earthen-architecture

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Fence stiles from "The Forgotten Arts and Crafts"

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“Parakanã woman making a small ceramic object.” 1987.

Ph: Lux Vidal

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““To build simple emergency and safe structures in our backyards, to give us maximum safety with minimum environmental impact, we must choose natural materials and, like nature itself, build with minimum materials to create maximum space, like a beehive or a sea shell.””

— - Nadir Khalili

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“Natural unprocessed clay, the raw material for pottery”

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“Beaked Vase, North Iran, Amlash 1200-900 BCE Skirball Museum, LA”

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Peter van Oostzanen (Dutch, b.1962)

Hidden dream of forbidden love, 2013

oil on panel

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simply natural live ❤️

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“The drying yard” From : “The pottery of Acatlán : a changing Mexican tradition” by Lackey, Louana M. , 1982.

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“Preparing the firewood for firing clay pottery”,Dorbour, 1994

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Cahokia woodhenge solar calendar…

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a perfect home for a wizard

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Adobe Virgin.

The figure of Our Lady of Guadalupe sculpted in bas-relief, on an adobe wall in the courtyard at DeGrazia Gallery in the Sun, Tucson, Arizona. 

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Fairy tale never ends …

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“Music is liquid architecture; architecture is frozen music.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

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Zoma museum; an inspiring casestudy

Building with earth used to be common practice in many parts of the world. In Belgium, the use of fired bricks gradually replaced this technique since the first applications in 1200AC. In Ethiopia, earth construction is still widely present nowadays. But in cities, as well as on the countryside, earth construction is gradually being replaced by concrete structures as soon as people can afford it.

In both places earth seems to be often interpreted as an inferior building material. However, sustainable construction could certainly benefit from a wider use of the material. Attempts towards uses of earth that are socially accepted and appreciated are therefor highly relevant. The Zoma museum in Addis Ababa is such an attempt. And a succesfull one.

“THE MISSION of Zoma Museum is centered around learning and bring into the present construction techniques that have withstood time and  weathering while maintaining their grace and beauty. The museum’s aim is to showcase innovative and cutting-edge art and architecture in a vernacular museum where the old and the new merge. ZOMA Museum is an environmentally conscious art institution in Addis Ababa. The mission is to act as a bridge between artists and architects from around the world to create cutting-edge ecological art and architecture. In this context, Zoma Museum is built using ancient yet still existing construction techniques.” from https://www.zomamuseum.org/

Above are pictures from the museum opening, March 24th 2019 What is remarkable at the opening day of the museum is not just the fine use of the earth material in an artistic manner. It is the of people, and the enthousiastic reactions that they give. This is the m’a tu vu of Addis Ababa, the artistic upper class of Ethiopia. And although earth might be popularly considered as a poor man’s material, this event showed an inverse movement. A movement, although it might have been just a snapshot, where the rich go for earth and the poor go for concrete. [to be continued]

References on the acceptance of earth constructions:

[1] Bosman G. 2015 The acceptability of earth constructed houses in central areas of South Africa: University of the Free State.

[2] Sanya T. 2007 Living in Earth–The Sustainability of Earth Architecture in Uganda [PhD]: The Oslo School of Architecture and Design.

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Workshop Beyond Borders - when tradition meets innovation. In the context of the postgraduate certificate Building Beyond Borders of the faculty of Architecture and Arts of Hasselt University, 16 people participated on a Workshop Beyond Borders in Ouled Merzoug, a small village in the heart of Morocco. The aim of this workshop was to promote and spread the vernacular knowledge about ecological, bioclimatic construction, with natural materials such as raw earth, to valorise local knowledge and question today’s way of constructing. The participants were introduced to the material earth by Jasper Van der Linden (PhD researcher on earth architecture at Hasselt University) and Bregt Hoppenbrouwers (BC architects & studies). An introductury lecture gave an overview on how earth can be transformed from a raw material to a building material and what different earth construction techniques are. With field tests and a Carazas test the participants could observe the diversity of materials and properties that can be obtained. During the workshop, Jasper and Bregt shared several earth building casestudies, each with a diversity of techniques and contexts. To gain insights from one another, a discussion group on the material experience of these projects was held among the participants. During 5 days, hands-on experiments with different earth construction techniques introduced the traditions and history of these techniques while also elaborating on contemporary applications in a western context. The experience and knowledge of local craftsman were mixed with the knowledge and experience of Jasper and Bregt. Through this exchange, alternative ways of using earth were explored. One project was the exploration of the nubian vault, a construction system that doesn’t require any formwork. Reintroduced by Hassan Fathi in ‘architecture for the poor’, it is a system that originates in the south of Egypt. The local craftsman are not familiar with the system, and a specific size of adobes were produced during this workshop Another project was the creation of rammed earth benches. Where the rammed earth constructions in a traditional context are usually rather roughly executed, these benches needed to be more exact. To work more precise a ‘contemporary european style’ formwork was introduced as well as a reformulation of the used mix.

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Earthware lustre-painted bowl from medieval Mesopotamia, dating back to the 9th century CE. Museum of Islamic Art, Doha, QATAR.

Photo by Babylon Chronicle