From dust to design...

Mud has been a traditional building material in India, albeit for poorer homes. Now, an increasing number of sensitive architects are incorporating it in their philosophy and aesthetic

A major chunk of India’s population lives in houses made of mud. You could say that these are generally the poor and the rustic, people who can’t afford or don’t have access to modern construction materials that are stronger, more durable and give a better, slicker finish.

But the fact remains that our country has a long tradition of building with earth, and in pockets like Kerala and Goa, there are mud structures that have stood the test of strength and durability by being around for a hundred years or more. That’s more than the lifespan of many concrete structures.

Speak to earth-architecture proponents and they’ll tell you how mud works very well in India — besides being cheap and thus ideal for low-cost mass housing, mud “breathes”, thus helping monitor temperatures within, besides being eco-friendly and affording a textured aesthetic to the walls.

Earth as a building material has had a distinguished advocate in Laurie Baker who did seminal research in traditional construction techniques, refining them and propagating his methods among government departments, NGOs and interested architects.

Then, there’s the Auroville Earth Institute in Pondicherry, founded by HUDCO in 1989, which runs research and training programmes in earth construction, and has developed the Auram press to make compressed earth blocks (CSEB) and prototypes for earthquake-resistant structures for rehabilitation of the disaster-affected.

In addition, there are government and private sector research organisations like the Indian Institute of Science’s Centre for Sustainable Technologies and Development Alternatives, which have been working on the use of mud as an alternative building material.

So why isn’t earth construction more prevalent?

Delhi-based architect Revathi Kamath says it’s mainly the result of ignorance. “The use of earth in construction is not studied at the institutional level, no institution promotes or disseminates information about its use. At one point in the late eighties-early nineties, HUDCO had seemed enthusiastic about its use as a low-cost building material that people could use themselves with a little help. But there was a lot of opposition from the political classes.”

Kamath’s own home is made of mud, and she’s designed a few stray structures like the Desert Resort in Mandawa, Rajasthan, a farm house, and the late Nandita and Amit Judge’s house in Delhi. “The problem”, she feels, “is that mud is systematically seen as used by the poor, the oppressed. The king, in this discourse in which the house is a display of power and wealth, always lives in a ‘pucca’ brick house.”

Kamath’s latest project, a design for a resort in the black buck sanctuary in Rajasthan, has mud elements but she’s unsure how it’ll turn out since “mud is not part of the PWD’s list of materials”.

Gerard da Cunha, celebrated Goan architect, designed Nrityagram, Protima Bedi’s dance gurukul near Bangalore in mud in 1990, but has turned away from the material in recent years.

“It’s not practical, especially in five-star projects...you’ve to be always careful of the water,” da Cunha says, recounting how he gets a call every three years or so from Taj Hotels with a proposal to extend Kuteeram resort (da Cunha’s design, in mud again) but the talks always fizzle out.

But it is in Kerala and in Bangalore that a few architects are really pushing the frontiers of earthen architecture. In Kollam there’s Eugine N Pandala whose earthen structures have not only fetched him awards, but have also got him clients like poetess Anita Thampi and film producer Suresh P Kumar, whose 13,000 sq ft studio Revathi Kalamandir he’s designed entirely in mud.

“I have taken traditional techniques and labour and applied it to the modern context,” says Pandala, who was inspired to try out mud after hearing Hasan Fathy in Delhi where he studied architecture. The architect uses the cob technology, indigenous to Kerala, where cobs (large lumps of mud shaped like eggs) are placed in rows to make a wall.

These apparently give enough strength to the walls to allow him to build up to two storeys. In Pandala’s structures, earth can be found not just on the walls and roof, but he also sculpts mud to make pedestals for the television and telephone, or interesting niches in the wall for lights or plants. So even the furniture, and fixtures, are made of mud!

In Kerala, Costford (Centre for Science & Technologies for Rural Development), a voluntary organisation formed to promote Baker’s alternative building technologies in 1984, has been at the vanguard of the movement to build with mud and natural materials.

It has 18 centres in Kerala and one in Delhi, with 160 architects on its rolls and has carried out a number of rural development and slum improvement projects for the state and central governments.

Sajan P B, joint director, says that the organisation has also built some showpiece private residences, and is now building a nearly 18,000 sq ft hostel and school block, called International School for Development and Projects, for Braille Without Borders, on the banks of lake Vellayani in Kattiyoor near Thiruvananthapuram.

“We’re using cob, on a rubble foundation, with mud mortar and mixing it with burnt shell lime to treat it for white ants. Only some of the load-bearing columns and pillars are made in country burnt bricks to give added strength to the structure.”

In the south, in Bangalore, is also Chitra Vishwanath who uses compressed earth blocks for her structures, mostly residences. But mud, for Vishwanath, is only one aspect of “ecological architecture”, and she incorporates other features like water-harvesting, solar cookers into her houses.

Vishwanath used CSEB, a technique whereby cement is added to the earth (the proportion varies from five to 10 per cent, depending on the variety of earth) as a stabiliser. As per the Auroville school of thought, this greatly enhances the durability and strength of the mud construction, although Vishwanathan believes that cement does nothing more than appease the psyche of the client.

“The only real benefit is that it helps resist erosion, and you can have walls that are plainer, thinner and higher.” Others like Kamath don’t add anything inorganic, traditional materials like neem paste and moss.

Every architect who’s worked with the material attests to its hardiness — given that it is protected from moisture, of course. Vishwanath’s home, like Kamath’s, is constructed in mud, and she claims that it requires no more care than the occasional coat of paint.

The former says all her 12-year-old house requires is a yearly rub with water on the outside and a bi-yearly one on the inside. Pandala recounts the story of how doubters were won over when they saw a house he was building survive the onslaught of the Kerala monsoon for the two seasons that his client did not have the money to build a roof, and had to leave his house open to the elements.

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