En terre inconnue - Research

Faced with climate disruption, industrialized construction, and regulatory constraints, a material once considered waste is reappearing: excavated earth. Marginal for a long time, it unsettles conventional categories and ways of building. This thesis looks at what the return of earth to architecture changes in practice. Through projects by BC architects & studies and BC Materials, the objective is not to present earth as a solution, but to follow the tensions it creates, what it allows, and what it resists. Caught between ecological ambitions and construction realities, earth reveals the contradictions and limits of contemporary architecture. More than defining a method, this work tries to make these shifts visible.