New Delhi: Mud architecture has a long history in India, and millions of people still live in mud houses. However, as one might expect in the twenty-first century, there is an increasing trend of people preferring and living in concrete houses.
However, there are those who have the means to live a luxurious lifestyle but choose to live a more sustainable one. Mahesh Krishnan, for one, wished for the latter.
In 125 days, a Bengaluru man constructs a mud house:
Krishnan, a Bengaluru native, built a mud house on the city’s outskirts in 125 days with only Rs 18,500.
After working in the hospitality industry for nearly 19 years with names like Le Meridien and Taj Gateway, you’d think he’d want a concrete, luxurious house to live in for the rest of his life, but he wanted to live a sustainable lifestyle.
Krishnan began learning basic life skills such as natural farming and natural building after quitting his job. taking workshops and watching numerous YouTube videos
A man constructs a mud house out of natural materials:
He learned how to build a house out of natural materials such as mud, dung, stones, husk, palm leaves, and others.
Krishnan built the 300-square-foot house in Chamarajanagar, Bengaluru, entirely by himself. He created a space with adobe, wattle and daub walls using local materials.
Several visitors come to the house because they want to build similar houses.
Mahesh Krishnan isn’t the only one who has swapped a luxurious lifestyle for a mud house.
Vani Kannan and her husband Balaji, from Bengaluru, returned to India in 2018 after living in England for the previous 28 years. That’s when they decided to build an eco-friendly, long-lasting home.
When they started looking for a home in Bengaluru in 2020, they were astounded by the skyrocketing prices of apartments.
“That’s when we discovered a Bengaluru organisation Mahijaa that has been constructing sustainable homes for over a couple of years and approached them for our home as well,” Vani says.
The pair says they got the perfect starting point: a 2,400-square-foot property and an architect willing to integrate sustainability into their vision of a dream home.
