Béton, enquête en sables mouvants

"La paille, la terre ... c'est pour les pauvres. Le béton, ça c'est moderne!"

When architect Alia Bengana travelled to the Sahara to build a guest house, she was struck by the extensive use of concrete in architecture and the methods for sourcing the sand required to make it. In fact, in the middle of the desert, the sand has to be transported over 1200 km from Algiers to be used in Timimoun!

After questioning her own practice, Alia decided to investigate the concrete industry. With Claude Baechtold, her husband, they shed light on the dynamics of the multinational concrete companies, ready to do anything to protect their monopoly on the construction industry. Their research is enriched by discussions with specialists, construction professionals and activists. 

The fruit of this investigative work is the comic strip Béton, enquête en sables mouvants, published by Les Presses de la Cité earlier this year. The book is an opportunity for the authors to make their discoveries accessible, to address preconceived ideas about concrete as a miracle material, and to propose biosourced alternatives that have proved their worth in construction. The drawings by Antoine Maréchal, architect and illustrator, give an accurate and humorous account of this fieldwork, which took more than ten years to complete.

On Tuesday 10 December 2024, Alia Bengana will present the publication in our architect-run space et al. After that she will engage in a discussion with Klaas de Rycke, civil engineer and architect, partner at Bollinger+Grohmann. The discussion will be moderated by Tiphaine Abenia, teacher and researcher at the Université Libre de Bruxelles.

This will provide the opportunity to address a number of issues, including the potentials or limitations of building without concrete today, the training of architects in bio-sourced materials and the place of these issues in the educational system.