BIOGRAPHY

Anupama Kundoo (born 1967) is

an Indian architect who after her
scholastic studies in architecture
started working at Auroville, starting in
1990, where she created several
innovations in the projects she
designed adopting "sustainable building
technologies
and
infrastructural
systems". Her architectural designs are
aesthetic and region specific or
"vernacular" that cater to the needs
Figure 1 : www.wikipedia.com
of modern living, blending with
traditional building designs. She has a doctoral degree for her dissertation on the
subject of "baked mud-insitu houses of India". As a practicing architect since 1990 she
has more than 100 projects to her credit. She has also experimented with design of high
rise buildings for urban environment.
Kundoo was born in Pune in 1967. Her high school education was from Mary
Immaculate Girls' High School. She studied for architecture from the Sir J. J. College of
Architecture, University of Bombay and received her degree in architecture in 1989. She
was awarded the Vastu Shilpa Foundation Fellowship in 1996 for her thesis on "Urban
Eco-Community: Design and Analysis for Sustainability". She got her doctoral degree
from Technical University of Berlin in 2008.
Kundoo established herself as
an architect in the Auroville where
she designed and built many
economically innovative buildings
with "energy and water efficient
infrastructure"
adaptations. She
worked here from middle of 1990 till
2002. Her approach to building
design is based on material research
that
minimizes
environmental
effects. Her basic design approach is
to use "waste materials, unskilled
Figure 2 : www.dezeen.com
labour and local communities". Her
work culture is a "research-oriented practice and practice-oriented teaching."
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She expresses her design

approach clearly by stating: "My
designs are not driven by the worry
that the world will end, but by finding
ways to make the most with what one
has." A full sized replica of her Wall
House was made by hand and
exhibited at the Venice Biennale of
Architecture. New York Times called it
as "a gem among rubble". She is
Figure 3 : www.architecturaviva.com
one of the five "globe-spanning "
architects featured in "The Architect is Present". She has received accolades for a
design she presented for the Indian products entitled "Made in India" for the Be Open
Foundation in New Delhi, which was a "live" design exhibited at Madrids Museo ICO.
Another interesting theme brought out in her architectural creation is titled
"Liberty" which presents a reading place as a free book free library where individuals
can "sit and read whatever they wish to". This creation is built with three types of trees
fixed in the centre of a square space. The trees' "trunks and branches" are made from
steel and the leaves made of salvaged books, with the floor made of concrete. Sitting
under the shade of this tree people could indulge in conversation or read a book with
the gentle wind blowing through the leaves. This was exhibited at the Placa de Salvador
Segui in Barcelona during JuneSeptember 2014.
Kundoo taught at the Technical University,Berlin, and Darmstadt in Hesse during
2005. She worked as Assistant Professor at Parsons The New School for Design, New
York until 2011 then moving to Australia as a senior lecturer in the University of
Queensland. In 2014, she shifted to Europe and began working at the European School
of Architecture and Technology at the Universidad Camilo Jos Cela in Madrid. She is
married to a Spanish person and has two children. She lives in Madrid, Spain and has
her own architectural firm called Anupama Kundoo Architects.

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PROJECTS
RESIDENCES
PAUL AND CLAUDINES RESIDENCE
AUROVILLE
The inhabitants wanted a simple and
compact little house in Auroville to address
their simple needs: a living dining and
kitchen area on the ground floor. A
bedroom with an attached bath and
dressing area on one side, a little terrace
with a mini pool on the other, on the first
floor.
The living area is raised, and is
surrounded by three alcoves with rough
Figure 4 : www.anupamakundoo.com
granite cills. There is a direct contact with
the open kitchen and the living area with the entrance and dining areas between them.
Warm earth colours define the mood of the house, the walls being built with cementstabilised rammed earth from the site, and a similar shade of pigment used as the IPS
floor finish.

