SDA 2022 Entries

• Commercial Building - Buildings that are used for commercial purposes, and include retail, hospitality, workplaces, factories and warehouses and buildings where commercial services are provided. At least 50 percent of the buildings’ floor space will be used for commercial activities. 
• Public Building - Public Buildings used by the public for any purpose, such as assembly, education, entertainment, government, healthcare, transport or worship. This will also include civic centres, community centres, libraries, visitor centres, culture, health + wellbeing, faith, education, sports venues and stadia, transport, central + local government, entertainment and event venues

An existing campus in Agara, Madhya Pradesh needed to add 4 classrooms, for 50 students each. The location of the project posed logistical hurdles as the closest town was 4 hours away by road, making sourcing and procurement of materials difficult. The building proposed was hence designed using locally available materials, knowledge systems and skillsets with a low-cost approach.
The school is located in an arid and hot area in the Chambal Valley, close to the Rajasthan border and Thar desert. Dust storms and temperatures climbing to 50 degrees C in the summer needed to be dealt with in long unrelenting summers. The building is designed with climate sensitivity, using passive measures like orientation and cavity walls. A deep corridor all along the south face of the buiding provides ample shade from the harsh south sun. The openings provided on this face are also made slender in order to reduce heat intake from this facade. The north facade is provided with larger openings to bring in natural light and ventilation.
The structure of the building is designed to be load bearing masonry with RCC beams and slabs. This is done to reduce the cost of constructing columns, thereby reducing concrete as well as steel in the building. The slab is further designed to be a filler slab using earthen pots. This further reduces the amount of concrete needed in the slab as well as provide an aesthetically richer look to the classrooms.
The project is aimed to be socially sustainable by encouraging the community to celebrate indigenous materials and systems and to have a close connection with the new building being built. Various facets of the construction are done by local craftsmen and skilled workers generating employment for the villagers. The clay pots for the filler slab were all made by a potter at the village in his small pottery shop as per the specifications explained to him.

Apart from providing good educational space to the community, overall the goal of the project was to engage and exhibit to them how their indigenous knowledge systems could be tweaked and reinterpreted to make a functional as well as aesthetic building, while reducing its carbon footprint and being environmentally sustainable.

The building was completed in 2019 but is constantly under transformation by its users and the local community. The total cost of construction was approximately INR 6,000,000 (USD 81,400)

The structure of the building is designed to be load bearing masonry with RCC beams and slabs. This is done to reduce the cost of constructing columns, thereby reducing concrete as well as steel in the building. The slab is further designed to be a filler slab using earthen pots. This further reduces the amount of concrete needed in the slab as well as provide an aesthetically richer look to the classrooms. The walls are designed to be double layered using local river bed stones on the outside and a layer of brick on the inside. The elevation of the building is an exposed dressed stone masonry intersected by bands of thick local stone sills and lintels juxtaposed with the composite concrete structure of the building.

The school is located in an arid and hot area in the Chambal Valley, close to the Rajasthan border and Thar desert. Dust storms and temperatures climbing to 50 degrees C in the summer needed to be dealt with in long unrelenting summers. The building is designed with climate sensitivity, using passive measures like orientation and dual walls of 550 mm thickness to provide natural insulation. A deep corridor all along the south face of the buiding provides ample shade from the harsh south sun. The openings provided on this face are also made slender in order to reduce heat intake from this facade. The north facade is provided with larger openings to bring in natural light and ventilation.
The project is aimed to be socially sustainable by encouraging the community to celebrate indigenous materials and systems and to have a close connection with the new building being built. Various facets of the construction are done by local craftsmen and skilled workers generating employment for the villagers. The clay pots for the filler slab were all made by a potter at the village in his small pottery shop as per the specifications explained to him. The stone used in the masonry was locally quarried from the river bed and dressed at site.

Apart from providing good educational space to the community, overall the goal of the project was to engage and exhibit to them how their indigenous knowledge systems could be tweaked and reinterpreted to make a functional as well as aesthetic building, while reducing its carbon footprint and being environmentally sustainable.

The largest issue faced was pertaining to the location of the site and the difficulty to make materials reach here. Located in a remote village in the tribal heartlands of central India using shop bought materials was not an option. Hence, only locally sourced and crafted materials were used in the project. The local stone that was dressed at site which was a time consuming and tedious process as each stone was hand chiseled and shaped. This increased the construction time from that earlier anticipated.
It was also a challenge to produce all the earthen pots of the filler slab since it was carried out by a local village potter and getting factory made replications and precisions was not possible. Each pot was handcrafted on a manual wheel which meant some variations existed that needed to be incorporated into the design.

Overall the project is a handcrafted building in a time when factory made and modular is the way of the world.

As architects it is imperative that buildings we design are sensitive to the environment and their context. To be able to creatively use material to make an environmentally sensitive design was the goal of this school project that uses only local materials and local skillsets. The building works as an educational tool for the society through its construction process. The project uses local stone masonry, potted filler slabs and passive cooling systems where material and environment are the main design factors keeping in mind societal and people centric approaches.