantly influenced his work in the desert Southwest.

Bruder’s work focuses on creating architecture that integrates with the natural environment, using innovative material choices and architectural forms. His approach prioritizes materials that connect the building to its surroundings, as seen in his use of adobe for the Matthews Residence.

The Matthews Residence, designed by Will Bruder, was built between 1979 and 1980 and received the 1983 Environmental Excellence Award for its innovative design. The residence is a 2,800-square-foot adobe home. The primary material of this residence is adobe brick, a traditional earth material made from sun-dried bricks, which is able to blend into the natural landscape. Adobe also offers excellent thermal properties, helping regulate temperature in the desert climate.

Inspired by the traditional Southwestern courtyard house, the design features curving adobe walls, strategically shaped to reduce exposure to the intense Arizona sun. The house spans a large double cul-de-sac lot in a suburban area of west Phoenix.

The layout creates a dynamic interplay between expansive and more intimate spaces, enhanced by the flowing geometry of its curves. The design’s sense of light, compression, and openness is carefully crafted, with a long skylight running from the entrance, introducing a play of light that highlights the contrast between rougher materials like adobe and concrete floors and the more refined details of oak and galvanized steel.

A key inspiring aspect is how Bruder masterfully combines adobe with modern materials like steel and wood, which creates a dynamic contrast between natural, traditional, and modern industrial materials. This combination enriches the architectural narrative by blending the old with the new. The combination of modern architectural design with natural, sustainable materials makes the Matthews Residence a source of inspiration for architects interested in sustainability and regionalism.

Interestingly, this is the only known Bruder house constructed from adobe, making it a rare and distinctive project. The way adobe is used in this design adds to its uniqueness, and it remains one of the most intriguing examples of Bruder’s residential work.

Matthews ResidenceCitations:

AZ Architecture. “Matthews Residence – Will Bruder Architect – Adobe.” AZ Architecture, https://azarchitecture.com/architecture-guide/matthews-residence-will-bruder-architect-adobe/. Accessed 23 September 2024.

USModernist. “Will Bruder.” USModernist, https://usmodernist.org/bruder.htm. Accessed 23 September 2024.

Rael, Ronald. Earth Architecture. Princeton Architectural Press, 2009, pp. 120-121.

 

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The Great Mosque of Djenne

The Great Mosque of Djenne, east facade.

 

The national emblem of Mali.

Originally built during the 13th century CE, the Great Mosque of Djenne was rebuilt in 1906, and remains the largest mud brick building in the world to this day. It is located in the town of Djenne, which is situated near the Bani River in Mali. It is considered the preeminent example of Sudano-Sahelian architecture, and served as a center of Islamic knowledge for centuries before it fell into ruins. The Old Towns of Djenne were designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1988, including various other mud buildings and archaeological sites in addition to the Great Mosque. The Great Mosque has been featured on Mali’s national emblem since it was adopted in 1961.

Photo taken by Edmond Fortier in 1906.

The Great Mosque is located in the city center of Djenne, adjacent to the marketplace. It is built on a raised platform or mound of earth 3m tall, and measuring 75m by 75m. This platform protects the Great Mosque from damage when the nearby Bani River floods. Rain does damage the mosque, though usually only causing cracks that are addressed through regular maintenance. Unusually heavy rain can cause greater damage, as was the case in 2009 when the upper portion of the south tower of the east facade collapsed. The Aga Khan Trust for Culture funded repairs in 2010, and the mosque has been fully restored as of the present day.

La fete de creppisage, the annual festival when the Great Mosque is fully rendered and repaired.

The Great Mosque is maintained through an annual festival, “La fete de crepissage,” where community members participate in the rendering of the building. The mud plaster used in this annual process is mixed in large pits, and left to cure and ferment for several days before it is ready to use. Young men and boys climb the toron, the rodier palm clusters protruding from the facade of the mosque that serve as scaffolding, while the young women and girls bring water to aid in plastering. More senior masons observe the young men as they smear a new layer of mud plaster over the mosque, and later check the work to ensure that it is smooth and even. The festival begins with a race to see who can bring the first bowl of mud plaster to the mosque, and ends with the workers washing the plaster off in the remaining water.

