It all began when the Earth trembled, and with it, the collapse of countless homes built from the same Earth. Four devastating earthquakes that hit Herat, Afghanistan, in early October 2023, caused massive destruction of homes and livelihoods. With challenging terrain, climate, and socio-political situation of Afghanistan, the loss of homes exacerbated conditions of already vulnerable communities in Herat, suffering from many decades of conflict. The earthquake had not just damaged the houses of people, but also brought out the conflict between the past and the future, which could be resolved only by empowering the agency of the local community. We at People in Centre (PiC) had the opportunity to participate in this journey of recovery by the affected communities as technical advisors to UNDP for the reconstruction and retrofitting of houses.
Travelling through the rural heartlands of Herat strikes you with its clusters of cob or adobe houses coated in mud plaster, and their dome roofs rising against the mountainous backdrop. The vernacular aesthetics of the forms is captivating. Rural Herati homes centre around a shared courtyard, where homes of extended families and multiple generations cluster within a unifying compound wall, fostering a strong sense of mutual support. The traditional houses have walls made of pakhsa (cob) or khasht-e-kham (adobe), and sometimes stone masonry. The roofs are domical vaults or jack arches, finished with a layer of weather-proof mud plaster. Pakhsa walls are the simplest form of earthen construction, created layer by layer.
Building these walls is a collective act—community members work together where one prepares wet earth into lumps, another tosses them into place, and a third would hand-mould them to form the desired shape and size.
Most of the Herati housing clusters are contained within large compound walls, which are predominantly observed to be constructed through this method. Khasht-e-kham walls are built from hand-moulded, sun-dried adobe laid out in courses with mud mortar, commonly employing an English bond. The gunbad (domical vault) is the final flourish. These gunbads that define the identity of the region also tell a story of cultural exchanges from Egypt and Persia and how the Afghan masons adopted and made it their own art. The citadel in Herat, which is the historic city of Alexandria Ariana established by Alexander III of Macedonia after defeating the Achaemenid Persian Empire, is the epitome of this craftsmanship of domical vaults. These gunbads are the cultural memories of the region with a history of about 2300 years.
Special adobe blocks with less thickness are made for the gunbad roofs. Once the mud bricks have dried, the mason initiates the construction of inclined arches, starting either from a corner of the room or the shorter wall span, and meticulously continues the curve until they converge at the central apex.
Watching the mason immersed in his craft, confidently placing one inclined block over the previous one, is a compelling sight, and one cannot help but wait to watch him complete the entire domical vault.
Much like a single raag in the classical music traditions can unfold in countless ways depending on the artist, Afghan masons also demonstrate diverse approaches to constructing these distinctive roofs, covering a variety of spans and shapes. Our explorations revealed at least six different construction techniques for creating a domical vault – possibly many may have been lost over time.
The most commonly used method is Chahar Swarak, where squinches are started from the corners and continued till the centre. Its second rendition is the Chahar Swarak-e Gerd Poosh, where squinches are first constructed from all corners that form the base, which is then completed using arched courses to create a circular pattern. Then, there is a Romee pattern domical vaults, which are also widely observed in Herat, where arched masonry courses are constructed from the shorter span of opposite ends of the wall until they meet at the centre of the larger wall. The gap is then filled by either continuing masonry arches from both directions, each arch resting on the other, or the gap is filled by arched masonry in the orthogonal direction.
While the basic idea of constructing the domical vault remains the same, it is up to the mason who brings variations to finish the gunbad. The mason sometimes also leaves a gap/opening at the top of the dome known as a badgir for passive cooling and ventilation.
We realize these construction methods are sophisticated practices, passed down through generations. They depict the three-dimensional geometrical understanding and the intrinsic characteristics of adapting and creating with available materials. Builders also understood the structural forces at play, such as a dome’s outward thrust that could damage the walls on which it is resting. To counteract this, the domical roofs were built on thick walls, which were typically raised to cover approximately one-third of the dome’s height. This added weight balanced the domes’ outward thrust. The roofing process culminated in a final protective layer of kah-gel (mud plaster).
