HomeTurâb’26 : Expériences de la matérialité de la construction en terre

Turâb’26 : Expériences de la matérialité de la construction en terre

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Published on Wednesday, October 08, 2025

Abstract

Français English

Every handful of earth holds a story of "de-materiality," where the sensory philosophy of earth coexists with innovations and new technologies that push its technical limits in a desire to destigmatize it. Although durable and ecological, earth as a material faces cultural resistance tied to an image of precariousness, a perception fostered by modernity. Thus, in the context of alarming climate change, reinventing earthen construction has become urgent, if not necessary. This conference approaches research on earthen construction at the crossroads of poetics, engineering, and innovation. By highlighting earth architecture in Tunisia and around the world, it offers a transdisciplinary and resilient perspective on a universal material, putting its inextricably linked material and immaterial dimensions in tension.

Announcement

Français English

Conference’s Argument

In the Bachelardian approach to the poetics of the world around us and his conception of the role of the four elements of nature in structuring our imagination, the element "Earth" has never been elementary. Indeed, by summoning a dialectic of hard and soft, this approach has so intensely shaped reveries of matter that it would be difficult to distinguish its materiality from its immateriality, thereby inscribing it within a holistic framework. Extrapolating this imaginary stratification of earth to its modeling and work, this "de-materialized" vision of earth as a matter that questions the relationship between the imaginary and the rational, between creation and science, is at the heart of current debates on contemporary earthen construction worldwide.

Erecting buildings with the very material of their grounding and rootedness in the soil speaks to both the creativity and the resilience of the act of building with earth today. Indeed, reinventing earth architectures and cities as an ecological commitment in a context of environmental crisis is no longer in question. As a building raw material that is at once free, durable, and culturally embedded, earth is economically, ecologically, poetically, and technically appealing. However, it also instills fear, as it conveys an image of precariousness and constructive fragility that fosters a form of cultural and psychological resistance to its adoption. How can we value earthen heritage? What are the mechanisms for transforming and changing such a stigmatizing sociocultural perception of earth architectures?

Facing the frantic technological advances of the Construction 4.0 industry and as the most widespread building material worldwide, earth is compelled to reinvent itself to meet current constructive requirements for resistance, comfort, aesthetics, and durability. How can we reinvent earthen construction methods and techniques? What is the role of new technologies in the sensitive constructive processes of local cultures in earthen construction? To what limits can we push technology in earthen construction so that innovations are in harmony with the sensitive and poetic philosophy of the material? What are the key players for an earthen construction ecosystem that aligns with new technologies?

By approaching research on earthen construction through practice and honoring earth architecture in Tunisia and around the world—and in doing so, examining still-unexplored questions related to its knowledge, recognition, and conservation—this conference offers a transdisciplinary and resilient perspective on a universal material that has a future.

Thematic Axes

Axis1. On the Poetics of earth

This thematic axis of the conference opens the door to the rediscovery of a material that, beyond its physical properties, is capable of generating ambiences and emotions, paving the way for the uniqueness of experiences that explore the story told by the earth.

The poetics of earth lie in a woven link with the environment and the human being. Consequently, earth holds a memorial potential, a carrier of identity and a true cultural marker through time. This specificity is all the more magnified by the act of building spaces with the very material of their grounding in the soil. The result is an architecture whose purpose is to blur the tangible boundaries of the building and to make the reading of a volume superfluous in a poetics of evanescence, erasing the border between the built and its environment.

The poetics of earth are also an invitation to explore a sensory experience that considers the feel of the material under the hand, its temperature, its smell, its shaping, and its reshaping. Thus, the user's perception of their space is strongly influenced by the sensory qualities of the "earth" material. By its shades and textures alone, it is capable of visually varying the warmth of a space. Much more than a question of climatic comfort, the ambiences generated by earth become design elements that subtly intersect with the narratives, beliefs, and social structures linked to vernacular earthen architectures. Ultimately, the link between earth, collective memory, and the identity that shapes inhabited spaces is brought to the fore.

