Naik House

Judishtir Naik, a retired fish vendor, and a local resident of Maensa village walks us through his ancestral home which houses around 10-11 family members at present. Spending most of his days in and around the house, Judishtir seldom goes in the waters with his cousins for a catch. With 2 sons moving out for work in Hyderabad and Cuttack and a daughter married away in Satapada, Puri, Judishtir Naik unfolds the history of his family and how the slow nucleation of the family generates the observed house type.

The house hierarchically is split between 3 cousins at present with Judishtir being the eldest draws fine boundaries from one house to the other connected through a Saae (common linear passage; ସାଇ in Odia) where differences in plinths, building materials, paint of the wall facades, etc become markers of distinction. The Ogona (courtyard; आंगन in Hindi; ଅଗଣା in Odia) and the Badi (backyard; बाग़ in Hindi; ବାଦୀ in Odia) remain the only common spaces of the household.

The house still earns a significant amount of its income through fishing with 2 cousins of Judishtir being active fishermen. As the current head of the family, Judishtir now tends to the day to day needs of the entire household. The family talks about the reduction in the quantities of their daily catches and how changes in climate, irregular precipitation and increased salinity of water has drawn families out of the waters, causing the younger generations to move away from the island.

After the damage caused by Fani cyclone back in 2019, the house has been partly reconstructed in stone and concrete to ensure a pakka makan (permanent dwelling) while the older structure is retained in parts made out of mud, rammed earth and stone. The estimated cost of making for this reconstruction is around 7-8 lakh rupees out of which around 1.2 lakh rupees were provided under the government cyclone relief funds to the residents of the island.

Having only 10 members actively occupying the house, the household profile shows the coming generations following the fashion of migrating to larger metropolitan cities leaving the generational occupations behind.

Household Profile

Site Plan

With street on the front that activates itself in the evenings as fishermen return from the waters and women gather around the Chaura and a Badi that swells, blurring the boundaries of claim extending onto Chilika lake in the back the house sits in a linear fashion flushed between neighbouring houses sharing common walls.

The residents of the island have had an ancestral method of land distribution to ensure equal land for the households.

Where, 1 Haath (Hand) ~ 50 cm

Each family gets

7 haath x 90 haath

Approx. 3.5m x 45m

This house is approx. 14 haath x 90 haath

The house follows a linear row house type that share common boundary walls which get blurred as one moves from the front to the back and the badis extend till the Chilika edge, with plantations flowing into one another.

Cell like modules that function as private spaces for the now nucleated families are strung along a common passage - Saae connecting the street in the front to the Badi in the back with in-between courts.

Services like the kitchen, thakur ghara, hand pump, open up on the outside and wrap around the external facade.

The newly constructed block of the house is seen occupied by the head of the family even though he's the only person living in it. This house is also the only house amongst the 3 houses to have a kitchen and a washroom where for others services are observed to be occupied on the external periphery for their households.

Spatial Configuration

The spatiality and the form of the house seems to develop very certain relationships between one of part of the space to the other where the proportions works such that if a closed room (Soyba Ghara) is 'x' then the space it opens up to (Ogona) is observed to be '2x'. Another example of this can be seen in the drawing above, where if the length of the house is 'x' then the Badi that extends behind is also 'x'.

Section A-A'

Section B-B'

Section C-C'

Section D-D'

One sees significant rises in the plinths that get constructed speculating that due to the increased amount of rainfall over the years and increased frequency of cyclones hitting the coast, high plinths provide a layer of protection to the house thus preventing it from severe damages.

Transformation of Houseform