Mud and robots: Why earthen architecture is the future

Same dirt, new techniques.

What if buildings in the future were not made using glass and steel, but with earth? In this 101 in 101 video, which challenges Berkeley’s experts to condense their field of study into 101 seconds, Ronald Rael, professor of architecture and art department chair, gives a primer on earthen architecture and explains why our future homes could be made using the soil beneath our feet.

Though its composition varies across the planet, and techniques to build shelter with it are just as diverse — from wattle and daub to compressed earth to adobe –– soil is a material so compelling that it has long been a central pillar of Rael’s work and teaching. His latest endeavor, Muddy Robots, uses 3D printing robots to build with earth.

“I think it’s interesting to think about not only artificial intelligence today, but also ancestral intelligence,” Rael says, “to draw from our 10,000 year-old heritage of building with Earth.”

Rael’s work also honors his personal heritage. “My family has probably lived continuously in buildings made of earth for several thousand years,” he says, “as have most of the people on the planet.”

Examples of earthen architecture are more widespread than you may realize, says Rael, listing dozens of examples, both ancient and modern.

“Ronald Reagan’s Western White House, when he was president, was an adobe building,” Rael explains, adding that modernists like Rudolf Schindler and Frank Lloyd Wright also worked with earth and “hadn’t abandoned 10,000 years of earthen architectural heritage.”

Neither should we. With megafires burning entire neighborhoods across the Western U.S., if you don’t already know about the non-toxic, non-flammable qualities of earth, you should.

Watch more 101 in 101 videos featuring UC Berkeley faculty and experts here.