UCLA Architecture Lab

The Architecture Working Group is pleased to announce that our next event will be held on Wednesday, April 8, 2026 at 5:00 PM PT at the Cotsen Institute of Archaeology Room A222 and via Zoom. With the support of the Cotsen Institute of Archaeology, Classics, Art History, and the CMRS Center for Early Global Studies, we are honored to host Dr. Diane Favro, UCLA Professor Emerita. Dr. Favro is a Distinguished Research Professor of Architecture and Urban Design and studies the Roman built environment, including The Urban Image of Augustan Rome, and was president and Fellow of the Society of Architectural Historians and Samuel H. Kress Professor at CASVA. Dr. Favro will present a talk entitled “Constructing Meaning: Anicia Juliana, The Building-Loving Woman.” A light reception will precede the event at 4:30 PM PT.

Please register in advance for this talk.

NEWS | Lab member Rachel Schloss has been working with Mater Iniciativa and the community of K’acllaraccay on the research and development of a qollqa project: a contemporary storehouse informed by Inca storage practices and designed for present-day needs. Completed in December, the structure sits in the Colparay sector of K’acllaraccay, just above Moray’s terraces in Cusco. Designed by architect Juan Carlos Pareja, the project is not a reconstruction. Developed through Mater Iniciativa’s ongoing work with the community, it draws on Inca qollqa principles of wind, altitude, and climate, together with community knowledge of food storage today. The space will be used by Mater Iniciativa and the community as a living site for storage, experimentation, and shared care of food and seed. The project was recently featured in El Comercio. Read more at the link in our bio.

La miembro del laboratorio Rachel Schloss ha estado trabajando con Mater Iniciativa y la comunidad de K’acllaraccay en la investigación y el desarrollo de un proyecto de qollqa: un almacén contemporáneo inspirado en las prácticas de almacenamiento incaicas y diseñado para las necesidades actuales. Finalizada en diciembre, la estructura se ubica en el sector de Colparay de K’acllaraccay, justo por encima de las terrazas de Moray, en Cusco. Diseñado por el arquitecto Juan Carlos Pareja, el proyecto no es una reconstrucción. Desarrollado a través del trabajo continuo de Mater Iniciativa con la comunidad, retoma principios de las qollqas incaicas vinculados al viento, la altitud y el clima, junto con el conocimiento comunitario sobre el almacenamiento de alimentos en la actualidad. El espacio será utilizado por Mater Iniciativa y la comunidad como un sitio vivo para el almacenamiento, la experimentación y el cuidado compartido de alimentos y semillas. El proyecto fue destacado recientemente en El Comercio. Más información en el enlace de nuestra biografía.

INFO | After the Industrial Revolution, the history of rammed earth in Western Europe and the United
States was reframed. In France—as in Spain—earthen construction had long been used for both monumental and vernacular buildings. But in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, pisé de terre (French for rammed earth) was reimagined as a future technology.

This shift was championed by French architect François Cointeraux, born in Grenoble—a city with a rich earthen building tradition and today home to Cointeraux founded schools
of rural architecture to promote pisé as a solution for agricultural communities excluded from
industry.
Cointeraux also developed a rammed earth machine, the crécise, which inspired mechanized
versions in the U.S. Through Johnson’s book Rural Economy, these ideas crossed the Atlantic,
shaping American experiments in earthen construction. Later, such machines were promoted by
the UN and other development agencies as tools for self-building in rural regions worldwide.
The assumptions forged in this period—linking rammed earth to rural uplift and self-
help—continue to influence how earthen architecture is understood, deployed, and politicized
today.
Images: Illustrations from François Cointeraux’s ‘´Ecole d’architecture rurale’ 1793.
Further Reading:
Karin, F. 2022,. Reinventing earth architecture in the age of development. Architecture in
Development, edited by the Aggregate Architectural History Collaborative.
Cointereaux, F. 1813. Nouvelle architecture practique.
Johnson, S.W. 1806. Rural Economy: a Treatise on Pisé Building.

