[News] Building dream houses with mud and lime

Pritimaya Tripathi | TheHindu | Updated: July 12, 2019, 01:32 AM IST

This architect couple could have settled for a cushy job, with a six-figure salary, where sitting in an air-conditioned office they would have been fiddling with some design on the computer screen.

Instead, they chose to build their career on India’s ancient methods of constructing houses using mud, lime, stone, and wood.

Pune-based Dhruvang Hingmire and Priyanka Gunjikar are promoting low-cost, sustainable, and eco-friendly houses, which, they claim, can save 50% water and require no air conditioning.

In the last two years, these graduates from Rachana Sansad Academy of Architecture, Dadar, have constructed six such houses in Maharashtra, with another three nearing completion in September.

Around 50% of the potable water required for building a house can be saved by replacing cement with lime or mud, Mr. Hingmire says.

“When you use cement, you have to continuously cure the wall with water as cement absorbs water from bricks. But if you use a mud-mortar mix, you don’t have to keep spraying water, thus reducing its use by half,” he says.

To make 100 kg of cement, Ms. Gunjikar says, 130 kg of limestone is needed. “Cement is subsidised, but lime isn’t. Since cement and sand mining lobby is splurging on advertisements, it is difficult to convince people to think otherwise.”

The 27-year-olds, now married, say mud or lime facilitates exchange of air through walls, floor or roof. This helps cool down a heated room, as hot air is breathed out.

FULL ARTICLE: www.thehindu.com

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