The intent of this workshop is to provide participants in the NCBDS Conference with a minimal understanding of the history, pathologies, and processes involved in the preservation of earthen architecture. The workshop will take place at the Gutiérrez-Hubbell House in Albuquerque's South Valley.

This site is now being managed by the Bernalillo County Parks and Recreation Department. They purchased the property in the latter part of the 1990s with the intention of serving as a living museum. After many years of funding, youth training, and community participation, the county was able to restore it, using traditional and appropriate methodologies.

Cornerstones Community Partnerships (CCP), a regional NGO, was instrumental in developing a plan to incorporate community needs into the work. Francisco Uviña-Contreras, Assistant Professor at the University of New Mexico's School of Architecture and Planning, will lead this workshop. He was one of the responsible CCP members in the restoration and youth development programs at the site.

The workshop will include a brief historical background of the building and the site, as well as a walk around the property, noting the distinct historical typologies since its initial inception. Participants will have the opportunity to get their hands dirty by constructing or manufacturing adobes (mud bricks) and applying mud plaster to a site yard wall or an Horno (traditional baking oven). All these activities will include specific explanations of soil characteristics, as well as the history and intentions behind the traditional maintenance of these structures.