Long before I started working from home, I had the good fortune of working with the Aga Khan Development Network (specifically with Aga Khan Housing Board, Karachi) looking after small community based construction projects in the Northern Areas. The some three plus years at AKHBP cemented my lingering belief that the our abodes were the most glaring manifestation of the divide that has forever separated our class conscious society. And thus began my search and appreciation of all materials and Read More

Following some interesting renovations in addition to my time with the AKDN, and having spent about a decade away from Pakistan, we decided to settle in Lahore and build our home here. It was only natural for me to further search for understated finishes and materials that would make the viewer, especially those less fortunate than me, not feel small. To use materials that could be employed by anyone embarking on house-building even if the budget wasn’t extravagant. I have had some success, Read More

For me the simplest way to start a project has always been to define what is it that one doesn’t want, elimination makes one’s job far easier. For my own house, funded by my husband, my first question to him was if he wanted it designed just the way we lived, or consider what the market trends were, in case we wanted to sell at some stage. To my relief he wanted nothing to do with market perception, but for our home to be a source of comfort and joy for us every day.

There goes… in a one kanal house i certainly wasn’t going to waste precious space in providing a roof over our cars, so i got rid of the porch (which I feel is a remnant of the days when cars were actually locked in garages). I could now easily plan an internal and fairly private courtyard which in fact functions as the lungs of our house. The house is home to a multi-generational family. till recently my son (now at university) and his two grandmas, my husband (who was re-defining his longish work career with a partly home based consultancy and hence his library/home office) and I (who’s always had a part time practice) and often shared my son's study.

The design hence evolved in a very relaxed , user friendly home which had the kitchen as it’s focal point. with almost everyone in the family being a hands-on cook (by degrees) it made perfect sense to have a TV-less space overlooking the courtyard which served as a daily family retreat.

Because time for designing was fairly short, the bedrooms and baths at the rear of the house are designed more like an apartment block, exactly the same in size, finish and orientation (two with a courtyard view and two facing North). Entertaining is often of small gatherings, of close friends and family, never large. The family room hence doubles as just such a space for occasional dining. The formal 'drawing room' being another space gotten rid of in the elimination process.

The feel of the house was perceived as being in a forest, surrounded by trees that are home to a host of birds (and bees). In addition to the sights and sounds of these creatures the trees provide adequate shade from the west, where windows are minimal in any case and from the South, but let in plenty of light as the leaves shed, come winters.

Working with CSEB for walls, with as-dug soil from the basement as a small experiment, was a very gratifying journey. Stabilised partly with lime, which is also a component in all plaster and mortar works has had the added benefit of keeping the walls breathable and mould free. Because

There’s no paint on the outside, just an ordinary plaster enhanced with lime and pigmented with natural oxides. Every four to five years this finish is given a pigmented cement and lime wash to freshen up, a very low cost alternative to paint. The handcrafted/ low tech feel such an external finish lends to the house is a feature that is reflected in how the residence is finished internally and furnished as well….a celebration of the beauty in the ordinary materials we find around us.

I had always admired houses made of soil in its most natural form. Rammed earth, Wattle and daub, Adobe, Cob and CSEB seemed to me to belong to their surroundings as fired brick didn't. Urban and climatic constraints however rule many of these techniques out, except Rammed earth and CSEB.

Having worked with CSEB many years earlier in my days with the Aga Khan Network, I decided to give this medium a try once again. CSEB are compacted soil blocks produced in a specially designed manual press. The press is known as Cinva Ram and was first used in South America about 60 years ago. The basic component of these blocks is soil to which some amount of sand is added for its inert qualities. Depending on the overall soil composition and the type and amount of clay particles in it, it is stabilized with cement and/or lime to a ratio of 5-10% by volume. The dry mix is gently sprinkled with a little water and mixed with a fork. The water should be just enough to make a lump as you squeeze it in your hand. The process of compaction and stabilization together ensures that the block gains sufficient strength after proper curing and makes it equivalent to a kiln produced brick.

One could see endless examples of this medium from places in southwestern US like New Mexico etc. Closer to home in India too, with the Auroville Institute in the state of Tami Nadu, India, taking the technique various notches up. Contemporary examples in our immediate urban environment however, are hard to come by. My brief search for the same in Lahore was predictably unsuccessful, but I decided to go ahead nonetheless.

Some research later, which included the tests of soil samples from the site ( X-Ray Diffrected and Petrographic Modal analysis) at the New Campus Geology deptt, the hunt for a source of hydrated lime, locating the fellow in Karachi who had made the Block Press for us earlier, discussions with Auroville regarding the best block size for a small project and overall composition based on the type of soil I had available, and finally after consultation with the engineers, we designed a load bearing house in CSEB.

With a bit more R & D, a more efficient press than the one I had used could be developed, the cement and lime mix that I used could be completely substituted with lime. Lime being much cheaper than cement and having qualities which make it superior to cement on many counts. For instance it gains strength over time (owing to an inherent process called the lime cycle), self heals hairline cracks, repels insects due to its alkalinity , and has an embodied energy (the energy employed in its production) which is much less than that of cement.