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| Wednesday, 11 August 2004 |
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Wattle and daub architecture promotes environment, economy in community shelter Bathing in mineral rich mud has a reputation of improving health. Mud therapy or mud bath is said to be good for skin illnesses or such therapeutic treatment and tone up skin and body organs. Above and beyond, there are much greater advantage in economy and immense long-term environmental benefit in the use of mud as building material in the rural sector. There also appears to exist a hidden secret in mud that people in mud huts or houses lived long in good health. They were even healthier and stronger than their decease prone counterparts in cities. Mud houses in Northern Africa were a local necessacity. There were no wood available in the region and hence houses were made out of mud bricks called 'adobe'. Bricks are made out by compressing mud into a mould and allowing them to harden. Thereafter the mould is removed gently tapping on to the frame. The bricks are well dried in the sun. Dried bricks (unbaked) are mortared into walls and plastered. Mud houses, with improved look and beauty line along the streets in Northern Africa. In rural Sudan mud as a building material for houses are used but people think that mud buildings are inferior. This is because the western investors in Sudan do not believe in archaic systems and they openly advise people to build with steel, concrete and glass. But many do not have jobs to find wherewithal for luxury-building. Sudan's older buildings large and small are made from mud. Popular countryside In rural England both sticks and mud was available and people made use of the cheap resources to build their houses for centuries. Comely wattle and daub cottages with thatched roofs are a common sight in the countryside. Best samples in Sri Lanka Mud and sticks could be primitive building materials. But they help in versatile form, to find shelters to families with little resources at their disposal. Even two-storeyed sturdy houses could be built with wattle and daub technique. Such houses are innovative in looks and structurally strong. The technique survives to-date in deep rural areas in Sri Lanka. For centuries in the past wattle and daub houses were popular in villages and semi-urbanized areas in the island. The technique is still used to build houses in rural sections in the country. Bricks and cement is now taking over what sticks and mud did to construct traditional Sri Lankan shelter. Long-lasting and innovative Today price of bricks and cement are on an upward trend and the brick build houses are becoming costlier. Even otherwise wattle and daub houses are sturdy and long-lasting. The old method is not inferior. Where mud and wood are the cheapest building materials. They could be constructed to give the same look of finish as those built with bricks and cement. System is economical, environmental friendly, financially affordable and innovatively attractive. The technique could be enriched with brick-cement mix at nominal cost in order to augment the tensile strength of the building. The cost of workmanship is comparatively less. Unskilled workers could handle most of the work involved in construction. Little supervision is needed in the art. Village technocrats are still available among the older community. The traditional wattle and daub technique of building house commences before foundation is laid. Main structure is erected according to architectural specifications with long-lasting hardwood poles long enough to reach the entire wall height upto roof point. The stone foundation is laid next and raised it to the required height and mortared with mud imbedding the base of the main poles erected. Few days is next allowed to harden the foundation. The walls are erected thereafter. The sticks or splits selected are from a variety of wood which is inhospitable to white ants. Similarly matured kitul, coconut or arecanut strips or any other ant-resistant variety is used for horizontal bars and nailed on to the vertical poles. Coir strings firmly trusses up all material together in proper order to form a strong structure to be filled with mud. The houses could include modern toilets and connected with pipe borne water. This system of cheap wood and mud in construction of houses evolved through immediate availability of resources locally and it could go on for many more centuries to come. This great environmental devastation was ignored to pave way for development. Our villages may one by one go into oblivion environmentally with present scale of brick and tile manufacture in the country. Government should step in with a solution and ban exports of earthen building material abroad. Research into wattle and daub The government's shelter program should adapt wattle and daub method at least partly in building housing units for people in villages through community participation program. Research should be carried out into the old system and new technology introduced to improve the system. Environmental devastation Galpatha is a small village 12km away from Kalutara town on the road to Horana. For a century and half Bricks were supplied to various parts of the country from brick kilns at Galpatha. Many people leased out their land for brick manufacture and eventually today the land at Galpatha is devastated by removal of earth. Abandoned pits breeding mosquitoes remain today as a witness to the environmental tragedy. Earth for bricks are taken mostly in excavating the fertile ground to depths upto the water table. In contrast, the mud is made out of cutting down earth off from embankments or from irregularly elevated areas need levelling a site to put up a house. Making bricks therefore leads to complete physical destruction of fertile earth and rendering the land useless permanently. Wattle and daub method does minimum harm, saves the land, and ecology. - Lionel Gulawita, Diriya Foundation |
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