INFO | Rammed earth construction often allows for greater structural scale than traditional adobe brickwork. Because it produces solid, monolithic walls—rather than assembling partible bricks with mortar—rammed earth distributes stress more evenly, enabling taller and thicker walls that can support substantial architectural loads.
Across Southern Europe, especially on the Iberian Peninsula, this method was central to the construction of city walls, fortresses, and defensive infrastructure. For example, on the Iberian Peninsula, tapia–or tapial as it is known in Spanish–proliferated in the Middle Ages as a rammed earth technique often stabilized with lime and gypsum, which are plentiful in the geology of the Iberian Peninsula. 
Originating in the Near East, tapia took root on the Peninsula during the Islamic occupation and served a defensive structural purpose in the turbulent times that ensued. In large-scale applications, tapia walls commonly exceed a meter in thickness, bearing the weight of towers, battlements, and vaults for centuries.
Images: The City Walls of Niebla, defensive tapia structures encircling the city of Niebla in Huelva, Andalucía, Spain. 9th-11th centuries CE.

Further reading: 
 
Mileto, C. & Vegas, F. (eds.) La Restauración de la Tapia en la Península Ibérica: Criterios, Técnicas, Resultados, y Perspectivas. Valencia, ES: TC Cuadernos. 

Gómez Toscano et al. 1998. Arqueología urbana en Niebla. Actuación arqueológica de apoyo a la restauración de la Puerta de Sevilla. Anuario Arqueológico de Andalucía.

INFO | Rammed earth is an ancient building technique found on nearly every continent. It involves compacting a moistened mixture typically composed of sand, silt, clay, stabilizers like lime or ash, and temper into a large wooden mold known as a formwork. This process is
performed by multiple builders, working together to tamp the mixture layer-by-layber into dense
and durable blocks.

To prepare rammed earth is a highly corporeal and collective practice. After placing layers of soil mixture in a large wooden scaffolding mold, builders often use their whole bodies to compress the earth, stomping on the mud with their feet or hoisting a lever to operate a tamping rig. The technique demands considerable labor for enduring results: when properly built, rammed earth walls stand strong for thousands of years.

Further reading:
Images:
1. Constructing Wall with “Rammed Earth” Technique. n.d. Peabody Museum of Natural
History. Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History. Artstor.
https://jstor.org/stable/community.12287451.
2. Ait Ben Haddou: Rammed Earth Town, Ksar: Ext.: Construction of Walls. n.d. Visual Arts
Legacy Collection. Artstor. https://jstor.org/stable/community.13927110

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INFO | Adobe bricks are formed by hand or by mold, and not always in a rectangular shape. The decision of how to make adobes, and in what form to shape them, tells us about a building’s purpose and construction.

An example is the Great Mosque of Djenné, Mali, the largest adobe building in the world, which
is still standing today. The Sudano-Sahelian structure was originally built in the 13th century but changes
in technology accompanied reconstruction events. While Djenné’s construction originally involved small hand-shaped cylindrical bricks, standardized, mold-made bricks featured in the most recent 20th century reconstruction event. Although the planar surfaces of molded bricks allowed for efficiency in rebuilding, the new Mosque at Djenné lacks the contours and gestural marks of the collective building that the structure once had, and that some argue made it transcendent.

Further reading (links in bio):
1. Prussin, L 1973 The Architecture of Djenné: African Synthesis and Transformation.
2. Marchand, T 2009. Negotiating Licence and Limits: Expertise and Innovation in Djenné& #39;s
Building Trade. Africa: The Journal of the International African Institute.
3. Marchand, T 2009 The Masons of Djenné.

Images:
1. Jurgen, 2006. The Great Mosque, Djenné, Mali.
2. James Conlon, 2008, Traditional cylindrical mud brick at Djenné, Mali.
3. ArchEyes. 2016. The Great Mosque of Djenné: An Exploration of Traditional Mud
Architecture.

INFO | Adobe is one of the earliest known building materials, composed of clay-rich soil, fibers,
water, and other additives, then shaped and sun-dried. Incorporating elements from the
surrounding environment, adobes encapsulate ecological and human processes in mudbrick
form.

The term has deeper origins in the Egyptian hieroglyph (dbt), which represents the word
brick, which became ‘al-tob’ in Arabic. The long history of the word itself reflects adobe’s
enduring role as a means to transform the built environment in resourceful and creative ways.
Further reading (links in bio):
1. Auroville Earth Institute. 2025. Adobe Moulding.
2. Austin, GS. 1984. Adobe as a building material. New Mexico Geology.
3. US Department of Agriculture, 1941. Adobe Arch.
Images:
1. Blanc, E. 1998. Aït Ben Haddou, Morocco. Getty Conservation Institute.
2. Arnold, DY. 1999. Fotografía del Centro Textil en Livichuco, Bolivia. Aymara Language
Culture Audio-Visual Archive, UCLA Images Library.
3. Adobe Houses, Cordova, New Mexico. Baumann Collection, New Mexico History Museum.

