Earthen Architecture

"The ground we walk on and grow crops in also just happens to be the most widely used building material on the planet. Civilizations throughout time have used it to create stable warm low-impact structures. The world's first skyscrapers were built of mud brick. Paul Revere Chairman Mao and Ronald Reagan all lived in earth houses at various points in their lives and several of the buildings housing Donald Judd's priceless collection at the Chinati Foundation in Marfa Texas are made of mud brick." "While the vast legacy of traditional and vernacular earthen construction has been widely discussed, little attention has been paid to the contemporary tradition of earth architecture. Author Ronald Rael founder of Eartharchitecture.org provides a history of building with earth in the modern era focusing particularly on projects constructed in the last few decades that use rammed earth mud brick compressed earth cob and several other interesting techniques. Earth Architecture presents a selection of more than 40 projects that exemplify new creative uses of the oldest building material on the planet."--BOOK JACKET.

For almost ten thousand years, unbaked earth has been used to build remarkable structures, from simple dwellings to palaces, temples, and fortresses both grand and durable. Jean Dethier spent fifty years researching this landmark global survey, which spans five continents and 250 sites. The Art of Earth Architecture demonstrates the wide-ranging applications and sustainability of this building material, while presenting a manifesto for its ecological significance. Featuring raw-earth masterpieces, monumental structures, and little known works, the book includes the temples and palaces of Mesopotamia, the Great Wall of China, large-scale urban developments in Tenochtitlan in Mexico, the medinas of Morocco, and housing in Marrakech and Bogota. This definitive reference features many UNESCO World Heritage sites and contains essays on the historical, technical, and cultural aspects of raw-earth construction from twenty experts in the field, as well as hundreds of photographs, illustrations, and architectural drawings.

In a continuously changing world, there has been a growing interest in the protection of vernacular heritage and earthen architecture. The need to protect and enhance this fragile heritage via intelligent responses to threats from nature and the environment has become evident.Historically, vernacular heritage research focussed on philosophical aspe

Until recently little collective attention has been paid to earthen architecture within Muslim cultures.This book endeavours to share knowledge and methods of different disciplines such as history, anthropology, archaeology and architecture.

Vernacular architecture in general and earthen architecture in particular, with their rich variety of forms worldwide, are custodians of the material culture and identity of the peoples who built them. In addition, they are widely recognized as ancestral examples of sustainability in all their variants and interpretations, and the architecture of the present ought to learn from these when designing the sustainable architecture of the future. The conservation of these architectures – seemingly simple yet full of wisdom – is to be undertaken now given their intrinsic value and their status as genuine examples of sustainability to be learnt from and interpreted in contemporary architecture. Vernacular and earthen architecture: Conservation and Sustainability will be a valuable source of information for academics and professionals in the fields of Environmental Science, Civil Engineering, Construction and Building Engineering and Architecture.

Earthen architecture is widespread all over the world and demonstrates a significant richness of varieties both in application and in materials used. This book discusses and debates the lessons that can be learned from earthen architecture to create sustainable architecture today, both for the conservation of traditional existing buildings and the

For millennia, people of all cultures have decorated the surfaces of their domestic, religious, and public buildings. Earthen architecture in particular has been, and continues to be, a common ground for surface decoration such as paintings, sculpted bas-relief, and ornamental plasterwork. This volume explores the complex issues associated with preserving these surfaces. Case studies from Asia, Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and the Americas are presented. The publication is the result of a colloquium held in 2004 at Mesa Verde National Park, Colorado, co-organized by the Getty Conservation Institute (GCI) and the National Park Service (NPS). The meeting brought together fifty-five conservators, cultural resource managers, materials scientists, engineers, architects, archaeologists, anthropologists, and artists from eleven countries. Divided into four themes--Archaeological Sites, Museum Practice, Historic Buildings, and Living Traditions--the papers examine the conservation of decorated surfaces on earthen architecture within these different contexts.

On October 14-19, 1990, the 6th International Conference on the Conservation of Earthen Architecture was held in Las Cruces, New Mexico. Sponsored by the GCI, the Museum of New Mexico State Monuments, ICCROM, CRATerre-EAG, and the National Park Service, under the aegis of US/ICOMOS, the event was organized to promote the exchange of ideas, techniques, and research findings on the conservation of earthen architecture. Presentations at the conference covered a diversity of subjects, including the historic traditions of earthen architecture, conservation and restoration, site preservation, studies in consolidation and seismic mitigation, and examinations of moisture problems, clay chemistry, and microstructures. In discussions that focused on the future, the application of modern technologies and materials to site conservation was urged, as was using scientific knowledge of existing structures in the creation of new, low-cost, earthen architecture housing.