Architecture, Art, Design, and Culture using of mud, clay, soil, dirt & dust.
The popular blog, A Daily Dose of Architecture, is selling the rare, out-of-print title (text in German), Architektur der Dogon, by Wolfgang Lauber. The book presents the traditional earth architecture of the Dogon in Mali. Studied drawings of Dogon habitats accompany the abundant photographs of the architecture and artifacts. While the book may seem expensive ($300), it is much less than the Amazon.com price of $458.24
Experimental Historian, friend and colleague, David Gissen, discusses Earth Architecture and makes an argument for red earth. He writes:
“In arguing for a red earth, I’m not arguing that earth holds an innate leftist proletarian politics in its chemical composition, nor am I completely arguing for the social construction of earth. I am arguing that our engagement with earth offers the possibilities for new liberatory ways of understanding space, that remain tied to earth’s commonness.A powerful concept of red earth, tied to its ubiquity and free nature, might be found in the roots of much red thought — Marx himself. In his Critique of German Ideology, Marx understood earth (as concept and thing) as the base of political economic philosophy. In one of his most famous passages, he wrote “In total contrast to German [idealist] philosophy, which descends from heaven to earth, we here ascend from earth to heaven.” Marx saw earth (both soil and “the earth”) as the base of his philosophy because it was the defacto element that contained the material and ideological possibilities of society (its nourishment, production, and metaphysics). For Marx, earth contains the conditions of society by society. Earth not only delivers the grains grown by a farmer, but when a person digs his shovel into earth to grow something he or she becomes “a farmer.” When a person binds the earth into bricks he or she becomes “a builder.” The earth is social matter and structure, how we engage with it repeats existing structures and opens up new concepts.”
Pigeon houses at Mit Gahmr, Egypt
Pigeon is a part of the daily diet in many parts of Egypt and Pigeon houses, or dovecotes, are constructed from mud brick create an artificial mountainous topography. The droppings are also a valuable source of fertilizer and the houses are so ubiquitous that they are also part of the Egyptian national identity. The dovecote typology can be found throughout the world and Earth Architecture has previously featured the palomares of Spain.
Interestingly, the Egyptian pigeon houses remind one of the recent work of architect Vicente Guallart, who in his project The Re-Naturalization of Territory, attempts to create what could be considered as dovecotes for biotechnology and cinema in Tarragona, Spain.
A Comissão de Organização do 6ºATP / 9ºSIACOT tem o prazer de informar
que se irá realizar em Coimbra, Portugal, de 20 a 23 de Fevereiro 2010, o
6º Seminário Arquitectura de Terra em Portugal &
9º Seminário Ibero-Americano de Construção e Arquitectura com Terra.
Convidam-se os interessados a enviar Resumo até dia 30 de Junho 2009.
Organização:
UC – Universidade de Coimbra
CEAUCP – Centro de Estudos Arqueológicos das Universidades de Coimbra e Porto
ESG – Escola Superior Gallaecia
FCO – Fundação Convento da Orada
CdT – Associação Centro da Terra
PROTERRA – Rede Ibero-Americana de Arquitectura e Construção com Terra.
Idiomas da Conferência:
Português, Espanhol, Inglês (sem tradução simultânea)
Temas dos Painéis:
1. Arqueologia, Arte e Antropologia
2. Património e Conservação
3. Técnicas, Construção, Investigação e Desenvolvimento
4. Arquitectura Vernácula e Contemporânea
Junto segue programa detalhado.
Para mais informações, consultar o site.
Agradece-se a divulgação do evento.
Comissão Organizadora
Maria Conceição Lopes, UC e CEAUCP
Maria Fernandes, CEAUCP, CdT, PROTERRA
Mariana Correia, ESG, FCO, CdT, PROTERRA
Teresa Beirão, CdT
Luís Fernando Guerrero Baca, PROTERRA
Informações e Envio de Resumos:
6ºATP / 9ºSIACOT
E-mail:
6atp@gmail.com (geral)
info@centrodaterra.org (oficina)
Site:
www.esgallaecia.com/6atp
www.uc.pt/uid/cea/6atp
Local: Universidade de Coimbra, CEAUCP
Endereço: Instituto de Arqueologia, Palácio Sub-Ripas, 3000-395 Coimbra, PORTUGAL
Tel. (+351) 239 851603 (C/ Maria Fernandes ou Conceição Lopes)
Fax (+351) 239 851609 (C/ Maria Fernandes ou Conceição Lopes)
In collaboration with Ramboll UK, the Department of Civil, Environmental & Geomatic Engineering at the University College London has funding from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council for an EngD studentship (4 year programme) for the following project: INNOVATIVE CONCEPTS FOR SEISMICALLY RESISTANT MUD BRICK CONSTRUCTION. Click here to download the project description.
The secret of a successful sandcastle could aid the revival of an ancient eco-friendly building technique, according to research led by Durham University. Researchers, led by experts at Durham’s School of Engineering, have carried out a study into the strength of rammed earth, which is growing in popularity as a sustainable building method.
Front Range Earth Architecture: Why and Why Not?, written by Michael Shernick, is a paper that looks at the history and viability of earth architecture on Colorado’s Front Range. Click here to download the paper in PDF format.
Photo: Jacob Ehrenberg, Copyright © 2009 National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.
British artist, Andy Goldsworthy, is planning to produce a work using 4 to 5ft (1.2 to 1.5m) “stones” made from objects embedded in rammed earth. The stones will eventually disintegrate to reveal whatever material he decides to leave inside each one. Each stone will be made with earth containing materials and objects. These will be incorporated into each stone as it is being constructed and might be rocks, branches, bones, tools, seeds, clothes, beach debris or anything else.
The project is reminiscent of Smiljan Radic’s Casa del Carbonero. This is not Goldsworthy’s first foray into earth art. His project, Clay Wall, is a large clay plastered wall that uses human hair from his home village as a binder.
Church of the Holy Cross
Interior
After years of waiting, the historic rammed earth Episcopal Church of the Holy Cross in Stateburg is ready to begin renovations. The church, built between 1850 and 1852, was declared a national landmark in 1978. The building is of particular historic significance because of its “unusual construction of rammed earth known as pise de terre.”
An old way of life is coming to a crashing end in north-western China with two-thirds of Kashgar’s Old City being bulldozed over the past few weeks under a government plan to “modernise” the area. Nine hundred families already have been moved from Kashgar’s Old City, “the best-preserved example of a traditional Islamic city to be found anywhere in central Asia,” as the architect and historian George Michell wrote in the 2008 book “Kashgar: Oasis City on China’s Old Silk Road.” Over the next few years, city officials say, they will demolish at least 85 percent of this warren of picturesque, if run-down homes and shops. Many of its 13,000 families, Muslims from a Turkic ethnic group called the Uighurs (pronounced WEE-gurs), will be moved.
