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Mud architecture in Dagarta Island
There is always a romanticized notion attached to returning to the countryside—a place of pristine nature, healthy food, and a natural way of life that city dwellers long for. But behind this unspoiled environment lies significant underdevelopment and poverty, equally affecting all regions of Sudan.
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Introduction:
Islanders use the names Dagarta or Dagarti for their home. The names are made up of words in the the Fadija language including ‘Arti’ meaning Island and ‘Dagar’ which can mean ‘transporting a bride to her husband’s home’ or ‘the practice of tying a pole in the river to gather silt and create a man-made sedimentary island’
Dagarta Island is located in northern Sudan and falls under the administration of Kerma city in the Burqīq locality. It is believed to have been inhabited for thousands of years, with its residents living in the centre of the island, while the agricultural lands are situated on its outskirts.
Before the war, the island's population ranged between 600 and 700 people. However, due to displacement from other areas in Sudan, approximately 340 people—mostly original inhabitants—have returned to their abandoned homes.
(Introduction taken from an article in Atar Magazine, Issue 19, published on February 29, 2024.)
On mud Architecture:
The experience of living in mud-brick buildings varies depending on several factors. For example, where is the building located? Is it in a humid or dry area (such as a region affected by dam-related climate changes)? What is the nature of the soil there (sandy, clay, or rocky)? And finally, who is evaluating the experience—Is it a native of the area or someone displaced due to the recent war? Individual differences also play a role; what suits one person may, or may not, suit another.
However, let’s agree that the displacement crisis has a much darker side than voluntary return to one’s home and birthplace. There is always a romanticized notion attached to returning to the countryside—a place of pristine nature, healthy food, and a natural way of life that city dwellers long for. But behind this unspoiled environment lies significant underdevelopment and poverty, equally affecting all regions of Sudan.
In one of my past fantasies, I imagined owning a beautifully decorated mud-brick house in the countryside, with a small farm growing seasonal crops and fruit trees for self-sufficiency. I saw this as a form of atonement for my life in a Sudanese city that distorted the ideas of citizenship, beauty, and civilization—a search for my lost identity and an unconditional friendship with the environment. However, this dream shattered before my eyes after living in these homes for many months, experiencing both winter and summer. I found myself asking a strange question: Why is mud-brick architecture in Dagarta Island still in use and why has it not just become an extinct heritage practice? How beautiful it is to read about it in reports and studies, and how lovely its images appear online—yet how harsh it is to live inside these buildings as they are, without modern conveniences.
The lifestyle and daily tasks assigned to men and women on the island is key to understanding how these buildings are used, as frequent social visits, working in farms and being in outdoor spaces help ease the severity of the summer heat and winter cold that you can experience in these buildings. The island’s residents don’t stay in their rooms all day, as I did, being a newcomer from the city.
Another challenge of this architecture is its durability—it is constantly exposed to destruction and turns into ruins just a few years after being abandoned, unlike buildings made of other materials (stone, cement, or red brick). Regular maintenance is an essential part of life on the island, as homes are treated like living beings with their own needs, and residents do not complain about taking care of them. Interestingly, abandoned buildings played a crucial role in housing displaced people and returning islanders during the war. Due to the simplicity of construction techniques, the ruins were quickly restored to accommodate the large influx of people.
Building mud houses on Dagarta Island was never a matter of choice. The island’s isolation and the difficulty of transporting modern construction materials, along with limited space preventing the construction of brick kilns without causing health hazards, made mud-brick construction the only viable option. Of course, some Islanders can afford to transport these materials, but only very few. Only major projects funded by the government or private sources—such as the only primary school, the medical centre, and the two mosques (referred to as “Qibli” and “Bahri,” meaning south and north of the island)—were built using red bricks and finished with modern materials.
The economy of most island residents depends on seasonal agriculture, growing crops such as wheat, fava beans, and dates, while partially relying on financial support from their expatriate children. In recent years, fertilizers and pesticides have become essential to ensure successful harvests, as the nutrient-rich silt that once replenished the soil has significantly declined as a result of the construction of the Merowe Dam. Additionally, the selling price of crops for islanders is much lower compared to mainland residents, as farmers must bear the cost of transporting their produce across the river. These economic factors must be considered when asking why most houses are still built using traditional methods and why they lack modern cooling and heating systems to ease the hardships of extreme weather.
