ADHARSHILA - A LOW COST AND SUSTAINABLE SCHOOL
Status - Complete
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.
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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.
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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.
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Special Mention - HUDCO Design Awards 2022-23 (Green Buildings)
Winner , GeeVees 2022 by FOAID India, Eduacation Category for Adharshila School, Madhya Pradesh
Winner of Bronze Trophy for Education Category, Wade Asia 2022 and silver trophy in Most Sustainable Design category at the WADe Asia 2019 Awards
Finalist- Surface Design Awards 2022, London – Public Buidling Interiors Category, Adharshila School
Shortist- Architecture in Development Global Challenge 2021, Netherlands, Adharshila School
Winner - Wade Asia 2023 - Young Architect of the Year
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