Category: Middle East

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Shibam: Manhattan of the Desert

Yemen is located on the southern coast of the Arabian Peninsula, and the city of Shibam is renowned for its densely packed mudbrick buildings. These high-rise structures were built in close proximity as a defensive measure against Bedouin raids.

With its 500 narrow houses bunched close together, built like a fortress in the midst of Wadi Hadramaut, Shibam is architecturally unique. Its six-storey houses, built of mud with stone foundations, look like skyscrapers. The nickname “Manhattan of the desert” is an apt one. Twice destroyed in the 13th and 16th centuries, Shibam has scarcely altered since it was last rebuilt after 1553.

Shibam’s buildings are multistory (up to 11 stories), and the city is considered one of the earliest examples of vertical urban planning. The towers range between 5 to 11 stories, made primarily of adobe bricks reinforced with wooden beams.

The city is enclosed by a protective wall, with two gates serving as entry points. The compact clusters of five- to eight-story buildings create a unique skyline, with some homes connected by elevated corridors. These corridors allow residents to move between houses quickly, providing a means to defend against attackers. The buildings feature wooden window frames set into mud-plastered walls, with many windows carved into elegant arches. While Shibam’s history dates back to the third century, most of the existing structures were built in the 16th century. Regular maintenance is required for these earthen buildings, as the walls must be replastered periodically to combat erosion from wind and rain. And the roofs and the exterior of the mud towers had sustained the most damage.

 

The bricks used in Shibam’s buildings gradually decrease in size on the upper floors, resulting in thinner walls as the structure rises and giving the buildings a trapezoidal shape. This design helps to reduce the load on the lower floors, enhancing the overall stability and strength of the buildings. Typically, each building is occupied by a single family, with living spaces located from the third floor upwards. The first and second floors are often designated for food storage and livestock stables, allowing families to keep cattle inside during periods when the town was under siege.

 

Citations:

  • UNESCO World Heritage Centre. “Old Walled City of Shibam.” Accessed September 2024. https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/192.
  • Al Sayyad, Nezar. “The Architecture of Mud: Construction and Repair Technology in the Hadhramaut Region of Yemen.” Environmental Design: Journal of the Islamic Environmental Design Research Centre, 1988.
  • Serageldin, Ismail. Traditional Architecture: Shibam and the Hadramut Region. London: Academy Editions, 1991.
  • Alhussein, Redhwan, and Tetsuya Kusuda. “Performance and Response of Historical Earth Buildings to Flood Events in Wadi Hadramaut, Yemen.” Built Heritage, vol. 5, no. 1, 2021, https://doi.org/10.1186/s43238-021-00044-8. Accessed 23 September 2024.
  • DaliySabath. “Shibam: Yemen’s ancient ‘Manhattan of the Desert'”. Agencies. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/travel/article/shibam-mud-skyscraper-yemen. December 17, 2020.
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Contemporary Architects Association: Observatory in the Desert

The Observatory in the Desert is a public addition to a decaying mud village located in Esfahak, Iran, a village in the north-east of the country. The structure consists of mud brick and rammed earth walls, creating a concentric pattern that leads a person to the center raised platform between the highest walls; a perfect place for an observatory.

The project was conceived by the Contemporary Architects Association an organization based in Tehran, dedicated to “creating an environment where its teachers and students, equipped with a deep understanding of architectural knowledge, history, and theories, engage in meticulous observation of the current state with an analytical and research-driven approach,” and the Esfahak Mud Center (E.M.C) . The main lead of the project was Pouya Khazaeli, founder of Esfahak Mud Center (E.M.C), an organization whose aim is of reviving traditional clay and mud construction in Esfahak Village.

Together with selected students of the CAA, the group designed a model with clay to re-enact the process of building the structure. After understanding the patterns and modes of building, the group traveled to Esfahak and began moulding 20cm x 20cm bricks out of the found mud. As the moulds dried construction began with the original group, however eventually community members of all size, ability, and age came to the need of the designers.

Food was shared, stories were told, tea was served, and the process of building and designing turned into a community process; an intention the architects never set forth with.

The special 20cm x 20cm bricks were placed on the outside of the inner center at 45 degree rotation, reflecting the essence of the palm trees surrounding the space. A curved single person entry way leads you to the center of the structure, where the sky is framed by the circular opening.

The project inspired and engaged the locals, bringing life to an area that was surrounded by decaying structures and rubble. The group even received a “is this for us?” question from locals, with a resounding answer of “yes”. With all of the additional help and support from the community, the project took about 10 days. The Observatory in the Desert is a beautiful example of a cultural, communal, and material specific piece of architecture that was built locally by hand and engaged with active participants of all backgrounds.

Size: 69 square meters

Year: 2017

Photos: Anis Eshraghi

Architects: Amir Ali Zinati, Behnaz Motarjam, Aydin Emdadian, Sonia Begi, Bahar Mehdipour, Hamidreza Malekkhani, Ramtin Ramezani.

