Anupama Kundoo architects. Portfolio. 2021

Anupama Kundoo architects 

Berlin · Pondicherry · Pune

Architecture is a living, dynamic and intelligent force that 

embraces the past, present and future all at once. 

Our architecture is the result of building knowledge and 

building processes. 

It responds to a diversity of concerns through integrated 

design thinking, and has the potential to create health, happiness, 

and well-being through shaping the built environment 

and steering the way forward for an evolving human society. 

portfolio Anupama Kundoo architects

1 RESIDENCES 

Residence Bonheur Pondicherry, 2018 

Shah Farm Houses Brahmangarh, 2015 

Residence Kanade Pune, 2015 

Residence Paul and Claudine Auroville, 2003 

Wall House Auroville, 2000 

Residence Hemant and Divya Auroville, 1998 

Residence Pierre Tran Auroville, 1992 



Project Team: Sonali Phadnis and Anupama Kundoo 

Contractor: Kadir and Creations 

Set in the urban context of Pondicherry’s planned rectangular 

grid city, Bonheur is a 3-storey apartment 

building that is designed for to accommodate various 

the young families of the next generation and their 

parents in the same building, along with some common 

facilities and a dispensary for paediatric patients on the 

ground floor. 

The architecture is introverted, disclosing very little from 

the street view, and the apartments are distributed 

around a central courtyard arrangement that provides 

contact to the earth and sky. Smaller courtyards and 

open to sky perforations expand the courtyard principle 

in the service area and the vertical staircase element 

to create a sense of visual continuation of the outdoor 

experience. 

It also enhances the natural ventilation that is necessary 

for climatic comfort in the humid context. The interiors 

are characterised by their views overlooking the courtyards 

and the large usable verandahs that mediate between 

the outdoors and the indoors. 

Vertical fins screen the street side façade and protect 

the intimacy of the apartments from the street side, but 

also from the glare of the sun, without compromising 

on the entry of the much needed breeze. 





Set in the urban context of Pondicherry’s planned 

rectangular grid city, Bonheur is a 3-storey apartment 

building that is designed for to accommodate various 

the young families of the next generation and their 

parents in the same building, along with some common 

facilities and a dispensary for paediatric patients 

on the ground floor. 

The architecture is introverted, disclosing very little 

from the street view, and the apartments are distributed 

around a central courtyard arrangement that provides 

contact to the earth and sky. Smaller courtyards 

and open to sky perforations expand the courtyard 

principle in the service area and the vertical staircase 

element to create a sense of visual continuation of the 

outdoor experience. It also enhances the natural 

ventilation that is necessary for climatic comfort in the 

humid context. 

The interiors are characterised by their views overlooking 

the courtyards and the large usable verandahs that 

mediate between the outdoors and the indoors. 

Vertical fins screen the street side façade and protect 

the intimacy of the apartments from the street side, but 

also from the glare of the sun, without compromising 

on the entry of the much needed breeze.

Shah Farm Houses Brahmangarh, 2015 

Project Team: Anupama Kundoo, Yashoda Joshi 

Structural Engineer: Zarna Barday 

Contractor: Vilas Vare Constructions and Sekar 

Sokkalingam 

Built at the edge of a river on agricultural land, the complex 

is shared by two residences. Natural basalt stone is 

chosen as the primary locally available building material 

and combined with handmade terracotta hollow tubes 

for vaulted roofs as already used in the Wall House. Apart 

from their main residences, the site includes collective 

shared buildings accommodating caretakers’ residences 

merged within the design of the compound wall, and a 

cylindrical water tank, both in stone masonry. 

The residences themselves, are composed of alternative 

massive construction of stone masonry volumes interspersed 

with vaulted volumes of space that are visually 

more transparent, the vaults spanning the spaces between 

the massive stone masses. The underneath 

spaces of the vaulted spaces are thus used for the more 

social spaces such as living and dining areas, while the 

more private areas are accommodated within the stone 

walls. This strategy allows the continuous view of the 

water-front through the selected axes of the house, from 

areas located higher up in the sloping terrain. 

The ground floor spaces are contoured to hug the sloping 

site with sequences of steps that cascade along the 

territory and continue through the house into the 

immediate exteriors. As a contrast to the natural colours 

and textures of the key materials of terracotta and basalt 

stone, coloured oxides on selected plastered surfaces 

and floors provide a counterpoint of contrast in colours 

and textures, and complete the soothing environment 

of a refuge in the natural landscape away from the 

megacity. 


Residence Kanade Pune 2015 

Project Team: Anupama Kundoo, Yashoda Joshi 

Structural Engineer: Ranjit Ghatge 

Contractor: J. V. Erectors, Sanjay Deshpande and 

Vikas Murmure 

Situated in a residential area in Pune, of single-standing 

houses, Residence Kanade inconspicuously coexists 

with its surroundings. Prevailing byelaws conventionally 

result in no more than a 3-meter wide belt of vegetation 

around houses. Through a central narrow water body 

that seems to cross through the house, and an adjacent 

double height space, porosity is achieved with the illusion 

of a much larger presence of nature as the central 

experience, despite being an urban residence. 

Living and working spaces for visiting artists and audiovisual 

get-togethers are included. Vistas of the outdoor 

are aligned to flow through and through key living and 

dining spaces, the landscaped exteriors at either end of 

such axes. Verandas and terraces on various levels and 

long cascading steps along water bodies encourage 

the interior activities to spill over to transition spaces 

between inside and outside, the defining element of a 

home that is intimate within and without. 


Residence Paul and Claudine Auroville, 2003 

Project Team: Anupama Kundoo, Vinayagam 

Structural Engineer: Dr. Ambalavanan 

Contractor: Kolam 

A two-storey house built using rammed earth walls 

sourced from onsite, this residence was the second 

home planned for Paul and Claudine who visited once 

or twice annually. 

The footprint was determined by the size of a generous 

bedroom space with a dressing area and bathroom, 

and an open to sky terrace with a small pool. 

