Traditional Building Techniques Offer Innovative Solution to Taos’ Housing Crisis

Like many towns in the United States, Taos is facing an affordable housing crisis caused by factors like rising materials costs, gentrification, and stagnant wages. To help solve this increasingly urgent problem, the Community Alliance for Sustainable Adobes (CASA) team reached out to LOR with an innovative solution rooted in Taos’ unique cultural heritage: conduct in-person workshops and create instructional videos that teach the traditional adobe building techniques of Northern New Mexico.

Adobe has a long and proven history as an environmentally friendly, structurally sound, and low-cost housing material. The hands-on training experiences provided by CASA will help proliferate this building technology—which has the potential to address both the housing crisis and climate change—while empowering residents to preserve their homes and providing the next generation with valuable vocational skills.

LOR’s support will fund a director, a master enjarradora (a professional Adobe plasterer), and the filming, editing, and production of four instructional videos, as well as related social media content for widespread distribution.