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A staircase without handrails, in the

Figure 5 : www.anupamakundoo.com

same finish takes one to the upper floor. The

bedroom is on a raised platform and tucked
partly into the bed alcove. Storage space is
claimed below the platform. The bed overlooks
a little open-to sky terrace with a really tiny
pool, a little bigger than a bathtub, primarily for
chilling out in the hot weather. The garden is
watered out of this pool daily. Rough granite
that is used as coping slabs, contributes to the
outdoor feeling.
The bathroom and dressing area are
also very simple, the surfaces finished with
stucco plaster containing marble dust. The
upper floor is characterised by the warmth lent
to its white walls by the terracotta under
surface of the insulated vault roof, as well as
the earth coloured IPS floor finish.
Furniture is more or less avoided
deliberately, and most of the needs are met
Figure 6 : www.dezeen.com
with by built-in solutions. Alcoves, cills,
platforms and parapet heights take seating into account and one can sit comfortably in
many places.
Uncluttered spaces have been created devoid of furniture, so that in spite of
being small, the space itself could be experienced as the essential quality, rather than
the numerous objects that one possesses and gathers in the course of living. This gives
the house a timeless quality. And gives the narrow spaces of the house the quality, of a
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much more generous space that is

flowing into each other in continuity, which
is flowing freely between inside and
outside. This gives the inhabitants the
feeling of having space for their future
instead of the feeling that their space is
already occupied with the things of their
past.

Figure 7 : www.insideoutside.com

The result is an elegance of beauty

in simplicity, revealing the underlying
nature of things rather than the superficial

details of their manifestation.

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THE WALL HOUSE

AUROMODELE, AUROVILLE
The key concept is that of the house as
extending right into the landscape, with no physical
boundaries. Anupama conceived of the wall house as
a line drawn in nature. The entrance is a dramatic,
double-height, soaring vaulted space. A narrow linear
block to one side of the entrance contains all the private
spaces. On the first floor one sees the same linear
form, used to house a bedroom, dressing room and
terrace with a magical open-to-sky bathroom. Its narrow
dimensions are accented by a light, airy extension,
framed in glass and metal (punched into the brick wall)
that accommodates the bed.
The design of the house ensures that the private
activities
are Figure 8 : www.architectureau.com
cocooned
into
secluded secure spaces, while
the public living areas are large
and open to nature. It is a
house, contemporary in style,
that could fit as well in a rural
or urban context. The design is
the result of extensive research
Figure 9 : www.dezeen.com
and
experimentation
by
Anupama Kundoo in three main areas: ecofriendly building materials and alternative
technologies that provide an imaginative option to current building trends; energy
efficiency; and a climatically responsive vocabulary. In addition, Anupama also created
an infrastructure for the management of water, waste and energy. Our quest includes
making these techniques replicable in urban as well as rural areas, she says.

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HANDLING SPACE AND LIGHT

With the architecture of this house,
Anupama has explored alternative definitions of
space
and
a
lifestyle
that
embodies
contemporary values within a rural setting. It is a
simple house, with clearly defined lines and
masses, yet with a play in volumes that makes it
hard to distinguish where the inside ends and the
outside begins. Long steps, which continue from
the inside onto the garden outside on both sides,
create a further demarcation of spaces.

Figure 10 : www.anupamakundu.com

A dramatic soaring vaulted space,

more than two storeys high, marks the
entry point. This is a transition space,
extending into the landscape, a living
space with no physical boundaries. To the
right, a narrow linear, concrete block in
exposed brick, runs from north to south.
Just 2.2 m wide inside, this block contains
all the private space in the house. On the
ground floor are a storeroom, kitchen and
dining area, while at the rear is another
room with a direct external access.
Figure 11 : www.dezeen.com

A free-standing zigzag flight of polished,

green painted, concrete stairs leads to the first floor, where the same linear form
embraces a study, a bedroom, a dressing room and an external terrace with a magical
open-to-sky bathroom. It is almost like a corridor; indeed so narrow that to
accommodate the bed and the dining space, a light glass and metal framed extension is
plugged into the external wall to the east of the brick tube. The bedroom, with glass
louvres on three sides, completely opens out under the canopy of an old tree, while the
private side of the wall (to the west) opens out into a 4-m-wide double-height verandah,
which is protected by thin steel mesh on a wooden structure. Thus this area is full of
natural, glare-free light, and allows one to enjoy the sunsets from here. Says Anupama,
The design of the house ensures that the private activities are cocooned into secluded
secure spaces, while the public living areas are large and open to nature.

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Figure 12 : www.dezeen.com

CONSTRUCTION SYSTEMS

brick
the same
in ancient

Anupama has scaled down the exposed

facades by using local achakal bricks of
18 cm x 10 cm x 2.5 cm dimensions used
times, instead of the standard English size.

