Load-Bearing Family Villa, Nachinola, Goa
2 Min Read
45 tons
Nachinola, Goa
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Featured
COmpleted
Overview
60,000 blocks made on site, no steel
Solarpunk Futures designs homes around regenerative principles. For its first pilot, Aadi Villa in the hills of Nachinola, Goa, the team made 60,000 hollow blocks on site from local soil, sawdust and BINDR™, our cement-free binder. They used them to build a 10,000 sq ft family home as load-bearing masonry, with no steel and no conventional cement. Completed in October 2025, the project locks away 45 tons of CO₂.
The brief
A large home from local materials
Solarpunk Futures, founded by Akshay Tandon, is a Goa-based construction company inspired by solarpunk ideals: renewable energy, local materials, nature-integrated design and community. It found GreenJams through a web search. The brief for Aadi Villa was ambitious: a 10,000 sq ft single-family home built entirely as load-bearing masonry, without steel or conventional cement, and made as far as possible from what was already on site.
Why BINDR™
Ship the binder, not the blocks
Instead of shipping finished blocks across the country, we shipped BINDR™, our alkali-activated mineral binder, from Vizag. On site, the team mixed it with local soil and sawdust to make blocks. Only the binder had to travel, which cut transport for the heaviest part of the build. BINDR™ gains strength fast and needs less water than cement, which suits on-site production.
Making the blocks
60,000 hollow blocks pressed on site
The team pressed 60,000 hollow blocks on site, each measuring 390 x 190 x 75 mm, and tested them to IS 2185. The hollow design gives up to 3.5x the thermal insulation of traditional brick. Work started in December 2023, and both teams refined the mix over several iterations to get consistent blocks at this scale. The blocks then went straight into the walls, with no long-distance haulage.
The structure
Load-bearing walls, lime and BINDR™ mortar
BINDR™ was used for the mortar and concrete in the foundation. Above the foundation, the walls are laid in lime mortar. The whole building is load-bearing masonry, with no steel reinforcement and no conventional cement anywhere in the structure. The walls carry a timber roof, as the architectural model shows. Removing steel and cement took out the two most carbon-intensive materials in a typical house.
The results
A new capability for Solarpunk
Aadi Villa proved that a 10,000 sq ft family home can be built as load-bearing masonry from blocks made on site. For Solarpunk Futures, it was also a learning project: the team learnt a great deal about slag-based and earth-based materials. Solarpunk now makes its own earth blocks from waste from its furniture workshops, building on what it learnt here.
Carbon impact
45 tons of CO₂ locked away in one home
Aadi Villa locks away 45 tons of CO₂ across the project, 8.4 tons of it in the blockwork alone. Making the blocks on site from local soil and sawdust cut transport emissions, and building without steel or conventional cement cut the carbon footprint further. It sets a new benchmark for carbon-negative homes in India, and a model for building from local materials.
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