#mud huts

[cherryblossomshadow]

Honest question, how does the nature cooling work? Is it just great air flow? Are they dug into the ground to better insolate? Does it get cold at night? (comment courtesy of @goblin-named-sam)

@goblin-named-sam mud is a bad conductor of heat, it doesn't allow the heat to enter during the day. in summers people may wet the walls of their houses a bit so that when the water evaporates, it leaves the walls cooler (the same principle on which sweating works!) and the inside is as ambient as if there was air conditioner.

since it's a bad conductor of heat, it doesn't let too much of it escape at night or in winters either, so it keeps you comfortable both ways (comment courtesy of @an-absolute-nightmare)

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its so stupid that we prize european everything when its so unsuitable to other climates. in north/west europe it makes sense to wear more clothes n have more complex house desigsn that r warmer, but in a hot country it doesnt work. these traditional housing styles, and traditional clothing thats labelled “immodest” and “uncivilised”, are cheaper, use less resources, better for the environment and more comofrtable for ppl

ppl who still have access to traditional better methord r very lucky. in australia we dress and build and act like its cold england, so ppl are forced to wear way too hot clothes, live in way too hot houses, and go out in the sun at midday

if ppl started building mud and thatch houses here and we all walked around in our underwear (or west asian-styled covering clothes for us lightskinned ppl) then i would be very glad and quick to adopt it over continuing to have an anglo saxon culture (comments courtesy of @yossarianirl)

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Just because you grew up in one lifestyle doesn't mean it's good (comment courtesy of @legendoro)

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It's not just a culture thing either - different parts of the world develop different types of building styles in reaction to the environments they're trying to adjust to. It would be silly to expect people who live in a hot and dry climate to build homes designed to withstand monsoon season or to expect people who live in an area where wood is scarce to build timber frame houses. The climates and resources that surround you affect what sorts of homes are practical and comfortable and affordable. Of course the resultant building practices are going to change as a result! (comment courtesy of @reesa-chan)

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#you know I never thought about it but duh #of course people who have been living there for tens of thousands of years figured out the best design for houses in their environment #particularly for natural cooling etc #people use traditional methods for a reason #because it's readily available locally and because it's specifically suited to their local environment #the standard American style house isn't ideal for even most of the USA #why the hell should anybody else have it pushed on them? (tags courtesy of @judiops)

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#i think (white) people think  of the western way of doing things as like. the default. #so therefore everyone else is consciously choosing not to do things the 'normal way' #but like. what part of importing lumber and insulation and construction materials is normal. #they have a system that works! #why would they switch to another system (tags courtesy of @iamanoccasionaldoodler)

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#its so frustrating that people will call them 'mud huts' and not realise that these are architecture designed for their climate #like coming over to the uk and asking why are our houses dont have air con or have triple glazing #why are all these houses in my area built on hills and slopes #flooding and frost is our problem so we have the solutions??? (tags courtesy of @averyroundbird)

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This woman is beautiful and her voice is so calming and her accent is so lovely and also she is so fucking right. (comment courtesy of @just-a-geekygoth)

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#imagine the extent to which we could mitigate global climate crisis if everyone in hot environments used buildings that #were naturally cooling instead of relying on constant electricity to run air conditioning and fans #imagine how many people's lives would be saved if buildings in these places remained cool naturally even in power outages #anti-Blackness really has Westerners ready to sacrifice everyone's lives rather than admit that Uganda has superior building structures (tags courtesy of @closet-keys)

#prev tags #this reminds me of the cooling crisis in Arizona from that one article #where everyone just dismissed the author and supporters as ecofascists #but this is exactly the type of shit that they were talking about! #western housing methods are not sustainable in the desert without AC! #when European settlers came to the Americas they also tried to use western farming methods. and it failed. (tags courtesy of @eruthiawenluin)

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#I'm sorry are people forgetting that bricks are just baked dirt #Roof slate is just cut stone #Wooden roofs are as much made of plants as grass #We just have different materials in abundance in different places #Different building traditions #No one would be shocked to discover that people eat rice instead of wheat in some places #why are people surprised that the building materials might be different too (tags courtesy of @ursusmaritimuslocaha)

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#I have many thoughts now thank you #like why is a house so complicated? it's where you sleep #we turned our homes into castles and split villages into millions of mini kingdoms #now we all see our neighbors as competing nations instead of family and friends #we spend all our time at home away from eachother when we could be coming together at the library or bar or game shop #I used to know the name of every kid on my block now I don't even know what my nextdoor neighbors look like (tags courtesy of @spacebarista-blog-blog)

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Transcription below the cut

Grass thatched houses 😳

“Do you guys still sleep in grass thatched houses?”

“Do you still sleep in houses made of MUD?”

Those of you that keep asking that question, and possibly because of genuine curiosity or lack of proper information …

But anyways, yes we do. Yes, we do sleep in them. We still do sleep in them.

Why wouldn’t we sleep in them? Why wouldn’t you sleep in a house that has its own natural cooling system? Even when it’s the hottest of the hottest months in Uganda.

