Like the Egyptian architect Hassan Fathy, who revolutionised architecture through the use of adobe bricks, Bidyut Kumar Roy composes odes to the earth – buildings that seem to emerge from the landscape, made using local and natural materials. Nowhere is that more apparent than at his home in Santiniketan, around 150 kilometres north of Kolkata, in the rural district of Birbhum, West Bengal. Its medley of thick mud walls and timber frames resembles something between a beehive and the globular home of French children’s-book character Barbapapa.
Santiniketan means ‘abode of peace’, which captures the life Bidyut has built here well. Surrounded by lush vegetation, his home has evolved organically in the village of Boner Pukur Danga since 1985, when he first bought this plot of land. Having studied at a Kolkata art school, he went on to complete his master’s degree in mural painting at Kala Bhavana (WoI Sept 2025), the celebrated art school founded by Tagore in 1919, which is only a short distance from his current home. Though his wife, ceramic artist Lipi Biswas, studied elsewhere, both subscribe to that school’s commitment to art rooted in nature and responsive to everyday life. Lipi’s vision of a less rudimentary, more decorative dwelling has greatly shaped its develop ment. Her ceramic work – ash-glazed in mustard, mango wood, banana peel, everything that Santiniketan has to offer – fills the place, and is displayed alongside objects accumulated during her extensive travels. Nothing in this home is self-consciously co-ordinated, yet it all makes sense when viewed as a whole.
Shapes here shift between the organic and the geometric. Elephant grass has been pressed into use as insulation, so no air conditioning is needed in the sultry weather, while the concrete ceilings are stamped with palm leaves. Entering through the garden, you make your way towards the house, which remains open to the elements. ‘We can enjoy the monsoon rains from our home without feeling intimidated,’ Bidyut reflects. Inside, a kitchen opens on to a capacious living area. ‘The idea was to create a place where no-one feels excluded when family and friends gather together,’ Lipi adds. ‘The person cooking remains part of the conversation, while those waiting can take in the aromas of the dishes being prepared. Given that Indian cooking is elaborate and time-consuming, this open layout turns the kitchen into a living, shared space.’
A little further on, down a few short steps, one bows through a low doorway to reach the ground-floor guest bedroom. ‘Originally, this was ours. When our daughter was born, we moved upstairs for more privacy and space,’ says Lipi.
In their current bedroom, earthen furniture is built into the walls – a large double bed, two singles and lattice-screen partitions – while a discreet bathroom has been tucked away on the upper floor. ‘It was inspired by my travels in Japan,’ the ceramicist explains. ‘I wanted to show that a compact space can still be generous, creative and full of light.’
Both artists trained as painters (Lipi at the Maharaja Sayajirao University in Baroda), but today they most commonly use clay as their medium. Though not a trained architect, Bidyut is frequently commissioned to create structures from local mud across West Bengal – a practice he describes as ‘hand-carving homes’. The walls are generally covered in a kaolin-based coating, and the roof of his own home is lined with handmade terracotta tiles. They evoke the use of that material in temples across the wider Birbhum district, highlighting the existence of a shared rural visual language. Lipi’s rounded vessels, meanwhile, are crafted from iron-rich clay and fired at 1,280 degrees to achieve a pleasing purple hue. Her first teacher was a woman who sold kulhads (handle-less cups) on a street corner. From her, she learned the pinch-pot method, the oldest gesture of all: fingers shaping the earth. Lipi resembles her pottery in both form and spirit, possessing a round face, round shoulders, round hands – and a character that is entirely free of sharp edges. ‘I’m quite voluminous,’ she remarks, laughing. Her signature shape is the alms bowl, and her teapots are equally rotund. She refers to the form as shoonya, a philosophical concept hinting at the boundless potential of emptiness – something that neither begins nor ends.
Lipi’s studio and showroom sits towards the front of the home, and takes its name from the surrounding village. Boner Pukur Danga – which translates to ‘between the forest and the pond’ – is home to the indigenous Santhal people, and is characterised by red lateritic soils, shaded chhatim trees and open fields. ‘My father was a doctor on a leprosy mission, so I grew up in the forests of Jharkhand,’ Bidyut says of the state in eastern India, which is also largely populated by indigenous groups. ‘I was influenced by their simple architecture.’ Here in Boner Pukur Danga, the homes are similarly built from raw mud and decorated with reliefs whose colour, like that of Lipi’s ceramics, is extracted from local vegetation.
She joined Bidyut in 1993, and the village has changed much since then. In the early years, the locals were without a road, electricity or running water – but Lipi still rises at 2.30am, just as she did then to walk to the village each morning to draw from a deep well. Their home continues to expand as practical requirements demand: two more bedrooms and a bathroom are in the offing. ‘[We] live in abundance,’ says Lipi with a smile. ‘If I give, a space empties and something new enters it. If we don’t learn how to share time, it will never multiply’.
Bidyut Kumar Roy. Visit Instagram @rbidyutkumar
Lipi Biswas. Visit Instagram @lipis_studio_boner_pukur_danga
A version of this article appears in the August 2026 issue of ‘The World of Interiors’. Learn about our subscription offers.
