The country generates about 530 million tonnes of construction and demolition waste annually and the dust from such waste contributes 20% of the air pollution in big cities. Mumbai is one such city which is grappling with one of the highest percentage of air pollution. In such scenario, emerges the need to resolve eco-friendly ways of construction of buildings. Trupti Doshi, a Mumbai-based architect has come up with a technique.
After successfully venturing in an eco-friendly rural development centre created in Tamil Nadu, she has co-founded her own company, ‘The Auroma Group’, that works on constructing environment-sensitive homes. Trupti Doshi started working along architect Jateen Lad, the Chief Co-Architect at Sri Aurobindo Society, the NGO wing of Sri Aurobindo Ashram in Pondicherry. This centre for rural transformation is spread across five acres of land on the outskirts of Pondicherry which is made of the very soil it stands on.
“I understood the hazardous consequences of the present construction-work on our environment while taking a Humanity class during college. I got to know how, to large extent, the carbon-dioxide emission is done by the construction industry with their insensitive building practices. I resolved that, I am not gonna end up in the same conveyer-belt,” said Trupti.
Basically to construct something which is sensitive to the environment, will be automatically healthy for human life. With this on her mind, Trupti decided to go different from the conventional way. Talking about her work from the scratch, Trupti pointed out, “The material, design and technology with which the home is constructed, the services that go in the process, the water, waste, energy, cooling and everything has to be different to create an Eco-friendly home.”
The architect worked with large palate of materials such as unfired earth, lime, reclaimed wood and fly ash which is the by-product of the thermal plant. “So one thing to do is to reduce the use of cement through appropriate building technology. Because in many cases you cannot erase the use of cement, but you can optimise the use of cement. I constructed a roof which, if constructed with normal brick and the conventional methods, would have taken around 10,000 bags to be built. I built it with 33 bags of cement only,” said Trupti.
To build the Sharanam Rural Development Centre, Trupti carried out a topographical survey to select the region with the lowest contour. “His area was dug to form a pond so that rainwater would flow in that direction and collect in the pond. The soil obtained from digging was used to make compressed stabilised earth blocks to construct the building,” said Trupti. The cost of construction was 40% cheaper than conventional concrete buildings. The development centre serves as the venue for several activities in the village. The United Nations Environment Programme has recognised it as a model for sustainable development in India.
According to the architect, the lime plaster can be used in place of regular plaster as it helps to keep the building cool. In such way, the air conditioning load decreases.
“We compress fly-ash to create building blocks, it works like brick which is not the red brick but is three times stronger. It is made with the waste product of a thermal plant. So if this waste product would otherwise not be utilized it would cause lot off air pollution. The bricks are cost effective too; financially, they are one third of the cost if compared to the red brick of same strength. It is also one tenth of the environment cost, in terms of carbon-emission,” added Trupti.
However, to build something extra-ordinary such as this would need an extra-ordinary work-skill too. The company under the supervision of Trupti and her brother, Viral Doshi, a building technologist, have trained more than 450 people as per the required skills. Telling about her present projects. Trupti said, “Currently we are doing large residential complex, Auroma French Villaments in Pondicherry. In our company we do everything from master-planning, design , furniture, interiors, products, graphics, landscape, everything we do under one roof. There is an upcoming project in Mumbai which is a large school building. We are yet to sign the MoU (Memorandum of Understanding).” Not many people know that the architect-duo are the niece and nephew of the same architect who created Mahatma Gandhi's samadhi at Rajghat.
Given the hot and humid climate of Mumbai, the need to evaluate the sustainability of such buildings becomes a requisite. However, according to Trupti, the replication of her work in Mumbai is not impossible. “Sharanam was created in Pondicherry which is also hot and humid and near the sea. It can be replicated in Mumbai as well as the products are readily available. The way to deal with it, one has to see the climatic condition and the context with which the building is built. The building has to act like an extension of your skin, the way skin keeps you thermally comfortable in different climate zones. So with this in mind, the architect should plan the buildings in such way that the energy consumption comes down and the operational cost of the building comes down,” remarked Trupti.