At Desert X 2025 in California’s Coachella Valley, Ronald Rael’s Adobe Oasis emerges as a striking convergence of ancestral building techniques and cutting-edge digital fabrication. Constructed using 3D printing, the installation revisits the mud-building traditions of Colorado’s San Luis Valley, an area that historically straddled the U.S.-Mexico border before 1848. The project aligns with the exhibition’s broader theme—reimagining the desert as a landscape of memory, transformation, and resistance—while demonstrating the potential of sustainable materials in modern architecture.
Rael, a U.S.-based artist and architect, has long explored earthen construction as a viable alternative to carbon-intensive materials like concrete and steel. His work advocates for a return to natural building methods by integrating indigenous knowledge with digital precision. The Adobe Oasis consists of ribbed, earthen passageways layered in rhythmic ribbons of red adobe, resembling the surrounding palm trunks and grounding the structure in both its natural and cultural context. By leveraging adobe’s natural insulating properties, non-toxicity, and fire resistance—qualities honed by civilizations over millennia—Rael presents a compelling case for sustainable construction practices in an era of climate urgency.
‘We naturally have a visceral connection to earthen structures. We feel them and we understand them because we evolved to build them,’ Rael explains. His work continues a lineage of adobe architecture stretching from the ziggurats of Mesopotamia to Mali’s rammed-earth mosques and the vaulted homes of Nubia. In the 20th century, architects like Hassan Fathy revitalized the method, promoting its use in cost-effective, climate-responsive housing. Rael builds upon these traditions, refining the process through robotic printing while maintaining the material’s adaptability to site and climate.
‘I envisioned about 16 years ago a future of earthen construction that involved 3D printing,’ Rael notes. For him, the process is a ‘delicate dance’—a continuous dialogue with the mud, adjusting and responding as the structure takes shape. The material’s scent, texture, and malleability all play a role in this tactile engagement, reinforcing the connection between past and future construction methods. By incorporating robotic programming, Rael advances adobe’s evolution, reducing the labor-intensive demands of traditional techniques while preserving its environmental benefits.
Through Adobe Oasis, Rael challenges the dominance of industrial construction materials and repositions earth as both an ancient and radically contemporary medium. His work at Desert X not only showcases the aesthetic and structural potential of adobe but also reaffirms its relevance in creating sustainable, site-responsive architecture in a rapidly changing world.