Detail view of the exterior wall of the Great Mosque.

The Great Mosque is constructed entirely from mud, excepting the toron. Mud forms the bricks, the mortar, and the plaster with which the mosque was originally built. These bricks are made of banco, a combination of grain husks and the traditional West African brown mud that forms much of the earthen architecture of the region. The qibla, or prayer wall, of the mosque faces east, toward the central square of Djenne and toward Mecca. The qibla is roughly a meter thick and punctuated by three main towers, with small minarets at either end. The wall derives additional support from the eighteen pilasters, each ending in a conical pinnacle.

East elevation of the Great Mosque.
Plan of the Great Mosque.

The prayer hall is directly behind the qibla, and takes up roughly half of the interior of the mosque. The other half is an open court which is surrounded on three sides by galleries with pointed archways, one of which is reserved for women. The roof of the prayer hall is made of more rodier palm clusters, which run crossways, and are covered in mud plaster. It is supported by interior walls.

Interior of one of the galleries of the Great Mosque.

In 2005, the Zamani Project spatially documented the Great Mosque, producing 3D scans and GIS analysis of the area. Play with the 3D model produced by the Zamani Project here. Watch an animated tour of the model here.

 

References:

[1] https://zamaniproject.org/site-mali-djenne-great-mosque.html

[2] https://www.archnet.org/sites/6395

[3] https://reportage.org/2000/Djene/PagesDjeneFrames/DjeneFrameset.html

[4] https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/116/

[5] https://the.akdn/en/where-we-work/west-africa/mali/cultural-development-mali

[6] https://edmondfortier.org.br/fr/postal/soudan-djenne-ruines-de-lancienne-mosquee/?highlight=Djenne

 

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Rudolph Schindler’s Adobe House Design in Taos, New Mexico

R. M. Schindler in Taos, October 1915. Photographer likely Victor Higgins. Courtesy UC Santa Barbara Art Museum, Architecture and Design Collections, Schindler Collection.

Rudolph Schindler was an Austrian architect that practiced in Southern California from 1920 to 1953. [1] Starting as a talented student at the “Wagnerschule” in Austria, Schindler became a pioneering figure in 20th-century modern architecture, ultimately emerging as one of the most significant influences of the Modern Movement in America. Rudolph was born in Austria but spent most of his life in the United States, establishing his identity as a “Californian architect”[2].

Nevertheless, Rudolph Schindler generally surpasses many boxes attributed to him with a term he championed in his work: space architecture, in which he sought the protagonism of materials into a “new architecture”[2]. Materials like adobe!

His country house in adobe project is the result of a trip to Taos, New Mexico in which Schindler allowed the Southwestern scene to fill his sketchbooks and camera films, influencing his designs and eventually his style[3]. 

Photograph taken by Schindler in 1915. Courtesy of New Mexico Architecture Magazine.

His sketches and photographs reveal a delicate eye sensitive to tradition in Southwestern America, and inevitably an understanding of the nature of this material[3]. Delineated lines in his sketchbook represent the characteristic irregular bulk of adobe walls, and his photographs show his interest in how adobe ultimately shapes space[3]. 

Sketch made by Rudolph Schindler in New Mexico. Courtesy of New Mexico Architecture Magazine.

These observations hung onto Schindler when he was commissioned to design a summer house for a client, Dr. T. P. Martin in a site spanning approximately 3 acres, set against the scenic backdrop of Taos, New Mexico. [4]

Taos Pueblo, October 1915. Photograph by R. M. Schindler. Courtesy UC Santa Barbara Art Museum, Architecture and Design Collections, Schindler Collection.
House Floor Plan Design by Schindler. Courtesy UC Santa Barbara Art Museum, Architecture and Design Collections, Schindler Collection.

In his proposed plan, Schindler advocated for a modernization of the Spanish Pueblo vernacular architecture he discovered featuring ADOBE, to draft his “Country Home in Adobe Construction” design that stretched horizontally within the site[4]. While the house plan did not model local tradition with its reigning symmetric layout, his material of choice, adobe, allocated him the freedom to explore what he inevitably noticed in his trip to Taos: the versatility of the material [3]. His design therefore probes the fundamental thickness of the adobe walls in the deep recesses of the windows and reveals adobe’s inherent lack of rectangular precision with the uneven surfaces of the walls[3].

