Many Layers of Bioregional Design

No.110 — Read old posts on Tinyfarmlab.com
Reading Time 5 minutes

Every place has its own intelligence.
The way rain falls.
The way wind moves.
The way people build, eat, and sing.

When we understand our bioregion,
the soil, the water, the culture, the craft,
we begin to build and live in ways that heal,
not harm.

A house in the Himalayas
should not look like a villa in New Delhi.

Each landscape has its own rhythm,
its own material palette,
and climatic challenges.

Bioregional design simply says:
let’s listen before we design.

A bioregion isn’t drawn by politicians.
It’s drawn by watersheds,
soil types,
rainfall,
vegetation,
and microclimate.

It’s where the same ecological patterns repeat.

India alone has dozens of distinct bioregions:
the Aravalli drylands,
Gangetic plains,
Konkan coast,
Western Ghats,
Himalayan foothills,
and Thar desert,
each with its own building materials,
foods, crafts, and rhythms of life.

A bioregion reveals what it wants to build with.

Clay in the plains.
Stone in the mountains.
Bamboo in the tropics.

In Uttarakhand,
homes rise from stones
and clay plasters
that breathe with the seasons.

In Goa and Kerala,
laterite walls hold the scent of rain.

In Kutch,
round bhungas of mud
and dung keep the desert heat at bay.

When materials come from nearby,
they don’t just reduce carbon,
they speak the language of that soil.

Bioregional thinking challenges the idea of centralised capitalism.

Today, most products
travel thousands of kilometers,
while local crafts,
farmers,
and builders disappear.

A bioregional economy flips this.
It asks:
Can we produce what we consume,
within our own bioregion?

Bioregional design isn’t limited to architecture.

It extends into
what we wear, eat, and make.

In Kutch,
Kala cotton grows without irrigation.
Weavers turn it into fabric dyed with local indigo.

From food to fabric to shelter,
everything loops back into the same ecology.

That’s resilience.

Every bioregion carries memory,
in its festivals, songs, and building rituals.

The tulsi courtyard, the charpai, the jaali,
all carry centuries of adaptation.


Every bioregion celebrates Diwali differently.

In North India,
homes glow with mustard oil lamps
and marigold garlands.

In the South,
houses are washed with lime
and rangolis bloom at the thresholds.

In the hills,
fire torches guide the way through terraced fields.

In Bengal,
boats drift on rivers carrying flickering diyas.

And in the desert,
earthen courtyards echo with folk songs
and lanterns made from discarded tin.

For those outside India,
Diwali is our festival of light,
a reminder that darkness and light,
decay and renewal,
always dance together.

It’s less about fireworks,
and more about reconnection,
with warmth, food, and home.

So wherever you are,
As we light our lamps,
may we also illuminate
the path back to our bioregions,
to our soils,
our rivers,
our crafts,
and our forgotten materials.

Because resilience doesn’t come from scale.
It comes from roots.

The future will belong to those
who understand their land deeply,
build from its gifts,
and celebrate its limits.

Love and light,
Raghav and Ansh

P.S. : If you are on LinkedIn, let’s connect.
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What you can watch - Bio-Regionalism Explained: In Conversation with Didier Prost

What you can listen to - Really Regenerative, with Jenny Andersson

What You Can Read - A bioregional approach to refurbishment informs Atelier LUMA’s new workspaces

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