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 constructing building ...

, a Nubian vault is a type of curved surface forming a

vaulted In architecture, a vault (French ''voûte'', from Italian ''volta'') is a self-supporting arched form, usually of stone or brick, serving to cover a space with a ceiling or roof. As in building an arch, a temporary support is needed while ring ...

structure. The

mudbrick A mudbrick or mud-brick is an air-dried brick, made of a mixture of loam, mud, sand and water mixed with a binding material such as rice husks or straw. Mudbricks are known from 9000 BCE, though since 4000 BCE, bricks have also bee ...

structure was revived by Egyptian architect

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

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 Nubian may refer to: *Something of, from, or related to Nubia, a region along the Nile river in Southern Egypt and northern Sudan. *Nubian people *Nubian languages *Anglo-Nubian goat, a breed of goat * Nubian ibex * , several ships of the Britis ...

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 ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediter ...

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

Cameroon Cameroon (; french: Cameroun, ff, Kamerun), officially the Republic of Cameroon (french: République du Cameroun, links=no), is a country in west-central Africa. It is bordered by Nigeria to the west and north; Chad to the northeast; the C ...

. 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 ( ar, الأقصر, al-ʾuqṣur, lit=the palaces) is a modern city in Upper (southern) Egypt which includes the site of the Ancient Egyptian city of ''Thebes''. Luxor has frequently been characterized as the "world's greatest open-a ...

. 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).

Literature

Architecture for the Poor by Hasan Fathy - online pdf: http://www.arvindguptatoys.com/arvindgupta/fathy.pdf
Google Books: Building with Earth

References

''This article is based on a translation of the corresponding article from the French Wikipedia, retrieved on July 31, 2006.'' {{DEFAULTSORT:Nubian Vault Arches and vaults History of Nubia Architecture in Egypt

See also

Literature

References