Project Hariharpur Uttar Pradesh, India
Project Hariharpur
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WORKSHOP architecture
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Project Hariharpur
WORKSHOP architecture is a non-profit design+make studio that focuses on collaboration, learning by doing, and cultivating a deep understanding of place. Living temporarily with the communities we are working with, we bring new ideas whilst engaging in local building crafts and materials, to bring about an architecture of exchange that is both challenging and pragmatic. The studio is led by Clementine Blakemore, Alexander Furunes and Ivar Tutturen, who build a team of local collaborators with every project. 16.06.13
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Project Hariharpur
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WORKSHOP architecture
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Introduction
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Project Harihapur (2013) was our second project in India, a collaboration with the Indian Trust for Rural Heritage and Development, carried out in partnership with the British Council, the Architectural Association, the Norwegian University of Science and Technology and Ramboll UK. The brief was to design a structure that could become a prototype for contemporary rural architecture in India, able to accommodate a range of different functions. Our project focused on the design of a new primary school for the village of Hariharpur, located in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh. The built outcome was the first phase of the overall master plan: a two story structure containing toilet and a classroom on the ground floor and a classroom and office on the first floor. The rest of the school buildings will be completed once adequate funds have been raised, and will be overseen by a local construction manager, with the support of Anshu Ahuja, an Indian architect appointed by ITRHD. The process was entirely collaborative, designed and built by the local community, skilled craftspeople, a local construction manager, a community engager, three UK engineers, two Indian architects, and a team of students from the AA/NTNU Visiting Schools ‘Building Community II & III’. As initiators of the project, our main role was to bring things together – ideas, skills, people – acting not so much as facilitators but curators, shaping the project through interaction and collaboration.
Project Hariharpur
The wheat fields of Hariharpur.
WORKSHOP architecture
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Introduction
The barrel vaulted roof in the primary school’s ground floor.
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Contents
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October
December
January
Sourcing Funds p.10
Place & Partner p.14
Defining the Project p.28
Strategy p.32
Research p.56
Cost Estimate p.168
The Blog p.190
February
March
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April
May
June
Engagement p.74
Design Process p100 Construction p.126 Handing Over p.162 Reflecting p.172
Project Hariharpur
October – December
WORKSHOP architecture
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Sourcing Funds
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Whether architectural firms making small donations or large institutions providing one-off grants, our funders play an important role. Being in some way ‘accountable’ to people one step removed from the project can be very productive, and allows the local dialogues taking place on site to join a wider international discussion. Rather than being donated simply for charitable purposes, the money has been provided by organisations which believe that architecture can be a tool to promote positive social change.
The main funder for Project Hariharpur was the British Council, which we had originally approached in the summer of 2012 to inquire about the possibility of funding for Project Chander Nagar, our previous venture in India. We were interested in collaborating with the British Council, as its remit to foster creative exchange aligns closely with our ambition to create a platform for interaction between people from all walks of life. The council’s focus on education is also particularly relevant given the emphasis we place on sharing skills, and disseminating the knowledge acquired through our projects. After a meeting with Aanchal Sodhani, the British Council’s Senior Project Manager for Art, Architecture and Fashion in Delhi, we decided to pursue an Overseas Development Grant in partnership with the Architectural Association, for a new project in India.
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We were granted this in October 2012, and soon after
Just before construction started on-site, we were
established ourselves as a registered UK charity citing
informed by ITRHD that they were applying for
‘Community Capacity Building’ as our charitable
additional money from the Oil and Natural Gas
aim. The total funding we received from the British
Corporation (ONGC), in order to fund the completion
Council – approximately £30,000 – was much larger
of the master plan that we had designed. This
than we had raised for previous projects and thus
application has been submitted, and ITRHD have had
enabled our travel and living expenses to be covered
oral confirmation of funding, but as yet no funds have
on top of the material, labour and administrative costs
been received.
of the project. It also covered recce trips to identify an appropriate local partner, and an exhibition at the British Council in Delhi, which offered an opportunity for structural and material research in the form of
We made the decision to work pro-bono primarily because we were given an opportunity to design and build something tangible at this stage in our careers.
mock-ups before beginning work on site at Hariharpur.
Having initiated and raised funds for the project
Further funding was raised by the two AA Visiting
were happy for as much of the money as possible to
Schools that we held; first in Delhi as part of the
go into the building itself. Clem realised that if she
exhibition installation and subsequently in Hariharpur
was working as a junior architect in London (with a
at the start of the construction phase. We waived
dismal salary and very high living costs!) she would
our salaries as Visiting School Directors in order
be in exactly the same financial situation at the end
to lower the price of the workshop, hoping to
of the year; for Ivar and Alex, this project counts as
thereby encourage applicants from a wider range of
their final thesis project at NTNU, so they’re students
backgrounds. The money raised by the fees (£195 per
anyway. It’s therefore important to acknowledge that
person) together with a contribution of approximately
we were gaining a lot from the project, despite not
£1600 by the Norwegian University of Science and
receiving any financial reward. We hope that many
Technology with whom the second AA Visiting School
of our professional collaborators, who on the whole
was held, were directly used to purchase materials
worked pro-bono or otherwise for a very modest
for the Visiting Schools. These newly sourced funds
honorarium, feel that they too received something less
were supplemented with money donated to us the
tangible than money, but perhaps just as valuable: an
previous year by architecture firms in the UK and
interesting experience, new knowledge, stimulating
Norway as well as charitable individuals. We wrote to
conversations, friendship, and a sense of having
these sponsors in December to update them that their
contributed to something worthwhile.
money would now be used for Project Hariharpur. We would like to take this opportunity to thank David Chipperfield Architects, Rojo Arkitekter, Svein Skibnes Arkitektkontor, Øystein Thommesen, Madsø Sveen Arkitekter, Carl-Viggo Hølmebakk, Per Knudsen Arkitektkontor, Solem Arkitektur, Arc Arkitekter, Rambøll Trondheim, Arne Winther, Eggen Arkitekter, Manijeh Verghese, NTNU, Eric Wragge, Michael Frayn, Tatiana Tunstall-Behrens and Tanya McCallin.
ourselves, on the basis that we would not be paid, we
Sourcing Funds
Top At the British Council building in Delhi, after our first meeting with Aanchal Sodhani in August 2012. Bottom The application for an Overseas Development Grant which we applied for the following month.
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Project Hariharpur
December - January
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Place & Partners
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We believe that architecture should be deeply embedded in the social, economic, cultural and climatic context of the site. Our aim is therefore never to implement something new, but rather to build upon what is already there. Through our partners, we are able to gain a greater understanding of the place and the local people; invaluable insights which shape our design process. Working outside of Europe has given us the opportunity to encounter people who lead totally different lives from our own. We hope that our projects will be a productive learning experience for the people we are collaborating with as well as for ourselves; each viewing the other from an outsider’s perspective, interested, and inspired to learn. For us, architecture is a means to exchange knowledge, using designing and making as a platform to discuss, re-think and innovate.
