Mud hut is an awesome building. It's easily constructed from easily available resources, it's systems are easy to reason out, it's easy to build by yourself and it's easy to repair yourself.

"Notes on the synthesis of form" by Christopher Alexander is a wonderfull book, and including several Marvin Minsky quotes it can be read as an introduction to the philosophy of vernacular technology - and how tradition based design work differs from expert, intent and theory driven design. Vernacular technology has it's problems, but as long as the problem constraints are not changed, it works wonderfully in the environment that gave birth to it.