A house qualifies as an adobe when its load-bearing walls are built from sun-dried earth bricks. Bricks combine clay, sand, water, and a straw binder pressed into wooden molds and cured outdoors. They are then stacked with mud or lime mortar to form walls 18 to 24 inches thick. By that definition, a stucco-finished stud-frame house in Pueblo Revival styling is not adobe; it is adobe-style. Genuine adobe carries the diagnostic features that follow from earth construction. Thick walls, deeply recessed windows, flat roofs on timber vigas, soft-rounded corners, and an earthen or lime plaster coat. The plaster must be maintained or the brick erodes.
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