Hand-sculpted homes

A naturally built kitchen for a children’s home in India

In March 2015, a group of natural communities, all using natural building

building enthusiasts from Australia
visited communities across Tamil Nadu,
the most south-eastern state of India,
with the intention of exploring and
learning from a broad range of alternative
building practices.
The Indian construction industry is
one of the country’s largest employers
and producers of materials (mostly
cement, brick and steel). It is responsible
for the major input of energy resulting in
the largest share of CO2 emissions (22%)
into the atmosphere.
In line with the current push globally
towards more carbon-neutral dwellings
and assessing relative embodied energy
consumption in the building sector, India
has also begun looking at its building
patterns and exploring alternatives for
low-cost, low carbon intensive homes.
BY RACHEL GOLDLUST
PHOTOS BY KELVIN DALY
Natural buildings
As a response, natural building
techniques are having a quiet revival across
rural India. Enterprising communities and
businesses are now starting to emulate and
often re-create the almost obsolete natural
building industry using local materials and
waste products. This endeavour is proving
successful in creating climate-relevant and
responsive buildings while also providing
enterprising initiatives for local labour and
building industries.
Our group was able to learn from and
exchange information with a range of
projects from small farms to contractor
building companies to co-operative
techniques and designs.
One such local company, Thannal
Hand Sculpted Homes in Tiruvannamalai
in central Tamil Nadu, was founded by
natural builder and architect Biju Bhaskar
with his wife Sindhu Bhaskar in 2011.
Noting that a quarter, to a third, of the
world’s population still live in homes
made from earth, including a large
proportion of traditional Indian homes
made from hand sculpted mud bricks, Biju
and Sindhu aim to imitate this tradition
but bring it into the 21st century.
Biju and team have begun building
for private clients and members of the
community in need, creating awareness of
the benefits of natural building by doing
small low-rise earth friendly shelters.
Our group was privileged to go
on a tour of three of these shelters

A note on natural building

‘A natural building involves a range
of building systems and materials
that place major emphasis on
sustainability. Ways of achieving
sustainability through natural
building focus on durability and
the use of minimally-processed,
plentiful or renewable resources, as
well as those which, while recycled
or salvaged, produce healthy living
environments and maintain indoor
air quality. Natural building tends
to rely on human labour, more
than technology. It depends on
local ecology, geology and climate;
on the character of the particular
building site, and on the needs and
personalities of the builders and
users.’
– Michael G. Smith, The Case for
Natural Building