Advisor: Puya Khazaeli

Local colleagues: Mohsen Mehdizadeh, Mostafa Yaqoubi, Hossein Bagheri, Mehdi Hosseini

References

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6rlO0HdpLLk Arch Daily video

[2] https://www.archdaily.com/873615/observatory-in-the-desert-contemporary-architects-association#:~:text=We%20don’t%20have%20a,even%20though%20it’s%20still%20early Arch Daily article

[3] https://en.caai.ir/about-caai/ Contemporary Architect’s Association

[4] https://esfahkmudcenter.org/?p=1885 Esfahk Mud Center

[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pouya_Khazaeli Pouya Khazaeli

 

 

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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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ShamsArd: With Dirt And A Vision

ShamsArd is a young Palestinian architecture firm that has designed several buildings constructed of dirt that respond to both the environmental climate (keeping the house cool in the summer and warm in the winter), and the political and economic climate. An Israeli company that exports the vast majority of cement used in the occupied Palestinian territories, suddenly stopped the supply for almost a month because of cement shortages in the Israeli market. A few months later, the price of cement sold to the Palestinians also increased, making alternative construction techniques, a beautiful design solution. It also responds to history as Jericho, the location of their most recent design, is home to the oldest earth building traditions in the world. Hear and read more about ShamsArd on National Public Radio and in an Al Jazeera article.

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Afghan Refugee Housing

Rai Studio and Architecture for Humanity Tehran, in collaboration with the Norwegian Refugee Council, have recently completed an adobe construction prototype intended for Afghan refugees living in Kerman, close to the centre of Iran.

Built in an Afghan Refugee Camp in Kerman, Iran, the 100 meter square meter domed shelter is comprised of approximately 6,000 mud bricks.

Pouya Khazaeli, principal of Rai Studio and architecture professor at Azad University, Tehran and Ghazvin, notes: “Social sustainability in design is our main focus area here. It means to study how these refugees live, communicate, the meaning of privacy in their live, which materials they prefer and use for construction, which kind of construction techniques they use themselves, how much they spend normally to construct their own shelters….”

Read more at Domus

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Hassan Fathy’s New Gourna

Hassan Fathy’s New Gourna from Oliver Wilkins on Vimeo.

The village of New Gourna was designed and built in the 1940s by the Egyptian Architect Hassan Fathy. He pioneered the use of sustainable materials and environmentally friendly design to build housing for low income families who were being relocated from their original village at Old Gourna.
60 years later, many of the now historic New Gourna buildings have fallen into disrepair and others have disappeared or been changed beyond recognition. A project is underway to safeguard the site, and World Monuments Fund (WMF) commissioned us to produce a film presenting the perspective of the residents…

For more information about WMF’s work at New Gourna, see wmf.org/project/new-gourna-village

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Revealing the Potential of Compressed Earth Blocks

Revealing the Potential of Compressed Earth Blocks—A Study in the Materiality of Compressed Earth Blocks (CEB): Lightness, Tactility, and Formability, by Egyptian architect Omar Rabie, documents explorations of the potential of CEB while studying at MIT, The Architectural Association and Auroville.

In these two experimental mock-ups, Rabie explored the different possibilities of bondings using one block—specifically how the shape of the single block influences the block bonding patterns in a stack bond and running bond.

This portion of a wall was built of specially formed interlocking blocks to increase friction to test how high friction masonry wall will highly resist lateral loads in comparison to walls constructed with standard blocks. In this case, the blocks are interlocked in the long direction of the wall. This experiment proved that it is possible to freely form more complex CEBs and build walls with an unusual bonds, like this strong zigzag bond.

[ Download Rabie’s entire report here. ]

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Daw’an Mud Brick Architecture Foundation

The Daw’an Mud Brick Architecture Foundation is a private independent organization, financially autonomous and accountable, registered at the Office of Ministry of Industry and Commerce, Hadramut Branch with goal to:

    Set up, operate and manage Architectural Projects including design, infrastructure and urban planning for the rehabilitation of towns and villages, individual sites and buildings

    Carry out Architectural Surveys and documentation; prepare drawings and reports for existing buildings/ sites identified for rehabilitation or restoration and establish their renewal requirements

    Provide specifications and costing for projects based on the above enlisting the expertise and services of Master Builders and craftsmen
    Design of new projects including public and private buildings and extensions, based on sensitive, challenging architectural concepts and use of building materials

    Advise on new projects, design and planning initiatives, taking into account area conservation and rehabilitation legislation building codes and regulations

    Prioritise agricultural development areas, water and spate irrigation and flooding schemes, and assist with setting up organic farming projects
    Assist with organic and industrial waste management

    Publish and disseminate work in progress through Seminars, Conferences and Workshops and liaise with regional and international universities, academics, and professional experts

For more information visit The Daw’an Mud Brick Architecture Foundation website.

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Salma Samar Damluji Wins Global Award for Sustainable Architecture

Salma Samar Damluji, an Iraqi architect and researcher educated in the UK, pupil of Hassan Fathy and author of The Architecture of Yemen, who has dedicated her life to the safeguarding and redesign of Earthen Architecture in the fascinating but highly dangerous Yemen is the recipient of the Global Ward for Sustainable Architecture. The Global Award Ceremony will be held at the Cité de l´Architecture in Paris on April 13.