The Association La Voûte Nubienne (AVN, Nubian Vault Association) is involved in promoting the Nubian vault architectural technique and in training as many African mason-builders as possible in this ancestral building technique. By stepping up the scale of its activity, it hopes to contribute to the Sahelian architectural future and to the economic development of the region.

AVN promotes this alternative building technique known as the “Nubian vault" with Sahelian populations and masons, a technique requiring no timber shuttering and using mud only as building material, thereby offering a sustainable solution to a number of economic and environmental problems in the area.
Countries in the sub-Saharan region are faced with issues of desertification amplified by a recent demographic boom. The traditional rural adobe habitat requires timber for roof-building. With the quasi-disappearance of lumber, the extremely poor rural populations are now forced to buy imported sheet metal and timber rafters to roof their houses. Yet, tin roofs put the villagers into debt, drain the local economy with imported materials, amplify the severe climate conditions and spoil the traditional habitat aesthetics.
The Nubian Vault (VN) technique, derived from an ancient African architectural process, is perfectly adapted to blend into the building and learning modes of the local populations. Mud is used as the main building material, while the architectural technique restores the traditional terraced roof and allows two-storey construction.
The “Earth Roofs in the Sahel” programme is designed to quickly transfer this building know-how, with on-the-job training provided on construction sites by VN masonry contractors who are former apprentices. This cooption-based horizontal method of skills transmission has always been used traditionally by the villagers. Furthermore, by resorting preferentially to local labour and materials, the technique fosters the growth of local economies and self-reliance of the populations.