Reviving the use of these bricks, she has

set
them
with
Figure 13 :
raked joints in lime mortar, to which 10% cement has
www.upcommons.upc.edu
been added for initial setting strength. The thickness of
the walls varies between 30, 20 and 10 cm, with specially designed bonds, as they do
not follow the usual 1:2 proportions. The foundations are of cement-stabilized rammed
earth the earth having been procured from the same foundation pits. It comes as no
surprise that Anupama has also experimented with different roofing systems. Catenary
vaults of hollow clay tubes have been used for climatic insulation, which also eliminates
the need for structural steel that one sees in roofs today. There are vaults in the ground
floor where achakal bricks are used as structural supports. The flat terraced roof over
the guest room has been built by using hollow burnt clay trapezoidal extruded modules
over partly precast beams, as in the jack arch these modules were specially
manufactured locally for the purpose of finding insulated roofing solutions to flat roofs.
For the intermediate floor, Anupama used terracotta pots as fillers to increase the
effective depth of concrete, while minimizing the volume of concrete and steel in the
slabs that did require to be insulated. One of our aims was to demonstrate that
structural materials can also be used as finishing materials.
CLIMATIC RESPONSE

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The plan of the house,

with its narrow spaces, responds
to the hot and humid climate of
the region, as it allows maximum
cross-ventilation. Aligned along
a south-east north-west axis, the
house has small openings in
front and large openings at the
rear to create effective air
Figure 14 : www.dezeen.com
channels, which optimize
ventilation. The doubleheight volume enhances the air stack movement, and increases
the upward drafts of the ventilation. The hot air rising inside the covered spaces is
forced out through openings in the vault, and as the roofs are also designed to be
insulating, heat radiation is minimized.
FLOW OF SPACE
The interior blends with and
enhances the architecture and the
landscape. In fact, the whole house is
planned in such a way that there is no
segregation between the interior, the
exterior, the built form and the landscape.
Says Anupama, The interiors are not
perceived as furnished areas, with untrue
decorative objects, but as spaces with a
distinct quality. In the entrance to the dining
Figure 15 : www.dezeen.com
area stands a table recycled out of a single
old rosewood column. The natural texture and surface of the wood is left as it is, and the
table can be reassembled back again to the form of the original log. Another study table
is built out of a recycled teak beam; inserted into the wall, it quietly blends into the
architecture. Natural stones have been imaginatively used as a substitute for sills,
lintels, water spouts, seats and small steps. The washbasin counters are in rough
granite. At every end, the interior dissolves into landscape.
SUSTAINABLE ENERGY
The already reduced energy demands of the house are almost entirely met by
solar photovoltaics for electricity, a solar water heater and a solar pump for pumping
water.
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CONTEXT AND APPROPRIATENESS

Located in a reforested Auroville
community, the house is tucked away in a corner
and manages to create for itself a private open
space on one side, to which it opens out. The
wall is like a line drawn in nature which
separates the private and public spaces.
Anupama sums it up: This experimental house
continues Aurovilles legacy as a laboratory for
experiments in space, form, engineering and
living.

Figure 16 : www.upcommons.upc.edu

HUT IN PETITE FERME

AUROVILLE
These houses is the most basic
simple dwelling consisting of a thatch roof
(woven coconut leaves) supported on
untreated casuarina members that are tied
together in place with coconut ropes.
The structure stands on rough granite
stilts that prevent the termites from reaching
the wood. The upper floor is made of split
supari or pakamaram stems that are also
tied on with rope.

Figure 17 : www.anupamakunda.com

Granite pillars are further used to create graded transition between the inside and
the outside, to include courtyards in the living or private open-to-sky spaces in the bath
areas.This is a house that has a low impact on the environment, harmoniously blending
into the nature and totally dependant on the sun for its electrification and water heating
demands.

HEMANT AND DIVYAS RESIDENCE

AUROVILLE

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Figure 18 : www.anupamakunda.com

Since he had first come to Auroville,

Hemant had lived for several years in a
very simple thatch hut on granite pillars
simply tied together with coconut rope, just
like many others do in their early years in
Auroville. However, after those initial years,
they looked forward to living in a house that
offered more permanance and comfort.
Outdoor areas freely penetrate the indoors,
and there are two courtyards enclosed
within the ground floor by arranging simple
rough granite pillars in a series; one as an
extension to the bathroom, to provide it with
a patch of earth and sky and the other,
adjoining the living room, incorporating a
small water tank that can be use in
Figure 19 : www.dezeen.com
summers to dip in, before the water is taken
to sustain the garden. The joists were cut out of really old (around 50 years old)
casuarina trees and are far stronger than people expect, at that age. Casuarina, as it is
mostly known for its use as scaffolding and for temporary building works, is usually
harvested at three to seven years.

