kiln

Conch and Huawei have developed AI tools for more precisely predicting clinker strength, as well as for controlling energy use at the kiln where it is made.

The house is wrapped in clinker brick, a term for when clay bricks are set too close to the flames when being fired in a kiln, giving them distorted shapes and colors.

After this, the wood goes into a large kiln where it is dried in a process that can last anywhere from 10 days to six weeks.

To tell a story, writes Mr. Johnson, is to “fire it in the kiln of real life, resulting not in a fabrication, but a reality hard enough, sharp enough, to draw blood.”

The handprint found underneath was probably made when someone, perhaps the potter, moved the house out of the workshop to dry before firing in a kiln, according to the researchers.