One positive government-provided service is the water network, which has connected pipes to every home. However, there is also a downside: before this network, women would go to the Nile to fetch water, turning it into a social activity. All elderly women on the island know how to swim. They did not stay indoors suffering from the intense heat during the day. Thus when we look at any solution offered for an age-old problem, we realize it often brings unintended consequences.
What Does the House Consist Of?
A typical mud house consists of rooms, barandat, verandas, a kitchen, and a storage area. Additional structures outside the main enclosure include an outdoor kitchen for making traditional bread if space inside the house is limited, a latrine, a pigeon tower, a rakuba (a shaded sitting area for men with chairs and beds for receiving guests), an outdoor traditional clay water dispenser mazyara, and a platform for storing produce rasa and grain silo gosayba.
Regarding sanitation, there is no sewage network due to the island's small size, nor are there sewage suction tanks, as there are no motorized vehicles on the island—except for one plow owned collectively by the island’s farmers. The common solution is pit latrines, it’s a system that consists of digging a pit behind the bathroom connected with PVC drainage pipes and a ventilation outlet. As it’s a dry system, water usage is minimized to slow the filling of the well. Water from washing drains into an external pit, which is later emptied. When a washroom pit fills up, the washroom is abandoned, and a new one is built with a new pit. If space is limited, the washroom may be built outside the house. Dishwashing water is collected in a basin and bucket, then poured into the street, directed to an alley, or drained onto an empty plot of land.
Building Materials and Construction
The first components of the house, mud bricks, are shaped and left to dry in an open area, ideally near the intended house site and an area free of crops. Sometimes, the bricks are made in a farm that hasn’t yet been plowed for the new season. In one unfortunate incident, a large quantity of bricks was flooded because the farmer responsible for irrigating his crops and closing the canal at specific times overslept that night. The brickmaker woke up to a sad reality as all his efforts had gone to waste. Brickmaking is paid work, but the homeowner may do it themselves to reduce costs, as well as transport the bricks by cart from the moulding site to the intended house plot. Beyond that, the actual construction is a communal effort nafir—men gather to build the house and roof it, while women later apply a finishing layer of plaster with sifted clay and gum arabic for durability. All buildings on the island are single-story structures.
What Are the Building Materials?
Building materials include:
- Mud bricks
- Mud mortar
- Interior and exterior plaster made of mud
- Stones placed atop walls to support roof beams
- Wooden beams made of tree trunks for the roof
- Roof covering of palm fronds or reeds, sealed with a layer of mud
- Aluminum sheets (called zinc) and iron pipes, eliminating the need for the ventilation gap between the wall and ceiling, which prevents termites from reaching and damaging the roof.
Every year, the house’s walls and floors are replastered at least twice because the outer protective layer is affected by weather conditions. This process also seals holes that might allow scorpions or other pests to enter. Because the island is affected by termites, even with carefully sieved soil, traces of straw in the mud serve as food for these destructive insects. The solution for furniture is to use metal pieces or to elevate wooden items on stone or plastic bases.
The variation in house colours, despite being built from the same earth, results from differences in the amount of gum arabic added to the mud mixture. This substance enhances adhesion and durability, and its varying proportions create different shades—from dark brown to lighter earthy tones.
Climate Challenges and Adaptation
Extreme climate changes must be considered. Reports on the El Niño phenomenon place Sudan among the most affected countries. During the 2024 rainy season, many homes in mainland areas opposite the island collapsed due to their location in natural flood zones. Unlike the typically arid climate, sudden heavy rains have become increasingly common in recent years. The cost of regular maintenance—or, in the worst case, relocating buildings to higher ground—has become an inevitable necessity. Fortunately, no houses on the island itself collapsed, although strong winds accompanying the rains did blow off zinc roofs. Because of the varied elevations of buildings and streets, water did not remain trapped inside homes for long.
As I write this in the third week of February 2025, islanders are enduring an extreme cold wave and have resorted to using traditional heating methods—placing a metal basin filled with burning coals inside their rooms. Meanwhile last summer record-breaking temperatures were recorded reaching an average of 46°C in May and June.
Accepting these climate changes as a new reality, rather than as isolated occurrences, could be the first step towards sustainable architectural solutions using local materials—making life in a mud house safe throughout the seasons.
