A house of no bricks

It’s an irony that architect Nirmal S John Britto originally conceived the House of No Bricks entirely in brick. “The clients are friends and I knew of their aspirations with the home,” says Britto, who heads the Coimbatore-based Urban Design Collaborative (UDC). “Since they are originally from Kerala, I had a notion that an exposed-brick house would appeal to them. But after deeper conversations, I decided to prioritise design and let the choice of material follow from that.”

The clients were the Kuriens — Joseph, a businessman, his wife Daisy, 57, a homemaker, their sons Ashik, 32, and Akash, 29, and daughters-in-law Marina Mathew, 31, and Saira Elsa, 27.

Joseph and Daisy told Britto they wanted their Coimbatore home to be a celebration of their private life. They wanted no ostentation, but rather a contemporary design in place of the existing sloped-roof structure.

Britto accordingly drew a plan for a twostorey, 4,200-sq-ft home of flowing spaces and natural light, with a lush garden that would act as a physical extension of the dining space and a visual extension of the living area and each of the four bedrooms.

There were no bricks in his eventual plan. The structure, he told the Kuriens, could be built entirely with panels of glass fibre reinforced gypsum (GFRG). Such panels are made using recycled waste or by-products from various industries, the key components being the glass fibre and gypsum, which make them durable and sustainable. Cavities in the panels are filled with steel reinforcement and concrete, depending on the structural requirements.

GFRG was first developed in Australia and is also used extensively in the MiddleEast. The material is cheaper, which reduces construction costs by about 10%. The panels take up less space and offer better insulation too, allowing rooms to be roomier and reducing power consumption.

The Kuriens were hesitant at first. “Structural integrity, safety and maintenance were our main concerns,” says Ashik. To allay the family’s fears, Britto took them to see commercial structures in the city built using this material. “We were also building with GFRG at the time,” Britto says. “There weren’t other luxury private residences to show the family because the material has typically been used in government offices, hospitals and factories.” But that’s part of the reason he was eager to use it here, to prove one could make an elegant home, effectively and cost-effectively, in Indian conditions.

Akash, who was then living in Australia, and friends and family from the Middle East helped iron out some concerns too. Britto and the UDC’s contracting team promised that maintenance would be very similar to a conventional building.

The Kuriens moved into the House of No Bricks in January 2019. Sadly, Joseph passed away soon after. The house became part of his legacy. “Our family and friends were apprehensive at first. Everyone had their own take on why this wouldn’t work,” Ashik says. “But we find that summers are more manageable in the new home. And it is a blissful experience to sit on the deck and enjoy the monsoon.”