The transition spaces between the house and the garden are naturally
landscaped in an unnoticeable way, mainly consisting of the same repetitive elements,
brick paving, granite benches and pillar screens, boulders and pebbles.

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HOUSING PROJECTS
VOLONTARIAT HOME FOR HOMELESS CHILDREN
PONDICHERRY

Figure 20 : www.anupamakunda.com

These homes are planned to

accommodate 15 children and 5 foster
parents. This project was built using a rare
technology pioneered by Ray Meeker of
Golden Bridge Pottery, which consists of
baking a mud house insitu, after constructing
it. A fired house or a fire-established mud
house is in principle a mud house built with
mud bricks and mud mortar that is cooked
after building as a whole to achieve the
strength of brick.

The interior space of the structure is

stuffed with further mud bricks or other
ceramic products such as tiles, and fired as
if it were a kiln. Typically kiln walls absorb
about 40% of the heat generated. In this
technology, the house is the kiln, and the
heat loss is directed towards firing the
house and stabilizing it from water damage.
The fuel cost is largely
Figure 21 : www.anupamakunda.com
accountable to the products
inside.
The strength of brick in principle would be achieved for the piece of mud. Further, the
cement in the mortar mix would become
unnecessary. This technology involves almost
only labour, with very little spent of
purchased materials. Thus the money spent
remains in the local economy and it enriches
it. The house becomes a producer of
sustainable building materials instead of
being a consumer.

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The house takes 3 4 days to burn. Catenary shaped domes are used to get the
best structural stability before firing when it
Figure 22 : www.architects-india.org
functions as an earth building; during firing
which is an unstable stage of vitrification process and after firing as a brick load bearing
structure. The domes are various sizes according to the cluster program which includes
one foster parent per 4 children. A social project with cost as a major aspect that
informed design, the project uses many unconventional materials as well as absorbs
urban waste. Bicycles wheel frames were used as formwork for windows and later as
window grills. Glass bottles were used as structural units for masonry in toilet areas.
Glass chai cups were used to finish the openings at the top of the dome. This highly
experimental project is an example of radical thinking that is being explored to approach
the problem of affordability of housing for all, and more over integrally sustainable in all
its aspects.

SANGAMAM COST EFFICIENT HABITAT

AUROVILLE
Sangamam is situated at the outskirts
of Auroville, in an area affected by
environmental
and
social
problems,
including water scarcity, saline water
intrusion, soil erosion and declining soil
fertility, unemployment and inadequate
housing, educational and medical facilities.
Soil from the site has been
laboratory-tested and found to
Figure 23 : www.inside-outside.com
be
suitable
for
the
construction
of load bearing walls. The age-old rammed earth building technique is introduced in a
more sophisticated form with cement stabilisation to achieve better standard of finish,
more strength and water-resistance, and enabling a quicker modular method of building.
Five per cent of cement is added in the sieved earth to make the mass water-resistant,
thereby significantly adding to the wet compressive strength of the material.
Roofs are constructed using terracotta filler slabs, bricks as jack arches, and
conical hollow vault elements designed specifically to achieve an affordable solution
with low environmental impact that is beneficial to generate local employment. The low
cost housing scheme is provided with eco-friendly building infrastructure for rain water
harvesting.
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Figure 24 : www.insideoutside.com

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PUBLIC BUILDINGS
SRI AUROBINDO WORLD
CENTRE FOR HUMAN UNITY
AUROVILLE