Header picture and all Gallery pictures: Dagarta Island, North Sudan, 2024 © Aya Sinada
Introduction:
Islanders use the names Dagarta or Dagarti for their home. The names are made up of words in the the Fadija language including ‘Arti’ meaning Island and ‘Dagar’ which can mean ‘transporting a bride to her husband’s home’ or ‘the practice of tying a pole in the river to gather silt and create a man-made sedimentary island’
Dagarta Island is located in northern Sudan and falls under the administration of Kerma city in the Burqīq locality. It is believed to have been inhabited for thousands of years, with its residents living in the centre of the island, while the agricultural lands are situated on its outskirts.
Before the war, the island's population ranged between 600 and 700 people. However, due to displacement from other areas in Sudan, approximately 340 people—mostly original inhabitants—have returned to their abandoned homes.
(Introduction taken from an article in Atar Magazine, Issue 19, published on February 29, 2024.)
On mud Architecture:
The experience of living in mud-brick buildings varies depending on several factors. For example, where is the building located? Is it in a humid or dry area (such as a region affected by dam-related climate changes)? What is the nature of the soil there (sandy, clay, or rocky)? And finally, who is evaluating the experience—Is it a native of the area or someone displaced due to the recent war? Individual differences also play a role; what suits one person may, or may not, suit another.
However, let’s agree that the displacement crisis has a much darker side than voluntary return to one’s home and birthplace. There is always a romanticized notion attached to returning to the countryside—a place of pristine nature, healthy food, and a natural way of life that city dwellers long for. But behind this unspoiled environment lies significant underdevelopment and poverty, equally affecting all regions of Sudan.
In one of my past fantasies, I imagined owning a beautifully decorated mud-brick house in the countryside, with a small farm growing seasonal crops and fruit trees for self-sufficiency. I saw this as a form of atonement for my life in a Sudanese city that distorted the ideas of citizenship, beauty, and civilization—a search for my lost identity and an unconditional friendship with the environment. However, this dream shattered before my eyes after living in these homes for many months, experiencing both winter and summer. I found myself asking a strange question: Why is mud-brick architecture in Dagarta Island still in use and why has it not just become an extinct heritage practice? How beautiful it is to read about it in reports and studies, and how lovely its images appear online—yet how harsh it is to live inside these buildings as they are, without modern conveniences.
The lifestyle and daily tasks assigned to men and women on the island is key to understanding how these buildings are used, as frequent social visits, working in farms and being in outdoor spaces help ease the severity of the summer heat and winter cold that you can experience in these buildings. The island’s residents don’t stay in their rooms all day, as I did, being a newcomer from the city.
Another challenge of this architecture is its durability—it is constantly exposed to destruction and turns into ruins just a few years after being abandoned, unlike buildings made of other materials (stone, cement, or red brick). Regular maintenance is an essential part of life on the island, as homes are treated like living beings with their own needs, and residents do not complain about taking care of them. Interestingly, abandoned buildings played a crucial role in housing displaced people and returning islanders during the war. Due to the simplicity of construction techniques, the ruins were quickly restored to accommodate the large influx of people.
Building mud houses on Dagarta Island was never a matter of choice. The island’s isolation and the difficulty of transporting modern construction materials, along with limited space preventing the construction of brick kilns without causing health hazards, made mud-brick construction the only viable option. Of course, some Islanders can afford to transport these materials, but only very few. Only major projects funded by the government or private sources—such as the only primary school, the medical centre, and the two mosques (referred to as “Qibli” and “Bahri,” meaning south and north of the island)—were built using red bricks and finished with modern materials.
The economy of most island residents depends on seasonal agriculture, growing crops such as wheat, fava beans, and dates, while partially relying on financial support from their expatriate children. In recent years, fertilizers and pesticides have become essential to ensure successful harvests, as the nutrient-rich silt that once replenished the soil has significantly declined as a result of the construction of the Merowe Dam. Additionally, the selling price of crops for islanders is much lower compared to mainland residents, as farmers must bear the cost of transporting their produce across the river. These economic factors must be considered when asking why most houses are still built using traditional methods and why they lack modern cooling and heating systems to ease the hardships of extreme weather.
