The Canelo Project, a family ranch in Sonoita, Arizona, uses the most basic of resources, dirt and straw, to build houses. Bill and Athena Steen, the husband and wife team that founded the project in 1989, use strawbales as the building blocks for their homes. They stitch together the bales, and plaster them with a … Read more
This striking Wishing Well house, located on the coastline of the small island of Jersey, UK, has walls made of stones and rammed-earth. ‘Many of our projects explore materials that respond directly to their site context,’ say the architects. ‘In this instance, the coastal setting inspired the exploration of local granite, sand and earth as … Read more
The ancient Arabian city of AlUla had been uninhabited since the 1980s, abandoned when a new town center was established nearby. Here, hundreds of mud-brick houses, huddled around a tenth-century fortress. The old town is now being restored as a cultural district. A void, formed from the remnants of two former houses, was known locally … Read more
At 76, Graham Liney is the quintessential jack-of-trades. He has bred potatoes, run restaurants, travelled the world, worked in television, and built his own house in Australia. He came to Australia in 1969 as an art student from England, and three years later he stumbled across Willow Vale Mill, a 1830s flour mill in New … Read more
Ashish Shah and his wife, Nipa, always wanted to build a farmhouse in the countryside. The couple and their two daughters lived in Mumbai. Nipa owns a brand that produces and markets organic, farm-sourced food, so they sought to set up a farm within a two-hour drive from Mumbai. Eventually, they came across a two-acre … Read more
The archeological site of Mezhyrich, located in central Ukraine, is home to four remarkable mammoth bone structures. Ranging from 12 to 24 m2 (130 to 260 sf), they were intricately constructed using hundreds of mammoth bones and tusks. An analysis of small mammal remains recovered directly from the archaeological layers indicates that at least one … Read more