CONTEMPORARY EARTHEN ARCHITECTURE IN MEXICO

The purpose of this study is to put forward an appraisal of current remarkable works of earthen architecture in Mexico, where raw earth architecture, particularly in adobe, has been built since ancient times, nevertheless, it has been substituted by industrial materials that bring poor living conditions for the inhabitants both in urban as in rural areas. Recently, rather than vernacular architecture built by their users, it is within architectonic design that a kind of revival has been taking place over the past two decades. This new language is being written both with adobe as with rammed earth building techniques. Interesting to point out is that the introduced technology on raw earth, is based upon an exchange of information between traditional workmanship and building methods transmitted as knowledge and skills acquired in an intuitive way along several generations (Balkrishna, 2007), plus the contribution that architects bring with technology and design, permitting constructions to improve in addition to its living conditions and durability. As prior methodology, the results of this paper are based upon interviews made to the designers, builders and users of the works exposed, in the observation of the technical behavior that the use of raw earth has had and in consulting written references about the works exposed when available. Though still in a low scale, encouraging is to notice that both private as well as public investors are beginning to get convinced of the benefits earthen architecture represents in terms of energy saving, as costs are reduced in a considerable way, not to mention the environmental damage that diminishes considerably when industrial materials are substituted by earthen ones.