Nepal's biggest 'Bottle House' at Pharping

Riju Shrestha
Lalitpur

Can you ever imagine of a house made of bottles? Not indeed but only in imagination, right? To many of you, this may come as an unrealistic package but today, creativity has dragged evolution beyond the imagination. 'Bottle House' in the rural Pharping is a living edifice that has ingeniously employed thousands of waste bottles that are of no use.

This eco-friendly house construction project was conceptualized by an American professor and an eco-architect Bill Hutchins, who has also worked in a waste management sector. Before construction of Nepal’s biggest bottle house at Sheshnarayan VDC, he had developed a concept and demonstration of ‘a poor man house’ at Khahare in Chalnakhel VDC of Pharping.

“Demonstration of this poor man house concept, when proved to be inexpensive to the poor people, inspired for the replication of Nepal’s biggest eco-friendly bottle house at Sheshnarayan’’ said Sandesh Subedi, who was involved in the project since its inception.

The idea of the project was put into action with a mutual aid of A School for Community (ASC) and Shikharapur Community Learning Centre (SCLC) and also with an equal technical co-operation and assistance of Kevin Rohan Memorial Eco Foundation in Chalnakhel.

The construction process took nearly six months. It involved used and thrown 9000 empty glass bottles collected from various dumping sites. They are stacked one on top of the other, each attached to the mixture of sand, straw and waste hairs of human and animals. The bottles are placed in such a way so that the opening of the bottles forms the outer side of the walls. “According to a research conducted by the team, a restaurant dumps 100-150 bottles per week from places like Pharping, Lalitpur, Nuwakot and Balaju”, said Subedi.






‘’This alternative brick house perfectly suits the varying climate and temperatures inside and outside, providing earthquake resistant walls. The most overwhelming aspect about the house is that it twinkles at night when the lights are put on inside and the only fear is the probable damages caused to the bottles’’, shared Subedi.

Currently, this eco-friendly house has been transformed into an agriculture teaching school named as “Shikharapur Sustainable Farmers School” and is successfully imparting pragmatic knowledge on organic farming and agriculture to the local inhabitants.

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- अब यो गुनासो सुनाउ कसलाई -

~ Her Perfect Wedding Bells ~

1st May 2012

This shouldn’t have been a shocking news for me but it was. Early morning around ten, I got a call from an unknown number, I quickly prepared my brain during four seconds of ring and another two seconds I collected all curses to spit on that bluffer. I quickly pressed on my answer button, and threw a bold ‘Hello’. She answered ‘Hello, Riju? Ma Shweta…’ Oh yes, she was ‘her’ on the phone. I din’t recognize her heavy voice. I mumbled for few seconds to myself and finally she came up with destination ‘Bhadrapur ko!’. Yes, it was her, Shweta, my school friend. No, no don’t guess, its not her wedding. It was after like two years I had heard from her. She sounded so different. In fact, she never had a perfect nepali tone in school as well, we often teased her for fun. And then all my curses swayed away.
She had called in to invite us for Rucha’s wedding. Rucha is also my school friend. We all were class mates for like big thirteen years. We knew about her engagement but wedding was supposedly too soon. I thought she could wait for like a year or two. Anyways, she was getting married that sort of news poured heavy excitement in me. Actually, Most of my school friends got married but this was the first one I was attending and that filled double excitement in me. And multiple excitements evoked when I realized that I’ll be meeting most of my school friends there.

Girls are girls. Nomatter what, they have to look preety, I think that’s too cute to use, they have to look ‘beautiful’. Reception ground turns out to be a competition field, imagination begins, make-up, dresses, accessories ‘Ow I don’t have a match! My pair is missing’ and stuffs and finally, when you end up planning with a saree to wear, you don’t find better heels and at last when you are done with all ‘Aww, I can’t walk in heels’ drives you god knows to which heaven. That din’t create much of a problem to me coz I was pretty sure about my picture the people would get to see that night. In fact, I wasn’t sure about Rucha. Honestly, I couldn’t even scribble a bridal picture of her in my mind, forget about the sketch, I mean she was totally a tomboy and I liked her carefree attitude. I couldn’t stop thinking about her, though my night ended perfectly.

I set all ready to move. I blushed and bloomed myself as I had planned. My hair got a perfect touch up with a high puff and my very old style of slight fringes in front. I needed in fact, they are worst than the split ended brooms, sometimes, especially during occasions, when I have no time and no plans for any kind of hair do. But this time, all was set. I had plenty of time to decorate myself. Saree has always been my favourite, heels never attracted me the most, but I put them together always.

I tell you, a dream wedding it was. The set up so perfect and grand, I couldn’t stop myself imagining one for me. We arrived a bit early, so we had plenty of time for posing in front of lenses, which I always loved. Rucha, arrived. She was surrounded by beautiful ladies, I must say. I recognized two of them, one was her aunt and her elder sister. All were dresses perfectly. My eyes din’t even deceive a glance from Rucha. She was fully decorated top to bottom but she wasn’t wearing red. It was weird but some people have different culture of bridal dresses I suppose. She was wearing this heavily decorated pinkish gorgeous lehenga, a natthi, and line of preety bindiz above eyebrows. She looked pretty nervous, her smile covered limited space on her face, I guessed because of make-up. I can say, she was uncomfortable but it suited her and she was happy. I couldn’t take my eyes off her. Meanwhile, I got engaged in my hanky-panky talks that wore non-sensible philosophical attire, at least it could mask those boring talks about business and studies. We all had gathered after a very long time, nodoubt a perfect vegetarian dine and most appreciably luscious dessert followed to add some more fun.

Music men played a typical song about groom, we quickly guessed he was here. Everyone gathered around a huge circular stage, prepared for warmala ceremony. Both bride and the groom steadily moved towards each other and placed warmala on each other. Rucha’s delicate bridal smile was noticeable. They looked perfect together like they say ‘a match made in heaven’. Meanwhile, the stage started rotating slowly, and the most attractive part was the blossom shower, totally filmy yet adorable.

We all wished her the best of the best wishes. Every threads of life is weaved beautifully, one should only realize as to when and where should the knots be tied. Every wedding bells look beautiful, sounds beautiful, one should only realize as to when and how should they be played and led.