Hariharpur is a village on the outskirts of Azamgarh, a small town in southeastern Uttar Pradesh about 100km north from Benares (Varanasi). The population of Azamgarh is roughly 110000, 53% of which are Hindu and 45% of which are Muslim – much higher than the national figure of just 14%. The inhabitants of Hariharpur are predominantly Hindu and belong to three different communities: Brahmin, Yadav and the Scheduled Caste. Rural Uttar Pradesh was referred as the ‘Wild West’ of India by many of the urban Delhites we met; frequent newspaper reports citing Azamgarh as the home-town of Islamic terrorists hasn’t helped its reputation as a ‘backward’ district with little cultural value. It is, however, home to many beautiful crafts – the best know of which is silk weaving, a tradition Benares is famous for. Part of ITRHD’s agenda in the region is to highlight this lesser-know side of Azamgarh district, and to alter the way in which the area is perceived. Their work is focused on three villages: Mubarakpur, known for its weavers, Nizamabad, which has a tradition of black pottery, and Hariharpur, which is home to a community of classical musicians.
Project Hariharpur
WORKSHOP architecture
Compared to the frantic, modernised, noisy and polluted life we had been leading in Delhi during the run-up to the project, the environment we encountered in the village was a total contrast. A predominantly agrarian society, farming is integrated into everyone’s lives. Spending more than four months there on and off, gave us an insight into the way in which the changing seasons bring different daily routines, and how closely people’s lives are tied into the cycles of the land. Relatively untouched by modern agricultural practices, farming is a collective effort carried out on foot, and by hand. In many ways the life is hard: it’s physically taxing, vulnerable to unpredictable weather patterns, and leaves little time or money for recreation or relaxation. People live in extended families, the social structures of which are very rigid and rarely allow for individual expression or independence. On the other hand, the sense of ‘community’ – a hackneyed term but one we’ll use for want of a better word – is strikingly strong. The elderly matriarch of our neighbouring household played an active role in everyday life: looking after her grand children, cleaning the temple and preparing daily blessings. The routine, stability and tranquility of this life, seem to bring real contentment to many of the villagers.
For the younger generation, however, Hariharpur holds few attractive prospects. Unlike their parents and grandparents, most of whom wear traditional cotton attire, the children and young men in the village have adopted Western clothes – a uniform of distressed jeans, and T-shirts with counterfeited logos and mis-spelled Engligh slogans. Their eyes are firmly set on the city, on white-collar jobs in offices with air-conditioning and computers. Coming from a Western back-ground, with the privilege of being on-site in India one month and back in the comfort of a studio in London the next, it’s hard to make a judgement about this. But there’s a fable often told by the Indian architect Charles Correa which explains why it’s hard to watch a generation reject a way of life that seems so obviously valuable, in favour of an alternative that we know to be so obviously flawed: “When the hippies first came to India in the 1960s, people got very upset. The rich Indian, driving his new Mercedes, just couldn’t understand why a white person would be sitting in the road with lice in his hair. A friend of mine used to say that the hippy is sending us a signal: ‘I am coming from where you are going,’ he is saying. ‘And it’s not worth going there.’”
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Place & Partners
Top The train station at Azamgarh, the nearest city to the village. Bottom A kitchen garden in the village of Hariharpur, with traditional houses in the background.
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Hariharpur, Azamgarh Village in Uttar Pradesh
Region The Indo-Gangetic plains Climate 0-50°C (Composite Climate) Monsoon June – September Seismic Zone IV Population 2000 Language Hindi & Bhojpuri
Hariharpur
Azamgarh
Hariharpur Village
Uttar Pradesh
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Excerpt from The Wall Street Journal
weavers. I discovered this over the weekend, when
...If anyone has heard of Azamgarh at all, it’s usually in
I went to visit a friend whose architecture studio is working with the local community to design and build
connection to a terrorist attack.
a school in Hariharpur, the village of musicians:
Over the years, this sleepy, provincial district in Uttar
In Hariharpur, virtually all men– most of whom
Pradesh state has built the unfortunate reputation of
are farmers or day laborers– either sing or play an
being a breeding ground for terrorists. The latest: As
instrument, like the tabla or the sarangi. They rehearse
many as four out of six men suspected of involvement
early in the mornings and again after sunset...
in the recent twin blasts that killed 16 people in Hyderabad are reportedly from Azamgarh. India Today recently reported that Azamgarh is also where the Mumbai underworld recruits its hit men.
... Nizamabad, Hariharpur and Mubarakpur fall under the protective wing of the Indian Trust for Rural Heritage and Development, which is working to
But there’s a softer, lesser-known side to Azamgarh,
preserve their musical and artisanal traditions.
too. Beneath the surface, the district reveals a remarkable cultural heritage. The rural landscape
By Margherita Stancati
around the city of Azamgarh, is home to a village of
(http://blogs.wsj.com/indiarealtime/2013/04/23/azamgarh-from-
musicians, a village of potters and a village of silk-
terror-hub-to-potters-paradise)
Delhi
India
Project Hariharpur
WORKSHOP architecture
Partners
Together with being our main funder, the British Council acted as a partner on the project – helping us select a local NGO to team up with, attending progress meetings, and visiting the site on a number of occasions. Following our initial meeting at the British Council with Aanchal Sodhani, we continued to work closely with her; Aanchal’s experience delivering high-profile projects with large budgets provided us with valuable insight that helped us to overcome various new challenges as we embarked on our largest project to date. In particular, her deep understanding of the Indian context meant she could act as a mediator between us and our partner NGO, co-signing our ‘Memorandum of Understanding’ with them and helping to resolve any misunderstandings or communication challenges. The British Council’s involvement also enabled the project to expand beyond the site in Hariharpur – through an exhibition in their building in Delhi, and a documentary film for Indian television. Part of our funding strategy for the Overseas Development Grant was to partner with another UK institution. Given our connection with the Architectural Association through the Visiting School Program, and as the school where Alex and Clem had been studying during the previous year, it was a natural choice. The AA has enabled us to reach an international audience by promoting the project through online platforms such as AA Conversations and the AA Life blog, as well as in printed material such as the Visiting School catalogue and the annual Projects Review book. The exhibition mounted in Delhi will be relocating to the Front Members’ Room of the AA, as part of their public program in November. The opening night will be co-hosted by the British Council as the finale of their South Asia season in London, and the documentary will be screened as one of a number of events taking place around the exhibition. As an academic institution, the school furthermore offers a critical environment in which to test the work we’re doing, and we’re hoping to use the forthcoming exhibition as a forum to invite discussion and debate. The Norwegian University of Science and Technology, where Ivar and Alex are completing their Masters, acted as another educational partner. Importantly, the University’s ethos encourages students to design through making and to develop socially motivated projects. The fact that this type of work is recognised within the school’s formal academic structure (this project forms part of Ivar and Alex’s final thesis) has to a large degree facilitated its realisation. This partnership has also supported the project through the University’s encouragement and financial support of their younger students to participate in the Visiting Schools and through the tutoring contact given by Hans Skotte and Sami Rintala.