The ground floor, the result of the private space 

required, was restricted to a small functional kitchen 

and a tiny living dining area, which could easily expand 

outdoors on to a terrace to receive people. 

The residents were very taken up by the Wall House and 

wanted to have the same terracotta roof, in combination 

with rough stone. To enhance the impact of the rammed 

earth walls, earth was used as pigment in the cement 

floors as finishing. 


Wall House Auroville, 2000 

Project Team: Anupama Kundoo, Ravi, Vinayagam 


Wall House is situated outside the planned city limits 

of Auroville, in Auromodele, an area designated for 

research and experimentation. 

Technologically, it involved local materials in new and 

inventive ways given the global resource crunch and 

rapid urbanisation. Landscape design, an integral and 

inseparable part of the overall architecture, worked 

with the topography to integrate the indoor-outdoor 

transition as an integral experience. Wall House was 

the culmination of an ongoing extensive research and 

experimentation in low-impact building technologies 

that are environmentally and socio-economically 

beneficial, by negotiating the balance between hi-tech 

and low-tech and incorporating everyday materials 

through techniques that include the participation of 

those with lower skills and education with few skilled 

craftsmen. 

Such hybrid technologies focus on new ways of using 

age-old local materials that combine hand skills and 

local craft traditions alongside knowledge-based scientific 

systems. A laboratory for research and experimenttation, 

this was a prototype for future development. 


Residence Hemant and Divya Auroville 1998 

Project Team: Anupama Kundoo 


Wood Work: Paul Vincent 

Since he had first come to Auroville, Hemant had lived 

for several years in a very simple thatch hut on granite 

pillars simply tied together with coconut rope, just like 

many others do in their early years in Auroville. However, 

after those initial years, they looked forward to living in 

a house that offered more permanence and comfort. 

Outdoor areas freely penetrate the indoors, and there 

are two courtyards enclosed within the ground floor 

by arranging simple rough granite pillars in a series; 

one as an extension to the bathroom, to provide it with 

a patch of earth and sky and the other, adjoining the 

living room, incorporating a small water tank that can 

be use in summers to dip in, before the water is taken 

to sustain the garden. The joists were cut out of really 

old (around 50 years old) casuarina trees and are far 

stronger than people expect, at that age. Casuarina, 

as it is mostly known for its use as scaffolding and for 

temporary building works, is usually harvested at three 

to seven years. 

The transition spaces between the house and the garden 

are naturally landscaped in an unnoticeable way, 

mainly consisting of the same repetitive elements, brick 

paving, granite benches and pillar screens, boulders 

and pebbles. 


Pierre Tran Residence Auroville 1992 

Design: Anupama Kundoo 

Contractor: Sumark 

The project show-cased a range of efficient roofing 

systems that were first realised in Wall House, Auroville, 

and which led to wider scale application in other projects 

in the local area. 

Designed for climatic comfort based on South-east 

orientation. Vaulted roofs, cavity walls and ferrocement 

fins regulate the glare and yet allow natural ventilation. 

The roof is composed of hollow terracotta roofing tubes, 

specially made for the purpose, assembled into catenary 

vaults. This eliminates the use of structural steel or concrete, 

while providing insulation. 

The success of this technique led to a series of experiments 

involving insulated and modular roof alternatives 

that can be seen in later works. 


2 HOUSING 

Full Fill Homes Chennai/Auroville, 2015 

Light Matters Housing Auroville, 2013 

Volontariat Homes for Homeless Children Pondicherry, 2008 

Creativity Urban Eco-Community Auroville, 2003 

Sangamam Collective Housing Auroville, 2003 


Full Fill Homes Chennai/Auroville, 2015 

Project Team: Anupama Kundoo, Alba Balmaseda, 

Sebastiano Giannesini, Yashoda Joshi, and Sonali 

Phadnis 

Structural Engineer: Dr. Venkata Rangarao 

Contractor: Sekkar Sokkalingam 

In response to the growing homelessness and concerns 

about affordability, not only in economic but also in 

environmental terms, Full Fill Homes are envisioned as 

speedy and affordable housing units that have low environmental 

impact, using a combination of sophisticated 

and low-tech. 

It is made of ferrocement, a highly resilient material that 

she has been researching for over a decade. 25 mm thick, 

the cement is reinforced with chicken mesh and can be 

prefabricated in masons’ backyards to yield a set of versatile, 

lightweight parts. These can then be assembled at 

speed (6 days) to produce homes that are low-cost, practical, 

stackable (for high density), durable (for a variety of 

climates) and beautiful: ferrocement is easy to tint with 

pigments, so facades can be enlivened with a range of 

colours. 

This prototype was produced in Bharatipuram, Auroville, 

and installed at the 57th Annual National Association of 

Students of Architecture at MIDAS Chennai for testing the 

design in full-scale. It is now relocated to Maitreye, 

Auroville. 


Light Housing Auroville, 2013 

Project Team: Anupama Kundoo, Yashoda Joshi, 

and Sonali Phadnis 


Contractor: Sekkar Sokkalingam 

Light housing is a prototype for building with a lighter 

environmental impact in the context of growing concerns 

about the affordability of housing, and not only in money 

terms. ‘Light’ also symbolizes knowledge; and the theme 

focuses on minimising the ‘material’ required by using 

appropriate geometry, form and efficient structural 

design together with hybrid construction technologies 

that balance between low-tech and hi-tech. 

The key strategy for reducing cost, time consumption 

and material use in the production of houses is to reduce 

the chief housing component to a lightweight roofing 

element that minimises the need for columns, beams 

and walls. The chicken-wire mesh within the ferrocement 

structure also makes the unit resistant to seismic loads. 

