Reviving earthen architecture in Palestine: The added significances of the building sustainability and an opportunity for the future

Abstract

The aims of the building sustainability, mainly focused on the energy efficiency and environmental impacts in the European Union, but in a context such as Palestine, it acquires an added significance. The earth architecture could assume the role of a social inclusion tool, thanks to its inherent meanings that overstep the material and technical dimension, to the human factor being the main leverage of innovation. The paper will describe some strategic and integrated proposals aiming to face the limits of earthen architecture, discussing if and how the revival of this ancestral building material can help in gaining a useful innovation for the future, in Palestine as well as in the most parts of the Mediterranean region.