You don’t need a fridge to keep your water cold or your drinks cold. The grass thatched house does that free of charge. You don’t have to pay for the energy.

Why wouldn’t I sleep in a house that takes nature to construct? That I’m not worried of trying to buy expensive materials in order to have a house to sleep in. Why wouldn’t I sleep in such a house?

Mud scents better than paint. I don’t know if you knew about that. Why wouldn’t I sleep in such a house?

So many times we love to dehumanize other people’s way of life or cultures and simply because we lack information and also because …

You have grown up in one kind of lifestyle. And you think that one kind of lifestyle should be the standard of everyone.

So many cultures in so many places around the world have been dehumanized. The people that think everything theirs has to be the standard of everyone.

Most of us are striving so much to adopt cultures, to adopt every way of life that is not ours, because we have the verge of trying to prove ourselves that we are doing better. “Actually, we are also doing better.” “Actually, we also have this.” “We also have this.”

We also have grass thatched houses.

How will we promote our cultures when we ourselves are not proud of our cultures?

If it doesn’t kill, why shouldn’t we celebrate it?

When did grassthatched houses become a piece of embarrassment?

Anyways, we do sleep in them. I had such a great night sleep.

This is a kind of house that even heals insomnia. You can’t lack sleep. Never.

[remholder]

I'm about to go FUCKING bananas

here's what the passage says if you can't see the pic well or....whatever:

----

There was no denying the passion of Seven's sense of mission, and Janeway realized there was nothing more to be gained from debate. "That's a commendable sentiment, Seven. And I can understand why you find the immediacy of the Rangers' methods more gratifying. But I'm afraid I simply can't condone it."

"I'm not asking you to. I'm just asking you to trust me."

There was a pleading note in Seven's voice, and a purity to her expression that moved Janeway deeply. She wished she could touch Seven's cheek. "Always, Seven. Always."

Seven mustered a sad smile. "Thank you, Admiral."

"Seven...call me Kathryn."

A bittersweet silence lingered between them until Seven said, "Tell the others I said hello and that I'll be in touch again soon."

"I will." Janeway's eyes misted with emotion. "Be careful out there, Seven."

Seven mirrored Janeway's teary expression. "You, too...Kathryn."

[envy-of-the-apple]

I was reading your top of the food chain works and I kept thinking of primitive technology videos 😭 Like imagine instead of moping and shit, miss girl just accepted that she can never escape the two weird huge snakes and started building stuff. Imagine them building a mud hut or taking out the crab and fish trap from the nearby river and dump a bunch of fish and crabs in front of them

i thought the entire point of having two giant snake men was that you wouldn't have to lift a finger ever again????

[fluxweeed]

hey. hope this message doesn't bother you. I love you. I love your work. you are one of my favorite fic authors, I am absolutely obsessed with everything you write. reread everything ten times over, drarry or not, fluffy or angsty - even when it absolutely shatters my heart (e.g. for lack of wanting, SUCH a great fic btw i'm so obsessed with it). the four doors? life changing. two to lie and one to listen? engraved into my brain for eternity. what's mine is yours? what a ride holy shit, im VERY normal about it. wrapped? my comfort read. and so it goes.

if I could aggressively smother you with kudos and love I WOULD!!!

awhile ago you said that there's no such thing as "big deals" in fandom and I 100% agree but at the same time you are a big deal TO ME!!! not in the sense of any kind of hierarchy but purely based on the fact that I think you are such a cool person and your writing is amazing and poignant and your presence in fandom makes it so much better. it's been a pleasure following you here on tumblr and just reading your tags and posts.

idk I just think you rule. that's it. thank you for hanging with us. MWAH 💛

ahhhh anon sorry for leaving this message sitting in my inbox for a couple of days but !! i have zero idea how to react to this!! you're so kind!! thank you!! please discard any and all inclinations u have that i am a cool person bc i can assure you i am NOT!!

[bluberimufim]

IT'S TIME!!! IT'S FINALLY TIME FOR THE RANT ABOUT 19TH-CENTURY PORTUGUESE URBANISM!!!! (@kingkendrick7 mentioned they were interested a While ago and who am I to withhold information about my Interests)

I'll be focusing exclusively on the city of Porto in northern Portugal because it's what I studied in my Anthropology class. And also: disclaimer! I'm translating all the names of the things from Portuguese so if it sounds weird, yeah, that's why.

The Industrial Revolution in Portugal created a very weird relationship between work and personal life due to the way the cities were planned. Basically, the people who worked the factories, and even the owners, lived extremely close to their place of work - and I mean they were pretty much neighbours. The factories were also built in the city centre itself. This is much more similar to the work-life relationship of rural areas than any model existing in normal cities.

There was, at this time, a strange impasse when it came to building housing. Porto specifically is known for having extremely thin and deep plots of land in the oldest parts of the city - I'm talking 5 by 100m (approx. 16 by 328ft). No house is gonna be that deep, so there's always about 80 to 70m of backyard.

Workers were paid extremely low wages. Like, so low they couldn't afford housing anywhere. So the factory owners would ✨selflessly✨ give up their backyards and build housing for their workers.

