Nadine Mondestin

This house in Ratnagiri, Maharashtra was built on a budget, 1,100 square feet, using laterite stone quarried within 10 kilometres of the site, Mangalore clay roof tiles, teak wood joinery and clearstory windows along the eastern wall that pull morning light through the entire living area. Cross ventilation through high ceilings and large openings means no mechanical cooling. Not a single tree on the site was cut during construction. This is not an expensive house. It is a disciplined one. The crude indigenous designs we have in our communities do not need to be abandoned. They need effort. When slight effort is put into laterite, into fired brick, into rammed earth, when someone takes the time to lay it properly, orient the building correctly, and open it to the right wind, the result stops looking crude and starts looking like this. The people around us cannot see how good our materials are because we have never shown them what those materials look like when they are taken seriously. Building kilns is not a fantasy. We have the clay. We have the land. We just have not decided it matters enough yet. There is no pride in crudeness and there is no excuse for mediocrity when the solution is already in the ground. Ratnagiri, Maharashtra, India | Articulated Design Initiative | Photography: Vaibhav Kapadi

Burkina Faso again, showing us how good infrastructure can be when you use local materials intelligently. The Koudougou Central Market won the Aga Khan Award for Architecture. 29,000 square metres. 1,800 vendors. Primary construction material: compressed earth blocks sourced from two kilometres away. The vaulted arches were built by local enterprises with specialized earth construction expertise. The layout does two things simultaneously; maximum commercial density and maximum natural ventilation. Two overlapping grids create shade between neighboring structures while channeling cross breezes through the alleys. The market cools itself. In Burkina Faso’s extreme heat, that’s not a design gesture, it’s survival infrastructure. The deeper story is economic. Local materials meant local labour, earth extraction, brick production, vault construction, all community income. A skilled workforce was trained and retained. Demand for earth construction in the region grew long after the build ended. Then the market opened. 1,800 vendors with dignified, shaded, ventilated trading spaces. Better conditions mean longer trading hours, stable livelihoods and a neighbourhood that actually prospers. A market that works climatically is a market that works economically. 📍Koudougou Central Market, Koudougou, Burkina Faso. Laurent Séchaud / SDC.