The roof form is derived from research on origami 

creasing patterns that give thin paper strength and 

rigidity. A suitable form is developed according to the 

proportions suitable for modest human habitation. The 

module is designed for versatility through combination 

and repetition in order to arrive at a range of applications 

for various occupations suitable to members of the 

household. The module is applicable to a range of 

contexts such as disaster relief, slum upgrading, 

temporary housing in sensitive landscapes and youth 

hostels. 


Volontariat Homes for Homeless Children Pondicherry, 2008–2010 

Client: Volontariat NGO 

Project Team: Anupama Kundoo, Vinayagam 

Firing Technology and Overall Guidance: Ray Meeker 

Contractor: Mahasaraswati 

These homes are planned to accommodate 15 children 

and 5 foster parents. This project was built using a rare 

technology pioneered by Ray Meeker of Golden Bridge 

Pottery, which consists of baking a mud house insitu, 

after constructing it. 

A fired house or a fire-established mud house is in principle 

a mud house built with mud bricks and mud mortar 

that is cooked after building as a whole to achieve the 

strength of brick. The interior space of the structure is 

stuffed with further mud bricks or other ceramic products 

such as tiles, and fired as if it were a kiln. 

Typically kiln walls absorb about 40 % of the heat generated. 

In this technology, the house is the kiln, and the 

‘heat loss’ is directed towards firing the house and stabilizing 

it from water damage. The fuel cost is largely accountable 

to the products inside. The strength of brick 

in principle would be achieved for the piece of mud. 

Further, the cement in the mortar mix would become 

unnecessary. 


Creativity Co-housing Auroville, 2001–2003 

Project Team: Anupama Kundoo, Vinayagam, 

Sonali Phadnis 


Integrated water management: Harald Kraft and 

Aurofilio Schiavina, Kraft Associates 

Contractor: Auronirmata 

A prototype for collective living promoting community 

and sharing, the project was planned as one of 5 housing 

clusters for around 360 deliberately diverse residents. 

Realized as an example for an independently managed 

cluster accommodating 50–60 persons, residents shared 

common facilities at cluster-level and have some facilities 

for use by the larger community. 

The excavated onsite soil was used to build rammed 

earth walls in a contemporary technique using a special 

large formwork, adding 5 % cement for water resistance, 

lending a contemporary character to a material associated 

with the vernacular. Specially designed insulating 

terracotta roofing units on part-prefab beams were assembled 

as an easy modular construction of high insulation 

properties. A root-zone treatment plant recycles 

sewage water for irrigation. 


Sangamam Collective Housing Auroville, 2003 

Project Team: Anupama Kundoo, Vinayagam, 






Sangamam is situated at the outskirts of Auroville, Tamil 

Nadu, in an area affected by environmental and social 

problems including water scarcity, saline water intrusion, 

soil erosion and declining soil fertility, unemployment 

and inadequate housing, educational and medical 

facilities. 

The age-old rammed earth building technique is introduced 

in a more sophisticated form to achieve better 

standard of finish, more strength and water-resistance, 

and enabling a quicker modular method of building. 

The vault developed in the earliest project turned out to 

be so cost-competitive that although they were designed 

for sophisticated projects with big budgets, they were 

appropriate for use in extremely low-cost social housing 

projects as in some houses in Sangamam. Cost per 

house is $ 4,500. 


3 PUBLIC BUILDINGS 

Sharana Daycare Facility Pondicherry, 2019 

Loo Café x Waterloop Hyderabad and Auroville, 2019 

Library Nandalal Sewa Samithi Pondicherry, 2016 

Auroville Town Hall Complex Auroville, 2005 

Multipurpose Hall S.A.W.C.H.U. Auroville, 2000 

Keystone Foundation Kotagiri, 1997–2016 


Sharana Daycare Facility Pondicherry, 2019 



Sharana is a social and development organization 

established to address the critical educational needs of 

socioeconomically disadvantaged children and 

communities in urban Pondicherry and its surrounding 

villages. Sharana’s foundational belief is that all human 

beings are equal in rights and dignity, and everyone is 

entitled to food, clothing, and shelter. 

The architecture revolves around the central strip of an 

inner garden court with large multipurpose activity 

spaces at the rear of the site, and reception/administration 

services at the front on the street. The building 

is constructed as reinforced cement concrete slabs on 

columns of the same material. 

To enclose the various spaces economically, walls are 

made of porous terracotta screen modules that can be 

quickly erected and eliminate the need for windows 

and frames while allowing ventilation throughout the 

wall surface, economically achieving the required 

conditions for climatic comfort in the tropical context. 

These screen wall elements allow transparency from 

the floor upwards, allowing small children to remain in 

visual contact with the garden outdoors. 

The porous elements express transparency and inclusiveness 

as per the aims of the institute, and in practice 

require no additional finishes like plasters and paint 

as in regular masonry, while also minimizing maintenance. 

In order to give the activity rooms their own identity 

and sense of enclosure, and to break the monotony of 

long corridors, the geometry of angular walls as composition 

elements is the ordering principle. This feature 

gives the corridor and entrance areas a sense of enclosure, 

identity, and a sense of intimacy appropriate to 

the scale of small children, and helps them with orientation 

within the complex, completely deconstructing 

the impression of long monotonous corridors. 


Loo Café x Waterloop Hyderabad and Auroville, 2019 

Credits: Anupama Kundoo architects in collaboration 

with Jane Withers Studio, and Ixora Corporate Services, 

commissioned by and created in cooperation with the 

British Council and supported by the Government of 

Telangana 

Loo Café x Water Loop is an initiative to create a new 

model for public toilets in Hyderabad that celebrates 

water and connections between human and environmental 

systems. At the crossroads of function, education, 

and experiment, it includes low-cost modular 

elements that can be adapted for different sites. 

As well as providing free public toilets maintained by 

revenue from the café, the new model showcases 

sustainable practices by making them a visible, engaging 

and interactive part of the building’s design. In the 

face of climate change and increasing water stress, 

Loo Café x Water Loop explores alternative systems for 

ecological sanitation that emphasise circularity, and 

foregrounds interconnections between humans and 

the environment, shit and the food chain, technology 

and community. 

