Iraqi architect Salma Samar Damluji has won the ‘Global Award for Sustainable Architecture’ for her mud-brick renovation work in Yemen

Mud. Muck. Dirt. Clay. Earth. Call it what you like – it’s the stuff of life and also of sustainable architecture. From the stunning mud mosque of Djenne in Mali to the clay tower homes of Yemen, earth architecture has been used to create some stunning and sustainable buildings. Indeed, Iraqi architect Salma Samar Damluji has just been awarded the Global Award for Sustainable Architecture for helping to renovate the mud built towns of Hadramut in Yemen.

The fact Damluji has won this important architecture award is all the more ironic when you consider that she almost never became an architect at all. A couple of years into her architecture studies in London, she was bored and on the verge of quitting. By complete chance she stumbled across Hassan Fathy’s book about his earth-inspired architecture work at Gourna. “I suddenly discovered that I had been studying the wrong type of architecture,” she explains.

Damluji decided to finish her studies and focused on mud architecture. In 1975 she left to work with Hassan Fathy in Cairo and she began teaching Islamic Art and Architecture in Lebanon. In 1980 she joined the UN and was posted to Yemen where she became fascinated by the mud fortresses of Hadramut.

Once the last reserve of mud brick architecture, conflict and economic decline meant that many in Hadramut abandoned their sculpted homes to the wilderness in the 1990s. “I was the first “architect” per se to set my eyes on these sites,” she explains in an interview. “So I felt I had a very important role, to convey this, study this, institutionalise this and create centres of learning.”

In 2005, Damluji visited Hadramut again and decided to work on renovating and restoring some of the mud-built homes in Wadi Daw’an. To this end Damluji established the Daw’an Mud Brick Architecture Foundation to help renovate these crumbling structures and keep the knowledge around their construction alive. The Foundation surveys villages, palaces and houses to try and save them and to pass on knowledge to architects and students as well as the locals. The simple construction technique involving mud is still used by half the world’s population.

With the help of artisans from the region, the foundation has rebuilt walls, sealed roofs and trained Yemeni students. On its website it states that the landscape of the Wadi is threatened by commercial contractors, and its coherent ecological structure and identity is being eroded. “As a result, the integrity and sustainability of its settlements and landscape is already at risk. Natural resources, skills and agricultural wealth are declining, with a detrimental effect on the economic and historical heritage and future of the region. The Foundation is dedicated to consolidating the urban and cultural wealth of Hadramut and Wadi Daw’an and to sustaining the natural and built environment.”

Whilst the restoration work is always a battle with time, Damluji says it a battle she can’t help fight. She adds that the aim of the project is not to restore the buildings into museums but to enable locals to actually live and work in the semi-abandoned mud villages of Hadramut.

For a detailed breakdown of some of the restoration work see ‘The Restoration of Masjid al-Faqih in ‘Aynat, Wadi Hadramut‘

Top image from Vladimir Melnik @ Shutterstock.com and subsequent photos via First Earth/ David Sheen

For more on earth architecture see:
Hassan Fathy Is The Middle East’s Father of Sustainable Architecture
Mud Structures in the Muslim World: Spectacular and Sustainable
Yemen’s Manhattan of the Desert Boast 400 Habitable Clay Towers

The post Iraqi Mud Architect Wins Prestigious Sustainability Award appeared first on Green Prophet.

Through his free movie First Earth David Sheen is passing on the positive transformation that occurred in his life after learning about ecological architecture.  

When David Sheen first decided to make a film that depicts the history, necessity, and straight-up sensibility of ecological architecture, he had no idea what a massive task he had set for himself. It took four years to scout out both ancient and contemporary natural homes on four continents and hundreds of hours of footage to create First Earth – Uncompromising Ecological Architecture.

Remarkably, the Canadian-born Israeli designer and reporter has never sought fame or fortune. Instead, he hopes to pass on to everyone, regardless of their demographic, the positive transformation that learning about healthy homes has created in his life. First Earth has been translated into 12 different languages and costs absolutely nothing to watch. This is not a trick – we promise.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JFTwnTbLPBU[/youtube]

Pursuing a more meaningful life

Sheen explained in a Skype interview with Green Prophet that he moved to Tel Aviv from Canada in 1999 and worked as a Graphic Designer. In time the conventional consumer lifestyle in Tel Aviv lost its meaning and he sought out a new place to pursue a healthier, more natural lifestyle.

“Kibbutz Lotan really appealed to me on a gut level,” he said.

A decade ago, Kibbutz Lotan in Israel’s Negev desert – now a world-famous center for all things ecological – was just beginning to experiment with green building projects. Sheen was lucky to be among the first on this exciting new scene.

After six months of building healthy homes at the Kibbutz, he then decided to return to Canada to deepen his knowledge and pursue a Masters in Architecture at the University of Toronto.

Learning the ropes in the United States

But it became apparent very quickly that Sheen’s ideas were too unconventional for the University’s industrial architecture curriculum, so he enrolled at the North American School of Natural Building in the United States instead.

“It was amazing,” he said. But it wasn’t easy. Sheen had to adjust to living in Oregon’s dense, wet forests and to building with his own hands and feet. Then he did an apprenticeship with a leading ecological building firm called TSUI Design.

It was while he was traveling up and down the west coast to visit other natural homes that Sheen began to document what he was learning. “Most people who were involved with natural building didn’t know how to disseminate their knowledge using modern technology,” he explained. So he decided to bridge the gap between these two worlds – seemingly at odds with each other.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QoSdnMEhRa0[/youtube]

Telling the whole story

He traveled to Ghana, Ethiopia, England, Europe, and Yemen, where he witnessed first hand the incredible “Manhattan of the Desert” mud towers that have survived hundreds of year, among other places, to gather material for his film.

“I’m a perfectionist,” he said. “I wanted to tell the whole story.” And that is exactly what he has done in the most comprehensive cinematic overview of earth architecture – from its origins to its future – that we have seen.

Sheen is not independently wealthy and had very little funding to make this incredible resource available to the wider public. But he did receive a lot of help from friends and others – a little bit of money here, a few airline miles there, and time.

“They believed in what I was doing,” he said.

First Earth demonstrates that using local, renewable building materials with a low carbon footprint and intelligent design to reduce energy requirements is not only good for “eco-freakos” – everyone can benefit from this knowledge. And we have done for thousands of years.

12 Chapters from the heart

There are 12 chapters, beginning with What’s Wrong With Architecture. Sheen unravels the evolution of architecture from the ancient, sustainable model to the contemporary industrial model that usurps far too many natural resources.

He then moves on to depict examples of African and American natural buildings before proceeding to European, Arabian, Urban, and International earth projects. There are several other chapters in between that are very easy to follow thanks to handy sub titles.

Anyone interested in earth bag construction, building with cob, or any other kind of natural building materials and methods should visit David Sheen’s website and enjoy – one chapter at a time – a project that was compiled with a whole lot of heart.

:: David Sheen

More on Ecological Architecture From the Middle East:

13 Principles of Sustainable Architecture From Nader Khalili Student

Iranian Architect Nader Khalili Built Earth Architecture Fit for Space

Woman Builds Off-Grid Earth Bag Home for Just $3,761

The post Free Movie: First Earth – Uncompromising Ecological Architecture appeared first on Green Prophet.