Earth Architecture
Architecture and design that prioritizes natural materials, environmental sustainability, and ecological restoration.
Earthen Angularity: A Stepped Tower in Accra That Grows a Garden Through Its Core
Tapering floor plates on angled struts wrap a leaf-lined atrium, staging a meeting between vernacular ground and modern frame in Accra.
Earthen Oasis: Mortarless Earth Blocks Stack a Shared Garden Into Accra Housing
Kente-patterned columns, interlocking earth walls and fish-filled pools turn an Accra housing block into a farm, a commons and a green refuge.
Ayodele: Earth-Built Housing That Pushes Back Against Accra's Concrete and Asphalt
A modular earth-built housing block for central Accra stacks family units around shared courtyards, craft studios and planted roofs.
Earth Made: A Rammed Earth Courtyard Housing Scheme Built Around a Stepped Water Kund
Three earthen bars frame a sunken, terraced pool in Gwalior, proposing that the oldest building material can still organise shared urban life.
Earth Made Residence: Stacking a Ghanaian Compound House into 36 Units Made Entirely of Earth
Cublo reimagines Accra's traditional compound house as a dynamic, cantilevered block that argues earthen architecture can be iconic.
Earth Made: Rammed Earth Housing in Accra Organised Around an Old African Courtyard
A shortlisted proposal stacks four apartment types around a planted courtyard, letting earthen walls and long openings do the cooling work.
Matéria Base Grows a Rammed Earth and Timber House out of a Mantiqueira Hillside in Joanópolis
In Joanópolis, Brazil, Matéria Base builds a 497 m² mountain house of earthen walls, stone piers and sawtooth timber roofs gathered around a pond.
FOLDINGS: A Faceted Coastal Settlement That Grows From Its Slope in Tuff Stone and Timber
Folded timber roofs rise from volcanic tuff bases across a coastal slope, turning topography into a language of communal and private space.
e-den: A Mangrove-Inspired Seed for Recolonizing and Repairing a Post-Apocalyptic Earth
Shortlisted in Architecture of the Apocalypse 2020, e-den recasts colonization as repair: a mangrove-like seed that shelters people and heals land.
H&P Architects Wrap a Vietnamese House in Perforated Brick to Fuse Living with Agriculture
A 270 square meter home in Mao Khe, Vietnam, uses layered terracotta screens and rooftop gardens to resist the erasure of farmland by urbanization.
Inside Out: A Bamboo Eco-Chapel That Turns Ethiopia's Sacred Forest Tradition Into a Restoration Engine
A three-tier Ethiopian chapel under a slatted bamboo shell becomes the seed of a forest, with a seed bank, workshop and residences ringing the sanctuary.
Kiln Tower for the Brickworks Museum : Museum & Industrial Architecture by Boltshauser Architekten
An experimental prestressed rammed-earth tower in Cham reactivates brickmaking heritage while advancing sustainable construction and contemporary material research.
