Images Category Posts

Making the bamboo pavilion

July 2, 2008

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Pictures of Harsar

September 14, 2007

Pictures of Harsar in added in the Gallery section. Please take a look.

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Brickmaker in Nepal

August 26, 2007

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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.

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Bamboo Temporary Shelter

August 23, 2007

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Here is an example of a temporary shelter built by Abari in Janakpur Nepal. It is built as a storage place for all the bamboo that we have treated for the construction. It was designed in order to resist dampness and provide enough air circulation to store and dry the bamboo.

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A Yurt in Motion

August 22, 2007

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Here is a picture from our archive during the construction of “Gobidobe” in Mongolia. The modern resources has changed how people move, earlier nomads used to travel via camel. Now people can carry more stuff as they move, which might be a good thing or a bad thing depending on who you ask.

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Sukumbasi Livelihood

February 23, 2007

The majority of Sukumbasis (Internally Displaced People) who live along the Manohara river make their living by collecting sand for the construction companies. I think the ramifications of people taking so much sand out of the river has to be properly studied. Among many, one of the studies says, the depletion of sand is causing the water level of the river to go  substantially down. How much these people need to be compensated, or the ways to find alternative ways of making living for them, also needs to be properly addressed.

 

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A glimpse into the homelessness

February 20, 2007
Here is an example of housing along Monohara river where poverty level is below satisfactory. People from this house earn from 30 to 150 Rs. (.45 cents to 2$ ) a day. Even bamboo and mud is out of reach for many of them. A bamboo costs about 150 Rs. per piece and mud costs about 700Rs. per tractor. My question is why dont government plant bamboo along the river, so it can control flooding, erosing and at the same time provide building material for the poor? 

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Bamboo Connection

February 15, 2007
Bamboo is a pretty versatile and a dynamic material, which works pretty well with most of the modern and traditional materials; whether it is mud, cement, steel or even plastic. Here is an example of a homeless shelter situated on the Bagmati riverbank in the eastern kathmandu.
 

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A stairway to the Second Floor

January 16, 2007
 
This is an example of a typical nepali staircase. They are usually located right after the entrance.  In the traditional houses, the first floors were used to shelter animals or only to store food because the moisture barrier used to be insufficient  to provide sufficient thermal comfort for the humans.  These stairs used the the wood  agrath and they were as durable as the house. Needless to say the  stairs had a locking system instead of nails.  Its a taboo  in Nepal to  stand under  a  stair case.  Any  thoughts on why it is so?
 
 
 
 

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Chwali

January 1, 2007

 
This is our new member Roshi Shilpakar's latest creation. This is an art created using reed. Reed is soaked in water to make it soft, cut into pieces, flattened  and then put in place using a template. It is a long and a very meditative process indeed. 

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