{"id":16365,"date":"2026-11-05T11:06:20","date_gmt":"2026-11-05T11:06:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gustavodeassis.com\/?p=16365"},"modified":"2026-11-12T09:23:34","modified_gmt":"2026-11-12T12:23:34","slug":"construir-com-terra-materia-gesto-paisagem","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gustavodeassis.com\/en\/construir-com-terra-materia-gesto-paisagem\/","title":{"rendered":"Building with Earth: Between Matter, Gesture and Landscape"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A reflection on clay, situated knowledge and the relationships between building and inhabiting.<\/em><\/p>\n

Between Ceramics and Construction<\/h2>\n

My engagement with earth construction stems, to a large extent, from my experience with ceramics.<\/p>\n

In both practices, clay establishes a direct relationship between the body and the processes of material transformation. Yet their purposes, scales and demands are not identical.<\/p>\n

In ceramics, clay can become an object, a vessel, a surface or a sculpture, often undergoing irreversible transformations during firing.<\/p>\n

In raw earth construction, the material takes part in forming walls, renders and other architectural elements, remaining particularly tied to conditions of use, maintenance and environmental exposure.<\/p>\n

Ceramic practice taught me to recognise that matter does not always respond as expected. A shift in humidity, a difference in composition or a slight change in procedure can alter the outcome entirely.<\/p>\n

In turning towards earth construction, I encounter that same demand for observation and experimentation, now on a scale bound to inhabited space.<\/p>\n

It is also in this encounter that I perceive possibilities for research: understanding how technical knowledge is produced, transmitted and validated across the diverse situations in which earth is worked.<\/p>\n

When Earth Meets Water<\/h2>\n

During an earth construction workshop in Lisbon that I attended, the instructor presented soil samples gathered from various locations across the region. There were white, beige, brown and reddish earths; some contained small fragments of seashells. Each sample revealed differences in colour, texture and behaviour, inviting us to observe the diversity of a material that, at first glance, might seem uniform.<\/p>\n

Upon moistening one of the reddish samples, a colleague from Guinea-Bissau and I immediately recognised the smell of that wet earth. For me, it evoked the places where I had played as a child in the countryside of Minas Gerais. The Portuguese instructor, however, did not share that same sense of familiarity with the scent.<\/p>\n

The water had revealed something that sight alone could not offer. The encounter between earth and moisture awakened memories, places and distinct experiences among people who, at that moment, were sharing the very same activity.<\/p>\n

This episode led me to reflect that knowing earth is not confined to identifying its physical properties or understanding its technical behaviour. The material also participates in the relationships we establish with place, memory and ways of making.<\/p>\n

Learning from Matter Through Making<\/h2>\n

In earth construction, each soil displays its own characteristics. Its colour, particle size, plasticity and response to water shape the way it can be worked.<\/p>\n

\"Amostras

Earth samples of different colours and consistencies, prepared during a material experimentation activity. Photograph: Gustavo Assis.<\/p><\/div>\n

Experience with these materials therefore requires more than applying predefined procedures. It calls for observing, experimenting and recognising their specificities.<\/p>\n

The amount of water, the resistance offered by the mass, shifts in consistency and the effects of time on the surface become perceptible in the course of the work itself. Gesture does not merely execute an operation: it also generates knowledge.<\/p>\n

This understanding aligns with the thought of anthropologist Tim Ingold, for whom making does not mean simply imposing a pre-conceived form upon passive matter. It is a matter of following material processes and participating in their transformations.<\/p>\n

Earth responds to the hand, the tool, moisture and ambient conditions. Working with it entails a continuous negotiation between intention and possibility.<\/p>\n

Such knowledge is not constituted independently of the conditions under which work takes place. It emerges from concrete situations in which the properties of materials, acquired gestures and the lived experiences of those who handle them take part in the construction of knowledge.<\/p>\n

The House That Rises from the Ground<\/h2>\n

Building with earth also establishes a particular relationship with the landscape.<\/p>\n

\"Parede

Wall with partially detached render, exposing its structure and different building materials. Photograph: Gustavo Assis.<\/p><\/div>\n

In adobe and rammed earth structures, earth can forge a direct link between the materiality of architecture and the characteristics of the territory. Its colours, textures and at times even its scents take part in the experience of inhabited space.<\/p>\n

Ant\u00f4nio Bispo dos Santos, in A terra d\u00e1, a terra quer [The Earth Gives, the Earth Demands]<\/em>, broadens this reflection. In linking earth construction to community experience and forms of belonging, he presents the house not merely as a physical shelter, but as part of a network of relationships with the territory.<\/p>\n

Inhabiting, in this context, does not simply mean occupying a bounded space. It means taking part in a world woven from bonds between people, materials, places and practices.<\/p>\n

This relationship, however, is not always harmonious.<\/p>\n

In Torto Arado [Crooked Plow]<\/em>, by Itamar Vieira Junior, earth houses appear in an ambiguous condition: they offer shelter and express belonging, yet their precariousness also lays bare unequal power relations over the land.<\/p>\n

The ability to build a house does not necessarily entail the right to remain on the land. Precariousness can be enforced by social and political conditions, rather than arising from any inadequacy in building technique.<\/p>\n

Inhabiting Matter<\/h2>\n

Earth construction invites us to think of architecture not solely as the production of form, but as participation in material and territorial processes.<\/p>\n

The soil ceases to be exclusively a substrate upon which we build and becomes part of that which we inhabit.<\/p>\n

This relationship does not erase the technical demands of construction. On the contrary, it makes it all the more essential to understand material properties, their constraints and the specific conditions of each application.<\/p>\n

Yet it allows us to recognise that technical knowledge is not divorced from lived experience.<\/p>\n

When a portion of earth receives water, its consistency transforms. At the same time, scents, memories and associations can emerge that cannot be contained within an exclusively physical description.<\/p>\n

Clay takes shape in this encounter: between matter and gesture, between knowledge and experience, between earth and water.<\/p>\n

Perhaps this is why earth construction continues to engage me. Not only for the architectural possibilities of the material, but because working with it allows one to reconsider the relationships between making, knowing and inhabiting.<\/p>\n

Readings Accompanying this Reflection<\/h2>\n