Santa Fe, USA
Santa Fe Community College
The SFCC Adobe Construction Program provides you with the knowledge and skills you’ll need to gain employment in the adobe construction and earth building fields. The program is also geared towards non-professional, owner-builders who wish to obtain the skills needed to design and build their own adobe home.
We teach you to build an adobe structure from foundation to roof using traditional New Mexican adobe construction skills combined with an emphasis on modern “green” practices and sustainable building materials. The program is built around passive solar adobe design and construction principles.
Teaching
The SFCC Adobe Construction Program offers courses in:
- Passive Solar Adobe Design (site planning, building layout)
- Adobe Construction Basics (soil selection and testing, adobe brick production)
- Adobe Wall Construction (earthen mortars, correct brick coursing and leveling)
- Floor Design and Construction (poured earth, earth brick and rammed earth floors)
- Finish Practices (interior and exterior earthen and lime plasters)
- Roof Design and Construction (flat roofs, shed roofs, gable roofs for adobe structures)
- Preservation Practices (common examples of deterioration in adobe structures and their solutions)
- Adobe Building Practicum (hands-on field work)
- Rammed Earth Construction