✧ 🌙 Dream Project: Moon Dial Sanctuary ✧
Hilltop Grove Near the California Coast
How Would This Actually Be Built?
Designing a dream is one thing. Building it — especially in California — is another.
This post begins to explore how a concept like the Pavilion of One could actually be constructed. It's a landscape-rich, symbolically loaded structure, and yet it must meet very real criteria: sustainability goals, seismic resilience, wildfire protection, and accessibility standards.
Ancient Lessons, Modern Materials
Roman concrete and modern eco-friendly techniques meet in an imagined space — part myth, part building site, all grounded in earth.
As California architects, we are now expected to align with Net Zero construction — a tall order, especially when the very materials we rely on most (like concrete) have traditionally been among the highest carbon emitters on the planet.
Even William Morgan's famous Dune Houses used a cementitious gunite mix to shape their iconic forms. Nearly all “earth-based” building systems today — from rammed earth to superadobe — incorporate concrete or other stabilizers in some way:
- ♦ Rammed earth often includes 5–10% cement for stabilization
- ♦ Earthbag (superadobe) construction may rely on barbed wire reinforcement and cement-mixed soil
- ♦ Earth berms typically require some form of retaining wall (often concrete or CMU)
It’s frustrating to confront the limits of these systems, especially when they are promoted as “earth-conscious,” when contemporary reinforced concrete bears little resemblance to the earth-based building system it used to be in ancient times.
Concrete: A Material Both Ancient and Alive
For thousands of years, concrete has shaped empires — none more enduring than Rome. But as we design for a sustainable future, concrete is also one of the biggest climate concerns: responsible for nearly 8% of global carbon emissions.
Is there another way?
Self-healing, earthquake-resistant concrete was perfected in ancient Rome, some of which has lasted for Millennia without reinforcement, from a natural recipe of volcanic ash, lime, and seawater with stone aggregate.
Recently, research teams from around the world have been studying Roman concrete recipes, according to an article from Science.org.
How Did Roman Concrete Work?
What made it special wasn’t just the ingredients, but how they reacted over time. Unlike Portland cement, which hardens and eventually deteriorates, Roman concrete could self-heal. Water seeping into cracks reactivated unspent lime and ash, closing fissures with new mineral growth. This is part of why their structures — including sea walls — remain intact.
Roman Concrete vs. Modern Reinforced Concrete
| Feature | Roman Concrete | Modern Reinforced Concrete |
|---|---|---|
| Primary Binder | Lime + volcanic ash (pozzolana) | Portland cement |
| Reinforcement | None – massing and vault geometry | Steel rebar embedded in concrete |
| Seismic Strategy | Energy dispersion through cracks, self-healing | Steel absorbs tension, concrete handles compression |
| Durability | Centuries to millennia | 50–100 years typical lifespan |
| Environmental Footprint | Low-carbon, regional ingredients | High-carbon due to cement and steel |
Can Innovation Be Rediscovered?
The Romans never used steel — yet the Pantheon’s dome still stands. Not only that, it survived centuries of earthquakes without the brittle fractures that plague modern concrete.
As we rethink building materials in an age of climate urgency, perhaps the real innovation isn’t asking what’s newest, but what have we forgotten?
Why Don’t We Just Build Like the Romans?
Great question. There are good reasons.
Modern buildings must support live loads, seismic shear, utilities, and code-mandated safety requirements — often in climates and conditions Roman builders never faced. And their methods weren’t universal: Roman concrete performed best in specific environments with locally sourced ash and lime.
But this doesn’t mean we can’t learn from them.
Modern researchers are already experimenting with:
- ♦ Bio-concrete that mimics Roman self-healing
- ♦ Volcanic ash and slag blends that reduce cement use
- ♦ Carbon-negative blocks that replace steel with industrial waste
Low Carbon Concrete
According to a blog post in Building Design+Construction, green, eco-conscious concrete recipes have been engineered to reduce carbon emissions, in products created for today's construction industry. The new ingredient list includes:
- ♦ Fly ash – a byproduct of coal combustion, echoing the ancient Roman formula
- ♦ Ground Granulated Blast Furnace Slag (GGBS) – a byproduct of steel manufacturing
- ♦ Silica fume – derived from silicon and ferrosilicon alloy production
- ♦ Recycled aggregates – sourced from crushed concrete or industrial byproducts
- ♦ Geopolymers – made from materials like fly ash and metakaolin (a refined clay)
These new recipes push against the very idea of natural stone and earth-friendly solutions. What happens when byproduct and combustion-based ingredients are regulated out of existence? This raises fundamental questions:
- ♦ Can we build a sculptural, symbolic, serene space without greenwashing?
- ♦ Can we create eco-conscious, engineered solutions with continued research into the past?
- ♦ Can we use the earth under our feet — responsibly — without defaulting to high carbon concrete?
There are no easy answers. But the process of asking these questions openly — and honestly — is essential.
In future posts, we’ll continue to explore.
And yes — we’ll eventually get to that crescent moon design feature. But not before we ask: What kind of world do we want this project to live in?
Standard Disclaimer
These designs are not construction documents. They are conceptual works, created in part using AI-assisted graphics under original artistic direction. When finalized, design packages will include guidelines for professional adaptation by licensed architects and engineers.
Visuals and text on this page were created or enhanced using AI tools. All concepts and artistic direction are original.
