Popular Architecture: Earth housing… out-dated?

Earth Housing could be considered the paradigm of both human adaptation to the environment and the utilization of its resources. Yet, as is often the case with ‘natural’ housing models, it has been disregarded as ‘sub-standard housing’ for far too many years.

This has brought us to a situation in which Earth Housing continues to be overlooked by current regulations. Even though in this article we will be focussing on Andalucía (Spain) and its challenges regarding Earth Housing, it is important to consider that this model of habitat has sheltered millions of people all around the globe since prehistoric times: Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Sub-Saharan Sahel, Afghanistan, Palestine, Syria, China, Tibet, Mexico, California, Turkey, the Balkans, Sicily, France, Sardinia, Spain…

As we can see, earth houses are often found in arid areas with very specific conditions, not only in a natural and climatic sense but also social and economic.

In Spain earth houses are spread throughout the majority of the country, but it’s in Andalusia where they take on a special importance since they are still used as the default way of living for much of the population.