Mudbrick

Mudbrick is a building unit made by shaping wet earth, often mixed with straw, and drying it in the sun. It is distinct from fired brick because it hardens without kiln firing.

Adobe: Adobe is sun-dried earth construction material, used as bricks or as packed wall mass. Adobe is the closely related regional name and tradition most often associated with mudbrick.
Evaporative drying: Evaporative drying is the removal of liquid water as it changes into vapor and leaves a material. Sun-drying removes water from shaped mud and leaves a rigid brick.
Eridu: Eridu was an ancient Sumerian city in southern Mesopotamia, occupied from the sixth millennium BCE. Its early buildings illustrate the long history of mudbrick construction in southern Mesopotamia.
Fired brick: Fired brick is a masonry unit made from clay or other earth materials hardened in a kiln. Kiln firing makes it generally more resistant to water than unfired mudbrick.
Clay: Clay is a fine-grained natural material that becomes plastic when wet and hardens when dried or fired. Clay minerals help wet earth hold a shaped brick together.
Capillary action: Capillary action is the movement of liquid through narrow spaces driven by surface tension and adhesion. It can draw ground moisture upward into porous mudbrick walls.
Great Mosque of Djenné: The Great Mosque of Djenné is a monumental earthen mosque in Mali, rebuilt in its present form in 1907. Its annual replastering demonstrates maintenance practices for exposed earthen architecture.
Rammed earth: Rammed earth is a construction method that compacts damp soil in successive layers within temporary formwork. It builds continuous walls in place instead of assembling separate dried units.
Straw: Straw is the dry stalk residue of cereal crops after the grain is harvested. Fibrous straw can reduce cracking and reinforce mud as it dries.
Porosity: Porosity is the fraction of a material's volume occupied by pores or voids. Mudbrick pores influence water uptake, drying, and thermal behavior.

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