Earth, Water, Air and Fire- Download

Earth, Water, Air and Fire

The works and words of architect Nader Khalili

Earth, Water, Air and Fire
building and firing a school in Iran - 28 mins

Earth, Water, Air, & Fire documents the building and firing of a Ceramic school in Iran, transforming an adobe/mud brick building into a lasting ceramic architecture. Nader Khalili addresses the age-old enemies of earth architecture — rain, snow, and earthquakes — which cause families to live in fear for their lives under the traditional adobe vaulted roofs, by adding the fourth element of fire to the other three to:

“...bake it in place, fuse it like a giant hollow rock.
The house becoming a kiln, or the kiln becoming a house......”
(Racing Alone)

The resulting monolithic stuctures are resistant to these destructive forces, offering a method of rehabilitation and reconstruction for the over 60,000 villages in Iran, and for earth architecture around the world.

Over 10 years after its construction, Khalili went on a mission sponsored by UNIDO (United Nations Development Organization) with international and local ceramic specialists and government engineers to inspect the 40-room school complex around two courtyards. Although badly maintained, the school was found to be completely sound and undamaged after repeated winter snow and frost, intense summer heat, and several minor seismic tremors. It was the first experimental structure of its kind to be built.

© copyright Nader Khalili