As planned, his proposed layout sought to integrate harmoniously with the landscape as a low-rise adobe structure with viga ceilings and a large courtyard[4].

Perspective of Design by R.M. Schindler. Courtesy UC Santa Barbara Art Museum, Architecture and Design Collections, Schindler Collection.

This design never came to fruition, but the lessons that Schindler absorbed from New Mexico fundamentally embedded his designs with a vision he could only learn from the South, architecture as a question of space formed through materials[5]. 

“When I speak of American architecture I must say at once that there is none. . .The only buildings which testify to the deep feeling for soil on which they stand are the sun-baked adobe buildings of the first immigrants and their successors — Spanish and Mexican — in the south-western part of the country.”   

Letter from RMS to Richard Neutra, Los Angeles, California, ca. January, 1921: quoted in E. McCoy, Vienna to Los Angeles: Two Journeys (Santa Monica, Arts & Architecture) [6]

Citations

[1]”R.M. Schindler.” Los Angeles Conservancy, www.laconservancy.org/learn/architect-biographies/r-m-schindler/. Accessed [09/22/2024].

[2] Riemann, Joshua. “Rudolph M. Schindler : theory and design” Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2012, dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/79933

[3]Gebhard, David. “R.M. Schindler in New Mexico” New Mexico Architecture Magazine, vol. 7, no. 1, 1965.

[5] Blackman, Harrison. “The Art of Design, the influence of a place : the Emergence of Pueblo Revival Architecture in New Mexico.” Taos News, 30 May 2018, www.taosnews.com/magazines/the-art-of-design-the-influence-of-a-place-the-emergence-of-pueblo-revival-architecture/article_f56e3b41-8379-54a8-b424-df4770e8416d.html.

[4]Schmidts, Hannah. “Deep Dive: Rudolph M. Schindler’s Take on Californian Architecture.” New Classics, 13 July 2020, www.newclassics.ca/blogs/journal/deep-dive-rudolph-m-schindler-architecture?srsltid=AfmBOoqlF6sNPy0xk1V8ypxbl6XSa_-lTbYHs1OQjgR5SPz0QWbFu9sj.

[6] “R. M. Schindler and Richard Neutra: Space Architecture and the Pueblo” Southern California Architectural History, 18 May 2019, socalarchhistory.blogspot.com/2019/05/schindler-wrote-to-neutra-extolling.html

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Tequila Waste

(Photo courtesy of Astral Tequila)

Tequila Waste is a sustainable housing project in Mexico, built by adobe brick which made by soil and tequila waste,  the leftover bagasse and vinasse.

Tequila waste is abundant.  One standard .75-liter bottle of tequila produces more than 11 pounds of bagasse (the fibrous remnants of the agave piña after steaming, crushing and fermenting) and around 10 liters of vinasse (the liquid runoff of the distillation process). As the second most popular liquor in the world, the annual total production of tequila waste is overwhelming.

Bagasse is the fibrous waste from the agave plant. (Photo courtesy of Astral Tequila)

However bagasse is comprised mainly of cellulose and lignin, it can be repurposed into a number of valuable items, including construction materials, fertilizer, paper, wooden crafts, biofuels and even prebiotic dietary fiber. Leveraging this characteristic, Cardoso helped pioneer a solution to combine soil with the tequila waste to create an ancient building material known as adobe.

The adobe bricks not only repurpose tequila waste, but they’re also an excellent construction material for the warm, temperate climate in Mexico. Because of its high thermal mass, adobe stays cool during the day and releases heat at night, producing less waste, consuming less energy and creating a lower environmental impact than mainstream building materials. The more local the supplies to make the adobe, the smaller the carbon footprint. Plus, adobe buildings are remarkably resilient and can stand for centuries with regular maintenance.

