Natural Building

MARCH 6, 2020

Studio Rick Joy’s Tucson Mountain House was constructed from rammed earth an is a mix of modern minimalism and vernacular construction. This house is one of 250 buildings in The Art of Earth Architecture: Past, Present, Future , a new book by Jean Dethier and Princeton Architectural Press. James Wang.

Architecture 72

Architecture Tucson Housing Feasibility 72

Natural Building

DECEMBER 18, 2022

I was teaching geology in Tucson at the time and living in a house that functioned miserably in the Tucson climate. I heard that there was going to be a lecture series at the university architecture college about design for arid climates. I was learning a lot, but I just didn’t have any real training in architecture.

Nebraska 98

Nebraska Housing US Tucson 98

Natural Building

OCTOBER 8, 2022

Adobe is the humblest of building materials, for which earth, straw, and water are formed into bricks and then dried in the sun. In essence, in Marfa, if you own a house made of adobe, the humblest of building materials, you’re going to owe more taxes. Some of the world’s oldest cities, going back to 9500 BC, were made of mud bricks.

Texas 52

Texas Housing Concrete Architecture 52