Adobe as Shelter Adobe shelters about 1.5 billion people in arid climates throughout the world today. Adobe architecture provides relatively simple, economical, and thermally efficient buildings in dry, desert climates. In such climates, stone is often rare and wood is too scarce for building or to fuel brick kilns. Substantial walls that may be two-feet thick and small window and door openings provide insulation against temperature extremes, keeping indoor temperatures fairly constant. The nature of adobe as a building material dictates to a great degree its aesthetic forms and characteristics.
Forms are organic, simple and rounded, often molded by hand.
Adobe architecture is found in desert environments of Mauritania, Mali, Senegal, Ivory Coast, Burkino Faso, Guinea, and Niger, other countries such as Morocco, Algeria, Egypt, Afganistan, Iraq, Iran, India, Pakistan, Oman, United Arab Emirates, Yemen, and Saudia Arabia, and the Southwest United States. The most common contemporary method of adobe construction around the world is the use of adobe bricks. The individual bricks are cast in rectangular wooden molds and left to dry in the sun. Mortar to connect the bricks is also made from mud and straw. Adobe structures tend to rise from broad bases and have organic, rounded forms.