INFO | How do you perceive earthen architecture? Long overlooked as simple or impermanent, earthen architectural techniques–including construction out of soil, fibers, and other natural materials– offer alternatives in an era of environmental instability. Yet, they are much more. As heritage techniques, they hold knowledge, cultural value, and tradition.

In the coming weeks, we’ll share a series exploring earthen building techniques from across cultures and time periods, highlighting their ecological, cultural, or historical significance.

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Further reading (links in bio):

Schiewe, Jessie. 2025. “‘My Next Home Must Be Fireproof’: Why More Angelenos Are Looking to Build ‘SuperAdobes.’” LA Times, February 20, 2025.

Zagorski, Anna. 2022. “Why Earthen Architecture May Be a Big Part of Our Future.” Getty News.

Mileto, Camilla, and Fernando Vegas. 2019. Earthen Architecture: Sustainability and Heritage. Universitat Politècnica de València.

Images:

Eric Blanc, 1994. Hassan Fathy-Inspired Earthen Architecture in Egypt. The Getty Conservation Institute.

Guillermo Aldana, 1994. Banani, Mali: view of granaries. The Getty Conservation Institute.

The recipient of the 2025 ALAA Dissertation Award is an alum and previous coordinator of the Architecture Lab at UCLA! Congratulations to Dr. AJ Meyer, who is being recognized for his excellent dissertation “The Givers of things: Tlamacazqueh and the Art of Religious Making in the Mexica and Early Transatlantic Worlds.” Dr. Meyer’s innovative dissertation examines the role of religious leaders called tlamacazqueh–or, in Nahua, “the givers of things”-–in Mexica ceremony. Specifically, he explores several modalities and materialities of making that these tlamacazqueh trained and specialized in, tracing their process from the harvest of raw material for making to the use of finished objects in ceremonial settings. In particular, we commend Dr. Meyer for his clever approach to the spatial, approaching making as embedded within an ecology of place.

Images: 1-Religious leader or tlamacazqui seated outside the Mexica calmecac. Nahua artist(s), Codex Mendoza, c. 1541, f. 61r. 2-Reconstructed and hypothetical plan of the Mexica calmecac. Drawing by Anthony Meyer.

EVENT | Monday, December 2nd at 1pm | Camilla Mileto and Fernando Vegas | “Earthen Architecture and Heritage Conservation: Case Studies from Spain” | co-sponsored by

The Architecture Working Group— co-organized by Rachel Schloss and Sarah Ortiz-Monasterio—will present our first event of the academic year on December 2nd! At 1pm in room A222 at the Cotsen Institute (basement of the Fowler Museum at UCLA), and on Zoom, we will welcome Camila Mileto and Fernando Vegas to present a hybrid lecture. Mileto and Vegas are professors of architecture and historic preservation at the Universitat Politècnica de Valencia, and current Getty Scholars housed in the Getty Conservation Institute. As architects, conservators, and researchers Mileto and Vegas take an innovative approach to earthen architecture restoration that begins with in-depth research through multidisciplinary methods. They will discuss various fascinating case studies from their practice including medieval and modern examples from Spain that exemplify often overlooked art earthen and tile-vaulting architecture in Spanish architecture.

Please share the event widely! To register for both in-person and online, please use this link: http://tinyurl.com/MiletoVegas

Sarah Ortiz-Monasterio is Co-Manager of the Architecture Lab at the UCLA Cotsen Institute of Archaeology and an M.A.-Ph.D. student in the UCLA Department of Art History. She earned her Bachelor of Arts degree in Art History and English Literature from the University of Miami and her Master of Philosophy degree in Latin American Studies from the University of Cambridge. She has interned at the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Norton Museum of Art, as well as held positions in cultural institutions in Palm Beach, Florida. Sarah studies how and why Indigenous design and construction have informed and impacted Mexican architectural practices.

Alex Casteel, co-manager of the Architecture Lab, is a doctoral student . His research examines architectural production in the medieval contact zone of the Viking transatlantic. Circa 800 to 1100, emigrants from the British Isles and Scandinavia moved west across the northern North Atlantic, becoming the first Europeans to America and some of the last Christian converts. Through the ruins of their turf buildings and Iceland's living turf traditions, Alex's dissertation will explore the medieval history of an ecological heritage now instructive to modernity.

Alex holds a BA in Archaeology from and an MA/MPhil in Viking and Medieval Norse Studies from and . He has worked at sites in Colombia, Iceland, Peru, Scotland, and Ukraine.

Photos by , , author.