Arches, Domes, and Vaults

Adobe Students Build on Local Tradition

The Arches Domes and Vaults class is the capstone course for the Adobe Contruction Program at Northern. It is offered at the end of the semester and the students are required to build a usable structure featuring a dome or vault, with arched doorways and windows.

Often the building site for a course is on private property and the structure is subsequently used for a studio or other outbuilding by the property owner. If you have ever noticed the domed structure in Tesuque on the west side of the highway where baked goods are sold, then you have noticed a structure built by Northern Adobe Program students.

Other coursework for the Adobe Program is often done in the community, either on an existing home or on the El Rito campus.

Recently, the Interior Finishes class re-plastered the interior of a garage in a home on the El Rito campus. Prior to that, the same class plastered the interior of a home of an El Rito community member with mud and straw.

The Spring 2011 Arches, Domes, and Vaults class just ended and the 12 students nearly completed construction of a small chapel in Abiquiu. The building has a vaulted roof and measures about 225 square feet.

In the front page photo, Adobe students and faculty are pictured holding signs as part of a campaign ("This Place Matters") run by the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

ARCHES, DOMES, AND VAULTS

Instructor Kirk Higbee-Barzola explains, “we’re building a chapel and we’re incorporating buttresses in it and arches in it and we’re building a vaulted roof.”

Higbee-Barzola describes the difference between a dome and a vault: “A vault is typically a row of arches and a dome is spherical… a series of circles…concentric circles going up. A vault is a row of arches going linearly with the bricks leaning back so that we didn’t have to use any forms.”

Like many small church buildings in the region, the chapel is being built with a small round window above the door. Higbee-Barzola explains that to build a round window, you start with an upside down arch, and then do an arch on top. Then it all locks together with a keystone.

The chapel construction is to include buttresses, but they are not the type you would see on a gothic cathedral such as Notre Dame. 

“Those are flying buttresses on Notre Dame, which uses less material. It’s kind of hard to do those with Adobe. I don’t think anyone has ever done a flying buttress with adobe. These are more like mass buttresses. Their length should be half the height of the wall.  And the corner buttresses are there because of the way the mass is distributed...the vector comes down from the vault, it’s pushing out...so we’re trying to get the mass to go straight down,” says Higbee.

Sturdy wooden blocks in the sides of the window and door openings are called Gringo Blocks. Formed wooden window and door frames are nailed to the blocks which are firmly wedged between adobe bricks midway up the door or window frame.

The project is supposed to be completed by the last day of class, but it is clear that it will take longer. For now, Higbee will head home to Arizona where he is pursuing an advanced degree in Civil Engineering from Arizona State University.

RETURNING TO ROOTS IN NEW MEXICO

The property owner is José G. Marquez, a student in the Adobe Construction Program and a member of this Arches, Domes, and Vaults class. 

Marquez came from Dallas to study here, but he explains that his mother is from New Mexico, “So I wanted to come here because of her. She was born in Albuquerque in 1926 and her family has lived in New Mexico for the 400 plus years since the conquistadors—plus there is her Indian heritage. So I ended up buying some property here in 2007 in order to move here when I retire. And I always wanted to build a little chapel on the property, so when my mother passed away last year I decided that I wanted to do it this year. The design started with a postcard of a little chapel in Deming, New Mexico. I designed it after that, but then I saw other churches and started to study the churches here in NM and added features such as the round-topped door.” 

He got the idea to build the chapel in memory of his mother Isabel. According to Marquez, her family goes back to the Oñate period and her Indian heritage goes back even farther. “...we found Navajo, Pueblo, and Apache marriages into the line.”

The initial design had a flat-topped roof, and since he was enrolled in the Adobe Program at El Rito, Marquez started talking to Quentin Wilson and Kurt Gardella, who suggested putting a vault on top of the chapel so that it could be constructed as part of the Arches, Domes, and Vaults class. “So I redesigned it with a vault,” says Marquez, “...and that’s how it became part of the class.”  The class—which included students from California, Florida, Arizona, Ohio, and Texas—put the walls up in the first week. The structure stands 18 feet high in the front and 17 in the back. 

They are taking the second week of class to build the vault. “We’ll finish it and get it all plastered and we’ll do the mud floor...and within the next year we’ll get it completed.”

Marquez adds that the wood shop up in El Rito, which houses the Spanish Colonial Furniture Program, will make the side windows with the arches over them as well as the pews.

It looks unlikely given the small size of the chapel’s interior, but the plan is to have two rows of benches. Other woodcarvings and fixtures will be created by local artisans.

In her Commencement 2011 remarks, President Barceló noted, “When I visited the Abiquiu site where the Adobe Construction class is building a vaulted chapel, I was so impressed by the wonderful enthusiasm and workmanship demonstrated by the class. What other institution offers this kind of training? This is a perfect illustration of the unique educational opportunities we offer.”