Macquette for Sitting type Eco San pan

We have been working at the design of Eco San toilets at least for the past 7-8 years and have been constantly exploring design ideas. Dahir Nisha , a student from Chennai, who joined us as a trainee was made to work at making a life size model of an Eco San Sitting type WC. Here are some pictures and drawings of the attempt.
A lot of work was done in anthropometric studies too and it was at that tiem the table lamp Wc was bought for more understanding.We could not make this because of the high cost of the mould.
In the next post we would see the journey to making of a different kind of squatting pan for us washers.

Biome In Nigeria

Biome was involved in the design of a student housing project in Nigeria and the subsequent technology transfer process. Biome worked with the local staff of Earthblocks, Nigeria the developers in,

• Site identification
• Developing the building brief and design
• Soil identification and modification
• Making of rammed earth foundations
• Making of stabilised mud bricks and building walls
• Making of Pre-cast roofing panels and Pre-cast concrete beams
• Making mud centering for roofs and lintels

SheelRaj Shetty and Sharath Nayak were involved in the technology transfer process and worked jointly on the design with Chitra.

www.biome-solutions.com

Chitra here.I like stories associated with projects and this one has an interesting one.
The process of this design and execution was a truly global one. The client, Mr.Mobolaji, sent us an email while he was working in Ireland .Frankly we did not believe the email at all in the beginning.Mobolaji came over to India met us and gave us presentation of the site.He then travelled to Auroville to see more mud buildings as well purchase a machine.
Then while he was staying over for three days in Bangalore we spent whole day and major part of the night on two days working out a design based on teh climatic conditions--which were to maximise the wind movement for the humid equatorial climate. Anne , trainee from Germany helped us in making a 3D-one of the first 3Ds done in the office. It was fun and we called the building "The Butterfly".
After Mobolaji's return , he sent an architect Jimmy over to us to be trained for construction.We did try our best with training Jimmy but he did contribute to Indian economy by purchasing lots of stuff in India.
When the construction was to begin Sharath went to Oru and helped in streamlining the construction as well as scouted for a better site in terms of location and quality of the soil.
The new site changed the design which was made into four replicable parts and Sheel went over to help /train build the same. Sheel stayed for eight months and built quite a large portion of the first phase while experimented and demonstrated different techniques to the construction folks.

Utopian dreams

Sarita and Dinesh are the developers of a gated community called Utopia, and wanted an ecological house in their new community to be the beacon of their philosophy. The ground floor of the house has two distinct spaces: one for the inhabitants built around a courtyard with an embedded rock surface, and a service core which houses the utility and drying space and an accommodation for drivers.

The ground floor in the home area has a foyer, a puja in the northeast corner of the plot, living room, dining room and kitchen, and three bedrooms. The first floor of the home is two bedrooms for the children and an open verandah living space for the swing. In the service core is a small apartment for the household help.

The house was designed to harvest all of its rainwater and also treats its black and greywater, which are used for landscape and recharge. This project taught new skills to the team at Ventures, such as coloured cement flooring. It also brought new skilled personnel to the Ventures team.

The house has been designed by Martin Laffierere of Biome Architects, Bangalore

www.biome-solutions.com

Gowri and Harish's house. A Mud house next to a multi story apartment.

With the plot located right behind a huge apartment complex near outer ring road, we were approached to design for them an ecologically sensitive house. The couple, Mr.Harish Iyer who works for a Bio-technology firm and Mrs.Gowri Iyer, who is involved in Education Research decided to build and live in a home that reflected their beliefs.

The walls of the House are built with the mud by stabilizing its with 7% of cement, compressing it, sun-drying and curing it. Thus the whole wall system completely removed the need to burn anything for its production.

The curved roof of Jack Arches has kept the steel and concrete consumption much lower than a conventional RCC roof.The ribbed hollow clay block roofing keeps the room cooler on a hot day due to its thickness and air-gap.

Cooler evening wind drifts the hot air inside creating a pleasant space inside throughout the year.

