I live in Odisha, where our relationship with architecture has become complicated. Our traditional homes—with their thick mud walls, high ceilings, courtyards open to the sky, and verandas that created buffer zones between inside and outside—kept families cool through brutal summers and dry during monsoon deluges. Then came “modern” architecture: concrete boxes with tin roofs, sealed windows, and air conditioners running non-stop. We called it progress. We called it development.
But when Cyclone Fani struck in 2019, those concrete boxes proved as vulnerable as straw huts. When summer temperatures now regularly cross 45°C, those sealed rooms become ovens. And when electricity fails—which it does, regularly—those air-conditioned homes become uninhabitable. We’ve built ourselves into a corner, quite literally.
As a 14-year-old who wants to become an architect, I spend a lot of time thinking about buildings. Not the Instagram-perfect minimalist cubes that architects post online, but real homes for real people facing real climate challenges. And I’ve come to a realization: Odisha doesn’t need imported architectural solutions. We need to rediscover what our ancestors knew and rebuild it with modern materials and techniques.
What Traditional Architecture Taught Us
Walk through any old Odia village and you’ll notice something: the buildings breathe. High ceilings allow hot air to rise and escape. Thick walls made from local laterite stone or mud mixed with cow dung provide insulation. Small windows facing north and south minimize direct sunlight while maximizing cross-ventilation. Courtyards at the center create microclimates—cooler pockets of air that pull breezes through the house.
My grandmother’s house in our village has all these features. Even on 40°C days, stepping inside feels like entering an air-conditioned space, yet there’s no AC, no fan running constantly. The walls—nearly two feet thick—are cool to the touch. The courtyard mango tree shades the central open space while its roots help drain monsoon water. The sloped tile roof allows rain to slide off while creating an air gap that insulates the ceiling below.
This isn’t romantic nostalgia for “simple village life.” This is sophisticated environmental design developed over centuries of trial and error. Our ancestors understood something fundamental: in a hot, humid, cyclone-prone coastal region, your building must work with the climate, not against it.
The Climate Crisis We Face
But here’s the thing: we can’t just build mud huts and call it a solution. Odisha faces unprecedented climate challenges. Cyclones are intensifying. Summers are getting hotter. Rainfall patterns are becoming unpredictable. Sea levels are rising, threatening coastal communities. We need architecture that addresses all these challenges while being affordable, culturally appropriate, and actually livable.
Consider cyclones. Traditional homes were flexible—mud walls could crack and be repaired, thatched roofs could blow away and be replaced. Modern concrete structures are rigid—when they fail, they fail catastrophically. We need a middle path: structures strong enough to withstand 200 km/h winds but designed so that if parts fail, they fail safely.
Or consider heat. Climate scientists predict that by 2050, many Indian cities will experience temperatures that exceed human survivability without air conditioning. But air conditioning requires electricity, electricity requires power plants, power plants emit carbon, carbon worsens climate change—it’s a death spiral. We need buildings that can keep people alive without mechanical cooling.
Five Principles for Odisha’s Future Architecture
After studying both traditional Odia buildings and modern sustainable architecture from around the world, I’ve identified five principles that should guide how we build in coastal Odisha:
1. Thermal Mass with Modern Materials
Traditional thick walls worked because they absorbed heat during the day and released it at night. We can replicate this with modern materials: hollow concrete blocks filled with sand, compressed earth blocks stabilized with cement, or even recycled plastic bricks that provide insulation. The key is creating walls that moderate temperature swings rather than conducting heat directly inside.
2. Elevated and Ventilated
Our traditional homes were built on plinths (raised platforms) to prevent flooding and allow air circulation from below. Modern homes should be elevated 4-6 feet, with ventilated foundations that let breezes pass under the structure. This keeps the building cooler and provides flood protection as sea levels rise and extreme rainfall events increase.
3. Water as Architecture
Instead of treating water as an enemy to be expelled, design it into the building. Shallow pools or fountains in courtyards create evaporative cooling. Rainwater harvesting systems integrated into the structure reduce flooding while providing water security. Green roofs with native plants absorb rainfall, insulate the building, and lower ambient temperatures.
4. Cyclone-Resistant Flexibility
Rather than building rigid structures that fail catastrophically, create flexible systems. Shutters that can be quickly closed before storms. Roofs that are firmly attached but designed to lift slightly under extreme pressure (dissipating force rather than transferring it to walls). Load-bearing columns that can absorb lateral forces. The building should be able to take a punch and bounce back.
