In our thirtieth Mud Talks podcast, we listen to Ronald Rael deliver his podium presentation "Robotic Nubian Vault Construction" at the Earth USA 2024 Conference in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Download the accompanying PDF research paper here.

Ronald Rael is a trained architect, activist, design technologist, multi-generational rancher, and traditional builder. His work blurs the borders between architecture, art, technology, land-based practices, and social justice. He writes books, forms startup companies, advocates for human rights at the U.S.–Mexico border, creates software, invents novel materials and new forms of construction, and designs buildings as an applied research enterprise. His work often combines indigenous and traditional materials and processes with contemporary technologies to speak to the contrasts, contradictions, and complexities of othered subjects, ranging from people to materials, and places, in modern society. His work can be found in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art, The Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum, The London Design Museum, LACMA, The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and the Renwick Smithsonian American Art Museum. He is the Chair of the Department of Art Practice and Eval Li Memorial Chair in Architecture at the University of California Berkeley

Earth USA 2024 was the 12th International Conference on Earthen Architecture & Construction hosted by Adobe in Action. More information about the conference can be found at www.earthusa.org.