‘Build a Natural Home’ is an initiative by Thannal to build a mud home per present-day needs. We believe shelter for any human can be made on an affordable budget through Natural Buildings without causing much damage to nature.

Using Indigenous techniques of construction will reduce the dependency on manufactured materials as it requires preferably local materials. Such a project initiates the revival of good mud homes in a region currently dominated by cement houses or mud buildings adulterated with cement. It will also make building a good mud home a reality for ordinary people. For your dream to create one for yourself, we could help in the following ways.

Step 1:

Attend any of our Natural Building Workshop so that you will

• Feel a mud home before you decide to build one.
• Train yourself, family and friends, so that you could build together.
• Let your mason learn so that they could build one for you and others.
• Support Thannal, experience mud and spread the excellent mud home

Case 1.

We are not a construction group; we are an awareness group.

After the workshop, if Thannal is taking up your project.

We do only two or three projects in a year. We will be choosing projects based on the values associated with it, which will portray mud homes as genuinely eco-friendly. Project done by Thannal will be a ‘Gift Culture’ or ‘Barter System’. In exchange for our services, you can contribute to our Natural Building School books, tools or food grains (for our kitchen). You can also sponsor salary to our artisans for a month, which will be a massive help for our experimentation.

These projects will create learning opportunities for everyone who wants to see how and why traditional methods are practical in the present scenario of material shortage and high construction costs.

We will be designing the house, with stage-wise site visits by Founders & Thannalites during the construction. In addition, volunteers who have undergone basic training through our workshop will be available to help with the building—for example, Farmer’s Home in Attappadi and Seed Bank in Dindigul.

Terms & Conditions:

• Thannal undertakes only two projects a year which are value-based.
• We only do non-commercial projects in suburbs or villages, not in urban areas.
• We prefer to serve people who are doing their first home (in need of shelter), not weekend homes or farmhouses.
• We can also take up the restoration of old mud houses.
• As there is no contractor involved in our projects right now, the owner himself or someone else appointed by the owner has to take care of labour management, material procurement etc. So we can be part of the project like a designer but not a contractor.
• Trained Volunteers through our workshop can be made available as per need.

Case 2: Owner’s Build

Suppose Thannal cannot take up your project due to our engagements in other means of spreading awareness, like workshops, working on books or publications or we have already taken up two projects. In that case, we can help you by giving training for an Owner’s Build through workshops.

We promote Owner’s Build as we believe in not building more but make more natural builders. Such homes built by owners, their family, friends, and few workers always cherish a memorable connection with the people residing in the constructed home.

We invite you to be a part of the shelter building process being friends with nature.

The below video is one example of an owner-built