As African continent heats up, builders use mud to create ‘breathing walls’ in homes

Name: 30 years of climate summits: Have they made a difference?
Uploaded: 2022-11-04T17:00:21.000Z
Duration: 2 min 18 s
Description: 30 years of climate summits: Have they made a difference?

Adobe, rammed earth (compacted soil that includes sand, gravel and clay) have greater thermal inertia than concrete, meaning they’re more resistant to the heat outside

Across West Africa, the tradition of building houses in mud dates back centuries

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Traditional round dwellings with reed thatch in the West African style in Burkina Faso. They’re made of a mud that has greater thermal inertia than concrete, which means they’re more resistant to the heat outside. Photo: Shutterstock

Bloomberg

Published: 1:00am, 5 Nov 2022Updated: 4:05am, 5 Nov 2022

It’s a sweltering 90 degrees Fahrenheit (32 degrees Celsius) in Kaya, the midday sun beating down on the low-slung city in central Burkina Faso. But inside the Morija medical clinic on the outskirts, vaulted ceilings made of pressed adobe keep the temperature several degrees cooler.

“Burkinabé builders have used mud for generations to build smaller dwellings, but also multistorey buildings and impressive mosques,” says Clara Sawadogo, the 35-year-old Burkinabé architect who worked on the clinic with Switzerland-based firm Nomos Architects, placing her hand on a massive earthen wall.

“Can you feel it’s cooler? That’s because the walls are breathing, literally. The mud lets the air circulate. Unfortunately, much of the technique has been forgotten.”

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30 years of climate summits: Have they made a difference?

Sawadogo is at the vanguard of a young group of architects in West Africa’s arid Sahel who employ traditional building techniques, using mud, wood and stone to construct buildings adapted to the changing climate in a place that is experiencing increasing drought, fluctuating rainfall, and extreme temperatures.

Among her cohort are Mariam Kamara from Niger and the world-renowned Burkina-born and Berlin-based architect Diébédo Francis Kéré, who won the Pritzker Architecture Prize, often referred to as the Nobel in the field, in March.

The Morija clinic is a prime example of the style, with its earthen textures and rounded shapes inspired by Nubian vaults, and of the methods these designers employ.

Thick outer walls are made using sedimentary rocks from a nearby pit. The whole building is angled toward the prevailing winds and surrounded by vegetation that provides shade.