Natural Building Workshop @ Himachal Pradesh – Part 2

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Before I share the updates about the on-ground progress, I would like to quickly touch upon the theory session we had earlier. First we looked at examples of ancient natural buildings, which have stood for many centuries. After the invention of portland cement and its variants, we moved away from the natural buildings and it’s good that we are returning them for various reasons. We then explored different kind of natural building construction techniques:-

We then explored different kind of construction materials that used in natural construction

  • Mud, which is natural pre-mix
  • Fibres – used for reinforcement
    • Straw
    • Reeds (tall grass)
    • Hair
    • Pine Needles
  • Aggregates – fundamental building blocks, providing stability, drainage, and insulation for structures
    • Sand
    • Rock
    • Brick Powder
    • Fly Ash
    • Glass Bottles
    • Cement With Lime
    • …
  • Wood, which is locally available

We also explored the benefits of using bamboo for the construction and how growing bamboo are beneficial to the environment, as it absorbs Carbon from the environment.

After we arrived at the training site, we did the soil test to understand its composition with respect to sand, silt and clay. We then started creating cob, which is a process of combining soil, water and straw in the right proportion. 

The first structure we started to build was a wood fired oven. We first set up the base with the stones and then applied cob on it. On top of it, we put the sand and again applied cob on top of it. We’ll remove this sand in future to create the hollow space for wood fire and then cook into it. More about it later. 

On one of the Sundays we also got the opportunity to attend a local festival here in Naggar, in which we could witness some local rituals. Near to our training place we have Maniam’s Dhaba, who also owns the place where we are staying and doing the training. At his Dhaba we regularly eat the local cuisines specially Siddu.

On 14th March before starting our work, we also celebrated Holi here with Gulal. There were better plans for the evening but due to bad weather we could not do much. In the mountains weather changes very often, in the evening we see heavy rain, then snow and the next morning the weather is completely opened up. 

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