Kateri Lopez

Keeping Traditions Alive: Preserving Adobe Architecture

Training & Documentation of Traditional Adobe Construction & Re-establishing Age-Old Building Traditions

Kateri Lopez is from Albuquerque, New Mexico, where she studied Geography at the University of New Mexico with a focus on Sustainability Studies. Kateri is an aspiring adobera, or adobe brick mason, a trade commonly practiced in her family for generations. She is currently working as a preservation technician at Cornerstones Community Partnerships, a non-profit dedicated to helping communities throughout New Mexico to preserve their cultural and architectural building traditions through hands-on preservation workshops. Her focus includes the exploration of cultural heritages and the use of natural building materials throughout New Mexico and the greater southwest.

Kateri’s fellowship capstone project is titled, Keeping Traditions Alive: Preserving Adobe Architecture – Training & Documentation of Traditional Adobe Construction & Re-establishing Age-Old Building Traditions, which is a response to the threat of vanishing adobe building traditions in New Mexico. Lopez believes that to preserve existing adobe structures and keep traditions alive, adobe architecture needs to remain relevant in the modern age. In partnership with Cornerstones Community Partnerships, Luna Community College, the Las Vegas Citizens Committee for Historic Preservation, and the Luna Community College Foundation, Lopez has proposed the documentation of a community’s alternative, low-cost, and culturally appropriate housing solution for the Southwest on the heels of gentrification and devastating forest fires in Mora and San Miguel Counties, New Mexico (Calves Canyon/Hermits Peak), a federally designated National Disaster Area. The fire destroyed more than 220 structures, including adobe homes that had been in families for generations. The goal of this project is to demonstrate and construct a ca. 800 square- foot, code compliant, fire-proof/fire resistant adobe home, which will include both passive and active solar. These efforts will involve the community, students, and professionals in making adobes and learning about traditional adobe building techniques. This proposed model home has immense potential be a “hands-on” learning demonstration site for the new Heritage Trade Program developing at the Luna Community College in Las Vegas, New Mexico.

Kateri’s goal is to create a free collection of resources for public use that include a series of video segments breaking down the entire adobe construction process, from adobe brick making, foundation laying, permitting, adobe wall construction, viga construction, and traditional earthen and lime plastering. She also aspires to publish a comprehensive document for potential owner-builders outlining processes such as adobe home permitting, code compliance, as well as blueprints of the model home that will be made free and available for community members wishing to build (in some cases rebuild) an affordable home built using methods and materials traditionally used throughout New Mexico and the greater southwest. Lopez hopes to accomplish all the above while keeping in mind the cultural and historical significance of adobe architecture within many of these rural communities.