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Place & Partners
Top The Charles Correa-designed British Council building in Delhi. Bottom Aanchal Sodhani from the British Council visiting us on site in the village.
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Project Hariharpur
WORKSHOP architecture
Following on from their involvement in Chander Nagar, we partnered for the second time with the Ramboll UK, who acted as structural engineers on the project. They visited us on-site in Hariharpur for during the twoweek Visiting School, and were involved in all aspects of the project – from drawing up the rebar schedule for the concrete to helping dig the foundation trenches. They continued to be involved once they returned to London, communicating via telephone and email to help resolve any outstanding technical issues. After carrying out a number of research trips in December 2012 to visit NGOs and gather information about the possibilities for collaboration, we chose ITRHD (the Indian Trust for Rural Heritage) as our local partner. We were introduced to ITRHD by the British Council, who had worked with their Chairman S.K. Misra when he was previously working at INTACH. Although ITRHD are a relatively new charity, who have not yet completed a project, S.K. Misra’s experience administering and delivering challenging projects across India was reassuring. The Trust’s focus on protecting rural heritage, including building traditions and other hand-made crafts, was compelling - as was their emphasis on community responsibly for the development and management of their project. Although the fact that the Trust is located in Delhi was very useful in the early stages of the project, when we were based in the city to develop the design for the school, their lack of presence at Hariharpur became a challenge as the project progressed. The advantage of this, however, was that we had a much more direct relationship with the community and ultimately the people we engaged with and lived with, in the village were our most important partners. Tapping into their knowledge and understanding of local conditions, materials and techniques was vital for the success of the project. Ensuring that the project was an equal partnership between us and them was also crucial for the project to continue after we left. Rather than simply producing a building, the ambition of the project was create a process for uplifting the community that they could develop further themselves.
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Place & Partners
Top The extended family of one of the school pupils, including the weaver Nathai. Bottom The chairman of our partner NGO, S.K. Misra, talking to the school teachers in the village.
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Partner statements
The British Council The British Council is the United Kingdom’s
feudal society and no beautiful scenery to make it
international organisation for cultural relations
photogenic. But what it had a desperate thirst for a
and educational opportunities. But what does that
building to house its new school, enthusiastic teachers
really mean? How do you build cultural relations
and a musical heritage. Every kid in the musical
between two countries with a shared history but
community of the village learns to sing or play an
such diverse cultures? Especially when you step out
instrument. Their idea of a party is to get together in a
of the developed metros to smaller towns where the
temple and sing the night away. What could compete
understanding of culture is not imprisoned in galleries
for a setting like that - knowing that whatever we build
and theatres and at the same time so difficult to pin
here will potentially have a deep impact and legacy.
down. When three idealistic and inspired architects
Of course it was not easy, from getting the land to
approached the British Council arts team in India last year, these were the kind of questions we were grappling with. How can you inspire, not an urbane design community or dedicated arts audience but villagers in a remote states with no access to education, forget art? How do you build values of equitable right to education across castes and gender, of participative decision making, of sustainability and break traditional hierarchies using the building of a school?
understanding the language. Sometime lofty ideals conflicted with just personal ambitions, sometimes the harvesting schedules conflicted with getting roofs up. From the plans, to the community’s ambitions of a concrete structure, it lay exposed the gap that is between what we hope to achieve with a community and what they prefer. The protocols, aspirations and ideals are different. But that is what understanding culture is about. And change is a slow process but to be a part of a project that leaves behind a legacy not
Identifying village Hariharpur was an easy part.
only in terms of a beautiful school building but also a
Typically projects like these that deal with international
community empowered to decide and build on their
investment and development take place in the pretty
own can change the change- makers themselves.
parts of the country - to somewhere in picturesque hills or beaches. Hariharpur is not exactly like that. In one of the least developed districts of the country, Hariharpur has terribly hot summers, very
Aanchal Sodhani Senior Project Manager Art, Architecture & Fashion, Delhi
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NTNU
AA School of Architecture
“Becoming a part of the world as architect student”
Over three (soon to be four) AA workshops, one (soon
If you want to make a difference, to act as an agent of change for the better in this world, you have to practice. You have to pass through the portal from being an abstract talker to become an active walker and thereby connect with the world by taking part in it. This is not easy. It is troublesome and complex. But it can change you. In pedagogical research this transformation is coined “Threshold Concept”. By gradually building up pedagogical frameworks supporting this learning experience we have experienced a change during the last ten years in architectural education at NTNU. Students take charge of their own independent projects. WORKSHOP architecture are exemplary representatives of this trend that carries hope for a humanistic and sustainable future for architecture.
to be two) major exhibitions, one (soon to be two) finely crafted books and at least a couple of fullyfledged buildings ‘Workshop architecture’ (or Clem, Alex and Ivar – aka BF+T – as I really know them) has, in the last twelve months, challenged and ultimately transformed pre-conceived norms of student engagement with global communities, organizations and institutions to realize an ambitious set of sociocultural aims and objectives via a broadly conceived architectural platform. And while something tells me that I should be comparing this young troika to their nearest avant-garde architectural kinsfolk (Liz, Ric and Charles – aka DS+R) when they walk in my office, often straight off the plane from Delhi, I can’t help but think of Stevie, Mick and John – aka Fleetwood Mac. Collectively, they’ve just got that 70s kind of hipster groove that’s ahead of its time. But I’ve got no idea if their virtuosity extends to singing.
