Photo by Alejandro Lopez
| Adobe ~ Construction |
Photo by Alejandro Lopez
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| Home Native vs. Spanish Style Construction What Color is that Clay? Walls & Gates Paint It Blue! Interiors |
The word adobe comes from the Arabic word atob which means muck or sticky glob, or atubah "the brick". The word adobe can mean adobe bricks, the mud used to produce them, or the architectural style. Soil with as high a clay content as possible is used to make adobe bricks. Often straw is mixed in to help reduce the shrinkage cracks as the adobe dries. The adoblero mixes in only enough water to allow the clay to be pounded into the wooden brick form. The form is then immediately removed and the bricks are are allowed to dry in the sun for several days. These days most adobe brick production is mechanized, and no longer done by hand. The resulting bricks can be any size and shape, but as they get bigger, they also get heavier. The most common size available in the Albuquerque area is 4 inches thick, by 10 inches by 14 inches. Depending on how you lay them in the wall you can have a 10-inch thick wall, or a 14-inch thick wall, or you can combine them to build a 24-inch thick wall. Once the walls are completed, using layers of adobe mud to cement bricks together, they are covered over with a layer of adobe mud "stucco," which must be maintained (patched & replaced) over the years to counteract the inevitable weathering and erosion. |
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Construction detailChicken wire is often added as a supporting layer over the adobe bricks, before the surfacing layer of adobe clay is added. This can help delay erosion of the walls. |
Ceiling detail large shaped logs are laid across the walls as supporting roof beams (and are seen protruding from the front facade of the house). These are then covered with a layer of sticks or branches before the roofing is added. |
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Photo by Laura Temple Sullivan |
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