The Adobe Alliance Blog
January 2012 Updates
No formal workshop is taking place this spring 2012 in Presidio, Texas, at Swan House. Instead a group of friends and allies is welcome to work there in the Big Bend mainly on finishing the Nubian vault on the west side of the house and to experiment in plasters inspired by instructor Stevan de la Rosa. For information contact simoneswan@gmail.com.
Simone was invited last September 2011 by Habitat for Humanity Southeast Asia in Bangkok to present her work on adobe design and the building by hand of vaulted and domed woodless roofs . The invitation was prompted by Fernando Morales, Mexican architect at H for H, who is actively promoting earth architecture in the desert regions of southeast Asia -- Australia, India -- and beyond, in central Asia.
"This large gathering, in contrast to most conferences, was spirited, optimistic, enthusiastic," Simone reports, "An energy among professionals from Thailand, Cambodia, the Philippines, Malaysia indicates to me a future of sensible and sensitive solutions in the field of housing built of non-industrial materials." As a result the Adobe Alliance will work this spring 2012 near Darjeeling with the Abari Group (see link on this website) to build in West Bengal an elementary school for local children and for refugees from Nepal. Materials are mud, either in bricks or rammed, and bamboo for structural elements and protection from rains. Nripal Adhikary, alumnus from a 2005 workshop with Adobe Alliance, is the architect in charge.
This spring also, Simone will be contributing to the Lucia Garzon school, Technotierra, teaching women to organize co-operatively their owner-built housing out of earth in Colombia, near Bogota. The dates will be confirmed.
Simone Swan
September 2011 Activities
We presented ourselves in Bangkok at the Habitat for Humanity congress on Sustainable Shelter In The Age of Climate Change and Disaster, then with no necessary change to the Earth USA conference in Albuquerque. Both in September 2011.
In Memoriam. Hassan Fatima, 1993-2011.
Photo Yasmina Rossi, Swan House, Presidio, Texas.
Tima was discovered at the dog pound in Marfa, Texas.
She enriched our lives in Texas, New York, New Mexico.
Mutable Trip to Yemeni Conference on Mud, Stone & Shale, February 2011
We went touring the beautiful country of Yemen two weeks prior to joining a conference on its architecture and the materials of stone, mud and shale; while on the island of Soqotra off the coast of Somalia, we learned four days before, that it was canceled. Peaceful demonstrations for a regime change had just begun in February, then lit up in Sanaa like a bonfire after we had left. Download the Yemen PDF for more details.
Joy in Mud Architecture
I have just returned from Chihuahua city where I presented part of my work on powerpoint, with a translator. However, I'd start various exciting topics in Spanish, then turn to the translator when stumbling on a word or a thought. After this rather comical and informal mix which the students seemed to enjoy and which a professor qualified as "adorable," I shall mobilize expert assistance to coordinate visuals and text.
I had the joy to meet a remarkable architect who presented before me, Mauricio Rocha Iturbide of Mexico DF. When we discovered our shared and profound passion for Louis I. Kahn, we promptly fell in love. Mauricio's rammed earth and adobe work is in Mexico, but he has worked in other materials in Europe. Mauricio is a few months younger than his good friend Rick Joy of Arizona, my favorite of all US architects, who has just turned 50; to my further joy I have just discovered he is the son of the revered photographer Graciela Iturbide!
In Chihuahua I was received, welcomed, sheltered, transported and spoiled by my good friends, both architects, Ana and Roberto Carvajal. For 48 hours basked in an atmosphere of optimism, charm and human warmth -- the very opposite of Santa Fe. Were Chihuahuaenses not living in an atmosphere of fear due to the unpredictable violence of the narco traffickers, I'd move!
There one appreciates the desert, the sunlight and dry air, the hills denuded of trees which blunt one's gaze. The eye rests on the freedom of vast distances.