- 7-Eleven owner confirms new takeover offer from Couche-Tard
- Goodbye Tito? Tomb at risk as Serbs argue over Yugoslav legacy
- Restoration experts piece together silent Sherlock Holmes mystery
- Sinner avoids Shanghai deja vu with assured Shelton win
- Pyongyang to 'permanently' shut border with South Korea
- Trumpet star Marsalis says jazz creates 'balance' in divided world
- No children left on Greece's famed but emptying island
- Nepali becomes youngest to climb world's 8,000m peaks
- Climate change made deadly Hurricane Helene more intense: study
- A US climate scientist sees hurricane Helene's devastation firsthand
- Padres edge Dodgers, Mets on the brink
- Can carbon credits help close coal plants?
- With EU funding, Tunisian farmer revives parched village
- Sega ninja game 'Shinobi' gets movie treatment
- Boeing suspends negotiations with striking workers
- 7-Eleven owner's shares spike on report of new buyout offer
- Your 'local everything': what 7-Eleven buyout battle means for Japan
- Three million UK children living below poverty line: study
- China's Jia brings film spanning love, change over decades to Busan
- Paying out disaster relief before climate catastrophe strikes
- Chinese shares drop on stimulus upset, Asia tracks Wall St higher
- SE Asian summit seeks progress on Myanmar civil war
- How climate funds helped Peru's women beekeepers stay afloat
- Nobel Peace Prize to be awarded as wars rage
- Pacific island nations swamped by global drug trade
- AI-aided research, new materials eyed for Nobel Chemistry Prize
- Mozambique elects new president in tense vote
- The US economy is solid: Why are voters gloomy?
- Balkan summit to rally support for struggling Ukraine
- New stadium gives Real Madrid a headache
- Alonso, Manaea shine as 'Miracle Mets' blitz Phillies
- Harris, Trump trade blows in US election media blitz
- Harry's Bar in Paris drinks to US straw-poll centenary
- Osama bin Laden's son Omar banned from returning to France
- Afghan man arrested for plotting US election day attack
- Brazil lifts ban on Musk's X, ending standoff over disinformation
- Harris holds slight edge nationally over Trump: poll
- Chelsea edge Real Madrid in Women's Champions League, Lyon win
- Japan PM to dissolve parliament for 'honeymoon' snap election
- 'Diego Lives': Immersive Maradona exhibit hits Barcelona
- Brazil Supreme Court lifts ban on Musk's X
- Scientists sound AI alarm after winning physics Nobel
- Six-year-old girl among missing after Brazil landslide
- Nobel-winning physicist 'unnerved' by AI technology he helped create
- Mexico president rules out new 'war on drugs'
- Israeli defense minister postpones trip to Washington: Pentagon
- Europe skipper Donald in talks with Garcia over Ryder return
- Kenya MPs vote to impeach deputy president in historic move
- Former US coach Berhalter named Chicago Fire head coach
- New York Jets fire head coach Saleh: team
Eco-friendly mud houses make comeback in Hungary
They were long derided as old-fashioned symbols of grinding poverty, but mud and straw houses are making a comeback in Hungary as a low-cost, eco-friendly alternative to concrete.
Master builder Janos Gaspar, who renovates earth houses, is worked off his feet.
"I'm booked up for three years. Interest is sky-high," the 48-year-old -- who has built more than 200 clay houses -- told AFP.
Known as rammed earth construction, the practice dates to Neolithic times.
And it is seeing a revival thanks to its tiny ecological footprint and energy efficiency.
Locally accessible materials is the basis of what Gaspar's architect colleague Adam Bihari calls "natural architecture".
"Hungarians knew how to build houses from what they had to hand or under their feet," said the bespectacled Bihari as a clay brick wall was plastered with mud in the town of Acs in northwest Hungary.
"This wall was made 100 years ago, and should be around for another 100," said Bihari.
- 'Material of future' -
In contrast to concrete, which accounts for about eight percent of global CO2 emissions, "it eventually disintegrates naturally, leaving no artificial waste behind," he said.
With Gaspar, Bihari teaches his methods to scores of trainees every year. In the yard beside piles of sandy earth and straw, a dozen watched Gaspar demonstrate how to make mud bricks.
"This type of soil is perfect, and it's found everywhere around Hungary," said Gaspar as a cement mixer churned the ingredients into a mulch.
"You can make one brick a minute, and around 20,000 will make a house," he told the group while kneading handfuls of the mixture into a wooden mould.
The centuries-old practice fell out of fashion during the country's four-decade-long communist era.
"Folk traditions were officially frowned upon and modern materials took over," said Bihari, 33.
Clay brick walls were often cemented over which caused rot as dampness got trapped, he added.
More than one in seven Hungarians still live in earth-built homes, mostly in villages in poorer regions.
Bihari said it is hard to counter long-held associations with damp and poverty.
But interest in natural materials is increasing among developers and investors, according to the architect.
"It is the building material of the future," he said.
- 'Naturally smart' -
Bihari said clay's thermal properties make it ideal for Hungary's fluctuating climate of hot summers and cold winters.
One of the camp participants, Timea Kiss, who already owns a clay house but wants to learn how to renovate it, said her building is naturally warm in winter and cool in summer.
"Amazed visitors ask us where the air conditioning is, but there is none," said the 42-year-old.
Earth homes also regulate their own humidity, said Bihari, which can help people with asthmatic problems. They are also fireproof and non-toxic.
"You hear about 'smart' houses and even smart bricks," said Bihari. "But for me that is nonsense... clay is naturally smart."
Rising energy costs is another push factor behind the growing popularity of earth houses.
Several of the trainees in Acs told AFP they can no longer afford to build or buy conventional houses.
"My wife and I are interested in cheaper solutions like this, it's a bonus that it's good for the environment," said truck driver Zsolt Cserepkei, 31.
L.Miller--AMWN