One in four people around the world lives in a house made of mud, apparently. It’s an ancient building material, and a current one too. In an age of climate change, we need building materials with low embodied carbon, and depending on where you live in the world, it’s cheap and accessible. But as this little video shows, mud building techniques can easily be lost. In California, where there is a rich history of adobe construction, it was very nearly lost from the building codes altogether.
Ben Loescher is an architect who is working to train people in California in adobe use. His organisation is called Adobe is not Software.
While I’m here, this video is from the iLookUp film challenge, an annual competition from the American Institute of Architects. This year the theme is about architecture bringing change in the community, and there are lots of great projects to discover.
The Earthbound Report 