Trees of Kerala--Anjily

Anjily is used mainly for frames of doors and windows provided the wood is reasonably old with larger section measurement. Younger wood of Anjily has a tendency to bend and hence not recommended for use as frames for doors and windows
Any tree if grows in a place where water availability is less, the tree will have more kathal (inner hard core) and thus will be stronger. Tree growing near a river or water body is expected to have more outer soft core (vella).Trees with larger section will give better yield as the waste will be less. Lesser cross section wood will have more unusable soft core portion and the wastage can go as high as half the wood
Anjily with large section is also traditionally used for making of vallams (local wooden boats).Anjily being a wood grown in Kerala can with stand climatic conditions of Kerala very well and good old Anjily with large section is found to be very strong and ideally suited for use as frame for doors and windows for houses
For use as window shutter Anjily can be used only if it is really old and with real strong hard core. Otherwise the wood when made into small sections for use as window shutters may bend with time. Due to this reason Anjily is not recommended for use as window shutter

Thekkanat Parayil Heritage House at Olavipe

On my way back from Oachira ,where I went for site visit for construction of house for Abudabi based Mr.Mahnoharan Pillai I went to see 120 years old heritage house of Thekkanat Parayil at Olavipe near Cherthala
This house is in a very large compound of many acres of rustic village land far away from city life, crowd and an ideal place for rest and relaxing. This house is being used as a Home stay and foreigners come here simply to relax, walk all over the true village atmosphere without disturbance unlike normally crowded villages in Kerala. As the entire stretches of land belong to Parayil family the area is without any disturbance. It has lake nearby, greenery all around, peaceful atmosphere with no sound and hassles. For a tourist, the house gives stay with all modern facilities and food from the kitchen of the house prepared in traditional Kerala style .
Architecture of the building has few major flaws
1. Lack of proper ventilation in rooms. Even though it is cool possibly due to lake nearby and greenery all around, rooms are not designed to have light and air as we get in modern Kerala houses
2. Wastage of space in design. There are rooms and passages simply constructed without looking into utility aspects and easy passage. Passages to rooms are mostly through passages only for at purpose without adequate lighting and not adopting present technique of common area automatically taking us to different rooms
3. No toilets inside the original building as they probably considered toilets as something to be kept away from the house even at the cost of inconvenience. At present toilets are added for the convenience of home stay tourists. Originally the building did not have any plumbing at all as that aspect came into only at a later date. They did not have Electricity also at that time
There are notable good features like the following :
1. Careful workmanship in every work. Mason work done in an excellent manner
2. Wood work in plenty and that too done carefully with good wood
3. Every attempt is made to do all type of work with precision and care
4. Incorporation of traditional Kerala Architecture features like Nadumuttom(Here it is in a side and not exactly at the centre),Mukhappu with carved wooden work, sculpture works .
5. Large common areas like very long and big sit out, traditional Padippura with even rooms for stay possibly by servants or Karyasthans .
6. Apart from following Kerala Architecture, by going for Gothic arches at Poomukham and sit out, western architectural influences are also seen in the construction
7. In addition to Poomukham, Padippura ,there is also a simpler Padi vathil for the side of the house .
8. Rear side is not exactly as in present houses. House is long and has long sit outs on both front and back sides. Kitchen Comes at one end with Nadumuttom closer to it and not at the rear.Probably they were trying to have Kitchen at North east just like in all old Kerala Houses
9. It has even an old hand driven washing machine kept as an antique piece in the Nadumuttom

10.It has hand moved fans just like the one you see in Fort Cochin church were Vascode Gama was buried with the person driving fan standing in another adjacent room ,so that master need not suffer presence of worker near to him
Go through the pictures which will talk about the careful work done on the house which remain well kept even after 120 years offering the comforts of yester years of Kerala living to foreign tourists by the home stay arrangement. If they have provided an Ayurvedic massage centre along with, it could have been good for the tourists

Alleppey hotel with Kerala architecture features

On my way back from Punalur I stopped at a roadside hotel for food. Even though food was not good, the surroundings and the building looked good with a lot of Kerala architecture features incorporated in the building and surroundings. See pictures which speaks more clearly

Trip to Punalur

Punalur is a sleepy town after Kayamkulam, Adoor and Pathanapuram while coming from Cochin. One reason for which the place is known is for the highest temp almost nearing 29 degree centigrade. People are mostly tamilians and Keralites looking like tamilians. We could not find a decent hotel to eat lunch and the vegetarian hotel we managed to get in give food almost impossible to eat. One of my clients relatives are staying in Punalur for a long time. I met them twice on the way and while coming back
My new client is working in shipping business in Dubai. He is having a rented accommodation near Punalur railway station. Site where he intends to construct house has very little width and has got road on two sides thereby causing more clearance to be left out while constructing house. It has lot of depth .But for a house to look good and to be really useful, width of the plot should be high. Before buying the plot one should seek the service of a professional to check suitability of the plot for construction. Without doing that after buying the plot, if the client approaches me or any professional of the field, he can only try to adjust within limitations of the plot. But the sad part is that client does not want to adjust to the plot. He is still having dreams formed by seeing many house pictures of builders and developers and he is looking for all those features in this impossible plot.
Generally prospective clients start talking in terms of cents of the plot probably not understanding well that cents is only area of the land and most important factors are length and width of the plot where it faces the road
Punalur has a river flowing through it and a very old hanging bridge constructed in 1877 which is now just a show piece. Pictures of river and the hanging bridge is given along with this. They had a paper mill called Punalur paper mills which is closed long back