Appropriate Technology
Explore in the Atlas →An approach to building that favours low-cost, locally available materials and labour-intensive, community-based construction suited to a place's economy, climate and culture rather than imported industrial materials such as steel, cement and glass. In architecture it is associated with Hassan Fathy's mud-brick revival in Egypt and Laurie Baker's cost-efficient brick work in India, and more broadly with E. F. Schumacher's 'small is beautiful' economics. It treats affordability, environmental fit and the dignity of self-build as design imperatives.
Details
- Introduced
- 1973
Classifications
- Holder
- Communal intergenerational
- Source of authority
- Lived experience
- Subject
- Human centred
- Political position
- Subaltern resistant
- Mode of transmission
- Apprenticeship
- Knowledge type
- Relational embodied
- Epistemic cluster
- Western philosophical
Connections
- relates to Incremental Housing
Referenced by
- Gando Primary School articulates
- Zero Carbon Cultural Centre, Makli articulates
- Architecture for the Poor: An Experiment in Rural Egypt articulates
- New Gourna Village articulates
- Victor Olgyay influenced
- Laurie Baker proposed
- Hassan Fathy proposed
- Barefoot Social Architecture (BASA) relates to
Sources
- Hassan Fathy. Architecture for the Poor: An Experiment in Rural Egypt. University of Chicago Press, 1973.
- Wikipedia. Laurie Baker. Wikipedia, 2024.
- Laurie Baker. Houses: How to Reduce Building Costs. Centre of Science and Technology for Rural Development (COSTFORD), India, 1986.
Cite this entry
First published May 2026Last revised Jul 2026
CLAD. "Appropriate Technology." Atlas of Architectural Thought. CLAD, 2026. https://www.cl-ad.com.au/research/atlas/theory/appropriate-technology/. Accessed July 17, 2026.