We protect the historic adobe buildings of Southern Colorado and teach traditional and robotic earthen construction as a path to low-cost, zero-carbon housing.
We protect the tradition of adobe architecture and bring it into the 21st century as a building material for low-cost housing.
Opening robotic earthen construction to the public, not only to labs and firms.
Workshops in robotics, digital fabrication, and 3D printing with adobe.
Hands-on instruction in the building methods that shaped the region.
Protecting the buildings, and the social and cultural history they hold.
Southern Colorado was the northern edge of Mexico before the Mexican-American War, and its adobe buildings are bound up with that history. Much of it, along with the technical knowledge of how this landscape was built, has never been recorded. The history of earthen construction here and around the world is in danger of being lost.
The region is home to the poorest counties in the state, and possibly the nation, with a shortage of affordable housing for extremely low-income households. We work to lower the cost of housing construction by keeping adobe knowledge alive and putting it to use.
Adobe produces no carbon dioxide emissions. Its thermal mass keeps interiors comfortable without mechanical heating and cooling, which cuts the CO₂ a building produces over its life.
The only non-profit in the country whose mission is preserving earthen architecture and promoting adobe construction through contemporary 3D printing.
Central to our mission is the inclusion of communities of color with a heritage connection to adobe, and the belief that contemporary art, architecture, and design connect this traditional practice to its future.
Professor of Architecture at UC Berkeley's College of Environmental Design and an ancestral descendant of Southern Colorado. He was part of the group that placed the first two adobe buildings on the State of Colorado historic registry.
Designer and co-founder of Muddy Robots, bringing two decades of research in robotic fabrication, parametric design, and material systems to building with earth.
As founder of the award-winning studio Matsys, whose work lives in the permanent collections of SFMOMA, the Centre Pompidou, and the FRAC Centre, he has consistently operated at the intersection of computation, craft, and construction.
He is the Kendall Professor and Associate Dean for Research at the University of Houston's Hines College of Architecture & Design, where he directs the CRAFT Lab, one of the country's foremost environments for robotic construction research. He is also the co-author of Flux: Architecture in a Parametric Landscape and Drawing Codes: Experimental Protocols of Architectural Representation.
At Muddy Robots, he is developing the algorithms, geometries, and fabrication logics that will allow earthen 3D printing to scale, turning an ancient material into a precision building system for a more beautiful, resilient, and sustainable world.
Director emeritus of Northern New Mexico College's Adobe Construction Program, and a builder of adobe homes across the Southwest for decades.
He chose adobe to make house models in the fifth grade. By the seventh grade he made full-size adobe bricks in his Albuquerque back yard. In 1970 he moved to Ojo Caliente with Maria and raised three children in a run-down, abandoned adobe home which the family reclaimed, renovated, modernized and enlarged.
After teaching high school and college math for 5 years, he began to earn his living in solar adobe construction, beginning with project management and construction instruction for the Sundwellings Demonstration Project, built with 18 students at Ghost Ranch in 1976. His mentor was Peter van Dresser.
Following that, he built adobe homes for 25 years as a licensed general contractor while continuing to teach evening and weekend solar adobe classes throughout the Southwest. In 1995, Quentin organized the Department of Southwest Construction at Northern New Mexico Community College (now Northern New Mexico College) while tapering off his construction business.
After 45 years the family homestead is now quite ready for a new cycle of renovation and a second bathroom.
Restoration of the 1855 adobe compound built by Lafayette Head, which served as his home and as the federal agency for the Tabeguache and Muache Ute bands through the 1860s. The Conejos Treaty between the United States and the Tabeguache Ute was signed here in 1863. Its construction blends Indo-Hispano, Native American, and Territorial building traditions. After years of neglect, it was named one of Colorado's Most Endangered Places in 2021. Colorado Preservation Inc. listing ↗
A free, two-day hands-on workshop held each summer in Los Ancones, a historic village near Ojo Caliente with restored 19th-century adobe buildings. Led by Ronald Rael with Mateo Salinas Clarke and Kateri Lopez, participants learn enjarrando (mud plastering), earthen plaster, adobe making, and earthen floors while working on real restoration. Presented with the Harwood Museum of Art. See workshops
Ongoing experiments in robotic earthen construction that pair a portable robotic arm with clay, water, and straw dug from the site, pointing toward low-cost, low-labor building that anyone can use. The first structures, printed across the San Luis Valley and the Rio Grande borderlands, included a hearth with an adobe bench, a thin-walled solar-lit beacon, a fully printed adobe staircase, and a kiln for firing micaceous clay pottery. Mud Frontiers at Rael San Fratello ↗
Support for the restoration and stewardship of a historic adobe property in rural northern New Mexico, funding the plumbing and infrastructure it needs to stay in use. The work went beyond the building to the cultural knowledge tied to the place: public workshops, demonstrations, and tours on adobe, earthen materials, horno building, foodways, agriculture, and craft, along with documentation of traditional knowledge. It also supported local tradespeople, builders, artists, and farmers in an economically challenged community.
An annual, free two-day workshop in Los Ancones Encantados, New Mexico, where participants restore historic adobe buildings by hand. Led by Ronald Rael, Mateo Salinas Clarke, and Kateri Lopez, with the Harwood Museum of Art.
Training in robotics, digital fabrication, and 3D printing with earth, aimed at adobe as a 21st-century material for low-cost housing.
Dates
Adobe as a Heritage Practice runs each summer; the 2026 workshop took place August 15–16. Space is limited and participants apply in advance. Next year's dates and application.
Contemporary art and design connect adobe's traditions to its future. Our residency gives artists time and space to work with earth in Southern Colorado.
Describe the residency: its length, what residents receive (housing, studio, stipend, access to printers and tools), and what they make or share.
Your gift funds preservation of historic adobe buildings, public workshops in traditional and robotic earthen construction, and research into adobe as low-cost, zero-carbon housing.
Donate online (link to your donation page)Payable to Adobe Archipelago
4739 County Road 18
Antonito, CO 81120
Adobe Archipelago is a non-profit organization. EIN 99-0740911 Confirm 501(c)(3) wording