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Architects, officials, and villagers confirm the trend: People are discarding traditional materials, mostly mud, in favor of concrete, as soon as they can afford it. As living standards increase making concrete more accessible, some of the world’s hottest, poorest landscapes are rapidly morphing from brown to cinder block grey. — National Geographic
Architects like Francis Kéré have been attempting to buck the trend of using concrete by experimenting with upgraded versions of terrestrial materials like mud bricks that simultaneously provide tools for community-building in developing countries like Burkina Faso. Facade detail of Kéré... View full entry
The famed monument to love ... has for years been acquiring a yellow tinge despite a ban on coal-powered industries in the area.
Authorities have been applying "mud packs" around the side walls and towers since last year to draw the impurities out of the stone, but have not yet touched the main central dome. [...]
The mud-pack therapy involves covering the surface with fuller's earth and leaving it to dry before removing it with soft brushes and distilled water.
— yahoo.com
More from the annals of preservation:"Never the Same River Twice" – Experimental preservation and architectural authorship with Jorge Otero-Pailos, on Archinect Sessions #47Saddam Hussain's architectural heritage—and what to do with itThe Seagram Building after the Four Seasons: maintaining a... View full entry