It integrates concepts like drink rain’, ‘loop the poop’, 

‘harvesting pee’, ‘no flush’ as well as ‘wonderwater 

menu’ which sheds light on the water footprint of ‘how 

much water do you eat’. In addition a dashboard of 

sophisticated monitoring through sensors share the 

vital statistics of usage patterns and impact of the 

systems with visitors. 

The modular prefabricated construction system is 

based on Anupama Kundoo’s extensive research with 

ferrocement since the 1990s, with the motto ‘by helping 

communities to fabricate a set of simple building 

components, we can build knowledge and bring housing 

back to the people’. It is a further development of 

her ‘Easy WC’ prototype built in 2015. This low-cost, 

low-tech system delivers a strong, durable and versatile 

set of elements with a toilet and shower cubicle 

pm either sides of a covered platform with a washbasin 

and can be assembled in a day. The system can be 

plugged onto a freestanding septic tank, dry toilet pit 

or to a drainage system depending on the context. 


Library Nandalal Sewa Samithi Pondicherry, 2016 

Project Team: Anupama Kundoo, Sonali Phadnis 

Set in a residential area of rapidly urbanising Pondicherry, 

the new library building is realised as a social 

infrastructure facilitated through the social organisation 

Nandalal Sewa Samithi. 

Affordability being a key consideration, the library is 

a humble and yet striking construction built in locally 

made exposed bricks, that would stand out as an 

institutional building in the context of plastered and 

painted masonry construction of the surrounding 

houses and apartment buildings. 

The roof profile indicates the open book, as also the 

screening elements conceived in ferrocement technology 

symbolising constant progress through knowledge. 

The orthogonal walls on the upper floor lean outwards 

towards the top like a crown, as the building is aimed at 

serving the community and investing in their empowerment 

by encouraging reading and learning. As land is 

limited in the context of the residential plot sizes, the 

terrace upstairs is designed to compensate for the 

necessary open space for contemplation and for informal 

outdoor events that can bring the community together. 

The inclusiveness of this facility is demonstrated through 

the inclusion of braille books for the visually impaired. 

This particularity is reflected architecturally in the way 

braille typeface is integrated into the building elements 

to create porous patterns in the brickwork, screens and 

ceiling. Light patterns in the form of braille language 

leave their imprint on the interior spaces so that those 

who can see, are visually aware of the language of those 

who cannot, and thus expand their sensitivity to the 

differently abled. 


Mitra Youth Hostel Auroville, 2005–2006 

Project Team: Anupama Kundoo, Vinayagam, Sonali Phadnis 


Contractor: Mahasaraswati 

Mitra Youth Hostel is a facility planned to welcome visiting 

youth for short and medium term stay in Auroville. Located in 

the planned city center of Auroville, based on the architect’s 

urban design for the area, this 3 storey building is situated in 

the habitat belt of the city’s central administrative area very 

close to the Town Hall Complex. 

With single and double rooms, and 2 dormitories per floor, 

a total of 60 people can be accommodated during full occupancy. 

The design arranges the various rooms along a singly 

loaded corridor, which bends along the assigned plot in an 

obtuse angle that encloses a paved courtyard that is shaded 

by the building and therefore useable by the residents as a 

public space. Terraces and spaces for occupation by smaller 

spontaneous groups on various floor levels allow the hostel 

to have a social nature facilitating contact between residents. 

Each room has a small private balcony facing away from the 

social side of the building. 

Common bathrooms and kitchens are provided per floor as 

spaces that foster sharing and community living while also 

allowing the facility to be affordable to visiting youth from 

diverse backgrounds. An external staircase allows people to 

return to their rooms without having to enter through an office 

or administration desk. The building is constructed with 

plastered brick masonry, and reinforced cement concrete 

slabs. 


Auroville Town Hall Complex Auroville, 2006 

Project Team: Anupama Kundoo, Sonali Phadnis 





This project marks the concrete step that Auroville took 

towards realizing its planned city, contrary to its organic 

growth approach until now. This cluster of buildings will 

accelerate the realization of the administrative zone and 

the town hall complex. 

The challenge was to create an urban feeling with only 

three buildings that would attract the further development 

of this area, contributing to the character of the 

city to come. 

The attempt was to demonstrate the language of the 

interconnecting elements between the buildings in 

such a way that the urban character would be compact 

built spaces interspersed with service areas and public 

circulation. 


Multipurpose Hall S.A.W.C.H.U. Auroville, 2000 

Project Team: Anupama Kundoo, Sonali Phadnis, 

Ramesh Palikara 



Efficient structural design can lead with substantial savings 

in steel and cement, the two most commonly used 

high energy materials. A circular open pavilion of 16 

meters diameter is supported by some additional service 

rooms. After several iterations the concept chosen for 

execution was the one that used 75 cubic meters of RCC 

instead of 125 cubic meters amounting to substantial 

savings. The structural system has a major influence on 

the architectural form and space. 

Inspired by the work of Pier Luigi Nervi this project has 

involved the further development and use of ferrocement 

technology to reduce the use of structural steel to 

chicken mesh compared to conventional higher diameter 

steel bars. In this case though ferrocement was 

used as economical moulds, as lost shuttering to enable 

that radial beams with an efficient curved profile could 

be cast insitu. Sloping exposed reinforced concrete 

columns reduce the span of the roof. 


Keystone Foundation Kotagiri, 1997–2016 

Project Team: Anupama Kundoo, Yashoda Joshi and 


Engineer and Contractor: Narasimman Engineers 

Set amidst the Nilgiri mountains in Tamil Nadu, the 

picturesque site is a very steep hill surrounded by tea 

plantations. Keystone Foundation is an NGO with the 

mission to enhance the quality of life and the environment 

with indigenous communities using eco-development 

approaches. They are recognised for supporting 

the sustainable practice of traditional honey hunting in 

South India and in helping them find lucrative markets 

to sell their produce for a fair price. 

