Bodhi

Earth home -1996

Centre for Sustainable Built & Natural Environment

BODHI, a house built with mud for Mr. Jitendran and Prof. Shyma is located in Kollam, Kerala was completed in 1996. Bodhi is one of Eugene Pandala’s first projects that showcased responsive expressionism in architecture which allows conservation oriented ethics to dictate the form and aesthetics of any structure. This house is nature-sensitive, designed with an interesting play between the built and un-built, passively cooling without the use of air conditioners and artificial lighting during day.

Rising like a mushroom within a lush green coconut grove canopy, the house is designed creating mysterious spaces generating curiosity all along, leaving inhabitants enraptured. The curvaceous form is artistically moulded warping around a courtyard, 4 bedrooms, kitchen, dining room and a living space that blend the warm shades of earth and vegetative green to add a cozy overall tone to the house. It was built of 42 truckloads of mud procured from the excavations of an irrigation canal.

The “rib-and-skin” roof made of light weight ferro-cement rafters covered with a ferro-cement skin, topped by a layer of potter- tiles with an epidermis of bitumen.

The carved our niches and built-in furniture reduced the cost as well as maintenance. in 1996, The cost of construction worked out to Rs. 300 per square foot (). The house took two years to complete.