Volontariat Orphanage | Anupama Kundoo

This project was built using a rare technology pioneered by Ray Meeker of Golden Bridge pottery, which consists of baking a mud house insitu, after constructing it. A fired house or a fire-stabilised 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. 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 the toilet and wet 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.