The campus was gradually developed as the organisation 

grew over the last 20 years and the architectural 

process developed alongside the growing success of 

the institution. Starting with the first 4 buildings around 

a central plaza, the design concept was to celebrate 

decentralised action symbolised by small freestanding 

buildings, rather than an institutional look of a large 

single building that would overpower the site and 

perhaps intimidate the tribal communities who would 

need to interact with the interdisciplinary community 

on the campus. 

This concept was expanded by choosing rammed earth 

construction using onsite soil and local carpentry skills. 

The first structures housed the mountain apiculture 

center, environmental development unit, marketing 

and packaging unit, and the training and networking 

unit. Over the years, a honey and coffee production 

workshop, a tribal development center, dormitories and 

guest houses, and a cafeteria were added. 

Technology transfer was initiated through skill exchange 

workshops, and various buildings produced over the 

years with a sense of restraint from the architects, to empower 

local builders to realise the project with available 

skills. 

The key feature is the extensive program accommodated 

in a very compact design taking advantage of the steep 

slopes, and liberating a lot of land that can remain 

unbuilt. 


4 INTERIORS 

Samskara · Made in India, New Delhi, 2014 


Samskara · Made in India New Delhi, 2014 

Project Team: Anupama Kundoo, Ali Dabirian, Shweta 

Jain , Yashoda Joshi, Ankit Mittal, Namita Nathani and 

Sekar Sokkalingam. 

A key material used is large white granite slabs with grey 

speckles, finished with traditional hand levelling techniques 

to reveal a more interesting texture and enhancing 

the natural material rather than its common current 

application as shiny machine polished reflecting surfaces 

most commonly seen in hotel lobbies and such. 

The skills of a Tamil Nadu stonecutters community lend 

themselves to produce a landscape of undulating floors, 

shelves, and benches in solid granite that will make the 

flat and otherwise heavy material look fluid and elegant. 

The other key material is ferrocement, more contemporary 

and sophisticated material that is also essentially a 

hand crafted elements. 

As the exhibition reveals the luxury potential of craft, for 

me, the real luxury is the sheer time devoted to the making 

process; neither the craftsmen nor the users have 

any sense that they are ‘wasting’ time. 

The project was awarded with the 

2015 NDTV Commercial Interior Design of the Year. 


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5 URBAN DESIGN AND PLANNING 

Line of Goodwill, Auroville, 2017 – ongoing 

Inverse Functions, Planning for African Future Cities, 

inside ‘Africa: Big Chance, Big Chance’, Triennale di Milano, 2014 

Auroville City Centre, Auroville, 2004 


Line of Goodwill Auroville 2017– Ongoing 

Design Team : Anupama Kundoo, Yashoda Joshi, 

Paloma Fernandez-Daza, in collaboration with 

Ratan J. Batliboi Consultants Pvt. Ltd., Mumbai 

Planned as an urban project of cohousing clusters, the 

Line of Goodwill is the first high density compact 

housing envisaged for Auroville to take a bold urban 

step, fifty years after its foundation, in the direction of 

the compact pedestrian city planned by its Chief 

architect Roger Anger. To compensate for the low-rise 

housing in the green city of Auroville, and still provide 

the required compactness and density, Anger introduced 

urban structures that he called Lignes de Force, 

the most distinct elements of the city concept. These 

extremely long porous structures rise tall above the rest 

of the city at one end, and gradually slope down over 

the entire length to reach the ground at its other end. 

In the residential zone, the towering heights are located 

towards the periphery of the city, their terraces facing 

the city centre. These structures enhance the dynamic 

spiralling movement of the town plan, absorb density 

with a minimum of circulation on the ground through 

vertical development and provide vistas and views of 

the city itself from various viewpoints that would 

otherwise not be visible in this relatively flat land. 

The quest was for a new high-density typology for 

‘urban eco-communities’ that is neither a tower nor a 

uniform low-rise development but looks at collective 

housing and related social infrastructure as a ‘hillscape 

for coexistence’. The aim was to envision a vibrant and 

integral solution to various urban challenges through 

an integral rethinking of architecture and urban design 

theoretically as well as practically, addressing 

environmental, social and economic sustainability 

holistically. 

Line of Goodwill stands as alternative to the sprawling 

residential structures that necessitate motorized transport, 

and prevent the critical mass needed to realise 

public transport as a city infrastructure giving the Auroville 

dream a new boost and creating ample accommodation 

for arriving people of a new generation. It concentrates 

the needed infrastructure while serving as a 

prototype for residential development in urban India 

with its given land crunch, redefining collective living 

centred around pedestrian mobility, integration of 

renewable energy and integrated water management 

concepts and innovative opportunities for sharing. 


Inverse Functions Planning for African Future Cities , 

inside ‘Africa: Big Chance, Big Chance’, Triennale di Milano, 2014 

Design Team : Anupama Kundoo, Alba Balmaseda, 

Andrea de Toni, Marta Casarin, Valentina Rossi, 

Laura Mosconi, and Ricardo Gadotti 

Human life, an integral part of the planet earth will not 

threaten others that inhabit the planet. Compared to a 

century ago we are now using 10 times as much energy 

as we did to sustain. Our current lifestyle is using significantly 

more resources than a century ago, and is expected 

to increase dramatically due to rapid urbanisation 

of developed countries if the trend continues. New 

urbanisation models are urgent, which imply a complete 

reversal of urban living trends, manage natural 

resources judiciously, and reduce pollution of water, air 

and soil, while providing a higher quality of collective 

life based on knowledge and collective responsibility. 

Technologies used negotiate the degree of high-tech or 

low-tech, between hand-made and machine made, 

achieve models of affordable habitat relevant for future 

cities anywhere in the world where affordability is a 

growing concern, not only in economic terms but also 

environmental terms. 

