For decades, migratory shepherds with huge flocks of sheep and cattle have moved several hundred kilometres across Spain from winter to summer pastures and vice versa. This movement, also called ‘transhumance‘, has created an extensive system of cattle trails connecting the countryside from north to south. The routes still cover 125,000 kilometres and more than 400,000 hectares. Migratory animal husbandry is also associated with a special way of life for the herders and their accompanying livestock. One feature of this way of life is micro shelters, also called ‘chozo‘. A small room where one could spend the night and protect oneself from the cold or heat. In Extremadura, there are originally three different types of huts: the portable hut, made entirely of plant material, the stone hut, made of stone material, and the mixed hut, whose walls are made of stone material but whose roof is made of plant material.
The ‘chozos‘ are an expression of an architecture that has emerged in a symbiosis of cultural and natural conditions. These huts can be built relatively simply, autonomously and with few existing affordable materials. There is a lot of knowledge which is getting lost in this original vernacular architecture: the use of local resources, the efficient use of materials, the integration into the landscape, the respect for nature, the ease of recycling. In short, there is a know-how about how to build a sustainable and resilient environment in balance with the planet. An approach that we should undoubtedly learn from and apply to our architectural designs in the years to come. Especially with regard to pressing questions about climate warming: the relationship between humans and nature and the careful use of regionally available resources. In that sense, in orther to be able to learn from and apply, we will analyse, research, document, put in practice and adapt our ‘past methods of building‘.