Prof. Fredrik Shetelig Deputy dean of faculty for Architecture and Fine Art at NTNU
Christopher Pierce Director, AA Visiting School AA Unit Master, Intermediate 9
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Ramboll
IRTHD
Ramboll is a leading engineering, design and
The Indian Trust for Rural Heritage and Development
consultancy company. From across 200 offices we apply
(ITRHD) was formally launched in June 2011. The Trust
our engineering skills and passion to a wide range of
aims to address the challenges of preserving India’s
projects around the world. We place trust in the power
tangible and intangible rural heritage, and to connect
of design to create a better future. As a company with
the preservation and enhancement of this heritage
a strong commitment to society, Ramboll is obliged to
with economic development, livelihood enhancement,
contribute to improving the situation for some of the
and general improvement in the quality of rural life.
world’s most vulnerable people. We want to help where
The Trust has taken up several projects in a number of
we can and also support non-profit organisations in
States in India. These projects relate to conservation
relation to humanitarian aid and development projects.
of architectural heritage, revival and promotion
The Charity Task Group – organised by employees in the UK – supports many charitable projects in the local community. We provide the framework to allow any employee to initiate and maximise their charitable giving, through contributing planning or engineering services on a pro bono basis. These
of cultural traditions and development activities calculated to bringing about a positive change in the lives of rural residents. All these activities are taken with the full and active participation of the community. The approach is bottom-up rather than the other way around.
are opportunities to truly employ multi-disciplinary
An interesting project relates to the setting up of
working alongside our core values of sustainability,
a primary school in village Hariharpur in district
protection of the environment and assisting local
Azamgarh in the State of Uttar Pradesh. Hariharpur,
community activities. About 20 projects are
with a population of about 2000, has a unique music
initiated each year. This year the charity projects
tradition as every Brahman family has a musician and
have taken our colleagues to Bangladesh, Pretoria
it is heart-warming to see youngsters of the age of
(South Africa), Gambia, Romania, India, as well as
seven or eight practicing on their instruments early
many more closer to home throughout the UK.
in the morning. The Trust has decided, with a view
Project Hariharpur in 2013 is our second collaboration with WORKSHOP and we were delighted to provide our support on a similar basis. We believe that the best contribution we can make to charitable projects is at a hands-on level, where we can use our knowledge and skills to make active contributions to the project objectives. Through continuing our association with the NTNU/AA Visiting School, Project Hariharpur offers us the opportunity to fulfil this ambition in a truly multicultural exchange.
to nurturing this talent, to set up a music academy. Side by side it was also decided to set up a primary school to provide quality education to the children starting from the nursery level. With this end in view, we recruited local girls who had done their graduation and sent them for intensive training. A house was
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taken on rent and 64 girls and boys in the age group
and other artisans such as carpenters, plumbers,
of three to five years old were selected, the majority
electricians etc. The WORKSHOP architecture
of whom belonged to the very economically backward
team moved in and decided to live in the village to
sections of society.
exchange the various skills involved. They became a
During that period we came to know from the British
part of the construction team and by their example
Council that a group of architects and a community organiser representing WORKSHOP architecture had
were able to motivate the entire community including the womenfolk, who showed no less enthusiasm than
been given the task of identifying a rural architectural
their male counterparts.
project in which they could be involved and which
The first phase with the funds available will soon
would also be partially supported financially. The
be completed, and the bigger challenge is now to
group was invited to Hariharpur and after a series of
complete the building and to sustain the momentum
discussions involving the community also they fell in
that was generated. We are hopeful of continuing
love with the village and the project. It has been a very
the training of the locals in various building skills. A
rewarding and learning experience interacting with
former head of the village Panchayat has taken on
the WORKSHOP architecture team. They set upon the
the responsibility and he will be assisted by a young
task in a very systematic and organised manner. After
architect and a young volunteer serving with the Trust.
discussions with our architect, Mr Shiban Ganju, they
Funds will obviously be required for the completion
set about drawing up their plans with emphasis on
of the Master Plan, and the Trust has been assured
the use of local materials and architecture to blend
by one of the biggest corporations in the country,
with the environment. Workshops involving Indian
ONGC, of the necessary support. This project, we
architects and other experts were organised in Delhi
hope, will serve as a catalyst and model for projects
in which some members of the Hariharpur community
in other villages. We are grateful to the British Council
also participated.
and this team of young and dedicated architects for
A major decision that the Trust took, which the
the services rendered. They will always be fondly remembered in the village community.
group endorsed, was not to engage any contractor for building operations. This constituted the first and biggest challenge. The community rose to the occasion. Not only did they offer the land for the school building, they offered to mobilise the labour
Mr S.K Misra Chairman, ITRHD
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Defining the Project
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Our aim is not only to provide built infrastructure, but to use the building process to identify and address the underlying needs of the community. The ambition is to work collaboratively with local people, creating opportunities for them to develop skills, thereby allowing them to improve their livelihood opportunities after the completion of the construction process. Supporting and building upon existing strengths within the organization and the community is vital for the longevity of a project. The only way for our projects to be socially sustainable is if they are rooted in the actions of the people that we are building for. The intention is to strengthen local people, and to build pride and a sense of ownership towards the place to which they belong.
One of the reasons we were drawn to this project was because many of the parameters had been clearly defined by our partner charity, ITRHD. Their agenda is focused on the long-term development of the entire village, with the view of protecting and promoting the tradition of classical music practiced by the Brahmin community. Although this community is at the top of the village’s social hierarchy, and tend to be relatively prosperous landowners, they are mostly working farmers who spend their days in the fields – practicing their music in the early morning and evening. Some perform in state-wide competitions, where they compete for cash prizes, and other have successfully pursued music as a career, but the majority of the community play their instruments for pleasure and pride, rather than financial gain.
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Once they have improved health, sanitation and
Within this larger context, our project can be seen as
education for the entire village, the Trust’s ambition is
the first phase Hariharpur’s development. ITRHD was
to create the infrastructure required to host tourism
already planning to open a primary school temporarily
– guesthouses, pathways, street lighting, museums,
housed in a cow-shed with very limited capacity.
cafes etc. This will enable the musicians to perform
Initially our brief was to design a one-story structure,
locally, rather than in cities such as Benares, where
in keeping with the traditional architectural language
they often ply their trade in hotels and restaurants.
of the village, that would provide permanent home
It will also act as an impetus for the musicians to
for the school. The basic design was also required to
protect their instruments – some of which are more
accommodate a range of other programs associated
than five hundred years old. Although the children and
with tourism. Our building would therefore be a
teenagers we met seem very engaged in their families’
prototype structure that could be easily replicated a)
musical heritage, the urge to leave the village and
in the short-term to complete the master plan for the
move to the city is growing stronger. Furthermore, the
school and b) in the long-term to equip the village
proximity of the village to the city of Azamgarh means
with the range of buildings needed to accommodate
it will very likely be swallowed up by urban sprawl
visitors. Towards the start of the project, when ITRHD
with the next ten to twenty years. There is, therefore,
began discussions with ONGC about significant
a serious risk that the tradition could die out within
funding for the development of the village, the brief
the next two or three generations, unless it is actively
changed to a two-story structure. Although this made
safeguarded.
the project more challenging for us, the instinct to
The introduction of tourism is a double-edged sword: on the one hand it will protect the musical heritage by giving it value and confirming its
build efficiently on smaller plots of land, rather than use up open space and agricultural fields seemed wise.