The proposed city with a population of 150,000 occupying 

around 5km diameter and 20 km2 area, is a prototype 

for the several small-scale cities that can be 

plugged on to the railway network that is currently 

being reinforced, in places where solar and wind energy 

are easy to tap. The idea of efficient public transport 

over private transport will continue thus, right into the 

city while strengthening the intercity connections. 

The key areas of repositioning and inversions are as 

follows: 

1. Leaving the Ground to Nature 

2. Reclaiming roofs as public space 

3. Floating living spaces between open sky and 

free ground 

4. Concentrating services along 3 spines 

5. Green network of mobility 

6. Reversing the Tower 

7. Managing water through diverse sources 

8. Providing energy through hybrid systems 


Auroville City Centre Auroville, 2004 

Design Team: Anupama Kundoo, Mattia Mancini, Valentina 

Rattini, Mattia Tombesi, Josephine Hansen, Pryanka Shah, 

Sari Bianca Basini 

Auroville, a city-in-the-making, is located 150 kms south of 

Chennai, Tamil Nadu, South India, envisaged for a population of 

50,000, with the aim of achieving human unity. Inaugurated on 

28. February 1968, Auroville has presently more than 1,500 residents 

from 35 countries. The City Centre of Auroville covers a 

surface of 384 acres with a radius of 690 meters around Auroville’s 

centre. 

Due to the scattered land situation and stewardship in the early 

years of Auroville, the development had grown very haphazard. 

Further, the cost of infrastructure in proportion to the cost of 

structures is far too high if this trend continues. 

Today, however, most of the land is purchased in the city centre 

area and it is very feasible to concentrate the development 

around Matrimandir, which is now complete. 


6 EXHIBITIONS 

Taking Time, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art Denmark, 2020 

In the series ‘Architect’s Studio’ 

Building Knowledge, 15 th International Architecture Exhibition – 

La Biennale di Venezia Venice, 2016 

Feel the Ground, 13 th International Architecture Exhibition – 

La Biennale di Venezia Venice, 2012 


Taking Time Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Denmark, 2020 

Design Teams: 

Anupama Kundoo architects: Anupama Kundoo, 

Sonali Phadnis, Yashoda Joshi, Paloma Fernandez- 

Daza, Luna Bucherer, Alba Balmaseda Domingez, 

Akshid Raj, Javier Monsalve Olabarri, Shreya 

Deshpande, Vignesh Gopinath, Sejal Gundecha, Smita 

Patil, Kiran Dhotre, Anne Louise Bjerre, Nishith 

Kapadia, Nimesh Detroja, Alekhya Krishna, Riddhima 

Gupte, Devashree Bhave, Brijesh Wagdoda, Anuja 

Parekh, Soham Tondwalkar, Mann Shah, Ketan Ahvad, 

Arjun Nair, Katharina Zurmühl. 

Stadt Bau Kultur Fachhochschule Potsdam 

Student participants: Philip Baum, Dovesh Bundhoo, 

Ketavan Gujejiani, Emilia Machleid, Feia Nehl, Carl 

Rehnert, Marie Rochnia, Martin Siedler, Fabio 

Sorrentino, Veronika Stratiewski, Yasmine Toubel, 

Lisa Vescovi, Elena Wunschmann. 

School of Architecture Yale University 

Summer studio ‘Urban Eco-Communities’ taught with 

‘Critic in Architecture’ Sarosh Anklesaria 

Student participants: Anna Borou Yu, Camille Chabrol, 

Katie Lau, Thomas Mahon, Andrew Miller, Alexandra 

Pineda, Bao Lin Shen, Arghavan Taheri, I-Ting Tsai, 

Justin Tsang 

KADK Royal Danish Academy 

Student participants: Maurane Gabriel, Yi Go, Alma 

Kelderer, Anna Orbanic, Kunyue Qi, Alisa Wang. 

Institutional collaborations 

Fachhochschule Potsdam 

Yale University 

Universität Stuttgart 

KADK Copenhagen 

Interdisciplinary and industrial collaborations: 

Transsolar KlimaEngineering, Naushad Ali, Armor 

Group, Petersen Tegl, Bau Kunst Erfinden, FSB, Taiyo, 

Ratan J Batliboi 

Curators: Kjeld Kjeldsen and Mette Marie Kallehauge 

Video installation: Javier Callejas 

Exhibition photos © 2020 Kim Hansen, 

Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebæk, Denmark 


Taking Time Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Denmark, 2020 

The fourth monographic exhibition of a series called 

The Architect’s Studio, Anupama Kundoo – Taking Time 

showcases the process of the studio in acknowledgement 

of the value of time, cooperation and collaboration. 

As Kundoo says “Time is the most essential resource 

that we have access to as living beings. 

What else do we have that is truly ours, except our own 

time? The work of our lifetime occurs as part of a large 

collective action in time and in space; we build knowledge 

collectively. The first section of the exhibition, 

THE ARCHITECTURE OF TIME, gives the visitor access to 

her research archives, which include her first sources of 

inspiration, processed materials and architectural 

works. Under the categories Life, Mind and Matter, we 

see Kundoo’s investigations into the nature of materials, 

the tectonics of the earliest living beings, and mankind’s 

ways of processing the material, which she calls 

“the thinking hand”. 

The collection of processed materials and tools falls 

into three categories: Stone and Wood, Earth, and 

Ferrocement and Concrete, each illustrated by a 

number of 1:50 models, all of which are crafted in a 

reduced scale, in the original materials. 

On the balcony between the two large rooms of the 

exhibition is a 1:1 construction of a single residential 

cell that forms the basis of her Auroville co-housing 

project. The unit is an extension of her previous Full Fill 

Home prototype. 

Kundoo’s work stands on three “legs”: her own practice, 

research and teaching. Her research-oriented 

practice and practice-oriented teaching is embraced 

in the second main theme of the exhibition, CO-CREA- 

TION. Here we see her concepts for a large urban development 

Line of Goodwill, for the city of Auroville. It is 

a prototype for high-density co-housing that rethinks 

urban habitat in the context of non-ownership of land. 