Can we just take a moment to think about how absurd this is? Like. Imagine taking pity on your employees for being poor. My brother in Christ, WHO DO YOU THINK IS MAKING THEM POOR?

Anyway, this new type of housing is called an Island. Its name comes from the fact that it's an "island" of low-income housing in a semi-rich neighbourhood.

Basically, an Island is a long exterior corridor with tiny houses on one or two sides and communal bathrooms at the end. Here's a picture:

The way this worked is that the owners of the big, street-front house would open a passage on the ground floor that could be fully closed wuth a gate. This kept the Islands invisible and, thus, out of the city hall's jurisdiction, since they can only legislate on what is visible from street level.

Here's an irl picture of an Island today:

Btw they tried solving this problem bt building houses from scratch but they realuzed that workers' wages were so low that just adding plumbing would make a house unaffordable. Yeah...

Porto currently stands as the European city with the most recent outbreak of the Bubonic Plague, in 1899. This is because Islands had such poor hygenic conditions that it re-kindled the Black Plague epidemic. Just so you can kinda picture what level of "horrible" this whole thing is.

Here's a quote by David Moreira da Silva about the Islands that I translated from French:

"Housing, essential organ of the city, offers us in Porto obe of the most miserable and tragic displays and one of the grave causes that greatly contribute to the huge mortality that is constant. We say, justly, that Porto as a city is the vastest cemetery in Europe."

(Parallel to this there was also the "Sleep Business", which consisted of renting places to sleep. The main two were sub-renting, in which you rented a place to sleep and paid by the hour, and the Rope, in which you rented a piece of rope to lean on while sleeping. Thought it might be interesting to add.)

I'm not mentioning as we go because it'd be exhausting, but backlash was VERY strong every step of the way. Doctors were warning against living conditions in the Islands and city hall was trying to pass laws banning these types of buildings by extending their jurisdiction deeper into the city's plots of land. But they were unsuccessful.

They tried to propose a rehabilitation of the Islands in the early 20th century but their inhabitants basically responded with "Please tear our houses down and make us new ones somewhere else. The Islands are unsalvageable".

The whole factory work-life thing ended with the fascist dictatorship, which reorganized the city centre, but there's still plenty of people living in Islands today.

To this day, the Islands stand as a warning of what rampant capitalism does to people when left unchecked. But that doesn't stop tone-deaf bourgeois pricks from romanticizing them.

This has been a rant. I hope you enjoyed it <3

[alcnfr]

Sometimes if it gets too wet, Cicada larva will built a tower/turret. They can stay under cover in their little mud hut above ground, well until I flipped the lid for demonstration purposes. I did place it back again. (Peanut for scale)

[mini-uzzy]

I may or may not have started a project that will probably overwhelming me...

[woodnrust]

Been really into surviving lately

[dlyarchitecture]

[moonshinenum]

[zephiraz]

Decorates my freighter a bit, falls in love with mud huts

I had to take out the Funny Man Exhibit because it started attracting Serious Men instead

[philosophika]

Just to add that the (2005!!!) film Mr and Mrs Smith staring Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt depicted Bogotá, Colombia like this:

When actually, it looks like this:

Please note the lack of bomb smoke and coca fields.

Someone said "Are you really so stupid to think that Africa has the same technological advances as us? If they did they would probably have clean water and not live in houses made of sticks and mud. Get over yourself and stop being so ignorant."..... Below is a tiny collection of images of the Africa they refuse to show you..

ches

I’m sorry you’ve been made to believe that the whole of Africa is poor, I really am..

[starlene]

Here's a nice story I learned in the Norwegian ski museum:

In 1895, polar explorers Fridtjof Nansen and Hjalmar Johansen were having a bad time. Their expedition had faced some hardships and they were forced to stay on Franz Josef Land in a little hut they built out of mud and stones. In their hut, they slept for circa 20 hours a day, and spent the remaining four hours watching the northern lights or reminiscing about the comforts of home and the books they had read.

After several months of this, and nine months of sleeping in the same sleeping bag to stay warm, on New Year's Eve, Nansen finally gathered his courage and asked Johansen if they should start adressing each other with the informal you.

This is where the story ended in the museum, so unfortunately, I can't tell you whether Johansen answered yes or no.

[attractthecrows]

artfight would be fun and i dont even have an job at the moment to distract me BUT. i am busy. doing PLASTER

[hasdrubal-gisco]

would love to be one them fair-skinned, green eyed pashtuns, the neo-bactrian larp potential would be insane. the tweets you could compose with that phenotype

[king-of-men]

"By certain metrics" which I don't actually agree are at all important, so. Although plausibly a Marxist would, yes.

"feudalism was better than capitalism, why did we invent [capitalism thing]" <- reactionary, fascist even

"capitalism is progressively worsening as the contradictions of the system become increasingly undeniable, look at how [thing] has been affected by this recently" <- not fascist, progressive and Marxist even.

"capitalism is progressively worsening things and so we need to Go Back to [time period or thing]" <- reactionary fascist nonsense again