Even in our era of concrete and steel, one third of the world’s population live in houses built with clay and sand. One place where traditional earth architecture is still very much alive is the desert regions of Morocco. A few months ago I learned more about earth building in Morocco, when I volunteered with a project called Moon Desert, outside the town of Tagounite in southern Morocco. The project is run by Abdo, a young Moroccan who is rebuilding his family’s old earthen kasbah, or walled residential compound. Abdo’s goal is to turn the kasbah into a rural guest house where tourists can experience desert life in a traditional setting.
Abdo carries with him the traditional knowledge of his family, and this knowledge is helping him lead the project. The history of the kasbah is centered around Abdo’s grandmother Aisha, who was an expert on medicinal herbs and who always had guests staying at the kasbah. Likewise, Abdo has never been alone since the start of the project, as the kasbah has become home to an ever-changing community of international volunteers. These volunteers and the future tourists bring the kasbah and its buildings to life, while helping preserve and share heritage and knowledge about desert life.
History of the Moon Desert kasbah
Abdo comes from a family of nomadic Berbers, and the story of the kasbah of Moon Desert begins with Abdo’s grandmother Aisha. When Aisha was just a child, her mother started teaching her about the healing properties of herbs. Over the years, she came to know everything about the plants of the desert. Thanks to her extensive knowledge, Aisha was able to help countless people, and no one who came to ask for her help was ever turned down.
One of the people Aisha helped was a rich man from Casablanca, who had trouble having children. As a reward for helping him, the man gave Aisha a piece of land outside the town of Tagounite. The man wanted to bring Aisha closer to the people, so that she could more easily serve the community with her skills. This is how the kasbah of the family was founded.
After acquiring the land, the family started building, using the materials found on their land and in the surrounding desert. The main building material was the earth that was simply dug up, mixed with water, and used either in the form of rammed earth or adobe bricks. Palm trees were turned into roof beams, while the roofs themselves were built with earth and reeds.
Aisha always had a lot of guests, and so a lot of rooms were needed to house everyone. The pits that were created while digging up the earth were turned into extra underground rooms. These would stay cool in the summer and warm in the winter, thanks to the heat regulating effect of the huge thermal mass of the surrounding earth. Food was also stored in these underground rooms, where the food was not only naturally refrigerated, but also hidden from animals and theft.
Aisha lived to be well over 100 years old, but after she passed away, the family moved to the town of Tagounite. They say earth buildings need the breath of people and that when people make small reparations in the walls, the building knows someone cares. When the kasbah was left empty, the buildings quickly started deteriorating, and this deterioration continued until three years ago, when Abdo returned to bring the kasbah back to life.
Traditional earth architecture in the Moroccan Sahara
Vernacular earth building techniques are still very much alive in the desert regions of Morocco, and Abdo also wanted to continue using the traditional building techniques when he started restoring his family’s kasbah. It is no wonder, as the material is plentiful and free, and the resulting buildings are much more comfortable in the desert climate than concrete block buildings.
Earth buildings of Morocco blend in beautifully with the landscape, as if they were a natural part of it – which they in a way are, being made of the same earth. Of the two traditional techniques found in Morocco – namely rammed earth and adobe bricks – rammed earth is the more popular one. Rammed earth walls are thicker, which is why people see them as stronger, and the thick walls also keep indoor temperatures more stable during the hot days and cool nights of the desert.
Abdo, however, prefers using sun-dried earth bricks, also called adobe or mud bricks. He prefers adobe over rammed earth because the resulting walls are thinner (30 cm instead of 50 cm), meaning it saves space. The need for material is also reduced, and hence possibly also the amount of labour, even though adobe generally requires more time, since the bricks have to be made and dried first before the actual walls can be built.
For adobe bricks, Abdo extracts earth with a high clay content straight from the ground and mixes it with water. The mixture is then placed into a form, and the form is removed immediately once it is filled and the next brick is started. The bricks are then left to dry for a few days before use. For plaster and roofs, sand and straw are added to the earth in order to reduce cracking and to make the earth stronger.
The roof structure is built with beams made of wood from date palms. Bamboo-like reeds are placed on top of the beams, and these reeds are then covered with earth. A plastic rainproofing sheet is placed between two layers of earth, and the total roof thickness becomes approximately 20 cm.
Some of the buildings of Moon Desert are restored old buildings, while others are newly built. Abdo wants to keep the old buildings as they are, simply repairing them, but with the new buildings he is taking more liberty to try new designs. Traditional earth roofs in Morocco are flat, for example, but Abdo has built some new buildings with inclined earth roofs, which he finds more decorative.
The biggest threat to earth buildings is water. Since there is little rain in the desert, the climate is ideal for building with earth. About once a year there is a bigger rain storm, after which the roofs and plastering need some fixing, but this maintenance effort is minimal – especially considering the huge cost saving in not using concrete. It rained lightly one night during my stay, but the damage was small – indeed, it seemed like the rain had fixed some cracks in the plastering.
Restoring community life through tourism and international volunteers
The plan from the start has been to turn the kasbah into a guest house for tourists, who can come to the Moon Desert to experience and learn about traditional life in the desert. This type of responsible tourism can also help preserve heritage and traditional knowledge. While the guest house is not finished yet, this sharing of knowledge and culture is already happening between Abdo’s family and their international volunteers.
Abdo says he has never been alone since he started the project, and during my stay the number of volunteers varied between 9 and 14. These volunteers help Abdo with the construction work and gardening, and each volunteer leaves a piece of themselves in the place. Hence, in the process of restoring the buildings of the kasbah, the community life that kept the kasbah alive during Aisha’s time is also being restored, albeit in a very different form.
