Most of the residents in the Sundarbans in West Bengal live in mud homes, but only until they get the money needed to build concrete houses. Bidyut Roy, an artist and architect, is on a mission to persuade locals that mud and other natural materials can make for a modern home.

For the past three months, Mr. Roy has been using clay, bamboo, dried hogla leaves, stones and cow dung to renovate one of four mud homes on Bali Island that belonged to four families who sold the buildings and a 3.3-acre plot of land to Help Tourism, a private company based in Siliguri that develops and promotes tourism destinations. The families sold their houses to move inland because Cyclone Aila, which devastated the area in 2009, made the land too saline for cultivation.

Help Tourism is rebuilding the homes, at a cost of 1.6 million rupees ($28,800) each, as part of its Sundergaon Heritage Earth Villas project, which will serve as a resort for tourists looking for a village experience on the island. Like the group’s earlier successful enterprise, Sunderbans Jungle Camp, the current project is intended to promote folk architecture and tribal art that make use of locally available materials and modern techniques to build structures that are strong and safe.

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