ABSTRACT
The building and upkeep of conventional earthen structures was traditionally a collective familial exercise, sometimes even requiring additional help from members of the community to see the project successfully completed. This made traditional house-building a familial and/or communal event as well as an exercise in social cohesion. With the use of increasingly specialized modern materials, the communal aspect of building has largely been taken out of the equation; most construction is now contracted out to professionals. This makes the temporal character of building in the community much more oriented around an individual time frame as a communal one. Perhaps inspired by a new setting, individuals building on the outskirts of town have also made a strong move away from traditional building methods and are using cement and corrugated iron sheeting roofs. The attraction of such materials over more traditional ones is motivated by two impulses, one practical and the other ideological.
