It is time to move away from a dependence on imported, industrialized materials such as concrete and steel and reconnect with the potential of earthen construction. This study addresses the divide between contemporary building practices and the sustainable, culturally rich methods traditionally used throughout Latin America. Rooted in natural materials, a diverse set of regional techniques has evolved since pre-Hispanic times, visible today in iconic examples of earthen architecture shaped by climate, culture, and place.

However, the dominance of concrete and steel has led to the rejection of traditional aesthetics and techniques. Earthen buildings are often associated with poverty, despite once forming the most sacred structures of ancient civilizations. This study challenges that perception by exploring how traditional methods can be revitalized to support sustainable, culturally grounded design.

Focusing on school construction in Chiclayo, Peru, the research evaluates how regionally sourced materials can reduce costs, limit reliance on imports, and reinforce cultural identity. Prefabricated earth wall panels inspired by the traditional wattle and daub method were developed using only local materials, offering efficiency, adaptability, and cultural value.

A wooden mold was created for consistent panel fabrication. Each panel uses a mix of earth (silt, sand, and clay) combined with local fibers such as hay and reinforced with a bamboo lattice for stability. Multiple prototypes were tested, adjusting material proportions to achieve structural durability and visual quality. By comparing traditional and contemporary practices, this study demonstrates how natural, locally sourced materials can be effectively integrated into modern construction. The resulting panels show that efficient, cost-effective, and regionally meaningful designs are possible, offering a model that can inspire similar initiatives across Latin America.

This study examines the design and construction of housing for the Tebughna people of the Native Village of Tyonek, Alaska. While there are well-documented strategies to provide basic economical housing in the United States, there is very little work that has been done to address the extreme challenges facing native villages and remote communities of Alaska. The existing houses in the Native Village of Tyonek are struggling under the weight of snow and the probing rivulets of water that have gradually found their way through untended assemblies. The structures leak air and water, requiring immense amounts of energy to be only barely habitable through the long winter months. The situation is tenuous and dire, as the community ages and loses its youth to opportunity elsewhere. Working within this context, explicit research questions include: How can academic research support culture and community in extreme climates? How can research help to amplify the voices of a people and their cultural practices through genuine support and service? What are appropriate architectural responses to the complex and competing demands of environmental performance, culture, and climate? How can researchers better listen to the people and their native lands, recognizing the limitations of pre-formed research questions and common academic research structures? Over the last four years, we have worked alongside the people of Tyonek to address the critical housing needs in the village and to address these research questions. Our methodology has involved numerous community meetings and a robust, consensus-driven approach to building trust with the elders of the village. We conducted detailed surveys of existing housing, created proposals for new and renovated housing, and tested proposals by evaluating life cycle costs and energy efficiency. The work serves as a useful model for community-based work with remote native communities, especially those in cold climates.

In the past decade, expanding the tools and methods for digital documentation has become a priority in historic preservation, offering valuable support for the management, maintenance, and adaptive reuse of heritage buildings. Although technologies such as laser scanning and photogrammetry can capture unprecedented detail, they often generate documentation with large file sizes that exceed the practical needs of many restoration projects. This paper introduces a workflow designed to balance efficiency with usable outputs. The method integrates material documentation pipelines to guide physical assessment, streamline data acquisition, and produce essential construction documents. The workflow was developed from interventions at Sacred Heart Church, a historic landmark in El Paso’s Segundo Barrio, one of the city’s oldest and most culturally significant neighborhoods in this US–Mexico border community in West Texas. Its application demonstrates the potential to reduce redundant data collection, focus analysis on critical elements, and generate documentation that directly supports restoration activities. Future work will examine how this approach can be adapted to different building types and contexts, and how streamlined digital documentation workflows can serve as tools for community empowerment and equitable preservation.