Tag Archives: Adobe
RESEARCH: DIDI CONTRACTOR RESOURCES
91-year-old environmental designer and builder – Delia (Didi) Narayan Contractor – passed away peacefully at her home on July 5, 2021. I had the privilege of working closely with her as a junior architect for three years from 2011 to 2014 in Kangra, Himachal Pradesh. She instilled in me an ethos of critical thinking and […]
Praxis: Earth House, Himachal Pradesh
Location: Village Chandpur, Block Baijnath, District Kangra, Himachal Pradesh Building Type: Guest House Architect: Siddharth Menon Design Team: Pappu Kumar, Uddham Singh, Pratap Chand, Hansraj, Roshan Lal, Meher Chand, Om Prakash, Deepika Amonkar Castes, Crafts & Communities: Gaddi stone cutters, Chamaar carpenters, Lohaar carpenters, Pandit slate cutters, Thakur-Rana labour, Chowdhury masons, Patiyaal painters, Masand labour […]
Fieldwork: Indigenous Building Practices, District Kangra, Himachal Pradesh
Latitude: 30N; Longitude: 75E Altitude: 250-6975 m Average Annual Rainfall: 1539 mm Average Precipitation Days: 86 Max. Summer Temperature: 34-35 degree Celsius Min. Winter Temperature: 0-3 degree Celsius Languages of Indigenous Craftsmen: Pahadi, Gaddi, Punjabi, Hindi Local Materials: Kacchi inth (Adobe), Gaara (Mud mortar), River stone, Blue gun patthar (Blue sand stone), Baans (Bamboo), Cheer […]
Fieldwork: Indigenous Building Practices, District Koraput, Odisha
Latitude: 18N; Longitude: 82E Altitude: 969 m Average Annual Rainfall: 1567.2 mm No. of Precipitation Days: 84 Max. Summer Temperature: 38-40 degree Celsius Min. Winter Temperature: 10-12 degree Celsius Language of the Indigenous Craftsmen: Odiya, Konda, Poraja, Gadaba, Durua, Hindi Local Materials: Adobe (Sun dried mud brick), Cob (Mud balls), Mud mortar, Laterite stone, Mahua […]
Public: The Earth House, Himachal Pradesh
This interview was published in October-November 2015 issue of Elle Decor India. Photographs courtesy Sumit Mahar. Details Eco Buzz – Oct-Nov’15. Walk us through the idea behind Earth Guest House. The Earth House is a 1500 sft. Guest House in the Kangra district of Himachal Pradesh for a travel company called Linger (www.linger.in). They […]
Public: The Role of a 21st Century Architect in Rural India (1)
The article was published in Domus India, September 2015 edition. Can be downloaded here. Introduction In the first part of this article, we took a journey through different rural regions of the Indian Subcontinent trying to understand the materials, methods and ideologies used by the indigenous people to build their spaces. What we learnt is that although all […]
Public: An Architecture of the People, by the People, for the People
The following article was published in thewire.in on 29 July 2015 on the trials and tribulations of building in rural Uttar Pradesh. The full article can be accessed here. Building in rural Uttar Pradesh is always a massive challenge. With its feudal backdrop where caste and politics share a powerful relationship, people’s issues and concerns become […]
Public: Ar. Siddharth Menon
The following interview was featured on 27th July 2015 in http://www.sawdust.online on the challenges of mud architecture in India. When did you build your first earth building, and could you describe some of its features? I built my first earth building at the Auroville Earth Institute (www.earth-auroville.com) in Auroville, Tamil Nadu in 2011. I was training […]
Public: It’s Not About Mud: Indigenous Building Systems of India (2)
The Following article was published in the June 2015 Edition of Domus India, documenting the building traditions and systems of 5 different rural regions of the country. The full PDF of the same can be downloaded here. Also can be found at http://www.domusweb.it/en/local-editions/2015/06/15/india.html 2. District Tumkur, Karnataka Latitude: 13.34N; Longitude: 77.10E Height Above Mean Sea Level: 894.6 […]
Public: The polyphonic perils of finishing-The Architect as a Maestro
The article was published in the School of Environment and Architecture News Letter 2016. Can be downloaded here. The final phase of any construction activity is the finishing of a built space. It is arguably the most crucial stage of a building process as this is what sets the final image of a building. All […]
Urban & Economic Geographer 