Excerpt: The Wendy House by Earthscape Studio embodies a nature-friendly design, using sustainable, locally sourced materials. Avoiding steel or concrete to preserve the natural environment, the residence features a timbrel vault structure that blends seamlessly with the landscape. The twin vaults create a central courtyard with a small water body, promoting natural light and openness.
Project Description
[Text as submitted by architect] The site is the beautiful private land of 8 acres which is a dense forest with a lot of coconut trees, mango trees, Nutmeg, Teak etc. Finding a perfect place for the farm house became difficult since the architects didn’t want to cut down any trees on site. By making a grid on site, the form of the building has been achieved in accordance with the tree position.
The architects wanted no steel or concrete structure and did not wish to disturb the existing natural environment, so they proposed a timbrel vault structure. This timbrel vault technique was implemented following their mentor, Ar. Senthil Kumar Doss’s, catenary-based vault structures. Twin Vault structure has been done with the dimension of 36′ and 32′ width with the height of 13′ and 11′ each. The vault form has been formed based on the position of the trees and natural surroundings which camouflages with the site. A beautiful courtyard with a small water body has been formed in between the twin vault where the spaces are transparent and open to the courtyard. This courtyard creates natural lighting inside the spaces. Different levels have been created in the building in accordance with the site contour.
Sithu kal – Small bricks of 3 layers have been done for the vault. These bricks are used for the madras terrace roof technique in South India which is now not being used. The community people who made these bricks became unemployed. By using this material the architects make a community to work together bringing back sustainability. Broken tiles from factories have been reused for the 4th layer to avoid expensive waterproofing chemicals. Reused rods have been used for the frameworks and supports of the vault during construction which has been further used for building the built in furniture like sofa, Breakfast counter, bed and also for the framework of mudga (reused mudga tiles) roofing above.
This mudga tiles has been sourced around 15 kms radius making it a locally available sustainable material. Wood for furniture and doors has been used from the waste wood which was also locally sourced. To enclose the twin vault, a poured earth wall has been built where the mud has been collected from the site. Throughout the process, their mentor Ar. Vinu Daniel guided, encouraging the new techniques and methods.
The total construction period is 8 months where the architects stayed on site for the full construction period. Experimenting different materials as their original forms makes the construction process interesting and the building becomes nature friendly and sustainable. The main ideology and concept of this farm house is to bring out a nature friendly building and use all locally available materials making it sustainable.
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