Architects from Argentina have designed bricks for housing construction made from the huge amounts of ash that fell in the southern part of the country a year ago following the eruption of the Puyehue-Cordón Caulle volcano chain in Chile. The bricks can be used “for enclosures, partitions, and with a few improvements, they could even support the weight of a roof,” said one of the inventors, architect Marianela Romero from the National University of Río Negro.

The manufacture of the bricks is efficient, said Romero, because they do not need to be fired at high temperatures, which would also create pollution. In addition, “they are good thermal insulators,” Romero told Tierramérica.

Bariloche, in the province of Río Negro, and Villa La Angostura, in neighboring Neuquén, were the cities most severely affected by the millions of tons of volcanic ash and sand resulting from the eruption, which began on Jun. 4, 2011.