In the remote San Luis Valley of Colorado, architect Ronald Rael is revolutionizing ancient building techniques by combining traditional adobe construction with cutting-edge 3D printing technology. The UC Berkeley professor has returned to his ancestral homeland to restore his great-grandfather's historic mud-brick home while simultaneously creating the world's first structures with 3D-printed roofs constructed on-site.
Rael's journey back to La Florida, a tiny unincorporated village in Colorado, represents more than just a homecoming. It's a fusion of his multicultural heritage and innovative architectural vision. His great-grandfather, Miguel Francisco Barela, originally built the three-room adobe home with a pitched roof, which later expanded into an L-shaped dwelling with a 1960s addition that housed extended family for decades.
The San Luis Valley presents unique environmental challenges that have historically made permanent settlement difficult. This extreme alpine desert experiences bitter winters cold enough that newborn calves seek warmth inside homes, swampy springs plagued by mosquitoes and frogs, and finally idyllic summers. The territory functions as a closed basin where Rocky Mountain snowmelt settles directly into the valley, creating what Rael describes as "practically an ocean under us."
Rael's path to architectural innovation began unconventionally. Initially pursuing pre-medical studies at the University of Colorado Boulder, he shifted to environmental design before earning his master's degree in architecture from Columbia University in New York. His Columbia experience proved formative, though he recalls the narrow dogmas of modernist architecture education. When a professor criticized his thick walls as unrealistic, Rael's adobe heritage contradicted this Western architectural assumption.
Accidentally falling into academia, Rael built his career across various institutions including Clemson University and Rotterdam's Office for Metropolitan Architecture before establishing himself at UC Berkeley, where he holds the Eva Li Memorial Chair in Architecture. His unconventional approach challenges traditional architectural boundaries, exemplified by his provocative "Teeter-Totter Wall" installation that transformed sections of the U.S.-Mexico border wall into bright pink seesaws, temporarily bringing people together across international divisions.
The architect's reputation as a pioneer in 3D-printed mud construction has garnered international attention through features in publications like Wired, the New York Times, and Domus. His work has been exhibited at prestigious venues including the Museum of Modern Art, London's Design Museum, and the Cooper Hewitt. He has authored significant books including "Earth Architecture," examining humanity's oldest building material in contemporary contexts, and "Borderwall as Architecture," analyzing the physical barriers separating the United States and Mexico.
Rael's innovative approach represents what he calls "the remix" – blending ancestral knowledge with modern techniques. His introduction to 3D printing began in 1996 when his brother created a website showcasing restoration work on historic La Florida buildings. This led Rael to discover Iran-born engineer Behrokh Khoshnevis at USC, who was developing large-scale 3D concrete printing technology while experimenting with mud. Recognizing this as "the future," Rael purchased an early ceramic 3D printer and began creating experimental clay objects.
After cofounding Emerging Objects, an innovative 3D printing company utilizing materials like salt and rubber, Rael felt compelled to scale up his operations. He envisioned robots capable of constructing entire earth buildings, partnering with engineers to develop this technology. In 2019, his vision materialized with large-scale printing capabilities that allowed him to create revolutionary structures on his Colorado property.
The restoration of his ancestral home required extensive renovation work. Rael replaced old linoleum and carpet with Douglas fir from local mills, removed 1960s concrete plaster to restore the adobe facade's natural state, and expanded small windows to increase natural light penetration. His grandmother's heritage stove, which had traveled through five moves with an aunt after the 1994 property sale, returned as the home's emotional center when Rael reclaimed the property.
Rael's "Adobe Archipelago" encompasses multiple historic structures across the region, including a former Indian Agency building that served as a Native American slave trade outpost and bears scars from the area's complex past. He's also working to preserve an 1800s adobe village in New Mexico that hosts the private Catholic brotherhood Los Penitentes, demonstrating his dual role as both preservationist and futurist inventor.
Without restrictive building codes, La Florida serves as Rael's experimental laboratory. His 2020 "Casa Covida" project created three massive circular adobe volumes opening to the sky without foundations, connecting directly to earth. This triptych structure serves as a case study for reimagining cohabitation during the global pandemic, combining new approaches with ancient Indigenous traditions for sleeping, bathing, and gathering spaces.
The masterpiece of Rael's innovations is "Terrano," the world's first structure featuring a roof 3D-printed on-site. Though its specific purpose remains undetermined, Terrano represents a powerful symbol of rapidly approaching architectural possibilities. Using newer robotic technology provided by philanthropic entities, Rael has expanded beyond circular designs that previously limited his printing capacity, venturing into vaulted architecture inspired by Egyptian architect Hassan Fathy's Nubian vault designs.
Rael's daily life seamlessly integrates traditional practices with technological innovation. He moves effortlessly between operating his family's front-end loader tractor for digging trenches and building dams to commanding his enormous high-tech 3D printer with its mechanical arm. His culinary practices also reflect this remix philosophy, preparing traditional foods like pozole soup with dried chiles and hominy while sipping medicinal oshá tea made from wild celery root endemic to southern Colorado and northern New Mexico.
The architect's vision extends beyond individual projects to creating a destination for like-minded creators and thinkers. He envisions La Florida becoming a place where people can "make interesting work and interact with the landscape," hosting guests and students in historic structures like the Dominguez House, which belonged to his great-aunt's family and now serves as an extension of his own home.
Rael's work represents a profound reconciliation of his complex cultural identity, encompassing Indigenous and Mexican roots within his American upbringing. Returning to his ancestral lands has allowed him to celebrate these layered realities without concern for impressing distant audiences. As he explains, "I no longer have to think about impressing all of those people who I was told to impress. It's actually about impressing my mom and my community and being respectful of this landscape and its history."
Looking toward the future, Rael has found his life's purpose in this high-altitude desert laboratory where ancient traditions meet technological innovation. His reputation for collecting old adobe buildings has spread throughout the community, with locals calling to gauge his interest in new acquisitions. Each structure brings him closer to understanding his roots in these former borderlands between the United States and Mexico, where complex cultural webs formed after the Mexican-American War when many residents chose to remain and become U.S. citizens. As Rael reflects on the gravity of his mission, he declares with determination: "This will be what I'm working on until the day that I die."
