architecture Architecture is the art and technique of designing and building, as distinguished from the skills associated with construction. It is both the process and the product of sketching, conceiving, planning, designing, and construction, constructi ...

, a Nubian vault is a type of curved surface forming a vaulted structure. The

mudbrick Mudbrick or mud-brick, also known as unfired brick, is an air-dried brick, made of a mixture of mud (containing loam, clay, sand and water) mixed with a binding material such as rice husks or straw. Mudbricks are known from 9000 BCE. From ...

structure was revived by Egyptian architect

Hassan Fathy Hassan Fathy (; March 23, 1900 – November 30, 1989) was a noted Egyptians, Egyptian architect who pioneered appropriate technology for building in Egypt, especially by working to reestablish the use of adobe and traditional mud construction as ...

after re-discovering the technique in the Nubian village of Abu al-Riche. The technology is advocated by environmentalists as environmentally friendly and sustainable since it makes use of pure earth without the need of timber.Swan, Simon
''Elegant Solutions''
Saudi Aramco World, July/August 1999, Volume 50, Number 4. The technology is of Nubian origin. One of the key advantages of the Nubian vault is that it can be built without any support or shuttering. The earth bricks are laid leaning at a slight slope against the gable walls in a length-wise vault, as in this photo of a building from the ruins of Ayn Asil in

Egypt Egypt ( , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country spanning the Northeast Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to northe ...

. The same principle can be used to build domes, as in the example below from

Cameroon Cameroon, officially the Republic of Cameroon, is a country in Central Africa. It shares boundaries with Nigeria to the west and north, Chad to the northeast, the Central African Republic to the east, and Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, and the R ...

. The age-old Nubian vault technique was notably revived by the Egyptian architect Hassan Fathy in the 1940s with the building of a new village at Gourna, near

Luxor Luxor is a city in Upper Egypt. Luxor had a population of 263,109 in 2020, with an area of approximately and is the capital of the Luxor Governorate. It is among the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest continuously inhabited c ...

. Architecturally, this village is a singular success; however, the families who were moved there soon abandoned it to return to their original village. More recently, since the year 2000, a French /Burkinabé NGO
La Voûte Nubienne
', by simplifying and codifying the VN (Voûte Nubienne) technique, has promoted the construction of over 1600 vaulted buildings in Burkina Faso, Mali, and Senegal (mainly village homes, but also a Catholic church, several mosques, schools, literacy centres, and a dispensary). These environmentally sound, comfortable, and aesthetic buildings require neither imported sheet metal for the roofing, nor expensive and increasingly rare timber beams. Over 260 masons have been trained in the technique, and there are as many apprentices currently undergoing on-the-job training on building sites (2012). The programme organised by the Association "''Earth roofs for the Sahel''" is experiencing around 30% year on year growth in response to demand from rural families, with many requests for help and technical advice coming from the countries of the Sahel, and from further afield (a programme was launched in Zambia in early 2009, under the aegis of AVN-Belgium).

References

{{reflist

See also

References

Further reading