require thermal insulation in cold climates, they are conducive to solar design, and are great sound insulators (Romero & Larkin, 1994). A variation on adobecalled Compressed Earth Blocks (CEB)employs pressing machines that can create large numbers of bricks (blocks). The machines can be simple hand-operated affairs, or more complicated mechanisms with cams, toggles and motorized hydraulics. The simpler machines have had more widespread application since they are less expensive, less dependent on external fuel and more suitable for impoverished rural applications. Workers employing hand presses can make up to 500 blocks a day, and all the bricks necessary for a modest house in a week. Hydraulic machines can make all the blocks for a large house in a day. CEB construction has been employed around the world, from Latin America to Africa to India and the Middle East. CEBs are stronger in compression that regular adobe blocks (Nelson, 2002). In composition, the main difference between adobe and CEB is the moisture content. CEB mixes are much drier than adobe. The block machine compresses the volume of the block by about 30 percent, aligning the moist clay particles, removing the air pockets and sticking the clay to the sand. Too much water would result in too much air space between particles when the block dries, weakening it. Over time CEB technology has experienced some interesting innovationsas, for example, shape changes in the blocks to accommodate reinforcement or to facilitate interlocking mortarless stacking (Chiras, 2000; Nelson, 2002). Adobe and CEB are versatile examples of earthen construction that have great future potentialfor development in both the formal and informal economies.