PANORAMA
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imone Swan believes good architecture can start with the most basic of materials. An earthen-architecture expert who is passionate about using traditional building techniques to provide low-cost, structurally sound housing for the economically disadvantaged, Swan puts her mission more simply: “We teach people to build homes with nothing but the earth beneath their feet.” DESIGN
Earth and Home In west Texas, adobe advocate Simone Swan pursues her vision to spark a modern and sustainable architectural revolution with ancient Egyptian building techniques B Y L A U R I E D AV I E S
Under Swan’s direction, six earthen buildings — five homes and one business structure — have been built in a remote, yucca-studded swath of Big Bend country in far west Texas and Mexico. One is Swan’s demonstration home in Presidio, Texas, where her Adobe Alliance nonprofit has led adobe-building workshops attended by architecture and engineering students as well as industry experts seeking hands-on experience with Swan’s Egyptian-styled building techniques. While adobe has been indigenous to the region for centuries, Swan combines mud-brick homebuilding with the type
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DORADO • JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2017
Simone Swan runs the Adobe Alliance in Presidio, Texas, which teaches traditional building techniques to provide low-cost housing.
of high vaulted roofs and domed architecture found in Egypt. This eliminates the need for costly roofing materials. In fact, for Swan, the road to Presidio went through Cairo. Some 20 years ago, she was vice president of a prominent Texas arts foundation, dividing her time between Manhattan and Houston, and brushing shoulders with the likes of Andy Warhol and other
connections in art and architecture. Then she read Architecture for the Poor, by renowned Egyptian architect Hassan Fathy, and was inspired to travel to Cairo to apprentice under him. “Her love for adobe architecture started there. She just fell in love with the stuff,” says William Menking, editor of The Architect’s Newspaper in New York and a friend of Swan’s since the