Credit: Serge Salat, Urban Morphology Institute, based on material produced by Anupama Kundoo architects.

Four projects of inclusive and sustainable housing by Indian architect Anupama Kundoo will be presented in this reading. The projects, all in India, provide insights on how to plan and design inclusive housing, providing a place for everyone while tackling environmental concerns with circular economy, locally sourced material and clean construction approaches. The Volontariat Homes for Homeless Children, in Pondicherry, India, were built using a technology pioneered by Ray Meeker of Golden Bridge Pottery. It consists of baking a mud house in situ, after constructing it. The project provides innovative solutions to housing for all and is integrally sustainable in all its aspects. The creativity Co-housing, Auroville, India, represents a prototype for collective living promoting community and sharing. Residents shared common facilities at cluster-level. Bioclimatic design principles are widely applied. The project of Sangamam, Auroville, India, is situated in an area affected by environmental and social problems, including water scarcity, saline water intrusion, soil erosion and declining soil fertility, unemployment and inadequate housing, educational and medical facilities. As a solution, a low-cost housing scheme is provided with eco-friendly building infrastructure for rainwater harvesting and wastewater treatment systems. Finally, the Full Fill Homes, in Chennai, India, are envisioned as speedy and affordable housing units that have low environmental impact, using a combination of sophisticated and low-tech. Built using specially designed modules of prefabricated ferrocement hollow block units. Affordability is due to efficiency and inclusivity. The design is suitable for all, not only the poor. These homes can be used as immediate shelters necessary in diverse circumstances.

Volontariat Homes for Homeless Children, Pondicherry, India

These homes are planned to accommodate 15 children and 5 foster parents. This project was built using a rare technology pioneered by Ray Meeker of Golden Bridge Pottery, which consists of baking a mud house in situ, after constructing it. A fired house or a fire-established mud house is in principle a mud house built with mud bricks and mud mortar that is cooked after building as a whole to achieve the strength of brick. The interior space of the structure is stuffed with further mud bricks or other ceramic products such as tiles, and fired as if it were a kiln. Typically kiln walls absorb about 40% of the heat generated. In this technology, the house is the kiln, and the ‘heat loss’ is directed towards firing the house and stabilizing it from water damage. The fuel cost is largely accountable to the products inside. The strength of brick in principle would be achieved for the piece of mud. Further, the cement in the mortar mix would become unnecessary.

This technology involves almost only labour, with very little spent of ‘purchased’ materials. Thus the money spent remains in the local economy and it enriches it. The house becomes a producer of sustainable building materials instead of being a consumer. The house takes 3 – 4 days to burn.

Catenary shaped domes are used to get the best structural stability before firing when it functions as an earth building; during firing which is an unstable stage of vitrification process and after firing as a brick load bearing structure. The domes are various sizes according to the cluster program which includes one foster parent per 4 children.

A social project with cost as a major aspect that informed design, the project uses many unconventional materials as well as absorbs urban waste. Bicycles wheel frames were used as formwork for windows and later as window grills. Glass bottles were used as structural units for masonry in toilet areas. Glass chai cups were used to finish the openings at the top of the dome. 

This highly experimental project is an example of radical thinking that is being explored to approach the problem of affordability of housing for all, and more over integrally sustainable in all its aspects.

Creativity Co-housing, Auroville, India

A prototype for collective living promoting community and sharing, the project was planned as one of 5 housing clusters for around 360 deliberately diverse residents. Realized as an example for an independently managed cluster accommodating 50-60 persons, residents shared common facilities at cluster-level and have some facilities for use by the larger community. A variety of social and economic backgrounds were integrated to make it a relevant prototype for sustainable community housing in an urban low-density context.

Aiming to be much more than an arrangement of residences by creating a neighborhood, public spaces are distributed for different scales of groupings with a gentle hierarchy that included intimacy. Streets created on the upper levels facilitate communication. Voids between the house and the street promote privacy while enhancing natural ventilation through the venturi effect. The excavated onsite soil was used to build rammed earth walls in a contemporary technique using a special large formwork, adding 5% cement for water resistance, lending a contemporary character to a material associated with the vernacular. Specially designed insulating terracotta roofing units on part-prefab beams were assembled as an easy modular construction of high insulation properties. A root-zone treatment plant recycles sewage water for irrigation.

Auroville. Source: Anupama Kundoo. Credit: Javier Callejas

Sangamam, Auroville, India

Sangamam is situated at the outskirts of Auroville, Tamil Nadu, in an area affected by environmental and social problems, including water scarcity, saline water intrusion, soil erosion and declining soil fertility, unemployment and inadequate housing, educational and medical facilities.

Soil from the site has been laboratory-tested and found to be suitable for the construction of load bearing walls. The age-old rammed earth building technique is introduced in a more sophisticated form with cement stabilisation to achieve better standard of finish, more strength and water-resistance, and enabling a quicker modular method of building. Five per cent of cement is added in the sieved earth to make the mass water-resistant, thereby significantly adding to the wet compressive strength of the material. A team of four labourers can produce a 23 cm monolithic wall of 2.2 m length per day.

Roofs are constructed using terracotta filler slabs, bricks as jack arches, and conical hollow vault elements designed specifically to achieve an affordable solution with low environmental impact that is beneficial to generate local employment.

The low-cost housing scheme is provided with eco-friendly building infrastructure for rain water harvesting and waste water treatments systems in a single water tank with 3 separate spaces.

Full Fill Homes, Chennai, India

In response to the growing homelessness and concerns about affordability, not only in economic but also in environmental terms, Full Fill Homes are envisioned as speedy and affordable housing units that have low environmental impact, using a combination of sophisticated and low-tech.

Built using specially designed modules of prefabricated ferrocement hollow block units, full fill homes can be assembled on the site in 6 days including foundation. The voids created inside the blocks are designed to efficiently accommodate all storage needs of the resident, from clothes to books to kitchen utensils, even the kitchen sink itself, and other personal belongings so that all furniture becomes redundant. The void of the house can remain empty of furniture, and therefore achieve more space while saving the additional cost and time involved in furnishing homes. Small spaces are often burdened by the way furniture occupies them. On the other hand, the voids that are originally created to give strength to thin ferrocement elements, through their folded form, are ergonomically designed and efficiently sized to accommodate the specific belongings of the owner to make small spaces smart, and using the thick container walls to their full capacity, to be filled by the residents. There is a place for everything in the walls and the space of the room is thereby liberated and empty for the free occupation of the user.

The 25 mm thick ferrocement elements involve chicken mesh, welded mesh and small diameter steel reinforcement, significantly reducing the quantities of high-embodied-energy materials used in the construction. Blocks are produced in the backyards of masons homes to provide them with additional income, rather than in factories, thereby reducing costs while helping local economy. A range of window, doors, roof elements and other necessary building components are all produced in ferrocement excluding any complex hardware in their design.

The voids in the walls that can be colonised by the user, are emphasised, rather than the walls themselves, through the use of the happy colours.

Affordability is due to efficiency and inclusivity. The design is suitable for all, not only the poor. These homes can be used as immediate shelters necessary in farm house plots in remote areas, disaster relief homes, youth hostels, student housing, as well as guest houses in environmentally sensitive locations. The houses can be dismantled equally simply in a day.

This prototype was produced in Bharatipuram, Auroville, and installed at the 57th Annual National Association of Students of Architecture at MIDAS Chennai for testing the design in full-scale.