A tiny adobe and bamboo cottage in Chiang Mai, Thailand.

This tiny cottage is by Markus Roselieb. It's weekend house (ban rai) with one bedroom, a pantry and a half-open bamboo bathroom with a shower under the open sky. The walls are made from adobe bricks with a bamboo roof and bamboo shingles. The floors are rammed earth. The tiny cottage is fitted with lots of little features like a washbasin carved out of a rock and fixed on a bamboo pedestal.

How do you make adobe bricks?

In most adobe building traditions, soil and clay are mixed with a binding fibre such as straw to produce the adobe brick but this cottage used rice husks which are readily available in Chiang Mai. Water is added to the clay and left to set for one day to become homogeneous. Rice husks are then mixed in to bind the mixture and prevent shrinkage and cracking. This mix is poured into a frame to form a brick shape. Once the shape is cast, the frame is removed and the brick left to dry in the sun. When its edges turn white, the brick is turned on its sides to allow all its surfaces to dry evenly. The drying process should be long and slow so the individual bricks can dry without cracking. The brick should be well dried out and ready for use after 2 or 3 weeks.