To show that soil can be transformed into habitable architecture, Colombian artist Octavio Mendoza made a 5,400-square-foot house entirely out of clay. Casa Terracota (known to the neighbors as “Casa de Flintstones”) contains no cement or steel — the whole building is fashioned from clay, including two floors of living space, all the furniture, and all the dishes.

After a career spent designing more conventional buildings, Mendoza spent 14 years realizing the project, to show that functional buildings can be made using the natural resources at hand. He calls it “the biggest piece of pottery in the world.”