Radical social innovations become possible through 

the creation of human-scale communities, including 

circular systems and the sharing of resources. A model 

(1:50) of the entire 240,000m 2 housing project is shown 

in the exhibition, and part of the facade is built in 1:1 

as an example of Kundoo’s development of intelligent 

facades. 

Kjeld Kjeldsen 

Mette Marie Kallehauge 


Building Knowledge. An inventory of strategies La Biennale di Venezia, Venice 2016 


Sonali Phadnis , Yashoda Joshi 

Structural Engineers: Prof. Dr. Mike Schlaich, 

Dr. Arndt Goldack, Dr. Alex Hückler (all TU Berlin) 

Building Knowledge: An Inventory of Strategies was 

Anupama Kundoo's installation at La Biennale di 

Venezia, Venice 2016 as part of Reporting from the Front 

curated by Alejandro Aravena. 

“When the opposites in a duality work in union, there 

is enrichment and knowledge. If the quest for knowledge 

is ahead of reflection there can be destruction. 

Knowledge informs the act of building, and building 

widens knowledge.” 

“By helping communities to fabricate a set of simple 

building components, we can build knowledge and bring 

housing back to the people.” 

With additional support of: Italcementi, UCJC Madrid, 

Eco Clay, Laminam, Perfialsa Portugal, Grupo Modular, 

Jordahl. 


Wall House One to One La Biennale di Venezia, Venice, 2012 

Project Team: Anupama Kundoo, Michael Dickson, and 

Alvise Marzollo. 

Structural Engineer: Greg Killen 

Inside the 13th International Architecture Exhibition – La 

Biennale di Venezia Common Ground, directed by David 

Chipperfield, Venice, Italy 

Chipperfield’s curatorial text accompanying the 

installation: “Kundoo, an Indian architect now based in 

Australia, has built an ambitious, 1 : 1 facsimile of the 

Wall House, a building she designed in Auroville, India, 

in 2000. The common ground is in its making. A team of 

Indian craftsmen, some of whom had never before left 

their home country, were brought to Venice to construct 

the project in collaboration with staff and students from 

the University of Queensland, and students from IUAV in 

Venice, creating a skills exchange across three continents. 

The final piece embodies the dialogue between 

construct on cultures, and also is a showcase for 

Kundoo’s architecture, a lyrical modernism at ease with 

the demands of its climate”. 

With the additional support of: University of Queensland, 

Think Brick, Sharad Hegde, Viabizzuno progettiamo la 

luce. 


7 INSTALLATIONS 

Green Carpet, Scenography for the Q Berlin Questions, Schiller Theater, 2017 

Waterwall, IE University, Segovia, 2015 

Liquid Wall, IBERO University, Mexico, 2015 

Unbound Library of Lost Books, Barcelona 2014 

Books in Bloom, Museo Ico, Madrid 2014 

Light Matters, Bielefelder Kunstverein, Bielefeld, 2013 


Green Carpet Scenography design for the Q Berlin Questions, Schiller Theatre, 2017 


Akshid Raj 

As the project name ‘Green Carpet’ suggests, the scenography 

design for the first of Q Berlin Questions series, 

intended to reset the atmosphere in which ideas are 

exchanged between people, and re-examine the traditional 

image of conference settings. 

The created atmosphere was of an outdoor summer 

night gathering where people have the memory of 

having engaged in long conversations without the urge 

to 'leave the auditorium' as soon as the talks are over. In 

conventional conferences there is typically the speaker 

vs. the listener positioned on two sides as it were, and 

the audience is placed in a passive role, which urges 

them to flee outside from time to time for a break. In the 

context of Berlin, in mid October with the cold and windy 

days approaching, the intention was to recreate the 

memory of the relaxed mood of summer’s ‘outdoorness' 

that made one feel attracted to remaining indoors by 

creating the feeling of already being ‘outdoor’. 

Berlin Questions aimed at raising bold questions of the 

uncertainties that haunt contemporary society. The 

intention was to be able to deeply engage in these 

unsettling conversations by being in a space of certainty. 

Natural live elements like earth and grass were the 

principle ‘materials’ that created the setting. This gave 

the message that life on earth that has sustained over 

time provides the stability, and contact to ground 

realities of the planet itself. The materials that are alive 

and natural (real grass) provided a sense of trueness and 

authenticity, being deeply rooted in the planet beyond 

man, yet cosy so that one feels in contact with oneself 

while being among the crowds/collective. 

The seating arrangement deconstructed the monolithic 

seating rows of the Schiller theatre, by removing certain 

chairs, rearranging the space democratically like an 

arena, breaking the confrontational positioning of the 

speaker and audience by adding further seating on the 

stage. The centre stage was a void, the free space for the 

new and unplanned to occur. A water body, the source 

of life on earth, represented the fluid and the moving 

element set in the stable mass of earth and vegetation. 

The added seating included informal reclining chairs and 

garden seating to suggest and encourage the audience 

to find comfortable positions and enable them to take 

time and engage while relaxing and reflecting. 


Waterwall IE University, Segovia, 2015 

Project Team: Anupama Kundoo, Alba Balmaseda 

‘Waterwall’ is an installation that reestablishes the value 

of water in Segovia, a city that is internationally 

renowned for its aqueducts, at an age where this 

precious resource cannot be taken for granted. 

The installation is a transparent fluid curtain made with 

water bottles, a method to store and transport water just 

like the aqueducts. Both cases are enabled by design. In 

the age of climate change water is arguably a key issue 

in society. Water is precious and essential to sustain life, 

and with the growing concerns about its shortage and 

quality it is even more precious. Securing water to sustain 

future life is a design challenge. This is the message 

that this installation transmits. 

