In this series, the episode that got the most number of viewers was the one on my house. The question you may ask is: Does it has any connection with Miyawaki? Yes, in a sense. That is because the Miyawaki method is built on the principles of limited exploitation of natural resources and adoption of a style of house construction that is in sync with Nature. This house was built in such a manner. Many people have asked me for its blueprint. I shall show it in the next episode.
In this, I shall show you the general layout of the construction site. I have no hesitation in sharing the blueprint of my house but I doubt whether replicating it in another area will have a similar effect. Each house has to be built to suit the topography of that area. We Malayalis generally avoid consulting an architect before constructing a house. My request is that you should not do this, on any account. I do know that at least some architects tend to come up with costly plans so that they can get their due commission. Therefore, my suggestion is that when you approach a consultancy firm, do not convert their charges in terms of percentage.
If you plan a house costing ten lakh rupees, you may have to pay two lakhs as consulting fees. But it is certainly worth it. Instead, if you convert two lakh rupees in terms of percentage, and decide to build a house that costs one crore rupees in order to make the most of the commission you pay the architect, it may not be worthwhile. My reason for recommending the services of an architect is this. All of us are involved in different fields of work, and may even excel in them. Professionally, I’m involved in digital content generation. Whatever I know of agriculture was acquired through nearly 10 years of effort. When I construct a house, I have a general idea about my requirements but know virtually nothing of how I can have a strong construction, what materials I should use or how much they will cost. I got this house designed by a friend of mine. I shall show you its blueprint in the next episode.
Right now, I shall show you how we divided this site. Many people say that they have only a five-cent plot and therefore have no space for a Miyawaki forest. Others say that they do not have enough space even for a house, let alone a forest. I shall show you how exactly I divided my plot. Perhaps that will help you in some way. This is a 34-cent plot. The house is built in a 12-cent piece. Behind the house, I have a cow shed and a goat pen. On one side, I have a kennel. What you see here is a plan of the 12-cent plot.
The portion in brown colour denotes the area covered by the house. The entire floor area comes to 1,000 sq. ft. The rooms cover 450 sq. ft. The remaining 550 sq. ft has been used for the veranda. There is a trough running all around the house where I grow fish. This keeps centipedes and ants away. I got the idea of such a fish pond from a house I saw in Pondicherry. It covers 350 sq. ft because the trough is two feet wide and two feet deep. If you reduce the width by half, the floor area can be reduced to 175 sq. ft. The blue line that you see around the house represents the water tank. So the total floor area comes to 1,350 sq. ft.
In front of the house there was a two or two-and-a half-foot wide path leading down the hill. It has been widened to ten feet. I’ve left vacant another half cent of land in front of the house so that if any vehicle comes here (maybe sometime in the future, though not now) there will be enough space for reversing it. Otherwise, the area will look rather constricted. So, in total, I lost nearly two cents of land for the road. In short, the land I had for the house site was now reduced to 8.16 cents. The house itself took up 1,350 sq. ft. That means 3.15 cents. The remaining area of five cents has been used up in front of the house and behind. The piece at the back is six feet wide and roughly 45 feet long. That is 0.62 cents, which means two-thirds of a cent. This area can be halved, if required. So, if the width is reduced to three feet, the total area will come to 0.31 cents.
The piece of plot in front has been converted into a large flower forest. It was designed to be large so that it would block road dust from entering the house, and also fill the space with flowers and butterflies at all times. Thus 1.76 cents or 768 sq. ft. was set apart for the flower forest. The additional advantage is that it will camouflage the incline of the land, and give it an aesthetic appeal. Nearly 200 saplings were planted in it, of which 150 or so have survived. At any given point of time there will be at least 40 of them in bloom. Thus the flower forest is a success story.
To its right, this part that you see, which we step into from here, is a large vegetable forest. It covers 0.62 cents of land. Below it, is a tiny portion of 1.16 cents that stands behind the house. Therefore, roughly two cents have been set apart for vegetable-and-fruit forests, with nearly 80 or 100 trees belonging to 40 different species, including two coconut palms. While designing these forests, we committed the mistake of putting up banana plants too. Colocasia as well. When the banana plants and Colocasia grow really well, they prevent the neighbouring plants from shooting up. We have a small banana plantation in a portion of our backyard forest that covers 1.36 cents. That is to satisfy the typical Malayali desire to have lunch served on a banana leaf! In the intervening spaces we have elephant yam. It’s a mixed fare you’ll find there, not a proper farming method. A segment that covers 1.36 cents, or 594 sq. ft has been set apart for it. Septic tank and other miscellaneous stuff take up about 100 to 125 sq. ft. On the other side of my house is a three-and-a-half foot wide piece that comes to one-fourth of a cent.
This is how the entire plot has been divided. If you have a five-cent plot, you can divide it accordingly. If the water tank of the 1,350 sq. ft house is made narrow, the space will get reduced to 1,175 sq. ft. If you do away with the water tank altogether, the floor area will reduce to 1,000 sq. ft. If you opt for a double-storeyed house, it will shrink to 500 sq. ft. A person with a five-cent land will require a house covering a mere one-and-a-half cents. The rest of the space can be utilized for farming. I showed you my model to prove how you can design flower-and-vegetable forests in your four- or five-cent plot. Besides, it would be desirable to plan one’s house according to the wind patterns in the area, the trees already growing in the site, and so on. Similarly, one should choose building materials that will suit the peculiarities of the area. This is where the services of an architect become significant. I shall show you the blue print of my house in the next issue of this series.