relevance to contemporary culture; on the other it
Given the Trust’s remit to protect rural heritage,
will commercialise it, altering it from a practice that’s
we didn’t have to convince them of the value of
currently part of everyday rural life to a product
vernacular techniques or local building materials.
created for consumption by an urban audience. It
They also believed strongly that the community
will also unavoidably introduce habits and objects
should be equal partners in the project, contributing
that can threaten the village’s self-sustaining way of
to the village’s development from within rather than
life. This is something that became apparently during
accepting funding and help from outside. The Trust’s
the AA Visiting School we led in the village (and to a
motto for the project soon became ‘no concrete, no
lesser degree throughout our stay). Just a two-week
contractor’. While this wasn’t altogether accurate,
stay generated a shockingly large rubbish pile of
as we were keen to develop a combination of new
plastic coke bottles, shampoos and creams, anti-
technologies with traditional design solutions, it was
mosquito spray, sun-tan lotion, breakfast cereal boxes,
refreshing in the context of India – where the status
processed milk cartons, loo paper and countless
quo seems to the more concrete the better.
other toxic products that (given the lack of any formal rubbish or recycling collection) we were forced to burn. If the Trust can control the way in which tourism develops in the village, promoting visits to Hariharpur as an authentic rural experience (without all the home-comforts visitors might be used to), and can ensure that the entire community, rather than just the musicians, are able to reap the economic and social advantages it brings, then the village can look forward to a positive future.
Defining the Project
Top Village children playing around a hand-pump in the village. Middle Leika, Archana and Saswati from ITRHD discussing the land. Bottom Musicians performing in Kamlesh and Beena Mishra’s house.
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January - March
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Strategy
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Developing a strategy is an important part of ensuring the ambitions for the project can actually be delivered. Working on a similar project in India directly before starting this one, provided us with an insight into some of the challenges we might face, and made us better equipped to deal with them. We hope to start building a set of tools for approaching the process that we can refine and adapt with every project.
Collaboration One thing we learnt from the success of the Visiting School during Project Chander Nagar was the productivity of collaboration – both with our peers, and with experts and other professionals. Creating a strong interdisciplinary team of people, to be involved at various points in a range of different ways, was therefore a key part of our strategy. Although the time scale for this project was relatively short, one advantage was that it was split into two distinct phases: research and preparation between December and March, on-site implementation and continuing research from March onwards. Throughout this first stage we started creating a network of individuals, each of whom contributed to the project with knowledge of skills we were lacking.
Project Hariharpur
WORKSHOP architecture
Top Workshop with the teachers and parents to refine the design for the school. Bottom The construction team on site.
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Strategy
Early in the project we partnered with Leika Aruga, a Community Organiser with a background in Human Rights Law. Her role was to focus on community engagement throughout the project – attaining a deeper understanding of the village that could feed back into the project and the work of our partner organisation, ITRHD. Collaborating with the community has been a way to implement local skills and crafts in the building, and also offered the opportunity to share the responsibility for, and sense of ownership towards the project. Through the Saturday workshops, daily family visits and research, Leika sourced strong individuals within the different parts of the village that allowed us to engage the wider community in the project. Encouraging the teachers to take charge as leaders in the decision-making process of the Saturday workshops has also been a way for Leika to challenge the traditional gender roles in the village. During the first two Visiting Schools we met a great group of people, many of whom would stay in touch to various extents throughout the project. Kritika Dhanda and Vishank Kapoor, two Delhi-based architects, who took part in the first Visiting School both decided to continue working on the project once we had re-located to the village. Vishank stayed for two weeks, taking on the role of Co-Ordinator for the next Visiting School – sourcing materials, helping to manage the labourers, identifying local young people who could work with us as apprentices. Kritika stayed for the whole time that we were there, and went back to oversee the site a number of times after we had left. It is not an exaggeration to say that the project could not have succeeded without her involvement. As a native Hindi speaker and fellow architect, she found herself in the crucial role of mediator – between us and almost everyone else involved in the project. Undaunted, Kritika took a great part of the responsibly for the site (engaging and managing labour; co-ordinating material deliveries; scheduling work etc). Building a team of professional collaborators wasn’t just about gaining expertise, but also the chance to bounce ideas around an interesting group of people, and to create a collective energy for the project that was bigger than just the three of us. Even before we arrived in the village, we understood that the community members would be some of the most important collaborators. Finding out the ways in which individuals could contribute, and the best way to work with them was an important priority.
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Top Designing and building the structural framework of the school building. Bottom The construction team on site.
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Strategy
Framework With a participatory project like this, finding the right balance between fixed parameters and the opportunity for input and collaboration is crucial. The way we approached the project as a whole was to set up a framework that people could respond to. If we can approach a community with an overall form in mind, confident that the basic structural system has been solved, and is appropriate to construct – the dialogue with them will be much more productive. This collaboration can happen off-site during workshops, when models can be used to discuss and try out ideas, and also on-site where ‘live’ interventions such as the decorative white paining can take place. It also happens with the labourers and craftspeople, who we try to invite into the creative process by leaving ‘gaps’ in the design which we can fill together. This was particularly successful with the windows in this project, which were developed in close collaboration with one of the masons. Neither we or he had ever built windows like this, and the process of working it out together, by trial and error, adapting them slightly was we went along was very fulfilling. In terms of the design, the brief was for a prototype, easily adaptable to a range of sites, and a range of uses (classroom, museum, cafe, guesthouse and so on). Our challenge was to design something that was generic in terms of the structural system and over all form, but could become specific in terms of place and use with each iteration. The concept of a framework was articulated as a reinforced brick and concrete skeletal structure that can be completed with a range of different infill walls: mud bricks (which we chose), cob, fired bricks, wattle and daub etc. This decision about which to choose would be informed by the local climate, the range of easily available materials, the types of skills possessed by the community. This idea of framework was applied both at the scale of the building itself, and at the scale of the furniture. Working with local carpenters, including a father, we developed a simple timber frame that needed to be completed with woven seats and back rests. After attempting to share the jute weaving skill in Saturday workshops,we gave a chair to each family to complete independently. Although some were more successful than others, the beauty of the variation within the complete set was striking. The balance between the controlled design of the frame, and the highly personal response of each weaver worked really well and is what we are tried to achieve in the building as well
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Empty chair frames, ready for families to take home and weave.
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Strategy
An elderly farmer, Natai, weaving the notice board to display information at site.
