Ask any New Mexican about residing in an adobe house and watch him get dewy-eyed—even if he has never actually lived in one. Adobe, that simple mix of dirt and water, is the quintessential Southwestern abode—warm in the winter, cool in the summer—a welcoming shelter of thick plastered walls.

“Adobe has a mythical feel about it,” says builder David Peterson of David C. Peterson Construction, who has worked with the medium for a quarter-century. “You can feel the very mass.”

The old New Mexican standby, which, unfortunately, has evolved from the building material of the masses to that of the affluent, has some stiff competition these days among builders looking at alternatives to wood frame construction. Concrete-filled panels, foam-like building blocks that stack like Legos, and straw bales have made significant inroads among the various masonry systems used in the construction of exterior walls today. Concrete block is a contender, too, particularly in commercial applications.

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