About Adobe

An adobe is a natural building material mixed from sand, clay, and straw, dung or other fibrous materials, which is shaped into bricks using frames and dried in the sun. It is similar to cob and mudbrick. Adobe structures are extremely durable and account for the oldest extant buildings on the planet. Adobe buildings also offer significant advantages in hot, dry climates, as they remain cooler since adobe stores and releases heat very slowly.

Buildings made of sun-dried earth are common in the Middle East, North Africa, south America and in Spain (usually in the Mudéjar style), but adobe had been in use by indigenous peoples of the Americas in the Southwestern United States, Mesoamerica, and the Andean region of South America for several thousand years, although often substantial amounts of stone are used in the walls of Pueblo buildings. This method of brickmaking was imported to Spain in the 16th century by Spaniards who had traveled to Mexico and Peru.

A distinction is sometimes made between the smaller adobes, which are about the size of ordinary baked bricks, and the larger adobines, some of which are as much as from one to two yards (2 m) long.