Bankatta Community Initiative, Madi Valley
by Sustainable Mountain Architecture
Chitwan District, Nepal
Project details
Year
2025
Project year
2024
Site area
400 m²
Project website
Location
Team credits
Architects
- Sustainable Mountain Architecture -
Prof. Anne Feenstra,
Ar. Alisha Adhikari,
Ar. Himanshu Lal,
Ar. Aman Raj Khatakho,
Ar. Aarati Rana,
Kusum Lama,
Shuvashna Pradhan,
Francesca Dallo Mora.
project team
- Connecting Spaces -
Monika Schaffner.
Sushant Tiwari,
Sarita Bote,
Sanshila Hamal.
- Sustainable Mountain Architecture -
Eng. Laxman Khanal,
Eng. Suresh.
Contributing partners
Green Bamboo Solutions,
MyClimate,
Doko recyclers,
REPIC.
In the remote Madi Valley of southern Nepal, the village of Bankatta lies within the buffer zone of Chitwan National Park – a UNESCO World Heritage Site home to rhinos, elephants, tigers and hundreds of bird species. Surrounded by the park on three sides and bordered by India to the south, it is reachable only by crossing the forest. The Bot people, with their own language and cuisine, have long inhabited this region, but migration to Indian cities and the Gulf had begun to fragment their social and cultural life.
The Bankatta Community Initiative set out to reverse this trend through community-driven eco-tourism and sustainable design. Led by the Bankatta Women Committee in collaboration with Sustainable Mountain Architecture (SMA) and the platform Connecting Spaces, the project created a multipurpose community hall and two eco-cottages as part of a regenerative village model known as Madi Eco-Village. Rather than importing outside expertise, the team built with and for the community, combining vernacular wisdom, local materials and collective labour.
From the start, the process was participatory. Workshops with local women informed both the design and the business model. These same women later trained in hospitality, accounting and waste management, enabling them to manage the eco-village independently. In parallel, vernacular techniques were recorded in a construction library, turning local knowledge into a design tool. Bamboo – renewable, abundant and familiar – emerged as the central material.
The two 32 m² cottages and the 80 m² community hall stand on raised stone plinths to withstand monsoon floods. The cottages use reused Sal timber, hand-woven bamboo wattle-and-daub walls, and second-hand clay roof tiles. The hall, built from treated Dendrocalamus strictus bamboo, is sheltered by a double-curved thatch canopy following the bamboo’s natural bend. High ceilings and cross-ventilation keep interiors cool and bright throughout the hot, humid season.
Every structure is direct and beautiful. Materials are left exposed – earth, bamboo, reused timber and thatch – celebrating local craft. Handmade furniture fills the cottages, and simple details such as woven mats, bamboo blinds and natural soaps express care without luxury. The design shows that sustainability can be tactile and inviting, rooted in skill rather than technology.
Environmental systems were developed with specialist partners. Off-grid solar panels power the buildings, biosand filters purify water, composting and urine-separating toilets reduce waste and decentralized segregation keeps the footprint minimal. Life-cycle assessments guided every choice – from bamboo harvesting to solar installation – ensuring low-carbon construction. Together, these systems create an autonomous infrastructure that functions without external utilities.
Training was as vital as building. Through Green Bamboo Creation, locals learned to harvest and treat bamboo, turning raw material into livelihood. A youth-run bamboo treatment unit now serves the wider valley. Partnerships with MyClimate, NEFACO Nepal and Saral Urja introduced micro-solar grids and clean-water systems, tackling energy and water inequality with replicable, low-tech models.
In 2022 the project began its test phase and was formally handed to the community two years later. Today, Madi Eco-Village operates as a self-sustaining, culturally grounded destination for eco-tourism. Visitors stay in the cottages, share Bot cuisine and join wildlife walks led by local guides. Revenue supports education, environmental care and women’s cooperatives. Beyond tourism, the initiative demonstrates how architecture can nurture dignity, agency and environmental stewardship in fragile ecological zones.
The work was guided by Sustainable Mountain Architecture (SMA), a Kathmandu-based non-profit founded by architect Anne Feenstra, recipient of the Global Award for Sustainable Architecture. Since 2013, SMA has advanced climate-conscious design in the Himalayas, combining practice and education to develop low-tech solutions rooted in local knowledge. Its projects – from earthen-construction workshops to the Sagarmatha Next Centre near Everest – show that architecture can adapt, heal and endure when built with communities.
The Bankatta Community Initiative shows what architecture can achieve when it grows from within a community instead of being imposed upon it. It is at once a building project, a social enterprise and a form of cultural preservation. The collaboration between architects, environmentalists and the women of the Bot community has produced something larger than its physical scale – a self-sustaining ecosystem of skills and solidarity. Built with care, grounded in place and carried forward by its people, Madi Eco-Village offers a hopeful model for the Himalayas: an architecture that endures by empowering those who inhabit it.
The prize money will fund the next step in Madi Valley: replicating the community-hall model in Rai Tole, a neighbouring settlement of the Rai community. Using the same bamboo-building system developed in Bankatta, this new project will extend knowledge sharing and strengthen the region’s self-reliant network of eco-villages.
- Information for the project text was provided by Sustainable Mountain Architecture -
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Advisory Committee Statement
‘The Bankatta Community Initiative, Madi Valley’ receives the award for Local Scale for its inclusive and self-organised approach to socially and ecologically grounded architecture developed with the Bot community in Nepal. In this project, SMA worked particularly with the women of the Bot community to create a community hall for public activities and a series of eco-cottages. This collaboration fostered both community building and a welcoming place for visitors. The high-quality architecture, developed through a co-creative process, is combined with a strong social vision: newly acquired technical skills have strengthened the community. This project stands as an exemplary model of architecture that builds self-reliance. It also integrates environmental conditions and local resources – resisting seasonal flooding and using locally available materials.