Architect/Educator
South Carolina, U.S.
Link: Eartharchitecture.org
Link: Areainstitute.org
Link: Personal Website
Submission: "Earth Architecture"
Bio:
Ronald Rael is an Assistant Professor of Architecture at Clemson where he is the Coordinator of the Core Architecture Studios and Director of AREA, a Summer Institute examining activism, research and experimentation through architecture. Prior to joining the faculty at Clemson he was a member of the Design Faculty at the Southern California Institute of Architecture in Los Angeles and a Senior Instructor at the University of Colorado at Boulder. He earned his Masters of Architecture degree at Columbia University in the City of New York where he was the recipient of the William Kinne Memorial Fellowship. He holds a Bachelor of Environmental Design degree from the University of Colorado at Boulder.
Rael's research explores the relationship and contrast between industrial and non-industrial modes of production, the breadth of which includes architecture constructed of raw earth to methods of fabrication via digital processes. Constructed Topographies: Earth Architecture
in the Landscape of Modernity, which examines a history of modern earth architecture, and Cities of Earth, an examination of the architecture of Yemen, have been funded by the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts and the Architecture League of New York respectively.
Notable design projects include a First Place award in the SECCA Home/House Competition for HAY HOUSE, a seasonal response to agrarian production, and an Honorable Mention Award from International Design Magazine in the Graphic Design Category for their 50th Annual Design Review for his design for the cover of PRAXIS 6, an international journal for contemporary architectural theory and practice. Earthscraper, a project to reclaim dredged material from the Ports of New York/New Jersey was exhibited at the 2000 Venice Biennale. Recent professional projects include Casa Immobile, a private residence near the Texas-Mexico border, and the Living Water Activity Chapel, an indoor-outdoor multi-use pavilion for a congregation in Anderson, South Carolina.
"one half of the world's population lives or works in buildings constructed of earth