Andhra Pradesh Andhra Pradesh (, abbr. AP) is a state in the south-eastern coastal region of India. It is the seventh-largest state by area covering an area of and tenth-most populous state with 49,386,799 inhabitants. It is bordered by Telangana to t ...

, India, a Manduva Logili or (logili) is a kind of

courtyard house A courtyard house is a type of house—often a large house—where the main part of the building is disposed around a central courtyard. Many houses that have courtyards are not courtyard houses of the type covered by this article. For example, la ...

suitable for

extended family An extended family is a family that extends beyond the nuclear family of parents and their children to include aunts, uncles, grandparents, cousins or other relatives, all living nearby or in the same household. Particular forms include the stem a ...

(joint family) to live in. Manduva Logili houses built in olden days before the 1950s and 1960s are still found in rural villages of

East Godavari East Godavari is a district in the Coastal Andhra region of Andhra Pradesh, India. Its district headquarters is at Rajahmundry. As of census 2011, it became the most populous district of the state with a population of 5,151,549. In the Madras Pre ...

, West Godavari,

Guntur Guntur () is a city and the administrative headquarters of Guntur district in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. Guntur is spread across 168.49 km square and is the third-largest city in the state. It is situated to the west of the ...

Nellore Nellore is a city located on the banks of Penna River, in Nellore district of the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. It serves as the headquarters of the district, as well as Nellore mandal and Nellore revenue division. It is the fourth most popu ...

Vizianagaram Vizianagaram is a city and the headquarters of Vizianagaram district in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. It is central Eastern Ghats, about west of the Bay of Bengal and north-northeast of Visakhapatnam. The city has a population of 228,02 ...

, and

Kadapa Kadapa (colonial spelled Cuddapah) is a city in the southern part of Andhra Pradesh, India. It is located in the Rayalaseema region, and is the district headquarters of YSR Kadapa district. As of the 2022 Census of India, the city had a popula ...

districts.

Construction

The walls of Manduva Logili houses are constructed with gummy soils or red bricks and the roofs are supported by logs of

rosewood Rosewood refers to any of a number of richly hued timbers, often brownish with darker veining, but found in many different hues. True rosewoods All genuine rosewoods belong to the genus ''Dalbergia''. The pre-eminent rosewood appreciated in ...

(Dalbergia Latifolia) or

teak Teak (''Tectona grandis'') is a tropical hardwood tree species in the family Lamiaceae. It is a large, deciduous tree that occurs in mixed hardwood forests. ''Tectona grandis'' has small, fragrant white flowers arranged in dense clusters (panicl ...

wood. Top of the roof are covered with red tiles. The inside of a typical Manduva Logili will have a common hall with several spacious rooms spanning in all four directions. The roof of the house is supported by several giant wooden pillars. The center of the common hall is usually topless to let the air and light come in. A pit is constructed on the floor just below the open top, so that rain water fall into the pit, and from there it goes out of the house through drain. Some Manduva houses will not have open top, instead it is closed, and a pipe is fixed just above. The rain water from the top falls into a small constructed pit through the pipe.

Maintenance

Manduva Logili houses are often prone to attacks of

termite Termites are small insects that live in colonies and have distinct castes ( eusocial) and feed on wood or other dead plant matter. Termites comprise the infraorder Isoptera, or alternatively the epifamily Termitoidae, within the order Blat ...

s (white ants). Its maintenance is very expensive. Today it is almost impossible to get huge wooden logs in the market, due to tightening of laws related to forestry.

Existence status

These kind of house constructions are under extinction because of urbanization, western culture influence and downfall of traditional joint family system.

References

{{reflist House types