jali work in brick used for decoration and ventilation

as i decide to use brick as one of the material for my design i came across brick jali work as a replacement for windows for saving money.WINDOWS ARE COSTLY. ONE SQUARE FOOT OF-WINDOW CAN COST UP TO TEN TIMES THE COST OF THE SIMPLE BRICK OR STONE WALL IT REPLACES.
A WINDOW HAS VARIED FUNCTIONS :-

1)TO LOOK OUT OF,
2)TO LET LIGHT INSIDE A ROOM,
3)TO LET IN FRESH AIR,
4)TO LET IN FRESH AIR,AND SO ON....

COST EFFICIENT REPLACEMENT: "BRICK JALI"

IN MANY OF THESE SITUATIONS LISTED ABOVE  A “JALI” IS JUST AS EFFECTIVE. FAR FROM BEING A LOT MORE COSTLY THAN THE BASIC WALL, IF MADE OF BRICK IT CAN BE LESS COSTLY THAN THE HOUSE WALL.

THE BOTTOM PICTURE SHOWS THE SIMPLE HONEYCOMB BRICK PATTERN. WIDE VERTICAL JOINTS ARE LEFT OPEN AND NOT FILLED WITH MORTAR.

THE PICTURES ABOVE SHOW A FEW OF MANY POSSIBLE VARIATIONS. THIS IS AN ALTERNATIVE TO THE COSTLY WINDOW.

I have used these kind of jali work in my design for both ventilation and intresting patterns of light.

Here are some examples where this work is used brilliantly.

this is a cafeteria building done by the architect jerad de'cunha in goa.

Village houses in India and how it influenced my design

After studying the current living condition of the lambadi tribes in india i was thinking about the next best thing for them instead of their current bad state houses and community sense that they try to make but fail badly.

I decided to study the village houses in the surrounding context as find a good example which could be used as a precedent to design the new housing and other ameneties based on it.

A good example that i found was a small village called polkampally which is about 50 miles from the site that i have currently chosen. The visuals i was able to get and also my personal visit there a couple of years back made me understand the life in the village and how things work. 

The construction techniques are very simple as well as the materials used for them. I thought this would be really good as the lambadi people are economically poor.

The images below show the life in a village which i am planning to recreate for the lambadi people as it suits the site and the current context.

thick walls as they are made with earth and pivoted window

 most of the houses have sloping roof with wodden posts as its easy to construct

 The houses do not have a toilet but have a wash area as people don no like a toilet inside the premisis of the house

 street view

a broken house makes it easy to understand the structure materials

house showing the outdoor seating area and the support walls made with stone and brick and lime finish wall

Seeing a typical cattleshed helped me understand the design and standard for designing one

The outdoor seating area (katta) acts a space where neighbours interact and the cow dung flooring is a common site in the village

 storage space in the kitchen

Typical street view showing houses aligned compared to seperate houses. both kinds are seen in the village without any particular pattern.

Brick House / iStudio Architecture

I found this project really intresting as it uses brick with a combination with bamboo, stone, wood and ferro cement to create a unique structure.

The Brick House, situated amidst rural settlements in Wada, near Mumbai, India, is a 2500 sq.ft. farmhouse set within hills and farms. An individualistic piece of architecture, the organic form emerges from the ground and flows into the skyline, following curved dips and peaks.

Zoning of activities responding to the climatic conditions and views, ensures natural light, cross ventilation, passive cooling and views of hills and farms. Each space flows into another along curved lines, leading into a seamless space held by the central courtyard.

The House is constructed using materials – bricks, stone, wood, bamboo and ferro-cement in their naked form, giving an earthy feel to the built up space. Low cost and eco-friendly technologies like rat-trap bonds for brickwork, filler slabs, brick jalis, built-in furniture allowed this 2400 sq ft structure to be constructed in INR 12 lacs due to reduced requirement of steel, cement & bricks, use of locally available material and the rejection of unnecessary practices.

BRICK WALL DETAIL.

This a brick wall detail done in india  for South Asian Human Rights Documentation Centre by Anagram Architects.

Although the building design has not much to do with my project this wall detail done in brick is something that I found really interesting and it helped me understand how well the material can be used to create such intricate patterns.

CHANDNI CHOWK- BANGALORE

This is a restaurant design that is inspired from the street market place in india. The architect uses the grandness and colours of indian markets to create a glamourous restaurant which is made with natural materials like mirrors and canopies made with cloth, the seating is done using stone and timber is used for posts.

As my design is for a tribal group with a colourful heritage I thought it would be a great idea to use some of the ideas from this design to make the mainly brick architecture a little more colourful.

HOUSE FOR ALL SEASONS BY JOHN LIN.

I found this project really interesting for many reasons.

The design of the building is done in such a way that it is self sufficient, it is a open structure with a envelope of brick. The inside of the building is done using mud and is enveloped with a perforated brick wall. The house has a central courtyard following the Chinese principle.

The self sufficiency elements of the design were the most interesting aspect of the design.


A number of courtyards are contained behind the walls of the house, accommodating a pig pen and an underground biogas boiler that generates energy from the animal waste.

 brick on the exterior and mud walls on the interior

Wide staircases provide areas for planting crops, which can be fertilised using leftover slurry from the boiler and dried on the roof of the house.

During the rainy season the roof is also used to collect water, which filters down into a large container and can be stored throughout the year.


mud blocks being compacted

 bio gas plant