Consultation · India

Build your own earthship — rooted in Indian land.

Earthship Karuna is mainland India's first earthship — built and lived in here in the Kodaikanal hills since 2012. Every consultation we offer is shaped around your monsoon, your soil, your panchayat, and the way you actually live.

Earthship Karuna in Kodaikanal — mainland India's first earthship
A note before you begin

This isn't a quick contact form — and that's the point.

An earthship in India is a living system — not a house plan you pull off a shelf. To quote one thoughtfully we need to understand your land, the monsoon that shapes it, your soil, your title status, your panchayat or municipality, and what you actually want to live like. The questions below are that conversation.

Don't know every answer? That's completely fine — skip anything that needs a site visit, soil test, NA conversion certificate or a trip to the tehsildar's office. Your progress saves automatically as you type, so you can come back when you've gathered more.

Submitting creates no obligation. You'll receive consultation options, pricing in INR, and a few preliminary thoughts within a few days.

Built here, for here. Unlike consultations across continents, we're already on the ground in India. We know the difference between Patta and Pattadar, between SW and NE monsoon, between black cotton soil and laterite, between a panchayat NOC and a DTCP approval. That local fluency saves months.

Why so detailed? & how to prepare

Earthships in India face a very specific set of challenges: heavy seasonal monsoon water, cyclones on the eastern coast, landslides in hill country, termite pressure in the South, NA conversion paperwork, ancestral and joint-family land titles, panchayat politics, and an entirely different palette of local materials than the West. The planning phase is the most important (and hardest) part. Getting it right from the start saves years and many lakhs.

Before you start, it helps to:

  • Walk your land in both monsoon and dry season (water tells the truth)
  • Check the title carefully — Patta, Khata, 7/12 extract, ancestral share, or under conversion
  • Confirm whether the land is agricultural or NA (non-agricultural / converted)
  • Talk to neighbouring farmers about flood patterns, water table, and soil
  • Find out whether you fall under panchayat, municipality, DTCP, or CRZ jurisdiction
  • Note your comfort priorities — passive cooling matters more than heating across most of India
Step 01
You fill in this site assessment
Step 02
We analyse scope & complexity
Step 03
You receive options + pricing in INR
Step 04
You decide whether to proceed
Section I

Let's start with how to reach you

Only your name and email are strictly required — everything else in this form is optional context.

Section II

Site location & access

Your state and district tell us climate zone, monsoon pattern, soil type and the building approval landscape.

Acres, cents (TN/Kerala), gunthas (Maharashtra/Karnataka), bighas (North) — whatever you use locally.

Section III

Climate, monsoon & microclimate

In India the monsoon is the single biggest design driver. How does your land sit inside the rains and the heat?

Section IV

Soil & geological conditions

Indian soils are wildly different region to region. If you haven't tested yet, "Unknown" is a perfectly honest answer.

Section V

Infrastructure & utilities

What's already on site, and what needs to be built or arranged?

Section VII

Project goals & design priorities

What are you actually trying to build, and for whom?

Section VIII

Sustainability & systems

Energy, water, materials, labour — and how hands-on you want to be.

Section IX

Budget & timeline

These help us recommend a realistic scope. Rough ranges are fine.

Earthship costs vary widely with site, soil & labour rates — these are working ranges.

Section X

Known challenges & concerns

Anything that worries you, however vague — it's useful for us to hear now.

Section XI

Anything else you'd like us to know?

Plus a quick human-check, and you're done.

Quick human-check

One tiny question before you send

Just to keep the spambots out.

Either "7" or "seven" works.

What happens next: your request reaches Alex directly in Kodaikanal. You'll get a personal reply with consultation options, pricing in INR, and some initial thoughts on your project — typically within a few days.