Build India Architectural Journalism - Green Building - Gaurav Sardana

Build India Architectural Journalism Competition 2009-10, India Category : Green Building Practices Merit : 2nd Prize, Article | 1st Prize, Presentation Team : Dhruv Seth, Gaurav Sardana, Manali Bhutwala, Saurabh Mhatre (NMIMS BSSA 2012 & 2013)

Magic Bus Foundation, Karjat by Architecture BRIO Architecture has always been a reflection of the extent of human development, greatly dependant on the economy of that era among other parameters of religion, society and beliefs.

Triggered by the Industrial revolution and accelerated greatly over the past few years, there was a major shift that the world saw from medium scale development to large scale development. The need for economies to sustain over a longer period of time fuelled massive urbanization that led to increased migration of rural peoples to urban metropolises.

Consequently, the quality and quantity of urban and rural centers went in diametrically opposite directions. The changing lifestyles of people are resulting in the expense of limited resources at speeds which the planet cannot sustain.

This rapid expansion and consequent degradation of urban centers and similarity of expression in the built environment, combined with climate change and resource depletion has gradually built the need for new means of sustainable and optimized resource management and its implementation in architectural realms.

In response of these issues, planners and designers are exploring schemes to counter the degeneration afforded over the past few decades. The necessity of sustainable technologies which can counter the explosive energy use as well as reduce the carbon footprint of buildings has increased.

The needs of a progressing world have changed over the years. Consequently, the definition of a ‘green’ building over the centuries has drastically transformed from one which has to reduce the energy consumption to one where the building acts as a source and itself generates energy.

Sustainable buildings are sensitive in various aspects: their footprint, orientation, and technology use and energy management. They in some way replicate the fundamentals of ‘Organic’ architecture: taking the site conditions as a start point for their initial response to the architectural problem at hand. The response is such as to suit existing the site and climatic conditions to form an integrated design solution.

A lot of these features have been ideally explored to the fullest extent in the following project which uses innovative ways to redefine and push the extents of current sustainable design.

Magic Bus, an NGO founded in Mumbai, aims at sustained intervention of life skills development for at-risk children. They strongly believe that Experiential Learning is very close to the natural style of how children learn and explore their environment. The NGO furthermore wished to have the nature of their organization: social and economic sustainability reflected in the architecture of the campus. The structures on the campus therefore needed to have a sustainable character, and at the same time blend in with the environment.

A main concern for the client was the limited construction budget determined by money put together through fund raising and available resources. This limitation affected the availability of materials and energy, building time, skilled labor, financial scarcity, and was further increased due to the remote location of the project. Through the project the architects aimed at using a practical yet creative design to lower the environmental load of buildings and simultaneously turn scarcity into innovative architecture.

Buildings in use or in the course of erection are the largest sources of carbon emission accounting for over 50% of the total world emission. The manufacturing phases of building components, their transport, energy used during building construction and actual use constitute various phases of energy use.

The staff dormitory reduces the consumption of energy: - Through the use of materials with minimum embodied energy and reduction of quantity of material required, - Through the use of local materials, thereby reducing energy consumed during transportation, -By minimising consumption of energy during operation achieved due to orientation of building / insulation, -Properties / natural ventilation / natural daylight / water harvesting and treatment cycle, - By improving recyclability through the use of dry construction techniques and -Through solutions for better, more responsible use of materials – use of sustainable, ecological, multi-purpose materials – Bamboo.

The potentials of new building techniques, re-appropriating low-cost materials in an effective and durable way, and intelligent energy concepts were uncovered and integrated in an innovative way in this architecture at Karjat.

A typological precedent for this project was a missionary bungalow. It was a small but comfortable dwelling built with a hipped roof and overhanging eaves to provide shade and shelter to the structure from the tropical sun and monsoon winds and rain. To keep within budget the building plan needed to be compact. The linear plan of the bungalow allowed for an efficient way of distributing private spaces along a common veranda, where people could interact. In order to reduce the footprint of the building, a two-storey section proved to be the most efficient. The typology was reinvented by placing half of this structure on stilts on the edge of a ridge, which created an extra space below for recreational purposes.

(C) Architecture Brio, Mumbai

Native design combined with contemporary technology form a new architectural language

A part of the site is sloping and is surrounded by paddy fields and small sleepy villages. The dormitory is proposed to be located at the tip of the land, on top of a plateau. The large covered verandas and the narrow width of the building envelope allow for comfortably ventilated and shaded semi-indoor spaces. The building has to respond to extreme, contrasting and changing landscape conditions by allowing enough shade and breeze during the summer and providing a waterproof indoor environment during the stormy monsoons.

Materials have been used in conjunction based on their inherent strengths and weaknesses to form a cohesive structure which optimizes material properties and minimizes their quantity and dimensions. Columns consist of two bamboos with a diameter of 90mm and are linked together by steel strips forming posts at every 1.5-meter.

By linking two bamboos together, the columns become exponentially stronger. Trusses made of pre-cast concrete and steel tension cables span between the columns. The floors are made of half cut bamboo, with the round face downwards, a layer of 50 mm PCC on top, and finished with a layer of natural stone. Walls are infill panels made of split bamboo covered with reinforced plaster on the inside. Bamboo is used for the columns and walls; natural stone and polished concrete finish is used for the floors.

Diagram : (C) Architecture Brio, Mumbai

Innovation through thorough understanding of contextual and material needs The linear plan of the building is exploited for its excellent cross ventilation and sun control to avoid the need for air conditioning. During the hot summer months between March and June when the temperatures can rise to 40 degrees, the suns latitude almost reaches 90 degrees. With the short sides of the building oriented East-West, the surface area that is exposed to the sun is minimised.

Water supply has been addressed through the use of the site slope and the monsoons. The use of channels and gutters facilitates water collection in tanks and the subsequent recycling of waste water has been fused with the landscape in the form of overflow ponds and lush wetlands.

Bamboo was found to be an appropriate material because of its structural properties. The high strength and low weight factor of bamboo makes it remarkably earthquake and cyclone resistant. It was found that for steel it is necessary to spend 50 times more energy than for bamboo. In the production of one tonne steel two tonnes of CO2 is produced. In contrast the bamboo plant absorbs CO2 besides producing oxygen. In order to build 1000 houses annually, the bamboo of only a 60-hectare plantation is required, whereas it would require 500 hectares of

forest cover for an equivalent project using timber. Considering that the tensile resistance compared to the specific weight of bamboo is six times greater than that of steel, the use of bamboo proves to be an attractive substitute for steel.

Using all these features, the architects have integrated ‘sustainability’ as a concept rather than a modification in the project. It speaks a contemporary language and hopes to become the way of communication of architecture in future environments. It simultaneously uses minimal resources and multiple usages of spaces coupled with optimization and innovation in these aspects. This integration of technology and design addresses multi-faceted issues: Resource Management, Site Considerations, Client Requirements and Climatic Conditions, which have simultaneously blurred boundaries to address present problems.

The ‘Process’ has generated a ‘Product’ which can be a driver in coming environments while still satisfying practical and contextual needs- a ‘Product’ with minimum impact on its environs and maximum impact on the prevalent needs. We have seen in the past two years the impact of uncontrolled, unsustainable markets on the economy of the world. The same impact needs to be prevented in the world of architecture and the built environment. The disastrous conditions that will come about if today’s unsustainable methods of building continue are easy to foresee. Sustainable building needs to be increasingly understood, conceptualized and implemented. The reflection of today’s era of human development yet needs to be formed; today’s definition of architecture is still to be built.