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The plastered masonry and aluminum-clad east-facing facade protects the more enclosed rooms — hallway, kitchen, winter room, bedroom, and bathroom — from rain and sun. On the opposite side of the house, a curved, woven screen of vengai wood allows the wall to breathe.

And the combination of a hallway that joins the bedroom at the front to the bathroom at the back, and an open metal framework inside, helps ventilate the house. Around the base of the house is a water channel that acts as a moat to deter ants and termites from marching over the threshold.

The house for Inge Rieck, designed by French Canadian architect Dominic Dube, also sports a moat. In plan, Inge's House resembles the shape of hands held together in prayer, with one hand straight and the other arched slightly.

The kitchen, salon, bathroom, and storage cupboards are on the ground floor, with the bedroom on the upper floor. Rieck says that she wanted a place "to visually frame what I had discovered in Auroville."

Group Living

These houses are two of the last private residences to be built in Auroville. The planning group, made up of resident design professionals, is now moving towards community-based housing, of which the Creativity Building by Kundoo is a recent example. "We're trying to build a community within a community," says project manager Jocelyn Brynhild.

Built to house 48 people, Creativity's five neighboring three-story structures are connected by bridges. A first-floor multipurpose room and artists' studio look out onto the central courtyard.

Before purchasing an apartment, residents must agree to several rules. "No individual servants, cats, or dogs," says Brynhild. "They also need to listen to the radio or TV with earphones because this is India, where you cannot lock your windows."

Planning for Growth

As well as promoting a sense of community, the Creativity Building is a step toward more efficient land use, although at the moment that is not a pressing concern in Auroville. The current population is short of the 5,000 that had been expected by 2006, and of the 50,000 people that Auroville is eventually meant to support. Without significant financial input, the town is unlikely to reach that size in the near future.

Until the planners stepped in, Auroville had been growing organically, but a universal city-in-the-making requires planning. Architect Helmut Schmid says the evolution of the town involves "a lot of friction combined with decision-making consensus."

On the subject of the spiral-shaped master plan itself — a rather literal translation of Alfassa's request for a town plan that required a dynamic aspect — Schmid says: "it's a wonderful icon, but how to realize it still has not come."

How to realize that utopian vision and combine Anger's compartmentalized Corbusian master plan with current mixed-use models continues to fuel an intellectual struggle between Aurovilians who wish to remain faithful to Alfassa's vision and those who want to modify the concept in sympathy with 21st-century urban design plans.

Robert Such writes about and photographs architecture and interior design for publications around the world.

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Four-part master plan idea by Mirra Alfassa, "the Mother" of Auroville. Image: Aurofuture Pictures Archive (Pino Marchese) Proposed agora in the International Zone. Image: Helmut Schmid Inge's House by French Canadian architect Dominic Dube. Photo: Robert Such Water channel at the entrance to Inge's House. Photo: Robert Such Upper floor bedroom of Inge's House, with a stairway to the roof. Photo: Robert Such Bedroom in Inge's House. Photo: Robert Such Local builder at work. Photo: Robert Such Handmade brick manufacture. Photo: Robert Such Mobile brick-making equipment. Photo: Robert Such Handmade brick arch. Photo: Robert Such   Click on thumbnail images to view full-size pictures.