ABSTRACT
Building technology curricula in the 20th century has been intensely focused on technoscientific knowledge and industrialization effort of engineered materials such as concrete and steel. Generations of architecture and engineering students have been equipped and trained on a material status quo that dictated global environmental and societal changes. While nonconventional and “ecological” building materials have been introduced to architecture students as vernacular “exotics”, it is only in recent years that these materials have been receiving recognition as legitimate contemporary alternatives to upscaled mainstream construction. Specifically, natural building materials that range from geo-materials (resulting in systems such as cob, rammed earth, and compressed earth blocks) to bio-materials (that form systems such as light straw clay, hempcrete, and strawbale construction) are being increasingly implemented within core curriculum agendas, acknowledging their important role in a low-carbon, minimally processed, non-toxic, and community self-sufficient future. Indeed, the integration of natural building materials within architectural pedagogy have helped maximize the potential of freely available resources and engage local communities in hands-on and important design/build demonstrations.
This chapter proposes pedagogical pathways to establish and catalyze academic and community connections with natural building materials. While focusing on hands-on teaching frameworks of specifically earth-based materials, this chapter presents experimental workflows and pedagogical activities according to three modalities: soil characterization, material geographies, and participatory design/build. Intersections with current research on natural building materials that challenges centralized and depletive industry practices are presented, exploring the required shift in the building industry towards a farm-to-building supply chain mechanisms and a more socially engaging construction process.