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Communication Another vital lesson we learnt during the previous
Given ITRHD only had one representative at site it was
project was the importance of communication –
very important to keep them informed about progress
proactively keeping people informed rather than
at site so that they felt engaged in the project,
waiting to be asked a question. Once the exhibition
responsible for it, and in a position to take it forward
was completed in Delhi, our first gesture was to hold
after our departure. After Alex and Leika’s second trip
a stakeholder meeting in the gallery, the idea being
to the village in February, they arranged a meeting
that this form of open and democratic dialogue should
with ITRHD and Mr. Shiban Ganju, the organisation’s
set the standard for the rest of the project. The most
architect, who would be overseening the project. We
regular and direct communication was with the local
rang and emailed them regularly, and half way through
community. This was important on the one hand to
the project Clem went back to Delhi to present the
engage them in what we’re doing and explain why we
latest designs and progress on the site. Although
were there, on the other to understand how they were
we tried our best to communicate the progress
responding to us and our actions. One simple strategy,
of the project, it was impossible to expect a full
that we learnt during the first Visiting School at the
understanding of the reality in the village from a city
British Council, was to put up a notice board with
800km away. Sometimes it caused misunderstandings
drawings, photos and invitation for people to help out
and also forced us to make decisions which ideally
in whatever way they could. The importance of having
should have been made by ITRHD. In the long run
regular workshops every Saturday was also crucial
it is this organisation who will be working with the
for people to be able to predict and plan their time to
villagers, rather than us.
be able to take part in the discussion. As many of the women in the village are not allowed to leave their home, Leika’s regular home visits were important to understand their situation and to involve them in the
Keeping in touch with Aanchal from the British Council, who could act as a relatively neutral third party, helped to resolve any conflicts or concerns.
discussion about the school building.
She gave us critical but very useful reflections based
Although we were living in an apartment about a ten
Being accountable to Aanchal pushed our project
minutes drive from the village, we made sure to have
further in a professional manner, providing us with
all our meals in the house that we were renting as a
great learning opportunities. Further afield, but no
site office. The period between breakfast (at 7am) and
less important, were our sponsors and the people
the labourers arriving (at 9am) was one of the best
that seem to be following our work online. The blog
times to resolve any problems that might have arisen.
is the most useful tool in reaching these international
Kamlesh Ji, the former village chief who had a key role
audiences, and a good way to make sure we
in helping to coordinate the project, would normally
keep track of what’s happening on site – honestly
drop by at this time – sometimes just for a bit of
documenting the ups and downs.
gossip, on other occasions to discuss serious matters. Our cook would also often sit down with us for her morning chai, and with Kritika as an expert translator, we would have long conversations. Although totally unscheduled and informal, these types of interactions were a great way to keep our finger on the pulse of the village. Leika’s role also supported this approach; as well as coordinating the workshops, she had spent time cultivating friendships within the village. The relationships she established with many of the families, and especially the teachers, offered an insight into their lives that we wouldn’t have otherwise had.
on her extensive experience in project management.
Strategy
Top A publication in a local newspaper about the design and building process of the new school in Hariharpur. Bottom right Kamlesh showing the article to the Visiting School participants Bottom left Jostein and Leika presenting the model to ITRHD
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Top Visiting School participants celebrating the festival of ‘Holi’ with the local community by covering each other in coloured pigments. Bottom Musicians performing for the participants.
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Cultural interaction One of the things that we discussed during the first workshop in Delhi was the impact we could have on the village, both positive and negative. In one way being an outsider is a strength; you see things with fresh eyes and to a certain extent you have permission
and women; instead it’s a habit that men share with other men, spending their much needed income on expensive beer in shady ‘bars’ tacked onto the back of Azamgarh’s liquor stores.
to do things differently, allowing you to provoke and
On the one occasion we did drink beer in the village,
push for change. However, a lack of sensitivity to
to celebrate the last day of the Visiting School, we left
local culture, customs and traditions is obviously
a few cans in a room which slowly disappeared over
problematic. Not only is there a risk of causing
the course of the following few weeks. We realised it
offence, but too strong a difference between ‘us’ and
wasn’t just the social ills associated with alcohol, but
‘them’ (whichever way round you perceive it) can
also the fact that it’s so expensive, which made our
hinder dialogue and collaboration. One very powerful
consumption of it problematic. Eating local fresh food
visual signifier of difference is clothing; the contrast
rather than pricey products like packaged white bread,
between what we might wear on site (overalls, boots,
which are increasingly seen as a status symbol despite
sunglasses, hats, gloves etc) and how a local labourer
their dismal nutritional value, was our intention – but
might be dressed (bare feet, a lunghi, and a turban)
one that was hard to stick to under the circumstances.
is striking and immediately highlights differences
Although we almost always ate home-made vegetarian
in background and privilege. For us to dress more
food, having coffee in the morning, and pasta every
similarly to the local people, therefore, not only shows
once and a while, were treats that made life in the
that we respect and value their customs but can help
village a lot easier for us!
to diminish the clear categorisation of us as wealthy foreigners. From a practical point of view, it also was a lot more comfortable to wear traditional light-weight cotton clothing in the 50 degree heat!
Speaking a few Hindi phrases was useful to get a conversation going, and knowing a few words of the local language, Bojpuri, was an even better way to show people that we respect their culture. After
In some ways, however, resisting the urge to
the second recce trip to Hariharpur, Leika started
accommodate local practices can be a good thing.
a one-month Hindi course in Delhi. When returning
For the male labourers to see a woman working on
she surprised the teachers by actually being able
site in trousers and boots, for example, can go some
to read and write some basic Hindi. This was a nice
way to altering their perception of women and can,
way to show that we were also trying to learn their
therefore, be seen as a tool for promoting social
language rather than expecting them to speak English.
equality. Watching the way in which the labourers
Attending festivals such as Holi, and a number of
grew to respect Kritika as the Site Manager was
weddings once the season began, also helped us
interesting – having encountered some resistance
to socialise with the community and share in their
at the beginning, they were soon calling her “M’am”.
traditions. In this way Kritika’s role expanded from
It’s also important to try to see things from a different
a design collaborator and translator, to a cultural
perspective and make a call about what you think is
interpreter of sorts...gently hinting what to wear, what
appropriate. For us, having a few beers with a meal is
to bring as a gift, and how long to stay during our
far from being a bad thing – we consider it a normal,
visits!
social, cultural activity. For the villagers, drinking is not a shared activity within families or even between men
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Transfer of knowledge and skills While we were obviously learning a huge amount by
In a wider sense, we also hope to disseminate
being in the village and building the school, we also
knowledge beyond the village itself to a much larger
wanted the project to be an educational experience
international audience. One of the motivations for
for local people. Ensuring the skills and knowledge
putting together a book like this is to share the lessons
being practiced on the building site were transferred
we’ve learnt and the solutions we’ve developed – not
into the community was a key aim. Primarily, this
only as a guide for other people trying to do similar
would introduce better construction practices,
project, but also as a reference for ourselves.