Beyond the functional purpose of providing climatic comfort and durability, these architectural features define the cultural and visual identity of the region, symbolizing a deep connection to local materials and collective craftsmanship. We hoped the reconstruction would also follow a similar path – one that draws on the knowledge of local masons and communities who have mastered building techniques with earth while introducing strengthening features in them.
Once the local communities saw massive destruction of these houses, which in many cases injured or killed their loved ones, the conflict between vernacular and modernity came to the fore. Struggling with trauma and weak agency due to deprivation and marginalisation over decades, the journey to recovery could not be smooth.
Building back confidence in earthen houses became challenging, particularly when many external agencies started bringing alien and inappropriate brick and cement construction. Though being highly unaffordable and completely dependent on imported materials, such construction made it harder for people to navigate the options of reconstruction.
To avoid a situation where the affected community loses their agency too along with their homes and turns into passive recepient, we discussed the use of compressed stabilized earth blocks (CSEBs) – a material which could be produced locally in the village using their own soil, a material that could leverage their own construction skills similar to those used for khasht-e-kham. Importantly, safety features were integrated into the building process, which was carried out by trained community members and engineers. This approach aimed to empower the community to incorporate hazard resistance measures in any future construction processes.
Earthquakes shake not just buildings, but also the confidence people have in their traditional ways of building. The external financial assistance many a times strengthens intermediaries in the community when people are weak and vulnerable. Such intermediaries influence, broker, and negotiate the choices. In the reconstruction process, most of the community members, as a result, ended up constructing flat roofs. However, people who had suffered minor damage to their houses were keen to repair and restore the domical vault roofs. These roof’s while characteristic of traditional architecture, often lack adequate integration with the supporting walls, making them vulnerable during earthquakes. The retrofitting further addresses this vulnerability by ensuring that all roof elements remain interconnected to retain their shape and structural integrity and connecting the roof securely to the walls so that all elements behave as a system under seismic forces. (See Romee pattern gunbad roof without squinches. © People in Centre).
Retrofitting was initiated in a home which had faced minor damage. This was done in stages, which began with the removal of plaster and further adding horizontal wire mesh bands that first ensure all the walls are connected. Next, the existing load wall and plaster from the dome are removed to expose its masonry and cracks, which are fixed by filling gypsum slurry or clay-gypsum mortar. This is followed by fixing wire mesh on the inner and outer sides of the domical vault, which are connected with 4mm GI wires through drilled holes in mortar joints. The load wall is then added again, and a final layer of replastering is done to complete the retrofitting. This process provided us with the opportunity to demonstrate the potential for preserving existing structures.
Following the rebuilding supported by external agencies, a notable pattern emerged – when the community undertook additional construction on their own, they gravitated back to the most logical and affordable domical vault roofs, for which the skills and materials are abundantly available.
Though this reconstruction of gunbads might not be due to preference informed by the knowledge of hazard-resistant features, but forced because of constraints of poverty and access. For the traditional gunbads to continue to define the cultural identity of the Herat region, the communities have to find them meaningful and valuable at this crossroads of confidence after the earthquake.
It is not the material alone that ensures strength. This idea needs to be emphasized and shared with communities: it’s not the earth that failed them, but rather the diluted construction practices and lack of necessary hazard resistance details.
Like any “modern” material that undergoes constant research and adaptation, vernacular systems, too, must be studied to learn from failures and evolve. Local artisans have led the research on vernacular materials so far. But dwindling craftsmanship has affected further improvements. There has been a discontinuity in the evolution of local materials and their usage to become hazard-resistant. When this traditional artisanal wisdom and modern scientific explorations synergize to improve vernacular building systems, it can allow communities to reclaim agency in how they build and shape their habitats.
Enabling and strengthening the local knowledge system, the gunbads of Herat may rise again—not as relics of the past, but as living testaments to adaptive tradition.
Authored by Juhi Desai and Vivek Rawal, People in Centre, Ahmedabad
