A House That Breathes, a Forest Reborn

One of the most interesting days I spent in Delhi began in a forest that used to be a mine. Restored, it has let nature and wildlife return — caves scattered through the area, and animals still roaming. They mentioned a monitor lizard had been spotted just around the time we visited.

After the forest we toured a mud house — traditionally built, but checked by engineers to make sure it was sustainable and met the necessary guidelines. The indigenous solutions were the part that really stayed with me.

Instead of windows with nets, there were holes in the walls plugged with dry branches — letting air cool the house while keeping bugs and birds out.

It had a rainwater harvesting system and a nearby pond where water was collected, then filtered and boiled to purify it. Overall, the house barely relied on the outside world — and actually helped nature thrive around it.

Later, we made things out of clay in a ceramics workshop, each piece representing our own creativity and our relationship with climate change and adaptation. It was fascinating to see how differently everyone expressed the same idea — a whole table of imagined futures, shaped by hand.