As part of the France–Brazil Season 2025, CRAterre took part in the 14th International Architecture Biennale of São Paulo (BIAsp), organized by the Instituto de Arquitetos do Brasil – Departamento de São Paulo (IABsp), from September 18 to October 19, 2025, in São Paulo.
Entitled “EXTREMOS – Arquiteturas para um Mundo Quente” (Extremes – Architectures for a Hot World), this edition questioned the role of architecture in the face of climate change and environmental crises. In this context, the project “Earth Architecture: Building a Sustainable Future” created a space for exchange around natural materials — and particularly earth — as levers for producing architecture that is adapted, resilient, and rooted in its territory.
A manifesto exhibition: TERRA – construindo um futuro sustentável
Designed with Argus Caruso Arquitetura, Laboraterra, and NAP PLAC / FAU-USP, the main exhibition took the form of an arc of more than 180°, symbolizing a reality that is often overlooked: more than half of the world’s homes are built with earth.
Thirteen panels presented contemporary architecture and educational initiatives illustrating the diversity of earth construction practices today. CRAterre contributed with five emblematic projects carried out in The Gambia, Senegal, Haiti, and France, as well as doctoral research on Guarani housing.
Inside the installation, visitors could discover the materiality of earth: raw soils, fibers, sands, tools, and samples of compressed earth blocks (CEB/BTC), adobe, rammed earth, plasters, and tadelakt. This sensory immersion allowed visitors to understand the transformation from raw material to built wall.
Knowledge sharing and mediation: the Élémenterre kit
CRAterre also led two educational workshops using the Élémenterre educational kit, which was translated into Portuguese for the occasion and adapted to the local context with partners from USP.
These workshops, which exceeded their initial capacity, enabled more than 40 participants — students, professionals, and members of the public — to discover, through thirteen experiments, how and why building with earth is possible.
They became a key moment for raising awareness of ecological architecture through hands-on practice.
International debates and exchanges
CRAterre also took part in the roundtable “Terra – construindo um futuro sustentável e democrático”, alongside committed Brazilian actors, to discuss the integration of earth into contemporary construction sectors, its teaching, and its potential for construction autonomy.
The team also participated in a meeting dedicated to the French presence at the Biennale, presenting its approach based on the articulation between research, action, training, and dissemination, illustrated in particular by its long-term projects in Haiti.
A Franco-Brazilian dynamic for a sustainable future
Through exhibitions, workshops, and discussions, this participation made it possible to:
raise awareness among a broad audience about natural materials;
promote earth architecture at the international level;
strengthen academic and professional cooperation between France and Brazil.
In a world facing climate extremes, earth appears not as a material of the past, but as a resource for the future.
More information about the event
This project received funding from the Cultural and Cooperation Service of the French Embassy in Brazil