Tahona wheel used in brick making process. (Photo courtesy of Astral Tequila)

To make the bricks, a machine combines the bagasse, vinasse and soil into heavy, wet adobe mud. A team of local employees then hand-packs the still-wet adobe into wooden molds that are left outside in the elements for ten days to cure—no oven, kiln or carbon emissions are required. As the mud shrinks and dries, the agave fibers provide reinforcement for the brick. Multiple bricks can easily be mortared together using more mud. Each bottle of Astral Tequila helps make approximately two bricks, each measuring roughly 16 inches long, 8 inches wide and 4 inches tall. The project produces around 300 bricks a day.

Adobe house built using Astral Tequila Agave fibers.  (Photo courtesy of Astral Tequila)

By using this adobe brick as the construction,  Cardoso and her group work with Hábitat para la Humanidad and Green Loop to provide bricks and other necessary construction materials for ten new homes and community spaces in the local municipality of Gómez Farias, Jalisco, Mexico.

Martha Jimenez Cardoso, pictured with a bottle of Astral Tequila. (Photo courtesy of Astral Tequila)

Martha Jimenez Cardoso as a director of sustainability and civil engineer at Astral Tequila worked for this project. As an STEM engineer who was born in a small indigenous village of Santa Maria Tlahuitoltepex in Oaxaca, Mexico she said that this project has allowed her to “make positive changes to the community through my work” something that has always been a dream of hers.

Citation

[1] PR Newswire. (2023). Astral Tequila launches ‘This Round’s for the House’ initiative as a part of its ongoing upcycling program, the Adobe Brick Project, to build homes and brighten communities in Mexico. PR Newswire. Retrieved from https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/astral-tequila-launches-this-rounds-for-the-house-initiative-as-a-part-of-its-ongoing-upcycling-program-the-adobe-brick-project-to-build-homes-and-brighten-communities-in-mexico-301797281.html

[2] Peña-Calderon, M. (2023). Martha Jiménez Cardoso on how women in STEM can change the world. People en Español. Retrieved from https://peopleenespanol.com/chica/earth-day-month-astral-tequila-sustainability-martha-jimenez-cardos/

[3] Madkour, A. (2023). Meet the Indigenous engineer upcycling tequila waste into sustainable housing. Modern Farmer. Retrieved from https://modernfarmer.com/2023/04/meet-the-indigenous-engineer-upcycling-tequila-waste-into-sustainable-housing/

[4] MultiVu. (2023). Astral Tequila launches ‘This Round’s for the House’ initiative as part of its ongoing upcycling program. MultiVu. Retrieved from https://www2.multivu.com/players/English/9157751-astral-tequila-launches-this-rounds-for-the-house-initiative/

[5] Sustainable Brands. (2023). Astral Tequila uses spent agave to make bricks for homes for Mexican families. Sustainable Brands. Retrieved from https://sustainablebrands.com/read/circular-economy/astral-tequila-spent-agave-bricks-homes-mexican-families

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Majara Residence

Iranian practice ZAV Architects drew on the colourful landscape of the island of Hormuz for this holiday community that is housed in around 200 brightly colored domes overlooking the Persian Gulf.

The project is a multitude of small-scale domes built with the superadobe technique of Nader Khalili, the innovative and simple technique using earth and sand packed into bags. Domes are familiar structures in the region. Their small scale makes them compatible with the building capabilities of local craftsmen and unskilled workers, which have been prepared for this project with previous smaller projects. Today they are trained master superadobe masons, as if Nader Khalili multiplied exponentially.

Learn more at Dezeen, ArchDaily

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Educational Building In Mozambique

Built by students from the Bergen School of Architecture, the Educational Building In Mozambique, consists of a closed room for computer-learning, and an open room for English teaching. Solid walls and the opportunity to close off completely make the computer-room safe in terms of burglary. The open room connects with the outside, is spatial with a tall ceiling and transparent walls embracing the light. A framework of reinforced concrete makes a permanent bearing structure in the closed room. The framing allows for cheaper more temporary materials as in-fillings. We experimented with sandbags in the east and north facade, where they functions as thermal mass in the winter, while an extension of the roof prevents sun exposure during summer.

[ More information at archdaily.com ]