# Grha Bhavana Eco House > Our entry for Eco House Design Competition X at UGM (2019): a post-disaster relocation settlement in Sleman, Yogyakarta, with light, earthquake-resistant houses of coconut timber, bamboo and thatch. It placed fourth. A settlement for people who lost their homes, designed to grow more than houses: light local materials, water kept on site, waste turned into compost, and a neighbourhood that teaches its residents to live with the land. - A post-disaster relocation settlement in Sleman, Yogyakarta, with houses of coconut-trunk timber, woven bamboo and sago-palm thatch. - Rainwater harvesting, a 40 degree roof with deep eaves, and two kinds of biopore well: one for rainwater, one for compost. - 4th place (Juara Harapan 1) at Eco House Design Competition X, UGM 2019, as a team of architecture and civil engineering students. - #4 place, Juara Harapan 1 - 36 m² house on a 5 by 7.2 m plan - 40° roof pitch against solar heat - Role: Architecture member, team of four - Period: 2019 - Stack: Post-disaster housing, Earthquake-resistant design, Bamboo and timber, Rainwater harvesting, Site planning, 3D visualisation **TL;DR** Grha Bhavana is the entry by CIRCLE AGHANATHA, a team of four Diponegoro University students including Nugraha Labib Mujaddid, for Eco House Design Competition X at Universitas Gadjah Mada in 2019: a post-disaster relocation settlement in Sleman, Yogyakarta, built from light local materials. It placed fourth (Juara Harapan 1). ## The competition Eco House Design Competition X was run by the civil engineering students of Universitas Gadjah Mada as part of their 8th Civil in Action, on the theme of permanent housing as a solution for relocation after a disaster. Our team, CIRCLE AGHANATHA, was four Diponegoro University students: two from architecture, including me, and two from civil engineering. We submitted in July 2019 and placed fourth, Juara Harapan 1. *Grha Bhavana at dusk.* ## Grow, not just build Bhavana means to cultivate, as in fertilising soil. The idea was a settlement that plants more than stone and cement: mostly natural materials to leave as small a carbon footprint as possible, waste sorted and recycled, grey water filtered before it leaves the site, and environmental education so that the people living there carry the habits further. > Natural disasters are a lesson the Earth gives us. How we respond to it is entirely in our hands. ## The site and the settlement The site is on Jalan Jenengan Raya in Depok, Sleman, Yogyakarta: close to a main road and not far from the city, with low buildings around it, so air and daylight reach every house. The board notes that it lies outside the high earthquake hazard zone mapped by the Centre for Volcanology and Geological Hazard Mitigation, with low tsunami potential. Rows of houses share the site with the facilities a new neighbourhood needs: - **A mosque, a garden, a playground and a sport zone** for daily life. - **A living pharmacy garden** of medicinal plants. - **An education and recycling zone** where waste is sorted and reused. - **A grey-water filtering system**, so household waste water does not pollute the surroundings. - **Parking and a guard post** at the entrance. *The settlement board: location, site plan and facilities.* ## The house Each house is 5 by 7.2 metres: a guest room at the entrance, a family room, a kitchen and a toilet, a master bedroom and two children's bedrooms. *Plan of the house, with the furnished rooms seen from above.* - **Rainwater harvesting**: water from the roof is collected for reuse, and a pump can send it back over the roof to cool the house. - **A 40 degree roof** that lets in less solar heat, with one side raised for an extra opening for air and light, and deep eaves that keep direct sun off the windows. - **Biopore type I**: wells that push rainwater into the ground instead of letting it pool in the yard. - **Biopore type II**: perforated pipes that turn household organic waste into compost. *The concept board.* ## Light and strong An earthquake pushes on a building in proportion to its weight, so the house is built light. Columns and beams are glugu, the trunk of the coconut palm. The walls are woven bamboo, which bends where brick would crack. A continuous river-stone foundation holds the house together, and the roof is rumbia, sago-palm thatch, on dry timber trusses. The timber columns sit on a timber sill anchored to the foundation with 12 mm steel anchors every metre. None of this is new. The traditional timber and bamboo houses of the archipelago, roofed with rumbia or palm fibre, have long stood through earthquakes, and the design borrows their logic. *Inside the house.* **The entry at a glance** - Competition: Eco House Design Competition X, 8th Civil in Action - Host: Civil engineering students, Universitas Gadjah Mada - Theme: Permanent housing for post-disaster relocation - Team: CIRCLE AGHANATHA: 2 architecture and 2 civil engineering students, Undip - Result: 4th place (Juara Harapan 1) - Year: 2019 ## Lessons For a house after a disaster, the decisions that matter most are the ones nobody sees: how light the structure is, how it is anchored and where the water goes. We settled those first and let the form follow. Source: https://nugrahalabib.com/work/grha-bhavana-eco-house Author: Nugraha Labib Mujaddid (https://nugrahalabib.com) Published: 2026-09-24. Updated: 2026-09-25.