The Kota and Jaisalmer stone flooring in the Living and Lounge spaces add to the presence of the stone pillars inside.

Clay tile flooring in the bedrooms maintain almost a constant temperature throughout the year and more importantly keep the users healthy.

The natural light flows in through skylights and windows avoiding use of artificial lighting till the dusk.

The wind crosses through the house and lets it cool without the need for a AC even on a hottest day.

The House harvests all of its rainwater and also treats its washing machine grey water to flush the toilet in lower floors.

The house has been designed by Monalika Nanda and built by Mr. M.C.Narayan

just reminiscing..........

We are besieged with questions from young as well as other architects as to how is it that they can practice sustainable architecture or build in mud?
Yes, there are umpteen workshops and trainings which are organised by many( we too want to get ourselves into this space;)), but they rarely arm the attendees with practical knowledge and also site specific decision making. The other thing these events miss is Human interaction which is needed to pursue this thread of idea. It is generally assumed that we have had it easy....yes when we Vishu and I started we were young and it did not feel the process to be difficult.We were also lucky to have had friends , who are now friends for life, with the same kind of enthusiasm , and also commitment. I for one shoudl also not miss the contribution of family members---though it may all end up being seen as as Oscar?Grammy acceptance speech. My FIL and BIL being civil engineers contributed in me learning the practical as well as structural design aspect respectively. My MIL . I couldn't ahve done without her contribution at all...and there is a long list of it ......................
All of us had one common thread and that was questioning the existing way of working?why not- was a question we kept asking in every situation??? Why should be what is conventional be followed? Laurie Baker and IISc were pioneers we looked up to but since we also liked to twist our design education around we questioned both of them and worked at an amalgamation of Laurie and IISc with a lot of personal Masala to dish up something new and relevant.
Bnagalore is a blessed city not only with regards to climate but also regards to its people.SO, for us though the city and its environs provided us with materials and skills, its the people who gave us the responsibility to work on their houses have played a very important part in this journey of ours.
Thus for past twenty years we have been working on the same concepts, evolving as well as maturing it as a good wine...Our original connections have remained and have become stronger cause now we have also bonded with their families and have also developed newer connections. On board many young enthusiast have joined us and taken ownership, and taking forward this vehicle.
Personally now I feel its needed that BIOME establishes itself as a vehicle which would assist newer members of architectural and construction fraternity to establish themselves in genuine Sustainable design ideas.

Kumars house- Ecological city house on a small plot of land

People often ask us the question whether it one needs a large plot to build an ecological house, whether it is possible to build something nice and simaltaneously eco-friendly on a small plot of land within the city.

Here is a project designed by Biome in Malleshwaram, Bangalore in the year 2000. This is a 2 bedroom house on a plot of dimensions 15 feet x 40 feet. Given similar constraints of plot size, neighbours had already built till the edge of this plot. To provide for light, ventilation and privacy, the house has a staircase around a central skylit court. The court provided the light and air to the house and also enables the owners to have privacy from the neighbours and has murals by artist Sanjay Singh along the stairs.

Designed by Deepak Godhi and built by Mr.Ranganath this house is a framed RCC structure with 6" thick SMB(stabilized Mud Blocks) walls . It harvests it's water and has ample daylight. At a cost of about Rs.600/Sft, it costed much less than a conventional structure of a similar size at that time.Besides it also saves money on water, and use of external energy for ventilation and lighting.

Sunny's cob house

Sunny's house was designed by Sheel. Sunny is an organic farmer who will be growing his own food on the rest of the plot using harvested water from an excavated pond. The earth from this excavation is used to build the walls of this house. The walls are 18 inches thick. It was mostly built using local labor with some contribution from volunteers over the weekends. The volunteers were students and young architects, who learnt the art of cob building in the process.

The intermediate floor for this house is of precast panels and the final roof is of reinforced concrete.

The house harvests water for drinking and cooking needs and also has a composting toilet.

The construction of this house saw a few hilarious incidents in form of comments from lot of curious neighbours who thought of it to be a brick klin and sometimes to be a temple.