About Earth Building
Earth building is an endeavor that is trying to re-bring natural building as a method of construction to people. Our main motto is to keep our designs eco-friendly, aesthetic, functional, unusual and thermally comfortable. We are trying to reclaim our ancestral knowledge of building and use it to the best of our abilities with our own spin.
" Like all arts, architecture is also a form of expression. Through the build, we try to express clients' stories."
Areas Explored
- Our explorations have been in many earthen techniques like cob, earth bag, adobe, stone masonry, rammed earth, cob oven and rocket stove.
- We have built arches and vaults in brick, cob and earthbag, and earthbag dome.
- In plaster, we have worked with clay, lime and lime clay plasters , lime surkhi, tadelakht lime plaster and chettinadu plaster.
- In roofing, we have worked with thatch roof, madras terrace roof, tiled roof, reciprocal roof, ladakhi traditional roof.
Our Team
We are Stanzin Phuntsog and Samyuktha, two people who love working with mud and enjoy thinking out of the box to make things happen. Literally from two ends of India, our love for mud brought us to work together. We love making crazy designs that are functional too. We believe that sound designing and execution can create natural homes that can achieve as much longevity as our ancestors. Traditional homes inspire us and our thirst for adventure keeps us traveling and exploring traditional techniques in natural building.
Meet Our Architects
Stanzin Phuntsog
Architect
I am a self explored architect and I started my journey from my childhood in Ladakh. In Ladakh, our village community gets together to build our homes. This was the fodder for my curiosity in building things.
Uncomfortable with theoretical and irrelevant education, I intentionally walked out of the schooling system when I was 16. I pursued alternative education at SECMOL, Ladakh and at Swaraj University, Udaipur. I travelled a lot through India observing, learning and understanding architecture and materials.
I am passionate about alternative education, sustainable living and love trekking, photography, sketching.
Samyuktha. S
Architect
By education, I am an architect. Feeling incompetent to do a build even after 5 years of my course, I started searching for hands-on experiences. I continued my journey in a self-designed learning course at Swaraj University, Udaipur. During my second year at Swaraj, Stanzin and I designed and built my earthbag home with the help of volunteers. Building my home was an extraordinary journey in my life giving me confidence in my skills as an architect. In my journey in earth building, I find that I like trying out plaster combinations and making different paints and finishing layers.
I dream of living a sustainable lifestyle with a community of friends in a farm. I also dream of a healthy way of living and an active life with nature. I enjoy gardening, facilitation, trekking, reading storybooks.