Architecture, Art, Design, and Culture using of mud, clay, soil, dirt & dust.
Inspired by the work of Mexican architect Juan Jose Santibañez, who helped twenty women in difficult living conditions to build their own homes in Oaxaca twenty years ago, Portuguese architecture firm Blaanc Borderless and Mexican studio CaeiroCapurso have recently launched Adobe for Women.
The Dwelling in Beja is a single-family dwelling built of rammed earth and a mixed structure of reinforced concrete and wood with zinc coping. Self-levelling floors of craftwork brick tiles, wood. Traditional render of aerated lime paste and whitewash with the addition of natural pigments. Betão e Taipa was responsible for the entire construction.
Building Stats
Building area 550 m2
Volume of rammed earth 260 m3
Location Beja municipality
Designed by Bartolomeu Costa Cabral, João Gomes and Mário Anselmo Crespo
Date built 2006
Arquitecturas de Terra is a Portuguese-language blog dedicated to, what else, earth architecutre.
Architects PlanoB from Lisbon, Portugal have completed an innovative house called A Casa em Arruda Dos Vinhos that employs a hybrid earthen wall system that combines elements of rammed earth, cob and wattle and daub similar to the encajonado method used in the historic Briones House in California.
Casa em Arruda Dos Vinhos construction website.
A UA / Universidade de Aveiro, a ESG / Escola Superior Gallaecia, a FCO / Fundação Convento da Orada e a Cdt / Associação Centro da Terra são os organizadores e anfitriões do 5º Seminário de Arquitectura de Terra em Portugal (V ATP), que se realizará de 10 a 13 de Outubro 2007, na Universidade de Aveiro, em Portugal. Criado em 2003, o seminário Arquitectura de Terra em Portugal tem evoluído de uma forma crescente com a ampla adesão de profissionais ibero-americanos e europeus.
The Fifth Annual Conference of Earthen Architecture in Portugal will take place October 10-13, 2007 at the University de Aveiro in Portugal. For more information, download the conference brief (Portugues Language).
With the participation of 54 authors, the book Earth Architecture in Portugal is an assembly of essays and work by professionals with expertise on the topics of architecture and construction with earth. Topics include technology, materials, history, anthropology, conservation and particular attention is given to the contemporary architecture constructed of earth in the two last decades in Portugal. Publication is in English and Portuguese, 23 x 32 cm Hard Layer – 300 pages.
Terra em Seminário contains 70 essays presented in IV SIACOT and III SEMIN¡RIO OF EARTH ARCHITECTURE IN PORTUGAL. The publication offers a perspective on the current state of earthen architecture in an international context.
For purchase information contact www.centrodaterra.org or by emailing info@centrodaterra.org
O 4? Seminário Ibero-Americano de Construção com Terra e 3? Seminário de Arquitectura de Terra em Portugal, Convento da Orada, Monsaraz, Portugal, 7 > 12 Outubro 2005, reunirá mais de 300 especialistas na área, e terá como principais objectivos: contribuir para a melhoria na qualidade de construção e protecção do património; preparar mais adequadamente técnicos nacionais, regionais e locais a intervirem com maior conhecimento e responsabilidade no património em terra urbano e rural, assim como em áreas protegidas; aprofundar a investigação, logo contribuir para um desenvolvimento local mais sustentável, por meio de um maior conhecimento da conservação do património, da difusão de arquitectura contempor‚nea utilizando materiais tradicionais, da utilização de materiais com maior eficiÍncia energética, assim como de estratégias para formação local, com maior integração social.
Sponsored by an initiative of the cultural service of the embassy of France and Centro da Terra, is the lecture, HABITAR A TERRA: A Arte de Construir em Terra Crua (To Inhabit The Earth: The Art of Building with Earth) by Jean Dethier. The conference will be held on two separate dates and locations, Porto, Portugal January 17 and Lisbon, Portugal on January 19. Dethier has been investigating this topic for more than 60 years, having being associated the initiatives that have led to resurgences of this building tradition in industrialized countries. The subject of the lecture framed by a traditional perspective, archaeology, modernity and the future of earth architecture, which will include the publication of a book, as well as films for television, and an exhibition on the subject for 2005 that will offer an opportunity to learn about the buildings, cities and cultures that had used this material since the antiquity.
Portugal based Centro da Terra is an organization that promotes the study, documentation and dissemination of earth architecture. Portuguese language website.