At the crossroads of the senses and the imaginal, this axis questions earth as a dematerialized spatial experience through history, cultures, and societies. The atmospheres, colors, textures, smell, sounds, and sensitivities related to this material, its form, and its work are explored. Local constructive cultures, as well as the oral knowledge and practical know-how in earthen construction, are revealed through sensitive approaches that call for considering the creative imagination of the material and the architectural and urban ambiences it generates.

Axis 2. On the Engineering of earth

By bridling techniques and marrying knowledge, humankind has erected with earth the most striking monuments in the history of the material and spiritual development of human settlements, thus proving the resistance, solidity, and universality of this material.

Facing the paradigmatic crisis that earthen construction experienced with the advent of the industrial era, attempts have been made to rationalize and modernize the learned and popular know-how of earth. Thus, since the oil crisis of the 1970s and the environmental challenges it has brought, construction policies worldwide have had no choice but to attempt a creative and operational synthesis between traditional and modern techniques for building with earth. By analyzing this endogenous knowledge and optimizing it to adapt to current constructive challenges, the contemporary formal, structural, and energetic approach to earthen construction blends with modern processes that tend to increase the resistance of earth. If stabilizing it solves the structural challenge, what about its aesthetics?

The modernization of earthen construction methods has solved the structural aspect but has raised an aesthetic problem. By prefabricating compressed earth blocks or rammed earth wall panels and stabilizing them, we move closer to a formal, orthogonal, and smooth constructive aesthetic that resembles concrete elements, rather than the sensual aesthetic emanating from the ancestral modeling of earth. This downside is even more unsettling if we consider the near absence of a regulatory framework for earthen constructions worldwide. Yet, these buildings, erected for centuries, are still visible and present as a symbol of resistance that defies any absence or presence of legislation.

In this axis, the evolution of earthen construction techniques is traced, alternating between an intuitive and a reflective understanding of the structural, geotechnical, and energetic properties of earth. Educational approaches to this material are examined, considered essential, and leading to a thoughtful and conscious hybridization of technical knowledge and endogenous know-how for an experience of the materiality of earth, its technical possibilities, and its constructive limits in the face of the challenge of durability.

Axis 3. On the Innovation of earth

Research and development pave the way for innovation in earthen construction. This axis explores the "earth" material from its materiality to its immateriality. Indeed, innovation in earthen construction is not limited to improving its physical properties; it now extends to the digital realm.

With a focus on building energy optimization, earth becomes an "augmented" material through the Internet of Things (IoT), piloting its avatar, its digital twin, which provides a real-time overview of its energy behavior in the face of heat, cold, humidity, air, light, or even sounds and smells. The ambiences generated by earth are controlled, shifting from a natural state to an artificial one. A true vector of technology, earth forms are no longer sculpted but become parametric, obeying the rules of generative design and allowing for the creation of complex structures optimized for resistance and energy performance. Surveying sculpted and irregular earth forms has also been revolutionized recently. The Scan-to-BIM processes offer a solution for this, integrating management and maintenance operations to be performed on earthen constructions into a Heritage Building Information Modeling (HBIM) methodology, exploring the semantic ontologies for the restitution of these architectures, which are as complex as they are simple.

Gaining on time, cost, and execution effort, 3D printing of earth structures and forms is one of the most promising advances. By using specific earth and additive mixtures, walls, domes, and even entire buildings can be erected layer by layer, without formwork or a large workforce. Immersive environments, in turn, transform the perceptual experience of earth architectures and allow for living the earth by projecting into an augmented, virtual, or mixed reality. These environments serve users as much as builders and artisans, offering them the possibility of testing new constructive systems in earth to ensure their proper implementation.

Ultimately, this axis explores how cutting-edge technologies transform the architectural and urban experience, making earth a medium for innovation and durability. Thus, through the integration of digital tools, earth contributes to more adaptive, interactive, and connected environments. The paths of innovative research in this field are explored, as well as their developments at different scales via advanced technologies.

