Designing Earth Architecture: Vaults & Domes
Gain hands-on experience in how masons built traditional domed structures such as churches, mosques, tombs, palaces, and simple homes using just one material - earth. Learn the techniques to rotate and incline small blocks of natural materials to create arches, vaults, and domes, allowing you to design in harmony with the Earth. Engage in full-scale exercises and model-building activities to understand the timeless design principles that can inspire the creation of new homes, places of worship, and community spaces.
This course seeks to re-awaken a method, latent in the world’s diverse religious systems, of architectural design and building construction as an orderly process of spiritual guidance. In the process of “research and in-search” our quests become more meaningful when our goals meet with others' needs and goals (Khalili, 1984)
The content of this course includes one of the most ancient frames of reference: Masonry Architecture. It provides the participant with an ancient mnemonic, like a string of prayer beads or a ladder of ascent and descent. Continuing the essence of its tradition into the 21st century, digital fabrication with traditional masonry are integrated, building on the work of Masters.
"An arch is like a prayer,
its strength is in its unity,
its beauty in its repetition."
The course content addresses building with earth and masonry as a living art, relating historical precedent and contemporary practice. You will be learning to work with the universal elements of earth, water, air and fire as architectural design generators and innovators, within a design theory that works with their properties and qualities (divine names) and the process of analogy. The principle of unity within diverse multiplicity is explored through work “made without hands” (acheiropoeiton) and “doing while not doing” (anenergesia) in the design and fabrication of masonry buildings.
Lectures in theory are followed by hands-on building scale models and full-scale architectural elements. Both theory and hands-on teach a gravity-guided architecture experienced by all the senses.
Booking Options
Gain hands-on experience in how masons built traditional domed structures such as churches, mosques, tombs, palaces, and simple homes using just one material - earth. Learn the techniques to rotate and incline small blocks of natural materials to create arches, vaults, and domes, allowing you to design in harmony with the Earth. Engage in full-scale exercises and model-building activities to understand the timeless design principles that can inspire the creation of new homes, places of worship, and community spaces.
This course seeks to re-awaken a method, latent in the world’s diverse religious systems, of architectural design and building construction as an orderly process of spiritual guidance. In the process of “research and in-search” our quests become more meaningful when our goals meet with others' needs and goals (Khalili, 1984)
The content of this course includes one of the most ancient frames of reference: Masonry Architecture. It provides the participant with an ancient mnemonic, like a string of prayer beads or a ladder of ascent and descent. Continuing the essence of its tradition into the 21st century, digital fabrication with traditional masonry are integrated, building on the work of Masters.
"An arch is like a prayer,
its strength is in its unity,
its beauty in its repetition."
The course content addresses building with earth and masonry as a living art, relating historical precedent and contemporary practice. You will be learning to work with the universal elements of earth, water, air and fire as architectural design generators and innovators, within a design theory that works with their properties and qualities (divine names) and the process of analogy. The principle of unity within diverse multiplicity is explored through work “made without hands” (acheiropoeiton) and “doing while not doing” (anenergesia) in the design and fabrication of masonry buildings.
Lectures in theory are followed by hands-on building scale models and full-scale architectural elements. Both theory and hands-on teach a gravity-guided architecture experienced by all the senses.
Our payments are processed using : Sage Pay