One positive government-provided service is the water network, which has connected pipes to every home. However, there is also a downside: before this network, women would go to the Nile to fetch water, turning it into a social activity. All elderly women on the island know how to swim. They did not stay indoors suffering from the intense heat during the day. Thus when we look at any solution offered for an age-old problem, we realize it often brings unintended consequences.
What Does the House Consist Of?
A typical mud house consists of rooms, barandat, verandas, a kitchen, and a storage area. Additional structures outside the main enclosure include an outdoor kitchen for making traditional bread if space inside the house is limited, a latrine, a pigeon tower, a rakuba (a shaded sitting area for men with chairs and beds for receiving guests), an outdoor traditional clay water dispenser mazyara, and a platform for storing produce rasa and grain silo gosayba.
Regarding sanitation, there is no sewage network due to the island's small size, nor are there sewage suction tanks, as there are no motorized vehicles on the island—except for one plow owned collectively by the island’s farmers. The common solution is pit latrines, it’s a system that consists of digging a pit behind the bathroom connected with PVC drainage pipes and a ventilation outlet. As it’s a dry system, water usage is minimized to slow the filling of the well. Water from washing drains into an external pit, which is later emptied. When a washroom pit fills up, the washroom is abandoned, and a new one is built with a new pit. If space is limited, the washroom may be built outside the house. Dishwashing water is collected in a basin and bucket, then poured into the street, directed to an alley, or drained onto an empty plot of land.
Building Materials and Construction
The first components of the house, mud bricks, are shaped and left to dry in an open area, ideally near the intended house site and an area free of crops. Sometimes, the bricks are made in a farm that hasn’t yet been plowed for the new season. In one unfortunate incident, a large quantity of bricks was flooded because the farmer responsible for irrigating his crops and closing the canal at specific times overslept that night. The brickmaker woke up to a sad reality as all his efforts had gone to waste. Brickmaking is paid work, but the homeowner may do it themselves to reduce costs, as well as transport the bricks by cart from the moulding site to the intended house plot. Beyond that, the actual construction is a communal effort nafir—men gather to build the house and roof it, while women later apply a finishing layer of plaster with sifted clay and gum arabic for durability. All buildings on the island are single-story structures.
What Are the Building Materials?
Building materials include:
- Mud bricks
- Mud mortar
- Interior and exterior plaster made of mud
- Stones placed atop walls to support roof beams
- Wooden beams made of tree trunks for the roof
- Roof covering of palm fronds or reeds, sealed with a layer of mud
- Aluminum sheets (called zinc) and iron pipes, eliminating the need for the ventilation gap between the wall and ceiling, which prevents termites from reaching and damaging the roof.
Every year, the house’s walls and floors are replastered at least twice because the outer protective layer is affected by weather conditions. This process also seals holes that might allow scorpions or other pests to enter. Because the island is affected by termites, even with carefully sieved soil, traces of straw in the mud serve as food for these destructive insects. The solution for furniture is to use metal pieces or to elevate wooden items on stone or plastic bases.
The variation in house colours, despite being built from the same earth, results from differences in the amount of gum arabic added to the mud mixture. This substance enhances adhesion and durability, and its varying proportions create different shades—from dark brown to lighter earthy tones.
Climate Challenges and Adaptation
Extreme climate changes must be considered. Reports on the El Niño phenomenon place Sudan among the most affected countries. During the 2024 rainy season, many homes in mainland areas opposite the island collapsed due to their location in natural flood zones. Unlike the typically arid climate, sudden heavy rains have become increasingly common in recent years. The cost of regular maintenance—or, in the worst case, relocating buildings to higher ground—has become an inevitable necessity. Fortunately, no houses on the island itself collapsed, although strong winds accompanying the rains did blow off zinc roofs. Because of the varied elevations of buildings and streets, water did not remain trapped inside homes for long.
As I write this in the third week of February 2025, islanders are enduring an extreme cold wave and have resorted to using traditional heating methods—placing a metal basin filled with burning coals inside their rooms. Meanwhile last summer record-breaking temperatures were recorded reaching an average of 46°C in May and June.
Accepting these climate changes as a new reality, rather than as isolated occurrences, could be the first step towards sustainable architectural solutions using local materials—making life in a mud house safe throughout the seasons.
Header picture and all Gallery pictures: Dagarta Island, North Sudan, 2024 © Aya Sinada
