Stories | Ebele Ubaka

How to Handle Job Rejections and Turn it Into Opportunities

September 30, 2025September 8, 2025 by Ebele Ubaka

Turning Job Rejections Into Opportunities: How I Learned from a Feedback and Grew Stronger The amount of rejections I have received since the beginning of this year is tiring on the soul. I was so angry at the previous one that I nearly, emphasis on “nearly”, lashed out at the email, so I just swiped … Read more

Mud Architecture Studies for Sustainable Buildings

August 18, 2025 by Ebele Ubaka

In my studies on mud architecture for sustainable buildings and affordable homes, I decided to test out some of the materials I could find in the local area where I currently am.

I’m using a mix of laterite, sharp sand, stones and cement for this mud house building model.

Cement is not a natural building material. It is manufactured from a mix of things with lime.

I can’t find lime here, so I am using cement.

I also searched for clay. Couldn’t find any. Laterite + Clay + Stones/Sand is my focus.

The building model in the image is not entirely to scale but I’m using this to observe how each material mix reacts to the environment and the weather.

It’s still rainy season, so it will be a while before I can fully ascertain the strength and level of shrinkage from each mix.

First lesson from experience, to build with mud, never build in rainy season. Use that period to gather all your materials.

Follow for more fairly-used building-with-mud architecture tips.

#ebeleubaka #volarchy #architecture #buildingwithouttears

#africanarchitecture

Observation Post: Our Traditional/Vernacular Architecture tour

February 27, 2025January 18, 2024 by Ebele Ubaka

Traditional/Vernacular Architecture tour for a school assignment was an interesting time.

In my group, we went to this village in Imo state.

Peaceful and quiet and we saw this building.

My first encounter with a real-life, one-storey, mud house.

I was too scared to go in.

It had not been in use for a while.

What if it caves in under our weight?

I peacefully took the building pictures without the need to tempt the gods.

In helping with building sustainability and minimizing climate crisis, we need to go back to using our local building materials.

Clay is accessible and creates a better indoor climate for our interiors.

A research institute was conducting tests on clay bricks somewhere in Awka and it was abandoned. It’s probably due to funds but I can as well assume that other reasons would hover around disinterest in using local materials.

Timber is within reach. I saw the neatly made raffia bed floor.

We don’t expect a complete overhaul back to local materials but start with the walls. Instead of floor tiles for finishes, use timber or raffia mats.

You’re probably thinking that this girl is going nuts, talking about us going back to what our fathers abandoned to embrace the kerosene lantern, but have you seen what the modern whites are doing with our local products in their homes?

They use the raffia mat as a rug and they celebrate it like it’s gold. The way they write about it on CNN, if I wasn’t in Africa, I would be more than thrilled.

Their terrace swing chairs are made of raffia materials imported from where?

You tell me.

The challenge is will you be open to me designing such for you?

ArchiStories: A Tale of 2 Prospective Clients

August 25, 2024June 28, 2023 by Ebele Ubaka

ArchiStories: A Tale of 2 Prospective Clients… I have received 2 interesting phone calls from 2 prospective clients who obviously got VolArchy’s number online. These two prospective clients with different names, and phone numbers called at varying times. The unique thing about these calls was that they both wanted a school design. Strange. They both … Read more

ArchiStories: My brother and I

August 25, 2024December 18, 2022 by Ebele Ubaka

ArchiStories: sitting at my workstation, willing my mind to design a residential building, here comes my brother. “I can’t wait to employ two Architects so that I can focus on Marketing and Customer relationship”, I said. “Employ me na” he quickly interjected. “Just teach me how to use AutoCAD”. “But I mostly use Revit”, I … Read more

Ebele Ubaka - Personal Blog