One thought on “Exercise 2 – Madeleine & Alifiyah”

  1. One of the aspects we discussed during the class in relation to your work is that you could consider the idea of a “transplant”. In broader terms, does the similar climate mean that traditions from other, analogous climates can be adopted (if they work)? To that end, it would be necessary to list what are the aspects of each vernacular tradition that perform well (or not) and focus on 1 or 2 – there is a lot to gain from a focused tight approach in this assignment (rather than broad aspirations). Think about how both traditions perform with regards to durability, population density, climate mitigation, urban resilience (and indeed capacity for urbanisation), maintenance and repair, loss of skills in the community, recyclability, etc. (Again, you are to focus on 1 or max 2 of these things, but it’s good to think about a number of aspects on the back of an envelope before narrowing down).
    The detail drawings are interesting – explore how others have drawn construction details in these kind of materials so that your output can improve throughout this course. I’ll post references tagged with your name so you can use them. In this vein, although the roofs of Shibam are interesting, I think most of us are intrigued about the construction overall – is the earth construction fully load-bearing in this 6/7 storey building? This is fascinating and you should attempt to really understand this structure and draw it in detail. Likewise in Mali.
    Have a look at Richard Aina’s thesis on Projects Review – he explored many techniques of earth construction and drew them beautifully.

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