Follow this tag to curate your own personalized Activity Stream and email alerts.
The rush to blame the destruction that ensued in the wake of this month’s devastating 6.9 magnitude earthquake in Morocco on rammed earth and the region's other traditional earthen construction methods is a flawed conjecture, according to an explanation penned recently by University of York... View full entry
It’s very significant. In terms of personal meaning, I have approached it as a kind of meditation and reflection on the idea of deep time—planetary and galaxy time that is beyond the human timeline.
Asaase III is, in a way, a representation of how I imagine an ideal city—a city that is in symbiosis with the Earth, acknowledging it and honoring it in a very deep way, but also absolutely transforming it and creating new features.
— ARTnews
The new (permanent) addition to the Griot Museum of Black History is Adjaye’s second foray into rammed earth sculpture, following a 2021 installation at the Gagosian Gallery in New York. COUNTERPUBLIC curator Allison Glenn says the commission was born of her desire to connect the museum to the... View full entry
The material is essentially free, or at least locally available for a fraction of the cost of concrete...Mud construction contributes little to global warming. And concrete tends to be a gateway, once people can afford it, to another fossil-fuel-guzzling invention: air-conditioning. — National Geographic
Peter Schwartzstein explores the work of folks such as Clara Sawadogo, Francis Kéré and Salima Naji who are trying to rekindle an interest in materials and methods that have a long tradition in Africa and the Middle East. View full entry
The Griot Museum of Black History will soon be home to a public art installation from the designer of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture.
Architect David Adjaye will design Asaase III, a monument that surrounds the museum. The structure will be built of rammed earth, a process using soil and other natural materials from the St. Louis region to make solid structures.
— St. Louis Public Radio
The rammed earth installation is the new Order of Merit appointee’s second such following his well-profiled commission for Antwaun Sargent’s Social Works show at the Gagosian Gallery in New York. Adjaye had also incorporated earthwork into his commission for the 2019 Venice Biennale and... View full entry
A new architectural installation from MIT’s Norman B. Leventhal Center for Advanced Urbanism (LCAU) for the Mextrópoli Architecture and City Festival in Mexico City is leveraging the school’s recent innovations in materials research to weave a narrative about the centuries-old capital through... View full entry
Even though the buildings in Sana'a are thousands of years old, they remain "terribly contemporary", says Salma Samar Damluji, co-founder of the Daw'an Mud Brick Architecture Foundation in Yemen.
Damluji says it is easy to see why these mud buildings have not lost their appeal – they are well-insulated, sustainable and extremely adaptable for modern use. "It is the architecture of the future," says Damluji.
— BBC
Yemen’s largest city Sana'a may even supplant Franis Kéré's home country as the world’s leading rammed earth capital, with a host of stunning, UNESCO-protected sites scattered around its Old City area. The material is one of many in an arsenal of alternatives being used to combat high... View full entry
