Worldcrunch
When a violent earthquake rocked the High Atlas in 2023, traditional earthen buildings resisted the seismic shocks better than other more modern ones. Yet despite its resilience and sustainability, this valuable cultural heritage is the victim of misperceptions and risks abandonment.
Concrete and glass are often thought of as the only building materials of modern architecture. But Francis Diébédo Kéré, the first African winner of a prestigious Pritzker architecture prize, works with clay, whose sustainability is not the only benefit.
These wrinkly clay busts were sitting in the backyard of a Sardinian sculptor’s workshop. With the sun on their grimacing faces, this felt like the right image to share today as temperatures broke records across my native France.
Ignored during the 20th century, mudbrick is reappearing in modern Swiss construction. Not only is it environmentally friendly, it takes less energy to produce and saves on heating and cooling costs.