Stanford/Kathmandu 2018
As a team of seven engineering students from Stanford, we traveled to Nepal to help develop designs for a new eco-village to be located in Bhaise, a small community of homes in the Dolakha District. Our goal was to develop a master plan for this new eco-village and design schematics for two houses: a new village house for the current residents of Bhaise and a guest house in order to kickstart a site for eco-tourism and help revitalize this otherwise strictly agrarian economy. We visited the proposed site for this new eco-village and conducted inter- views with some of the families for who we were designing. And based on their responses, we decided these designs needed to be eco-conscious and earthquake resistant, reminiscent of the current vernac- ular style of architecture, yet affordable and easy to replicate across this community and across other hill districts in Nepal. With these goals and priorities in mind, the team developed architectural, structural, and mechanical designs for the two houses and the larger master plan.