Useful information

  • The conference will be held in person
  • Dates : June 5 and 6, 2026
  • Venue : June 5, 2026 : National School of Architecture and Urban Planning ENAU, Sidi Bou Said,Tunisia - June 6, 2026 : Sainte Marie du Zit Property, Zaghouan, Tunisia

Schedule

  • Call for proposals launch: September 24, 2025

  • Abstract submission deadline: December 07, 2025

  • Notification to authors of accepted abstracts: starting December 22, 2025
  • Poster submission deadline: February 15, 2026
  • Paper submission deadline: March 15, 2026
  • Notification to authors of accepted papers: starting April 20, 2026
  • Registration fee payment deadline for the conference/workshop: May 5, 2026
  • Conference: June 5 and 6, 2026

Submission Guidelines

The evaluation of abstracts, papers, and posters will be conducted by the members of the conference's scientific committee in a double-blind review process. The proposals must be original and unpublished. The official language of the conference is French. It is possible to submit contributions in French, English, and Arabic. A real-time translation into French will be provided for presentations given in English and Arabic during the conference.

Authors who have submitted abstracts will be notified starting December 22, 2025, of the acceptance of their submissions for either an oral presentation with a paper or a poster. Only papers accepted after the double-blind review will be published in the conference proceedings. Papers not selected by the scientific committee will not be published; they will be automatically reconsidered in the poster category.

  • Posters: The poster template will be sent by email to the authors concerned upon notification of abstract acceptance in the poster category.

  • The deadline for poster submission is February 15, 2026.

  • Papers: The papers to be submitted, which correspond to abstracts accepted in the oral presentation with paper category, must be between 25,000 and 30,000 characters (including spaces) and conform to the "Paper-Turâb26" Word template that will be sent to the selected authors. If papers are accepted, authors will be notified starting April 20, 2026, to respond to the reviewers' comments and make any requested corrections to their texts (if necessary). The PowerPoint template for oral presentations will also be sent starting April 20, 2026.

Experimental workshop

Based on the fact that raising awareness of earthen construction techniques inevitably involves education about the material and its manipulation, an experimental workshop is scheduled at Domaine Sainte Marie du Zit, a site known and recognized as a pioneer in experimenting with earthen construction techniques in Tunisia. Its objective is to connect theoretical and practical knowledge by proposing to design and test a learning model for earthen construction. The workshop will be conducted collaboratively in four phases: discovering the material to intuitively determine its composition, preparing the earth mix, experimenting with a constructive technique at a prototype scale, and evaluating the completed model. The experimentation will be documented in the form of a short film.

Publication

Following peer review, accepted papers will be published in the conference proceedings (with ISBN and DOI). Publication fees are included in the conference registration fees.

Registration fees

The registration fee is 300 TND for the conference and 80 TND for the workshop (120 Euros for the conference / 40 Euros for the workshop for non-Tunisians). The conference fee includes registration, the conference material pack, lunches, and coffee breaks. The experimental workshop fee at Domaine Sainte Marie du Zit includes participation in the workshop and the gala dinner. Registration fees are to be paid by bank transfer to the account of the Tunisian Association of Rock Mechanics (ATMR). The association's bank details will be sent to the selected authors after the acceptance of their papers/posters.

Conference co-chairs

  • Essaieb HAMDI, CE Engineer, Professor ENIT-UTM, Researcher LIGG
  • Faten HUSSEIN, Architect, Associate Professor ENAU-UCAR, Researcher LarPAA
  • Hind KAROUI, Architect, Associate Professor ENAU-UCAR, Researcher VDEC
  • Thierry JOFFROY, Architect, Professor ENSAG-UGA, Researcher CRAterre