Efficient structural design can lead with

Figure 25 : www.anupamakunda.org
substantial savings in steel and cement, the two most
commonly used high energy materials. A circular open pavilion of 16 meters diameter is
supported by some additional service rooms. After several iterations the concept chosen
for execution was the one that used 75 cubic meters of RCC instead of 125 cubic
meters amounting to substantial savings. The structural system has a major influence
on the architectural form and space.
Inspired by the work of Pier Luigi Nervi this project have involved the further
development and use of ferrocement technology to reduce the use of structural steel to
chicken mesh compared to conventional higher diameter steel bars. In this case though
ferrocement was used as economical moulds,
as lost shuttering to enable that radial beams
with an efficient curved profile could be cast
insitu. Sloping exposed reinforced concrete
columns reduce the span of the roof.
A community gathering place, this
center consists of a circular hall of 16 meters
diameter. At its rear, there are two rooms of
55 sqm each for administration and small
conferences respectively. For the rest, there are no walls dividing the inside from the
outside. Extending outside, there are tiers of seats, forming a low-rise amphitheater. A
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glass covered opening in the center in the roof allows daylight to enter at the centre of
the space emphasizing the vertical central unifying force. The sunrays strike the lines of
inlaid stainless steel that make the pattern on the stone floor.
Figure 26 : www.dezeen.com

physical centre of unity.

The circle is chosen to contain

the shape of the hall to emphasize
unity. Sitting around a circle, everyone
is focused on the center where the
point of unity lies. The amphitheater
steps ripple outwards and tend to
change its shape from circle towards a
square. The last step is a square with
rounded corners to imply that the
ripples may extend even beyond the
Figure 27 : www.dezeen.com

IMPORTANT FEATURES
* The structural members, being important
elements of the design, contribute to the
overall aesthetics of the building. The
structure is an interesting combination of bold
curves of the roof and floor, which are linked
by sharp and angular columns with
aerodynamic beams. The circular roof slab
being a strong element of the building has a
very dynamic look, emphasized by its lighting
pattern of lights, like an illuminated disc at
Figure 28 : www.designboom.com
night. The meeting hall expands on three
sides onto open to sky amphitheaters. These are linked to the main structure by
concrete bridges on the peripheral water channel. These outside spaces allow the
meeting activities to spill over onto the surrounding landscape with earth berms on all
the
sides
acting
as
transition
spaces.
* Water body: water bodies around the hall maintaining the quiet and calm atmosphere
of the building. The waterspouts of the roof slab deliver the natural water to the water
body on four sides.
TECHNOLOGY

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Sloping and exposed concrete columns reduce the span of the roof slab
forming an individual member of the structure.
Shape of the radial beams supporting
the slab is based on design efficiency thus
using very judiciously only the minimum
quantity of concrete. The shape also adds to
the aesthetical quality by softening harsh
edges.
Use of Ferro-cement mould as lost
shuttering for the beams giving an even
finish and reducing the cost of shuttering.
Figure 29 : www.dezeen.com

Corner of slabs are reinforced using

diagonal steel bars for stiffening, thus shifting the point of support inside for reducing the
span without increasing the effective depth and corresponding volume of concrete.
Inverted circular beams at inner and outer rings of the disc further stress the
lightness of the structure as seen from below and give the impression that each of the
radial beams are stand alone, connected only by the slab. The effect is even more
dynamic.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY
WEBSITES
http://www.indian-architects.com/en/anupamakundoo/source:index_updated_new
http://www.slideshare.net/sslele456/auroville-architecture
http://www.italcementigroup.com/NR/rdonlyres/E59F8324-09FC-45F9-A8E36225F93AD8BF/0/4_Scheda_NOMINATION_kundoo_UK.pdf
http://indiaunlimited.se/w/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/FORM0214_048Kundoo_ENG.pdf
http://www.anupamakundoo.com/paul-and-claudine/#
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/8b78bbac-b04e-11e3-8058-00144feab7de.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anupama_Kundoo
http://www.anupamakundoo.com/sustainable-building/
http://www.anupamakundoo.com/magazines/
https://aap.cornell.edu/people/anupama-kundoo
http://upcommons.upc.edu/bitstream/handle/2099/15808/3699-742-1-SM.pdf
http://tekton.mes.ac.in/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/anupamakundoo.pdf
http://www.insideoutside.in/inside-outside/issue-magazine/9447/wall-houseanupama-kundoo
http://www.dezeen.com/2012/08/30/wall-house-by-anupama-kundoo-at-venicearchitecture-biennale-2012/
http://architectureau.com/articles/wall-to-wall-1/
http://www.arquitecturaviva.com/en/Info/News/Details/5765
http://www.anupamakundoo.com/volontariat-home-for-homeless-children/
http://www.indian-architects.com/en/projects/29256_Volontariat_Orphanage
http://www.designboom.com/weblog/images/images_2/massimo/

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