La Ermita de Viguera
Photo: Sebastian Schutyser
The ermita of Viguera in La Rioja, Spain, captured here with a pin-hole camera by photographer Sebastian Schutyser, was constructed in the 13th century and contains important mural paintings within. An overhanging rock cliff protects the ancient adobe structure from the elements, which is only accessible by steep 15 minute climb from the nearest road. Schutyser writes of the ermita:
The Spanish word ermita [English: hermitage], has a similar structure and meaning in all languages derived from Latin. It always refers to an uninhabited or isolated place, a location for spiritual retreat. In Romance languages it comes from the Latin word eremus, tracing back to the Greek eremos, which means deserted. In Spain, their use has shifted throughout the centuries, but they have always been isolated sanctuaries or chapels. Hermits inhabited them in seclusion, or in other times, in small groups. Other hermitages were built by pilgrims, who tried to invoke divine protection on their journeys. Finally, some hermitages were erected for pastoral cults, or to house religious brotherhoods. At present many still have the cult of a saint celebrated in them once a year.
The photo is part of a larger photographic collection of ermitas by Schutyser, 575 Romanesque and Pre-Romanesque ermitas total, who is hoping to assemble a book from these photographs.
Casa Sanitas
Designed by Pyatt Studio, Casa Sanitas is the first rammed earth house to be constructed in the city of Boulder, Colorado and incorporates an insulated rammed earth enclosure appropriate for the Colorado Front Range climate.
Piscina Municipal de Toro
Photo: Héctor Santos-Díez
Vier Arquitectos, comprised of Antonio Raya, Christopher Crespo, Santiago Sánchez and Enrique Antelo, are the designers a municipal swimming pool in Toro (Zamora), Spain. A unique quality of the facility is that its exterior walls have been constructed of rammed earth, a traditional technique updated on a contemporary building typology.
Photo: Héctor Santos-Díez
The building, comprising three volumes, two for dressing and one more for the pool’s, supporting thermal collectors used to heat the pool water and showers, and extra water from the cleaning process, which is stored in a reservoir and reused in irrigating the landscape.
Photo: Héctor Santos-Díez
Low-energy materials were used throughout and the design for the pool received the first prize for ex eaquo de Edificación Sostenible in Castilla y Leon in its first edition.
Photo: Héctor Santos-Díez
Earth House by Jolson Architecture Interiors
Constructed primarily in rammed earth using local Dromana crushed rock, the Earth House, designed by Jolson Architecture Interiors, is a 465 sqm 4 bedroom residence that seemingly rises from the landscape and cranks to capture the sweeping rural and coastal panoramic views.
The western elevation consists of solid rammed earth walls without penetrations, designed as thermal banks capturing the afternoon sun. The eastern elevation is glazed to siphon dominant views inside. Designed around a large enclosed courtyard that provides protection from the strong winds, this outdoor room allows northern sunlight to filter into the main living areas.
Hassan Fathy is The Middle East’s Father of Sustainable Architecture
Green Prophet has railed against projects like Dubai Burj Tower. They have pounded our chests at the audacity of Masdar City’s “zero” footprint claim, and have decried the potential consequences of unsustainable approaches to building and planning. “USD22 billion” for a building project and “sustainable” simply don’t belong in the same sentence.
Egyptian architect Hassan Fathy died in 1989 but left behind a legacy of 160 building projects ranging from small projects to large-scale communities complete with mosques and schools. His impact can still be felt from Egypt to Greece and even New Mexico, where in 1981 he designed the Dar Ar-Salam community. Fathy received several awards for his work, including the Aga Khan Award for Architecture in 1980, and founded The International Institute for Appropriate Technology in 1977.
Greenhouse Atelier
The Greenhouse Atelier, designed by al bordE, in Machachi, Ecuador is a shelter designed to express the powerful reflection of nature in the client’s paintings. The atelier is a “bubble” suspended between stone walls and rammed earth.
The existing space between walls, ground and bubble, protect the space from absorbing the humidity of the moorland. Additionally the first sun rays heat a radiator system that increase the temperature of the air gap. This heated air enters the space making it thermally comfortable. In the afternoon the main façade absorbs the sun heat, saving it in the solid floor of the workshop releasing the heat during the night.
Brittlebush
Brittlebush is an experimental Desert Dwelling designed by Simón de Agüero, a recent graduate of the Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture in Taliesin, Arizona. The open-air living space incorporates tensile fabric structures into its design to shelter occupants from the sun. A fireplace provides winter heating.
The majority of the material used for Brittlebush were recovered or found on site: 90% of the steel was salvaged from the school scrap yard, all of the wood used for the formwork was waste from a local renovation project, and the earth used for the walls was from on-site.
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Tidal Resonance Chamber
Image: © Robert Horner
As the first rammed-earth construct in the City of Tacoma, The Tidal Resonance Chamber provides a contemplative and relaxation space for users of the Center for Urban Waters (a LEED Platinum Marine research and analysis facility) . Aimed at serving as an instrument for perceptual synchronize with the natural rhythms of Commencement Bay, the chamber’s thick insulated earthen walls buffer out the heavy industrial sounds of the surrounding Port of Tacoma, and through a series of feed back pump operations the chamber’s water level mirrors that of the Thea Foss Waterway manifesting as a ratio-reduction.
Image: © Robert Horner
Designed by Robert Horner, the Tidal Resonance Chamber’s main interior space has a trapezoidal footprint roughly 12’ x 18’. The fortified rammed-earth walls measure 8’6” in height, and rest atop a concrete foundation that measures 4’ in height. The chamber has a maximum filling capacity of 2500 gallons, which will fill at the highest of high tides. The interior of the chamber is filled with reclaimed granite curb fragments, river stones and will eventually populate with micro-organisms, barnacles and other aquatic lifeforms.
Mud Bricks Made With Wool
Bricks made with wool. (Credit: Galán-Marín et al.)
Spanish and Scottish researchers have added wool fibres to the clay material used to make bricks and combined these with an alginate, a natural polymer extracted from seaweed. The result is bricks that are stronger and more environmentally-friendly, according to the study published recently in the journal Construction and Building Materials.