cinta4.jpg (20573 bytes)

 

LIVING ARCHITECTURE
(a visual analysis)

Patricia Gómez Jaramillo
Architect, Artist, Critic of Art

 

·       INTRODUCTION
·       CONSTRUCTION IN STONE
·       CONSTRUCTION IN EARTH: TAPIA, ADOBE AND BAHAREQUE
·       CONSTRUCTION IN WOOD
·       CONSTRUCTION IN VEGETABLE FIBERS
·       TENTS
·       A MANNER OF CONCLUSION

 

CONSTRUCTION IN EARTH: TAPIA, ADOBE AND BAHAREQUE



 

Ensamble of housing with sacred tree

Ensamble


Church

Interior

Perú

 

Perú. Sculpture by Víctor Delfín


Perú. Sculpture by Víctor Delfín

Houseing

 

Colombia. Villa in San Pedro Alejandrino, Santa Marta

Colombia. Villa in San Pedro Alejandrino, Santa Marta

Coffee farm

 

Colombia. La Concha

Colombia. House in Boyacá

Ecuador. Ensamble of housing.

 
Housing in the Atlas Mountains

Street


Detail

Detail.

Marruecos.

 

Street

Gas station


Housing

Façade

Kasbah

Marruecos

 

Marruecos. Interior of kasbah

Egypt. Housing along the Nile River.


Egypt. Housing along the Nile River.

 

Egypt. Ensamble of housing.

The uncooked earth is the constructive material of greater universality. The techniques include pressed earth or tapia, mixtures with porous vegetables materials or blocks of earth where vegetable fiber is already present, adobe with mixtures of sand, and adobe stabilized with cement.

The jacal is the primitive hut, of earth and vegetables materials. The form of beehive semi-buried like the type found in Khirokitia, Chipre, that is an archetype that reappears in different cultures, like in the hogan of New Mexico.

The efficiency of the material bases an opinion on their readiness in situ and in their thermal mass, which makes it efficient in any climate.

The construction in earth has been widely utilized in the Moslem world. The principal architectural characteristics of this culture are:

  1. The primacy of the interior space as opposed to the exterior or façade. It has been called "the occult architecture."
  2. The interior is organized around patios and fountains of water like climatic element.
  3. The added character of the housing, never terminated; the formation of groups for nucleus alignments.
  4. The separation of men and women, with ornamental emphasis in the rooms of masculine reception.
  5. Formal consolidation: minimal stylistic variations in time.
  6. The non- emphasis in directional and axial conditions.
  7. The extreme mobility of the culture.
  8. The extension of using materials in the solution of different buildings for housing.
  9. The visual negation of the reality of weight, mass, and structural behavior.
  10. Great formal plasticity, inventive space.

"How we treat the land is reflected in how we treat the people that live on it; the protection and preservation of one demands the protection and preservation of the other."
Sulaiman Mahdie

"Our relationship with the land is that we are more and no more than the space we occupy at once… It is the land herself that has true possession of us as a people."
Joe Dale Tate Nevaquaya

 

Inicio | Presentation | Living architecture | Construction in earth: tapia, adobe and bahareque

Investigation Group Arte Naturaleza
Grant from the Ministry of Culture of Colombia
Email: artenaturaleza@hotmail.com
http://www.artenaturaleza.org.co