For much of the twentieth century, building with earth was treated as something to grow out of. Concrete was modern; mud brick was what you used when you could not afford anything else.
The Egyptian architect Hassan Fathy argued the opposite. In the 1940s he designed the village of New Gourna, near Luxor, using mud brick, vaulted roofs and domes built without timber formwork, techniques he learned from builders in Nubia. His book, published in English as Architecture for the Poor, became a quiet classic.
The logic is physical. Thick earth walls absorb heat slowly through the day and release it at night, smoothing out the temperature inside. The material is local, needs little energy to make and can return to the ground at the end of its life.
The most advanced material for a desert house may be the ground it stands on.
Today architects across the region and beyond are revisiting these ideas, often combining earth with modern engineering. The results are not nostalgic. They are cool, calm rooms that ask very little of the planet, and they make a strong case that progress sometimes means looking down.