Earth architecture

Dirt—as in clay gravel sand silt soil loam mud—is everywhere and it´s free. The ground we walk on and grow crops in also just happens to be the most widely used building material on the planet. Civilizations throughout time have used it to create stable warm low-impact structures. The world´s first skyscrapers were built of mud brick. While the vast legacy of traditional and vernacular earthen construction has been widely discussed little attention has been paid to the contemporary tradition of earth architecture. Author Ronald Rael founder of Eartharchitecture.org provides a history of building with earth in the modern era focusing particularly on projects constructed in the last few decades that use rammed earth mud brick compressed earth cob and several other interesting techniques made more relevant than ever by ecological and economic imperatives.