In the wake of devastating regional wildfires, a groundbreaking studio at the Woodbury School of Architecture is working to redefine our relationship with heat.
During the Advanced Materials & Methods class, architecture students designed and constructed a full-scale prototype of a Self-Firing structure鈥攅xploring a radical yet simple concept: using fire as a constructive, generative force to transform raw adobe into a durable, water-resistant ceramic building material.
Led by Professor Berenika Boberska, the project tackles contemporary structural design through ancient practices. Boberska states that “akin to the practice of instigating 鈥榗ontrolled burns鈥� in the landscape, here the slow-firing of an architecture becomes a way of strengthening and transforming the adobe structure, vitrifying the clay to create a durable water-resistant material similar to ceramic.”
To monitor this transformation, students in the class said they approached the site as a living laboratory, utilizing high-tech heat-imaging equipment alongside low-tech craftsmanship. The team collaborated with traditional kiln-firing experts to determine a precise, incremental 12-hour firing schedule that lasted well into the night.
The system features a highly efficient tracking process using a hand-held thermal camera:
“The blues and magentas of the heat maps drew precisely for us the patterns of future weathering of the clay walls, whilst the fired portions stayed sharp and distinct,” Boberska said.
Students said building the kiln was as much a lesson in physical endurance as it was in material science. Tending to the kiln in complete darkness towards the end of the night, students watched a thousands-of-years-old technology come to life through modern design experimentation.
The project marks a major milestone for campus research infrastructure, Boberska said. The advanced thermal camera used by the studio was purchased thanks to the Title V HSI Sustainability Grant, and it now lives as a shared resource at the Sustainability Hub for future student and faculty check-outs.
While an adobe kiln prototype may seem like a highly specialized project, the class emphasized that the project’s true goal is to expand contemporary sustainable building options. “There were so many surprising material qualities in this project, which only emerged through process and time,” said Boberska.
The kiln project was made possible by members of the student body, faculty leadership, kiln experts Alan Chin and Ari Brice, adobe construction expert Ben Loescher, and material sponsor Corona Clay Company.