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When requested about our dream home, most of us would have a standard reply: a home with minimalist interiors and trendy structure. Nevertheless, Kiran Amati had a wholly completely different concept of a dream home.
Residing within the high-rise residences of Mumbai, Kiran yearned to steer a easy life. “The 2 issues I’ve all the time been obsessed with had been sustainable residing and music. Working a company job, I had all the time wished to pursue my passions,” he says.
Kiran’s time lastly got here in 2020 when his daughter was born. He determined to grow to be a stay-at-home dad and pursue his music profession. Concurrently, he resolved to construct his dream residence together with his father on a half-acre farm, 60 km from town.
The daddy-son duo selected an unconventional path, opting to assemble their residence utilizing mud, straw, clay, native soil, stone, cow dung, and lime. A labour of affection, the duo hand-built their residence with the help of volunteers and the collaboration of Lakhichand Jain, a nationwide award-winning visible artist, designer, and scholar.
In a dialog with The Higher India, Kiran defined the motivation, inspiration, and the method concerned in making a mud residence.
A full-time musician, stay-at-home dad and nature fanatic
Kiran’s father, Prakash, can also be a nature fanatic and has all the time dreamt of proudly owning cattle on his farm.
“We used to ponder loads on the form of home we wished that will accommodate each our needs. Whereas we had been sure that our residence would have area for my father to have at the least two cows, we had been uncertain in regards to the construction,” he says.
“It was solely after he retired and I made a decision to be a stay-at-home dad that we began looking for solutions,” he says.
With Kiran’s spouse additionally on maternity go away, he managed to search out time to go to villages and study their lifestyle.
“In the meantime, my father found Dr Malik in Rajasthan, who conducts a four-day workshop the place individuals be taught to make adobe bricks utilizing cow dung, lime, and dirt. Since we had been eager on being as nature-friendly as doable, my father determined to take the course,” he says.
On the similar workshop, Prakash met Shagun Singh, the founding father of Geeli Mitti Centre of Excellence, a Uttarakhand-based organisation that makes mud homes.
“I appeared them up and located among the sustainable homes they’d made and was satisfied that this was what I wished to do,” he says.
The duo determined to take a month-long course to grasp what it takes to make a mud home.
“By the top of the course, I consider we had a transparent concept of the dimensions of the home we wanted, how the rooms could be divided, and a primary construction design in thoughts,” he recollects.
Shagun additionally supplied architectural recommendation to the duo for constructing their dream home.
“We executed the entire plan ourselves and didn’t rent any contractors. Conventional contractors would don’t know how the supplies utilised in our home’s development are used,” he says.
“We simply enlisted 4 labourers from the close by village and began constructing. All of it simply got here collectively. We additionally shared the undertaking particulars on Fb and WhatsApp, and anybody focused on studying and volunteering may be part of,” he says.
The duo had about 80 volunteers all through the development of the home. In 2022, they began their six-month-long journey of affection and labour and named their residence — Om Niwas.
Father-son’s labour of affection
The round residence, with a diameter of 16 ft, is a studio-style area with bedrooms, a kitchen on the bottom flooring and a meditation area on the primary flooring.
“There are not any partitions in the complete home. We’ve a settee in the lounge and a mattress within the bed room, all manufactured from mud,” he informs, including that the primary flooring is generally empty area with artwork made by award-winning artist, Lakhichand Jain. The partitions have lovely Mandana artwork with tantra motifs.
The flooring of the home are manufactured from an attention-grabbing mixture of wooden and straw. “So there have been quite a lot of felled bushes within the village. We determined to cut the wooden up and lay it on the ground. For the area that continues to be in between, we crammed it with sawdust and Fevicol, a sort of mortar, after which we simply sanded it on high and put polish,” he explains.
For the partitions, the duo used mud. He says, “The muse is totally manufactured from stones, constructed with none mortar, making it a dry stone basis. The plinth consists of stones with lime, together with Suruki mortar. Suruki is just like brick powder, serving as an combination for the mortar. The partitions are constructed totally from mud, offering a pure mud composition.”
Along with being made with sustainable supplies, the home additionally makes use of a novel methodology for its waste administration.
“I feel the septic tank is price mentioning. It’s a dry septic tank, not the same old type the place all sewage and kitchen waste overflow. We created a combination utilizing dry leaves collected from falling bushes, together with a little bit of lime and sawdust. We blended these three parts exterior and dumped the combo into the septic tank, filling at the least 70% of the tank with this mixture,” he explains.
Over the time of 4 to five years, the waste retains getting decomposed earlier than it’s important to refill the combo.
Speaking about some hurdles he confronted throughout the development of the home, he says, “We couldn’t safe the best manpower, and people we did discover had been unfamiliar with the supplies required. It turned an experimental course of, the place we examined the proportions of sand, clay, and lime a number of days earlier than software. The outcomes had been unpredictable, and when failures occurred on the partitions, we needed to scrap the complete part and begin over.”
“Nevertheless, redoing and brainstorming with volunteers made the entire course of actually enjoyable. It’s not like the standard houses the place there shall be one contractor who will come and oversee issues whereas a machine mixes the mortar. We actually received to get our arms soiled,” he says.
Whereas within the preliminary levels, the home received many crucial evaluations, the home is at present a landmark within the village. “They’d say Mumbai rains closely, and it’s onerous to think about a mud home sustaining for greater than two or three years right here. Regardless of the fixed chatter from self-proclaimed specialists within the village, providing their invaluable recommendation on how issues ought to be accomplished, we merely ignored it,” he says.
“Now it’s recognized all through the village. So each time an auto driver wants instructions to the village, locals information them by referring to our mud home. Many individuals from the village have visited us, making it a recognisable landmark for the neighborhood,” he says.
(Edited by Padmashree Pande)
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