Andhra Pradesh Andhra Pradesh (ISO 15919, ISO: , , AP) is a States and union territories of India, state on the East Coast of India, east coast of southern India. It is the List of states and union territories of India by area, seventh-largest state and th ...

, 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, ...

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 ...

(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 Rajamahendravaram. Geography This district is surrounded by: * North East: Alluri Sitharama Raju district * North West: Eluru d ...

West Godavari The West Godavari district is a coastal district in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh with an administrative headquarters in Bhimavaram. As of the 2011 Census of India, the district has an area of and a population of 1,779,935. It is bounded ...

Guntur Guntur (), natively spelt as Gunturu, is a city in the States and union territories of India, Indian state of Andhra Pradesh and the administrative headquarters of Guntur district. The city is part of the Andhra Pradesh Capital Region and is lo ...

Nellore Nellore, also spelt as Nelluru, is a city located on the banks of Penna River, in Nellore district of Andhra Pradesh, India.Vizianagaram Vizianagaram, also known as Vijayanagaram, is a city and the headquarters of the Vizianagaram district in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. It is located in the Eastern Ghats, about west of the Bay of Bengal and north-northeast of Visakhapa ...

, and

Kadapa Kadapa 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. It is located south of the Penna River. The city is surrounded on three sides by ...

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 is any of a number of richly hued hardwoods, often brownish with darker veining, but found in other colours. It is hard, tough, strong, and dense. True rosewoods come from trees of the genus '' Dalbergia'', but other woods are often ca ...

(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 (panic ...

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 a group of detritivore, detritophagous Eusociality, eusocial cockroaches which consume a variety of Detritus, decaying plant material, generally in the form of wood, Plant litter, leaf litter, and Humus, soil humus. They are dist ...

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