Here is the interior of the kitchen.  Its 8 meters high, 10 meters wide and 15 meters long. Who says you can not make large structure out of bamboo? You can do anything that cement and concrete can and that too in an ecological, economical and a beautiful way.

After long and arduous battle our kitchen is finished. The tiles looks awesome. They are made on site! They have no embodied energy what so ever- meaning they are not burnt.

During this construction, we have followed a very conventional philosophy i.e. a sound hat and a sound boot is all what you need for protection. Bamboo is delicate, its vulnerable but if used properly can be hardy and durable. 

The work in Janakpur had stalled for various political reasons, one being kidnapping of our overseer. Well! That all seem pretty normal these days. Anyways, the villagers put all their effort to resume the work. It just heartbreaking to see, how much love and effort people have put into this project. We not only see work in Harsar as our seminal work because we have an opportunity to try out different construction methodologies like rammed earth, stablized earth blocks, adobe and cob but the social aspect of working with the community has just priceless.

This is a section of a wall with a high stone plinth and foundation, two layers of burnt bricks, adobe wall for thermal mass vertical and horizonatal bamboo reinforcement against earthquake which are all topped off with cob wall for a better adobe and bamboo connection.

Please click on the above picture to see an adobe brickmaker in action. These people have been making bricks for generation. They can make upto 500 bricks a day. Its ironic they make so many sun dried bricks in a day yet its hard to buy the bricks , its because all these bricks are later burnt in a kiln. Since burnt bricks are more expensive then the sun dried bricks (almost 1000% more), brickmakers are reluctant to see them. Sun dried bricks alone, are unfortunately not used in construction anymore. Burnt bricks consume lots of energy to make and obviously during the process they produce lots of smoke. Furthermore, heat retaining capacity of clay die out when they are burnt. So the sun dried bricks are better thermally and ecologically then the burnt bricks.

One and half years after its construction, we have just heard our Gobi Dome is functioning perfectly well!! Our family were perfectly warm and happy in it. With the financial help from the New Zealand Nature Institute, we reintroduced adobe in Mongolia. The introduction of the dome technique was our additional gift to the wonderful people of Bayenlig, Gobi.