Landscapes

5 Pages 1290 Words

Wherever one goes, one can see certain homes covering the landscape. Each home varies as do the owners themselves. The only limits are money and social acceptance of what one can build. In this paper I shall talk about the similarities and differences in house types and building materials used in India (Punjab), Canada (B.C.), and Mexico.


There were three types of homes that were most prevalent in Mexico. These types were as follows: the squatter homes, adobe brick homes, raw brick (brick that hasn’t been fully kilned) and the cement covered brick homes.

The squatter homes in Mexico are made from anything that is cheap and readily available. Usually these homes consist of raw brick for walls and a metal or Spanish tile roof. The home itself is built on a plot that has no essential services such as electricity or running water. These homes are not very large it all depends on the amount one can afford and they range from a simple square of 8 by 8 feet or a rectangle of 8 by 12 feet.

Adobe brick homes are not found in squatter settlements in Mexico. One could speculate that building on a hilltop away from any good source of clay soil makes the availability of adobe limited at best. Accordingly adobe structures are more noticeable in some cities and farming communities in Mexico where clay soil is plentiful. In this picture one can see the extensive use of Adobe. This building is built simply and cheaply and most likely not to code. The structure itself consists of wooden poles every couple of feet. These poles are placed vertically and are weight-bearing poles, holding up the roof and keeping the walls intact. There are smaller poles, which are placed horizontally, and these tie it all in. After the wooden structure is erected and the soil is mixed with water, the Adobe is ready to be applied to the wall.

The adobe, which I once believed was cow manure, is actually soil mixed in with water and then kneaded like flour;...