Mud architecture in Punjab

Wall and roof

Earth appears in Punjabi buildings in several forms. The 1971 Punjab housing report separates the predominant material of a wall from that of a roof. Its instructions distinguish structural fabric from an exposed finish: a brick roof covered in mud plaster does not become a mud roof merely because earth is visible on top. The report distinguishes unburnt-brick walls from mud walls, describing wet soil compacted between wooden shutters among the latter practices. These categories describe different assemblies, rather than one uniform mud house.[1]

Layers above a room

The same report describes roofs built from combinations of timber or bamboo supports, reeds or sarkanda, and earth. In flat roofs, the layers include a mud finish mixed with wheat straw. Sloping thatch roofs use a different arrangement of supporting members and covering. A room’s walls and roof could therefore combine materials in several ways, and the outermost surface alone would not reveal the whole construction.[1]

Changing domestic space

Later research approaches houses through lived experience. Sufia Sultana and colleagues combined family archives and their own memories with convenience interviews involving 45 participants in four Punjab villages. Their research period ran from January 2023 to June 2024. The housing passages recall verandas, courtyard activity and sleeping on rooftops, while participants described changes accompanying more enclosed homes.[2]

One strand concerns the relationship between a house and other domestic work: a participant linked changed space and water availability with the loss of a kitchen garden. Others discussed electricity bills and the altered use of roofs. These accounts make movement, household tasks and remembered comfort part of architectural history. They provide situated testimony about changing ways of inhabiting buildings, rather than measured comparisons of the energy use or environmental impact of every construction material.[2]