MEXICO, THE MEXICALI COMMUNITY



PROJECT HISTORY Under the sponsorship of the Governor of Baja California, we built a small community of houses and community buildings. The families built their own houses, assisted by students. The construction system and method were new -- designed an invented by us. We ran a small block-making factory on site, using soil-cement instead of raw concrete for the blocks. The vaults were woven baskets of thin lattice strips, with burlap and chicken wire stapled to them, and the shell of the vault then plastered over the top. Each house was different. It was inherent in the construction process, that a family could lay out their own house, as they wished. We then placed stakes at the corners of all rooms, and the construction system, which included special corner blocks, allowed us to build the columns in the positions marked by stakes, then to build the walls between the columns, then stretch the beams and pour them, and then to weave the vault for each room as it fell out naturally. People and places in the mexcali community Javier and Julio -- two lovely men -- the backbone of the families' effort	PROJECT HISTORY Inside some of the houses

CENTER FOR ENVIRONMENTAL STRUCTURE
established 1967
and
CENTRE FOR ENVIRONMENTAL STRUCTURE, EUROPE
established 2005