Scientific committee

  • Ahmed JELIDI, Professor, UTM (Tunisia)
  • Arnaud MISSE, Associate Professor, UGA (France)
  • Bakonirina RAKOTOMAMONJY, Researcher, President of the CRAterre association (Madagascar)
  • Camilla MILETO, Professor, UPV (Spain)
  • David GANDREAU, Researcher, UGA (France)
  • Essaieb HAMDI, Professor, UTM (Tunisia)
  • Fakher JAMOUSSI, Professor, CERTE (Tunisia)
  • Fakher KHARRAT, Professor, UCAR (Tunisia)
  • Faten HUSSEIN, Associate Professor, UCAR (Tunisia)
  • Florent VIEUX-CHAMPAGNE, Associate Professor, UGA (France)
  • Halimatou MAMA AWAL, Associate Professor, UGA (Cameroon)
  • Heiner LIPPE, Professor, TH Lübeck (Germany)
  • Hind KAROUI, Associate Professor, UCAR (Tunisia)
  • Houda DRISS, Assistant Professor, UCAR (Tunisia)
  • Imen BEL HADJ ALI, Assistant Professor, UTM (Tunisia)
  • Jana REVEDIN, Professor, BTH (Sweden)
  • Maddalena ACHENZA, Associate Professor, UNICA (Italy)
  • Majid HAJMIRBABA, Associate Researcher, ENSAG-UGA (Iran)
  • Nuria SANCHEZ MUNOZ, Researcher, UGA (Spain)
  • Philippe GARNIER, Researcher, UGA (France)
  • Prachand MAN PRADHAN, Professor, KU (Nepal)
  • Rida LOUBABA, Assistant Professor, ENSIT (Morocco)
  • Rodaina ABOUL HOSN, PhD, AU, (Kuwait)
  • Salima NAJI, Architect, PhD, SN (Morocco)
  • Salma SOUISSI, Assistant Professor, UTM (Tunisia)
  • Satprem MAÏNI, Architect, AVEI (India)
  • Sofiane AMZIANE, Professor, UCA (France)
  • Theophilus A. SHITTU, Associate Professor, UON (United Kingdom)
  • Thierry JOFFROY, Professor, UGA (France)
  • Thomas LINNER, Professor, OHR (Germany)
  • Venkatarama REDDY, Professor, IISc (India)
  • Yadh ZAHAR, Professor, UCAR (Tunisia)
  • Yannick SIEFFERT, Associate Professor, UGA (France)
  • Zoubeir LAFHAJ, Professor, CL (France)

Organizing committee

  • Faten HUSSEIN, ENAU-UCAR (Tunisia)
  • Hind KAROUI, ENAU-UCAR (Tunisia)
  • Houda DRISS, ENAU-UCAR (Tunisia)
  • Imen BEL HADJ ALI, ENIT-UTM (Tunisia)
  • Imen SLAMA, ISBAS-USO (Tunisia)
  • Majid HAJMIRBABA, ENSAG-UGA (Iran)
  • Racha BEN ABDELJELIL, FLSHS-USO (Tunisia)
  • Thierry JOFFROY, ENSAG-UGA (France)

Graphic design committee

  • Feriel MOSBEH, ENAU Student, AVAterre Member, UCAR (Tunisia)
  • Jawaher ZAMMOUCHI, ENAU Student, AVAterre Member, UCAR (Tunisia)
  • Yosr AMMAR, ENAU Student, AVAterre Member, UCAR (Tunisia)

Partners : in progress

  • French Institute of Tunis IFT
  • Embassy of France in Tunisia
  • Higher Institute of Fine Arts of Sousse ISBAS
  • Auroville Earth Institute AVEI
  • Geo-resources Laboratory – Center for Water Research and Technologies CERTE
  • Construction 4.0 Chair, Centrale Lille
  • International Scientific Committee of Earthen Architectural Heritage ICOMOS-ISCEAH
  • MiNiMA Project, Hasni & Hasni Architects
  • SESC-AUF / AVAterre Project – code DRAN8967
  • Tunisian Association of Rock Mechanics ATMR
  • Industrial Block Company SOIB

Scientific committee leads

  • Faten HUSSEIN
  • Essaieb HAMDI

Organizing committee leads

  • Imen BEL HADJ ALI
  • Houda DRISS

Info & contact

  • faten.hussein@enau.ucar.tn 

Indicative references

Bachelard, G. (1948). La terre et les rêveries de la volonté. Paris : Librairie José Corti.

