Ceramic houses are builings made of an earth mixture which is high in clay, and fired to become ceramic. The process of building and firing such houses was developed by Iranian architect, Nader Khalili, in the late 1970s. he named it Geltaftan; "Gel", means "clay", and "taftan", means "firing, baking, and weaving clay" in Persian. Khalili's research into creating ceramic houses was strongly based on the idea that permanent, water-resistant, and earthquake-resistant houses could be built with the implementation of the four elements: earth and water to build the forms, and fire and air to finish them. His impassioned work led to a few small scale projects in Iran, including the Javadabad Elementary school, and the Ghaled Mofid restoration project. Aside from Khalili's own documented work, there seems to be little widespread research on Ceramic houses.