Design Studio Clavuot

Learning from Ladakh

Supervisor: Conradin Clavuot

Assistant: Robert Mair

«To understand your closest surroundings, it helps to travel to the other side of the world» — Hansjörg Hilti, guest reviewer Studio Clavuot went to the Himalayas to study mud architecture, from the past and under construction and to meet incredibly interesting people. Unknown locals as well as people from NGOs, fighting for the heritage of the old city centre and a responsible tourism development, guided us in our research in and around Leh.

On five self chosen plots, always two or three students developed their very local projects. Local in the sense of social programmes, but also materials and atmospheres. The level of project development was wide in range and reached the scale of 1:1 in rammed earth examples as well as in unique but low tech and earth quake resistant constructions. Supported by civil engineer Andreas Galmarini and Zurich based Architect Roger Boltshauser (Haus Rauch, Schlins) the knowledge of the excursion materialised in form of focused projects as published here.