Corbin, H. (1994). Trilogie Ismaélienne. Edition Verdier, Paris

Dellagi, M. (dir). (2016). Architecture en terre crue. Actes de colloque. Beit al-Hikma

Dethier, J. (1981). Le génie de la terre. In. Des architectures de terre. Centre Georges Pompidou/CCI. Imprimerie modern du Lion, Paris

Guillaud, H. 1997. Terminologie des matériaux de construction en terre, des modes d’utilisation et des techniques, et leur mise en situation historique, in Pour une histoire des architectures de terre, mémoire de CEAATerre, ENSA Grenoble, juin 97, 518 p., pp. 165-238.

Goodbun, J. (2016). Mud and Modernity. ARENA Journal, https://doi.org/10.5334/ajar.6

Joffroy, T. (2016). Les architectures de terre crue : des origines à nos jours. Hugues Jacquet. Savoir & faire : la terre, La terre, actes sud, pp.333-347, 2016, Savoir & faire, 978-2-330-06850-9. ⟨hal-01861816⟩

Joffroy, T., (dir.), Hubert, A., Gueguen PERRIN, A. (2025). Terra Education IV : changer d’échelle | changing scale | cambiar de escala. Actes | proceedings | actas. Villefontaine : CRAterre éditions. 426 p. ISBN 979-10-96446-54-4

Masson, D. (ed.). (2020). Ambiances, Alloaesthesia: Senses, Inventions, Worlds. Proceedings of the 4th International Congress on Ambiances, 2-4 December 2020, 2 vol., Réseau International Ambiances, 376 p. (Vol. 1), 376 p. (Vol. 2). ISBN: 978-2-9520948-7-0

Minke, G. (2006). Building with Earth: Design and Technology of a Sustainable Architecture. Bâle, Birkhauser

Naji, S. (2019). Architectures du bien commun - Pour une éthique de la préservation. Métiss Presses, pp. 240

Rael, R. (2009). Earth architecture. New York, Princeton architectural press

Slama, I., Ben Abdeljelil, R. (2022). Le pisé : retour d’expérience à propos d’une technique de construction ancestrale, Al-Sabîl : Revue d’Histoire, d’Archéologie et d’Architecture Maghrébines [En ligne], n°14, Année 2022. URL : https://al-sabil.tn/?p=8958

Slim, H. (1985). La Tunisie. Architectures de terre et de bois. Édité par Jacques Lasfargues, Éditions de la Maison des sciences de l’homme, https://doi.org/10.4000/books.editionsmsh.31105

Terra 2022, Advancing the preservation of earthen architecture through collaboration and exchange, Proceedings of the 13th World Congress on Earthen Architectural Heritage, Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA, June 7–10, 2022, Getty publications

Event attendance modalities

Full on-site event


Date(s)

  • Sunday, December 07, 2025

Keywords

  • Turâb, construction en terre, expérience, matérialité, dé-matérialité, ambiance, ingénierie, innovation

Contact(s)

  • Faten Hussein
    courriel : faten [dot] hussein [at] enau [dot] ucar [dot] tn

Information source

  • imène Slama
    courriel : imene [dot] slama [at] isbas [dot] rnu [dot] tn

License

CC-BY-4.0 This announcement is licensed under the terms of Creative Commons - Attribution 4.0 International - CC BY 4.0 .

To cite this announcement

Faten Hussein, « Turâb’26 : Expériences de la matérialité de la construction en terre », Call for papers, Calenda, Published on Wednesday, October 08, 2025, https://doi.org/10.58079/14vip

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