Roland Brady's trip to the Desert Southwest and Adobe homes!

Hello! I’m back! My name is Roland Brady, and I am an architect. I love home styles, and have built, or dream to build, every kind of home imaginable.
Rain Carrington recently wrote a story that featured a straw bale home. When she told me about that, it brought me back to one of my first loves.
Adobe homes.
Adobe homes are made with clay mud and straw. It’s mixed together to make a brick and you use those nice, thick bricks to build your home.
There is no need for insulation in an adobe home. The walls can be a foot thick or more, That mud and straw is better than the best man-made insulation you could buy.
Spanish style is what it’s called, but this is an ancient style of building a home that was utilized in the Americas, yes, but also in the Middle East. Think about it, you use what you have around you. A lot of desert places don’t have the trees to build with wood, so native peoples used what they had. Straw and clay mud. In fact, the word adobe may actually come from the Egyptian hieroglyph for brick, which translates to at-tob.
Many people who build their own homes in New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, Nevada, Arizona and parts of California still utilize adobe today. I don’t suggest it in high-humidity areas, but the desert southwest is perfect for it.
I will give you the exterior and interior views of the home, and if you live in a place that can utilize it and would love to try, try building a shed first. Check your local building codes and HOA first, of course.
Exterior
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​As you can see, the lines are soft, the surfaces smooth. Once the bricks are in place, people use a variety of methods to smooth out the surface, like chicken wire under stucco, more of the clay mud, and more.
The logs are support beams to keep the roof or upper floors strongly in place, and the sight of them is aesthetically pleasing, breaking up the smoothness of the walls.
Your imagination and square footage are the only things to keep your imagination in line. There are ways to build roundhouses, arches, multistory homes and more. I’ve included a video here by a couple of gentlemen who do this for a living. Give it a watch!

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Interior
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​As you can see, like any home of any combination of building materials, the adobe home can fit into your style. From sleek and modern to old-world, adobe is versatile. Leaving the bricks exposed, covering them completely, or glazing and painting them to leave the texture only exposed, it’s up to the homeowner how they want their home to appear.
If you want a home that feels like you’re snuggled in the earth itself, that keeps in the cool in the summer and heat in the winter, that looks like you have, at any time of the month, a big pot of posole cooking, this is the home for you.
Another plus? With the right upkeep, these can literally last for centuries. Here is proof.

https://www.thecooldown.com/green-tech/adobe-mansion-santa-fe-new-mexico-for-sale/
Thanks for hanging with me and examining the beautiful and versatility of adobe homes. Read about me in Hell Bent for Leather, and my special book where I meet the two loves of my life is Going Down on the Farm! 
Adiós!!