‘A message in a bottle’ is delivered to people who participate 

in the event at the IE University. Bottles with messages 

are distributed from the Waterwall day by day till 

it disappears. This is a performance about how people 

in a community are able to dematerialize the conception 

of solidity associated to walls through fluidity. 

After drinking the water, people may leave their own 

message about water inside the empty bottle. These 

messages will reach other participants in another place 

and time in the future. 

This is only the starting point, or the source of a new 

cycle of water reaching people. 


Liquid Wall Mexico, 

2013 


This workshop is a three days experience building a fullscale 

hands-on learning urban installation in Mexico 

City. The aim is to develop a self supporting liquid wall 

reusing waste materials and filling them with water. In 

this case we have chosen tetra pack and two tons of 

tetra packs were given for this purpose. 

The construction process of the installation and the 

installation itself is part of the event Mextrópoli 2015, 

organised by Arquine. 


Unbound: The Library of Lost Books Barcelona, 2014 

Project Team: Anupama Kundoo, Ali Dabirian, 

Alba Balmaseda. 

Structural Engineers: Prof. Mike Schlaich and Dr. Arndt 

Goldack (both TU Berlin); Lara Pellegrini, Diego Sisí and 

Joan Agustí (Pedelta Barcelona) 

In collaboration with: Institute for Advanced Architecture 

of Catalonia (IaaC), University of Queensland 

(UQ) and Technische Universität Berlin (TU). 

As part of the commemoration program, Tricentenari 

BCN, ‘Unbound: The Library of Lost Books’ was an 

installation built in Plaça Salvador Seguí beside the 

Filmoteca de Catalunya in Barcelona, in 2014. 

It is a bookless library with a live program of reading, 

provoking thought about the library of the future in the 

digital age. The focus is on the content of the book and 

the act of reading. 

‘Unbound’, a term that relates to the description of 

books, also expresses liberty and the idea of plenty, of 

limitlessness. ‘Obsolete’ books are recycled as a construction 

material, to build a canopy shading the square 

in summer. Liberation is lightness. Light-weight structures 

for heavy-weight books transcend the sense of 

‘weight’ to focus on the perception of the ‘light’ element 

of the book: content. 

A project by Ajuntament de Barcelona, curated by 

Benedetta Tagliabue and Àlex Ollé and produced in 

collaboration with IaaC Institut d’arquitectura avançada 

de Catalunya / Institute for Advanced Architecture of 

Catalonia and University of Queensland, Brisbane. 


Ongoing Projects 

2010-

Books in Bloom Museo Ico, Madrid, 

2014 


Books ‘the building blocks’ of society are facing extincttion. 

Transition/evolution in the ‘form’ of the book 

through time has led to books becoming lighter, losing 

their materiality, now often only virtual. ‘Obsolete’ 

books locked in storage about to face their end, are 

rescued from pulping or burning, and brought back in 

circulation in a second life. They are recycled as construction 

material, rather than for its content that is 

immaterial. 

with books. The contemplation is about the impact of 

the ‘dying book’. The direct engagement and full-scale 

explorations with physical books as building material is 

symbolic of an approach that ‘any locally appropriate 

material’ can lend itself to the construction of architectture. 

Faced with a ‘new’ and ‘unconventional’ building 

material, first-hand explorations lead to discoveries of 

the materials properties and suitable architectural technologies. 

This method of self-discovery would help architects 

to design new technologies for even ‘conventional’ 

materials. 

Rescued ‘unwanted’ books are made available to workshop 

participants as food for thought, and for exploring 

as building material. This exploration is about building 


Light Matters Bielefelder Kunstverein, Bielefeld, 2013 

Project Team: Anupama Kundoo, Yashoda Joshi, 

Sonali Phadnis, Sekar Sokkalingam 


The aim is to explore building strategies that create a 

higher quality of life, with a lighter environmental impact. 

‘Light’ also represents knowledge; and the theme 

focuses on minimising ‘material’ required by using 

appropriate geometry, form and efficient structural 

design together with hybrid construction technologies 

that are a balance between low-tech and hi-tech. 

In the current environment of extreme concerns about 

resource depletion, it becomes all the more important 

to use structural ingenuity and engineering to produce 

light-weight efficient structures that use less quantities 

of materials, apart from judiciously selecting materials 

based on their low environmental impact. It is critical to 

promote building materials with low-embodied energy 

materials and building technologies that provide opportunities 

for labour and socio-economically benefits the 

local area through a holistic and contextual approach to 

sustainability. 


8 MATERIAL RESEARCH AND SUSTAINABILITY STRATEGIES 

Using time tested material in new ways 

Round wood construction 

Natural stone 

Interlocking terracotta cones for vaults 

Terracotta trapezoidal units for jack-arch slabs 

Terracotta filler slab 

Rammed earth 

Material innovations 

Baked in-situ earth construction 

Pre-fabricated ferrocement elements 

In-situ ferrocement structures 

Forms and Formwork 

Origami crease patterns for strengthening thin elements 

Ferrocement as lost shuttering 

Terracotta pots as lost shuttering 

Vaults without formwork 

Urban waste as building material 

Obsolete books and magazines 

Tetra Pak® 

Waste denim 

Bicycle wheels 

Glass bottles and cups 

2 


Resilience One to One: Setbacks

CONTACT Anupama Kundoo achitects 

Berlin Pasteurstrasse 31 

10407 Berlin 

Germany 

Pondicherry 

Pune 

7, Rangapillai street 

JJ apartments 3 rd floor Flat B 

605101 Pondicherry 

India 

1225/D Vinayak Ashram 

Karnik Heritage 

Fergusson College Road 

411004 Pune 

India 

Email 

info@anupamakundoo.com 

yashoda.joshi@anupamakundoo.com 

sonali.phadnis@anupamakundoo.com 

www.anupamakundoo.com 

https://www.facebook.com/kundooanupama 

https://twitter.com/AnupamaKundoo 

https://www.instagram.com/anupamakundooarchitects/

Anupama Kundoo architects. Portfolio. 2021

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