5. Community-Centered Design
Traditional Odia settlements were planned around community spaces—shared courtyards, temple grounds, common wells. Modern architecture has made us atomized, each family sealed in their individual box. We need to rediscover community-centered design: shared gardens that provide food and cooling, common rainwater harvesting systems, neighborhood solar panels, communal spaces that foster social connections (which are crucial for disaster resilience).
A Practical Example: Redesigning My Own Home
To test these principles, I’ve been designing a climate-resilient home for my family. Here’s what it looks like:
Foundation: Elevated 5 feet on hollow columns that allow water flow during floods and air circulation for cooling. The plinth is made from recycled plastic mixed with sand—turning waste into structure.
Walls: 12-inch compressed earth blocks with an outer layer of lime plaster (water-resistant and breathable). On the south and west sides (where sun exposure is highest), I’ve designed a second “screen wall” of hollow concrete blocks creating a 2-foot air gap—a buffer zone that absorbs heat before it reaches living spaces.
Roof: Double-layered—an outer layer of corrugated metal (for cyclone resistance and rain collection) with a 6-inch gap above an inner layer of bamboo matting. The gap allows hot air to escape through ridge vents while the bamboo provides insulation. Solar panels on the cyclone-resistant metal roof provide electricity.
Courtyard: Central open space with a shallow water feature (only 6 inches deep to prevent mosquito breeding) and native plants. The courtyard creates a microclimate—cooler air that gets pulled through the house via carefully placed windows.
Windows: Small (to minimize heat gain) but strategically placed for cross-ventilation. North-south alignment allows prevailing breezes to flow through. Deep overhangs shade windows during peak sun hours while admitting light during monsoon when the sun is lower.
Storm Shutters: Simple wooden panels stored in the veranda that can be quickly attached to window frames before cyclones. Not hi-tech, but effective and repairable.
Total estimated cost: About 40% more than a standard concrete house, but operational costs (cooling, water, electricity) are 70% lower. The building pays for itself within 5-7 years.
Why This Matters
Some people might ask: why should a 14-year-old worry about architecture and climate change? Shouldn’t I just focus on studying for exams?
But here’s the thing: I’ll be living in these buildings. My generation will inherit whatever we construct today. If we keep building heat-trapping concrete boxes in a region that’s getting hotter, if we keep building rigid structures in a region getting more cyclones, if we keep building homes that require constant electricity in a region with unreliable power—we’re building our own prisons.
Architecture is how we shape our future. Every building we construct is either part of the problem or part of the solution. And right now, in Odisha and across India, we’re mostly constructing problems.
Moving Forward
I don’t have all the answers. I’m 14—I’ve barely started learning about architecture seriously. But I know this: the answers exist. They’re in our traditional architecture. They’re in modern sustainable design techniques. They’re in biomimicry (learning from how nature solves problems). They’re in indigenous knowledge systems that understood local climates better than any architect with foreign training.
What we need is the willingness to look for solutions outside the conventional. To question why we’re building the way we’re building. To demand better from architects, builders, and policymakers. To recognize that “modern” doesn’t mean “better” if it makes us more vulnerable.
I’m planning to study architecture in college. But I’m not interested in designing Instagram-famous buildings that look impressive in photographs but make people’s lives harder. I want to design homes that keep families safe during cyclones, cool during heat waves, dry during floods. I want to create architecture that respects our climate, our culture, and our economic reality.
Conclusion
Odisha’s traditional architecture evolved over thousands of years to address our specific climatic challenges. Then, in barely 50 years, we abandoned millennia of accumulated wisdom for imported architectural styles that don’t work here. The result? Homes that are expensive to build, expensive to maintain, uncomfortable to live in, and vulnerable to climate disasters.
But we can change course. We can create a new architectural language that combines traditional climate-responsive principles with modern materials and techniques. We can build homes that breathe, that flex with storms, that cool without air conditioning, that harvest rather than repel water.
This isn’t about going backward. It’s about going forward with wisdom rather than just technology. It’s about recognizing that sometimes the best innovation is rediscovering what we already knew.
My generation will spend most of our lives in buildings that haven’t been built yet. Those buildings will either help us thrive despite climate change, or they’ll make survival harder. The choice is ours to make—right now, while we’re still designing the future.
I choose breathing walls over sealed boxes. I choose flexibility over rigidity. I choose climate resilience over architectural fashion. I choose to build for the Odisha that exists—hot, humid, cyclone-prone, beautiful—not for some imaginary temperate climate that isn’t ours.
Because ultimately, good architecture doesn’t fight the climate. It dances with it.
By: Ananya Patra
Write and Win: Participate in Creative writing Contest & International Essay Contest and win fabulous prizes.
About the Author
