Burkina Faso is one of many developing nations
swapping traditional earth brick buildings
for those made of concrete and cement.
While these building materials
are often seen as a sign of development,
the reality is quite different.
The construction industry globally
accounts for 38% of carbon dioxide emissions
and building with concrete makes up around 8% of that total.
We architects have to start listening
not just to the climate and to ecology.
We seriously have to kind of own up
to the responsibility that's at stake here.
I think this is the responsibility of every future architect
to think about mitigating the damage
and to look at the proper alternatives.
Clara Sawadogo is one of those architects
looking for a sustainable alternative.
She's part of a growing movement
who think reimagining how we build with mud
is the solution.
Sawadogo often uses banco,
also known as adobe, in her buildings.
The compacted sun-dried bricks
make use of whatever can be found in the local area,
including soil, sand, clay, stones, and sticks.
Mud buildings gained a bad reputation
in Burkina Faso
after there were several reports of houses collapsing
due to extreme rainfall.
As living standards have increased
and cement has become more easily accessible,
people have moved away from using earth to build.
Sawadogo was convinced
that mud can not only withstand changes to the environment
but actually far better than concrete.
Her buildings also challenge the idea
of what mud buildings look like.
The Nubian vault is a design that was revived
by Egyptian architect Hassan Fathy in the 1940s
after he saw the technique in the Nubian village
of Abu al-Riche.
It has a curved structure
that doesn't require wood or metal reinforcement,
making it environmentally friendly
and ideal for countries with limited natural resources.
Beyond being a recyclable
and sustainable resource,
earth is also better suited to rising temperatures.
Mud has a high thermal mass,
which means it slowly absorbs and stores heat
during the day,
stopping a house from becoming too hot.
Then, when the temperature drops at night,
the heat is radiated back into the room.
In contrast,
thin cinder block walls with hollow recesses
allow heat to pass through much quicker,
causing the inside of buildings to get extremely hot
during the day.
Many people who've built with concrete
are finding they now need to buy air conditioning units
but the cost of installation and upkeep
are too much for some.
Our institutions at the moment
are geared towards this industrial form
of computer type of generated architecture
which is devoid of any sensitivity,
devoid of any interaction with nature,
devoid of any interaction with the inhabitants
who are going to be living there,
let alone the discussion of a community.
As Hassan Fathy used to say,
we're interested in the people
who have the 'malaliem,'
meaning the cents,
and not in the people
who have the 'malayien,'
meaning the millions, you know.
We're talking of the wider population
because this is where the impact of the climate
and what's happening in the climate change is most seen.
Burkina Faso contributes
just 0.08% of global emissions,
but ranks as one of the country's most vulnerable
to climate change.
The landlocked nation could see a temperature increase
of up to 1.6 degrees Celsius by 2050,
and up to four degrees by the end of the century.
That's two and a half times more than the global average.
We need a paradigm shift,
and unless this happens yesterday before today,
it's not going to be possible.
It's not going to be possible
to mitigate the effects of the carbon footprint
and the damage, the damage that we have been creating.
There's this balance,
there's this ecological balance
about the use of natural building materials
that you don't find anymore.
This is not the architecture of the past.
This is the architecture of the future.
Building with mud offers clear advantages
for the environment,
especially for those living in hotter climates,
but it's not without its drawbacks.
Creating structures like Sawadogo's
that are as sturdy as concrete and look just as modern
takes much more time.
This makes it difficult to scale up
to match the demands of the modern building sector.
For now, architects are using a hybrid method,
combining a small amount of concrete into their designs,
which speeds up the process
but also safeguards against more intense weather events.