If schools are about laying the right foundation, Aman Setu seems to have got it right. With its classrooms made of mud, bamboo, straw, husk and cowdung—even discarded cement sacks, barbed wire, plastic bottles, advertisement hoardings—this school on the outskirts of Pune, in Wagholi, has managed to teach its children their most fundamental and unforgettable lesson in ecological conservation.

“This building technique, called ‘Earth bagging’ is nothing new. It has been around for a few thousand years. Only we have so completely forgotten it that today professionals and architecture students refer to it as ‘non conventional technology’,” says Saurabh Phadke, the architect of these classrooms.

‘Earth bag’ construction is a technique where bags are filled with an appropriate earth mix, sealed and stacked like conventional masonry with barbed wire acting as Velcro mortar between layers and consolidated by tamping. This also makes the structure quake resistant.

“The technique has been used worldwide for varying purposes—from constructing military bunkers to making water retention structures. The idea that dirt-filled bags can be used to construct a permanent shelter was first introduced in the mid ’80s by architect Nader Khalili. Incidentally, then it was not introduced as a low cost sustainable technique but as a solution for lunar housing!” says Phadke.

It was during a NASA symposium that was exploring ways of colonising the moon that Khalili proposed that moon dust could be filled in bags to build a structure.

At Aman Setu, once the concept was cemented (the design took in suggestions from children) Phadke carried out several tests with different materials and mixes before starting with the construction. The selected area was cleared of grass and the area to be excavated was marked on the soil. Trenches were dug, the top soil was segregated and not used for construction, while the rest was retained for using in the earth bags.

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