encouraging more durable and safer buildings. Although the cob houses in the village are very strong, they have been built without proper foundations meaning that they are vulnerable to subsidence
Shared responsibility
and water damage. Our design combined modern
In order ensure the longevity of the project, and to
brick and concrete foundations with mud walls, a
prevent our departure from the village creating a
combination of old and new technologies that we
vacuum in terms of energy and resources, we had
hope people will emulate. Focusing on skill-sharing
to focus on handing the project over to ITRHD, and
also ensures that traditional building crafts are passed
the people of Hariharpur, early on in the process. In
on to the next generation, allowing older structures to
order to achieve this, identifying and collaborating
be maintained and new buildings to engage with the
with people in the village who would be able to take
cultural heritage of the village. This will not only make
ownership of the project, was crucial. Assigning
the village a nicer place to live in for the inhabitants,
tasks and sharing responsibility among different
but is crucial if the village hopes to become a popular
stakeholders played a large role in creating a sense of
tourist destination.
loyalty towards the project. Our challenge was to find
Finally, teaching skills will have a long-term
ways to do this in an equitable and productive manner.
economic benefit for the community, opening up
ITRHD had started the process of identifying leaders
job opportunities to those individuals who have
within the village through the establishments of the
been trained. The key skill that we introduced (or
Chacha Nehru school in early 2013. They selected
re-introduced) to the community was brick barrel
young women from across the village to train as
vault construction, something that was common
teachers, ensuring that all social groups were
knowledge a hundred years ago but seems to have
represented. These six teachers, and other staff
been completely lost in this area. We therefore bought
members, were our primary local collaborators at the
down a master mason from Delhi to train two local
start of the project. Having initiated the workshops, a
masons in the technique. Obviously investing in
key part of Leika’s role was empowering the teachers
individuals is a risk in the sense that you can’t be sure
to lead them independently: defining the program for
that they will stay on the job, and it’s hard to know
them, gathering the parents, motivating participants,
whether there will be a local market for their new
and assessing the success of each of session.
skills in the future. This is something we encountered in Project Chander Nagar, when we invested a lot of money training three mothers in wood block printing, but couldn’t guarantee that our partner charity would continue running the printing program at the school after we left. In this case, given that the master plan will be completed once ITRHD receives the funds from ONGC, there will be a guaranteed demand for the masons’ new skills.
Finding suitable piece of land for the school was another good way to identify people who were committed to the project, and wanted to play a role in the development of the village. Although we had initially been informed that a community member had donated a plot, in the end the land was rented from a number of different families within the musical community. Representing this group was Kamlesh
Strategy
Top A local child helping Yanchee, one of the Ramboll engineers, to tie the rebar cages. Bottom Raman, a master mason from Delhi, teaching the local mason how to lay bricks for the barrel vault.
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Mishra, the husband of the Head Teacher, Beena. A
collaborators were working pro-bono, or otherwise for
lawyer and former village chief, Kamlesh Ji is a natural
a very modest honorarium, and tried to encourage an
leader, and took on the role of co-coordinating things
altruistic attitude towards the project. On the other
at a local level – arranging accommodation, beds and
hand, we wanted the project to provide good jobs
food during the Visiting School; introducing us to local
for people, and to boost the local economy. Most of
builders and artisans, advising us about local customs
the construction team came from Hariharpur itself,
and many other things.
and whenever possible we bough materials and
Both through the workshops, and also simply through spending time within the community, we slowly began to build up a network of people who could contribute to the project in small but very significant ways. One of the most memorable figures was Natai, a farmer and the Grandfather of four Chacha Nehru pupils. We had in fact met him during our very first recce trip, when he gave us some sugar cane as we were leaving the village, but were reintroduced to him as
tools from nearby vendors, thereby ensuring that the economic benefits of the project were as local as possible. Deciding who should be paid, and who to ask to work for free, was occasionally challenging - but as a general rule, any construction work at site was rewarded with a daily wage, and we showed our gratitude for other types of contribution through the provision of tea, food, acknowledgements on our website and thank you notes.
a weaver when we were looking for skilled people to
In one way, this was to encourage a public-minded
help us complete the chairs and notice boards. He
spirit, and to demonstrate that satisfaction and a
was enormously respected figure in the village with an
sense of collective achievement can be rewarding
incredibly good-willed and generous spirit. Another
in and of itself. It was also a pragmatic response to
figure was Sanjay, one of our main auto drivers, and
limited funds, and an awareness that once our project
a father of a Chacha Nehru pupil. Sanjay was a man
was over, the development of the village would have
of many talents, with a professional background
to continue with perhaps no funds at all. If, therefore,
that included silk weaving and a stint working on a
everyone was paid for their help during these few
construction site in Dubai. He not only worked as a
months, it seemed unlikely they would agree to work
mason on site, but was one of the key weavers, who
for free in the future. We hope that we have helped
led many of the other parents during the workshops.
to develop a sense of civic pride with the community,
There were of course many other people who were
and are confident that this will continue to strengthen
involved in important ways, and are included in the
through the completion of the school building and
map of contributors on the next page.
into the future.
Although we encountered a lot of enthusiasm towards the project in the village, inevitably the issue of payment and financial rewards arose frequently. We explained that we and many of our professional
Strategy
Top left The teachers discussing on site during a Saturday workshop after we left India Top right Jitinder explaining how mud walls are constructed locally to Kritika. Below The construction team working together to lift one of the steel I-girders in place.
