Good Hearth

Like the Manasvis,a small but growing number of homeowners across India are revising their opinion of mud as the poor mans building material. For them,mud houses symbolise a way of life in which luxury and style do not harm the environment. Theres no pollution in manufacture,no harmful waste if the structure is gutted or demolished,no negative effects to the indoor air quality. Mud houses are also labour intensive; so they have socioeconomic benefits, says Anupama Kundoo,a Puducherry-based architect who has been designing eco-friendly buildings for 20 years. Kundoo has seen the clientele for mud homes grow over the past few years. People now take pride in environmentally-sound ideas and come looking for architects who can deliver, she says. From homes in Ladakh to a community centre in Auroville,a film complex in Thiruvananthapuram to hospitals in Chhota Nagpur mud is making its mark.

In Bangalore,where the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) introduced environment-friendly technology more than 25 years ago and made green thinking fashionable,there are more than 5,000 mud homes in the main city and its suburbs. Of these,around half came up in the past three years. Owners range from senior citizens who have worked for institutes like the IISc and Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) to young professionals from the software industry. The typical mud house owner,according to Stuti Nalin Shah from the School of Interior Design,CEPT University,Ahmedabad,who is researching modern mud houses in India,is well-read,artistic and pro-active. He cares about the environment,so he wont go in for a house that pollutes.

The houses dont stride over the landscape like glass-and-granite colossuses,but they do dominate in other ways. Step inside Uma and Ratan Vaids mud house at Bahadurgarh in Haryana,an hours drive from Delhi,and you see reverse snobbery at work. The walls breathe,unlike concrete,so we dont need an AC even when the temperature is 40 degrees outside. Electric bills have gone south. How the neighbours envy me! says Ratan,whose house stands amid rows of concrete in a gated colony.

From a distance,the double-storied structure where the Vaids live with their sons family and servants,looks like any other,with its Vaastu-compliant design,huge windows on both levels and a tiled sloping roof. Only the pallid brown of the unplastered walls sets it apart. Inside,it is a wonder of tradition and technology that marks new-age mud construction. Chitra Vishwanath,a Bangalore-based architect,who has built the home,says,Mud houses are made from locally available material and suited to the local environment. In Delhi,which is largely hot throughout the year,the challenge is to keep the interiors cool; in Bangalore,where the temperature goes from cold at night to very hot in the same day,we have to ensure that warm air circulates around the house.

Rajagopal Kadambi,a retired engineer in Bangalore,and his wife Jyothi built their weekend home on a half-acre expanse outside the city two years ago,lavishly embellishing the interiors with wood detailing. There is a great deal of awareness about eco-friendly technology in Bangalore. I expected it to be expensive like most farmhouses but the cost was just Rs 45 lakh,half of what I would have paid for a concrete structure, he says. The Vaids home,built in 2001,was also half the budget of a similar concrete house. As the building material,mud,is abundant and locally available and labour cheap,the construction of a 1,500 sq ft single-storied mud house in Bangalore would set one back by Rs 15 lakhwhich architects say is far less than a corresponding concrete structure.Ecological construction is easy on the pocket as well on the environment, says Kerala-based architect PK Sreenivasan.

Unlike dark and stuffy kachcha houses,the new homes have skylights to maximise use of natural light and heat,spacious rooms,rainwater harvesting and solar power systems. Didi Contractor,80,a champion of mud housing in Himachal Pradesh,also adds fireplaces and a system to circulate warm air through walls and out of the chimneys. Her houses follow the Kangra-style of design,with its L-shape and wooden beams,but one could have mud houses that range from the quirky architect Eugene Pandalas designs in Kollam in southern Kerala in which organic forms have replaced geometric lines to the minimalist Kundoos houses which have clean lines. Their colours depend on the colour of the soil,a vibrant red in the south to the more familiar brown elsewhere in India.

The mud is treated according to the region: sun-dried bricks are used in places like Auroville in Puducherry,rammed earth technique (in which soil is compressed between planks to form walls) in arid zones where the earth is full of gravel; in some parts of south India,walls are built with coils of earth kneaded with straw.

House owners scoff at the common misconception that mud houses will dissolve in the rains. Maya Narayan,a retired psychologist in Sidhbari near Dharamsala in Himachal Pradesh,has lived in hers for over 15 years and says it is as good as new. When a man steps out in the rain,he must wear a wide hat and boots. Similarly,a building must have a solid foundation made of rocks,and a 3 ft overhang to protect the walls, says Contractor,who built the house.
Doomsayers may also look up history books. In the devastating earthquake of 1902 in Himachal Pradesh,more British died than Indians,largely because the former lived in pucca houses and the latter in mud ones. Concrete has been in use for a mere 150 years while mud buildings have withstood the battering of time longer.

Pandala,who designs conventional concrete as well as eco-friendly houses,says,We lost our centuries-old tradition when we switched to concrete,a neo-technology propagated by engineers. Our colleges dont even teach mud technology, he says. Pandalas mud house dossier contains a resort in Wayanad and a 20,000 sq ft film complex in Thiruvananthapuram,besides several private homes. Public buildings are important. It builds confidence in people, he says.

And then,there are dividends that concrete can never pay: Maintenance means lipai with a mud-cowdung-Fevicol water mix on the floor every six months. Thats it. Theres none of the fuss of daily mopping as with concrete floors. The walls havent needed any work all these years, says Narayan,who has earthen floors unlike the Vaids yellow Jaisalmer stone or the Kadambis limestone ones. Its zero maintenance throughout life, says Vishwanath. You can wipe away scribbles and scrawls by children from mud walls.

Sometimes,building a mud house is a first step towards greener vistas. Its a lifestyle,not just style, says Vaid. After moving into my house,I started surfing the Net to find out about plants that could keep the house cool. I found out how bamboos breathe oxygen even at night unlike other plants,and now my house has several bamboo trees. Kadambi recently installed a solar power system that will light up the outdoors. And in Dharamsala,retired professor Kishwar Shirali,65,who has chosen a mud house in the hills over her concrete one in Chandigarh,recycles every drop of water. Water used to wash vegetables is used for the garden,and even bath water is collected, says Shirali.
Vaid recalls how in 1997,his son,then an MBA student,had laughed at his father,saying he was crazy to build our first house with mud in 1997. Today,his sons friends are lining up to own mud houses.

But,will mud houses ever become a mainstream option for yuppie couples in cities? Only if they are committed enough for the envior instance,because of thick walls in mud houses,the difference between carpet area and built-up area may be very high. So,one has to be prepared for that after paying through the nose for real estate in cities. Most mud houses are between two and four levels,so Contractor rules out high-rises. Mud walls absorb light and tend to be darker inside. Vishwanath says,This problem can be rectified by using yellow light and spot lighting, she says. And in places like Mumbai,with its clayey,black cotton soil,naturally-occurring rocks would made more sense,feels Vishwanath.
This is an idea whose time has come. I hope more people start building mud houses in cities, says Pandala. He might yet get his wish.