France, Feb. 2 -- In the heart of Bamako, architect Mariam Sy is leading a quiet revolution - one handful of earth at a time. Her vision merges Mali's ancient building wisdom with contemporary design, creating structures that seem to rise organically from the Sahelian soil.

"At 15, I told my parents I wanted to be an architect. They thought it was a good idea, and I had to leave my girls' school to attend a technical college in Bamako," Sy tells RFI.

That decision set her on a path from Mali to Belgium, where she earned her architecture degree, and then to France's prestigious Craterre research centre in Grenoble.

It was there she mastered the art of building with the earth, a material at the core of her sustainable designs. Today, Sy'...