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around Tiruvannamalai with Dheeraj
Annapureddy, one of Thannal’s newest
architect/builders. Dheeraj showed us the
range of buildings designed and built by
Thannal including wattle and daub, mud
brick and bamboo thatch pole structures.
Collaborative design
The most impressive of these is located
at a children’s home – a roughly 30m2
kidney-shaped post and beam cob, bamboo
and timber building intended to become
the new and improved ‘Ammas kitchen.’
The Children’s Home, named thus
by its Scandinavian benefactors
(representing the desire of the children
to have a home and not the stigma of
living in an orphanage), is located just
outside the city of Tiruvannamalai and
houses 36 girls in conventional low slung
cement buildings, as most modern Indian
dwellings are made.
Thannal, in partnership with the
members of the Children’s Home, put a
call out to the children for input on the
design of their replacement kitchen.
The design that is currently close to
being finished was the product of this
collaboration (including input from the
Ammas – the term for the women who do
most of the domestic and farm work on
rural and urban properties – who will be
doing the cooking).
The size of the structure was pre-
planned with the walls ranging from
2.75m to 4.4m in height, adapting to the
size of the bamboo available. The walls
are independent of the roof, with a base of
18 THE OWNER BUILDER  190 August/September 2015  © www.theownerbuilder.com.au
Above left: Test patches of plaster trial
durability and response to local conditions.
Above right: Laundry station incorporated
existing rocks. Water flows to nearby gardens.
600mm of cob on a foundation of granite
stones tapering to 450mm at the top.
The roof rests on the double bamboo
posts to give additional support, with teak
wood beams used as the building plans
to incorporate a living roof, layered as
follows:
• teak wood beams and bamboo rafters
• thin bamboo layer
• thin layer of lime and straw (to fill the
gaps in the bamboo layer)
• packing cardboard for padding
• EPDM synthetic rubber sheet
• packing cardboard for padding
• red soil layer
• button rose plants and local grass.
The building is impressive not only
for its unusual design, height and curved
features, but its use of multiple resources
and techniques, which represents the
adaptability of the company to respond
to local knowledge and use materials
sourced in their immediate environment.
Construction
Employing local tradesmen, using
a traditional hand press that has been
upgraded for making mud bricks and
often getting help from the children,
the building emulates certain aspects
of traditional Indian architecture and
incorporates newer elements of modern
cob building design. The result is an
impressive building which provides
both an educational opportunity and a
clever, responsive, practical and conscious
natural building.
It had taken just under three months
for the kitchen walls to be erected, to two
storeys at some points, with the bamboo
supports installed and protected from
decay from local mites by soaking in a
borax and boric acid solution. We were
told about the unique design elements
and materials and how the project had
been largely a process of experimentation
and opportunism.
Off-cut marble lintels had been used
over the window boxes for stability and
a car windscreen was used on the major
curved wall. The flooring is going to be a
combination of terracotta tiles and local
granite stones (with a rough finish).
Test patches of render had been
recently applied to the rough unfinished
cob walls, testing the durability and
response of different finishes to the
prevailing hot, dry and monsoonal
weather patterns. The final plaster will
have to withstand serious weather
extremes across heat, humidity and
torrential rain and for this they have
looked to traditional local plaster
additives rather than settling for cement.
The test patches of plasters adapted
for the cob walls use a mix of local soil,
straw, cow dung and maida (a form of
wheat flour). Various test patches have
different versions of the same recipe,
Above: Now the walls are erected, the
planned living roof is next to be constructed.
Right: Dheeraj and the mud brick machine.
Far right: Bamboo is used extensively – both
structurally and as scaffolding.
experimenting with casein, linseed
oil, cactus juice and lime. After the test
patches dry for two days, they make finer
mixes of the most responsive plaster and
apply a second coat and let dry. The ones
with the least amount of cracks will then
be used for the final plaster.
As in many communities that still use
and practice natural building techniques,
the finish plaster (or floor in some cases)
is often re-done yearly or seasonally as
part of the cycle of regular maintenance.
The idea of having a building that does
not require upkeep is a fairly foreign
concept. As the trend towards brick and
concrete houses replaces traditionally
built structures, the practice of regular
maintenance is increasingly lost.
Rock laundry
Our visit to the Children’s Home was
completed by a tour around the property,
with a simple yet effective project capturing
our attention. Using the existing contours of
a rocky site, the laundry and washing station
was erected to make the best use of the rocks
for washing laundry. It was designed for
the water to flow into channels, watering
nearby permaplot gardens. Convincing the
children and Ammas to always use natural
detergents is the next problem but simple
designs like this show how a fusion of
old and new technology can often be the
simplest and most beneficial for developing
communities such as these.
The Ammas were present to guide us
around during our visit and were excited
about their new kitchen, feeling pleased
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that their contribution to the practical
designs of the building were incorporated
so it could be efficient and functional for
their needs.
Community benefits
'Ammas Kitchen' is a testament to
the development of Thannal’s vision,
skills and integration in the area around
Tiruvannamalai with a range of visitors,
tradesmen and volunteers coming
over the three month project to see the
structure and learn through doing what
building with earth can look like, and
cost, in modern India. Thannal hopes
to participate in more co-operative
building projects in the area, which will
demonstrate to the community the
benefits and relative simplicity in building
low embodied energy natural homes.
Showing that you can use local
materials and off-cuts in a safe and
resilient building with smarter design
principles not only creates better homes
but provides opportunities for the
community and outsiders to engage with
responsive natural building products and
techniques.
Our group learnt a great deal from the
tour with Thannal; seeing a large-scale
experimental cob structure during its
construction was an inspiration for many
embarking on their own projects back in
Australia. It was also good for exchanging
information and gaining much needed
personal experience tips.
We learnt that the use of certain
materials and techniques is wholly
climate and environmentally responsive
and each build has its own challenges
but through the ever-growing natural
building community across the world
there are a lot more support, information
and exchange opportunities available for
those of us looking to build with and use
natural and local materials. 
The Earthship Australia Natural Building
Tour Program is looking to expand for
2016 so please check throughout the
year for more information on upcoming
tours and opportunities, or if you have
suggestions for other natural building
sites please get in contact.
www.earthshipaustralia.org.au
Links & resources
 Thannal Hand Sculpted Homes
A small natural building awareness group
based in a village in Tiruvannamalai, South
India, promoting the building of natural
homes and experimenting with low
embodied energy materials and low tech
appropriate technologies.
www.thannal.com
 Earthship Australia
A not-for-profit association providing an
open-communication platform driving
the adoption of self-sufficient off the
grid housing across Australia based on
renowned architect Michael Reynolds ideas.
www.earthshipaustralia.org.au