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Diagram of collaborators
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Index of collaborators
1. WORKSHOP architecture: Clementine Blakemore, Alexander E. Furunes, Ivar Tutturen WORKSHOP architecture was founded in 2012. Alex and Ivar had previously worked together in the Philippines where, along with a third NTNU student, they initiated the construction of a study centre for street children. The project was developed in partnership with a local NGO and the Seawall community of Tacloban city, recently winning a prestigious A+ award in the ‘Architecture + Collaboration’ category through the popular vote. Clem met Alex at the Architectural Association in London where she was continuing her training, having spent a year at the Rural Studio in Alabama. As part of a three-person student team, she designed and built the 9th iteration of the Studio’s ‘$20,000 House’ – a prototype home for low-income families. The project was exhibited in 2012 as part of MOMA’s exhibition ‘Small Scale, Big Change: New Architectures of Social Engagement’. Between us we have professional experience working for Studio Mumbai, Sou Foujimoto, and David Chipperfield. WORKSHOP’s first venture in India, Project Chander Nagar (Dehradun, 2012) sought to improve the built infrastructure of a small primary school, as well as help generate an income for the partner charity. The outcome was a craft pavilion designed to be used by the children as part of their curriculum, and by the parents to develop livelihood opportunities. Project Hariharpur is our second collaboration with an Indian NGO, and the beginning of an ongoing partnership with the British Council. We developed our relationship with NTNU and the AA through the two workshops we led as part of the Visiting School program. Our role was to initiate and fund the project, build a team of collaborators, motivate and engage the community and ultimately deliver a building. 2. Community engager and researcher: Leika Aruga Leika specializes in human rights law and community organising. She studied for her Bachelor in Law at Waseda University, and then was awarded the Ambassadorial Scholarship by Rotary Foundation which allowed her to complete a Masters in Law in 2011 at Utrech University, in the Netherlands. She has had a range of professional experiences in Japan, the USA and England, where she was trained in community organising by an organization called Citizens UK. Before collaborating with WORKSHOP architecture, she was working for FTI Consulting and Orrick regarding several litigation cases in San Francisco. Leika’s title during the project was Community Engager and Researcher; her role was to integrate with the local people, and find ways in which they could take part in the development and construction of the school. 3. Architect and construction manager: Kritika Dhanda Kritika is a graduate of the SPA in Delhi and has worked on a large number of interdisciplinary projects, ranging from product design, landscape, residences to multiple large scale installation works. Kritika was initially a part of the Visiting School held at British Council and later joined WORKSHOP architecture to help in construction of the school at the village. Her role included detailing drawings at site and getting them executed. 4. Chacha Nehru Primary School February 2013, ITRHD has opened the school in a preliminary building with six teachers, four workers and 65 students. The school is free of charge to ensure children’s enrolment from most economically disadvantaged backgrounds. Teachers were selected in a manner reflecting the social composition of the village as well as the potential of remaining in the school for a longer term. The school aims to provide creative education while addressing health issues through periodical doctor check-ups. Teachers: Beena, Sarva Mangala, Priyanka, Gauri, Ankita, Seema Many of the teachers have moved to Hariharpur upon their marriage. Some of them have bright records from previous education, and now, all of them have the opportunity to put their knowledge into professional use. We placed the teachers as key engagers to involve a wider community to take part in the project.
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Staff: Karmi, Kailash, Mina, Ratna The staff members, cleaners, caretakers or cooks, were always present at school, looking after the children especially during teacher’s absence. Their presence and contribution were also important through our effort in engaging the community. 5. Community representatives: Beena and Kamlesh Mishra Beena is the Head Mistress of the school, and the wife of Kamlesh, the former village chief. Kamlesh is a lawyer and works in Azamgarh; Beena was a housewife before she was employed by ITRHD. Together, along with a number of other Mishra families, they provided the land for the school which is being rented by ITRHD. Highly respected within the village, they are both natural leaders and played a key role co-ordinating many aspects of the project on a local level including supporting the Saturday workshops, sourcing materials, and hosting the Visiting School participants. 6. ITRHD representative in Hariharpur: Arvind Yadav Arivind Yadav is a recent graduate from Delhi University, with a degree in Rural Development. He has been living in Hariharpur for the past ten months, as ITRHD’s representative ‘on the ground – carrying out research, and reporting on the progress on projects. He will be managing the construction site. 7. The British Council: Aanchal Sodhani & Shaguna Gahilote The British Council is a UK organisation focusing on international education and cultural opportunities across the world. Aanchal Sodhani trained in craft design at the Indian Institute of Crafts and Design and after years of different projects in crafts, retail, design and even studying newspaper printing presses, she joined the arts team at the British Council India in 2010. She manages the programming for the creative economy and design sectors from their Delhi office. Having invited us to apply for an Overseas Development Grant in partnership with the British Council, she subsequently played an important role in helping us to select a local NGO and to define the project, and acted as an advisor and mediator throughout. Aanchal introduced us to ITRHD as a potential partner via her colleague Shaguna Gahilote, currently Head of Literature and Arts at the British Council, who knew S.K. Misra during her previous role at INTACH. 8. ITRHD: S.K. Misra, Saswati Biswas Johri, Pamela Bhandari, Archana Capoor The Indian Trust for Rural Heritage and Development is a local NGO that was our partner for the project. S.K. Misra founded the charity, after a number of years at INTACH, as Vice-Chairman and subsequently Chairman. Saswati is the charity’s Project Co-ordinator; Pamela manages the finances and Archana is developing tourism and commerce opportunities. The Trust had identified Hariharpur as one of three villages in Azamgarh district with a distinct and valuable cultural heritage. Their role was to help us identify a site for the project and to introduce us to local people who would could help us develop the school. They will take over the project fully after our departure in August, raising funds for the completion of the master plan and for running costs. Their representative at site is Arvind Yadav, who is managing the project locally. 9. ITRHD architect: Shiban Ganju Mr Ganju is a respected Indian architect, who has worked on a numerous of large scale projects over a long and prestigious career. Although he recently closed his office in order to retire, he is working with ITRHD to help them develop a number of projects across India. Mr Ganju had already drawn up a proposal for a prototype school building when we became involved in the project; from that point on he acted as a consultant and advisor.
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10. Ramboll UK: Yanchee Lau & Keelan Hegarty Ramboll UK is an engineering firm that supported the project in-kind by sending two of their employees to work with us on the site. Yanchee is a Design Engineer and works across a range of disciplines including product, furniture, graphic, & experiential. He has a Masters degrees in Engineering from Cambridge University and Design: Product & Space from Kingston University. Keelan is a Graduate Structural Engineer with a Masters in Structural Engineering from University College Dublin. They joined us in Hariharpur for two weeks during the Visiting School, helping us to design the structure of the building, and to get things going on-site. 11. Structural consultant: Anil Laul Professor Anil Laul is an Indian architect and urban planner, particularly noted for his sensitivity to the needs of the poor and for his use of traditional methods and materials dovetailing the contemporary element into his designs. He is the principal architect of Anangpur Building Centre and Academy for Sustainable Habitat Research and Action (ASHRA). We met him before moving to Hariharpur, to see his work and discuss appropriate building technologies; he introduced us to Anshu. 12. ITRHD architect: Anshu Ahuja Anshu graduated in 2010 from Haryana university and has since worked for INTACH in Delhi, for Biome in Bangalore, and for the Adobe and Bamboo Research Institute in Nepal. We met him through Anil Laul’s group of followers, and he in turn introduced us to Pankaj Khana. Following on from a trip to the village during the Visiting School (12.a), Anshu approached ITRHD about a longer-term collaboration (12.b). He will be overseeing the development of the master plan after we leave, and a number of other projects in the area. 13. Engineering consultant: Pankaj Khana Pankaj is a building technologist with more than 10 years of experience in design and application of ecological and affordable building materials and techniques. He is a graduate of CEPT in Ahmedabad and the University of Nottingham, UK. He worked at Development Alternatives for a decade, during which time he was involved in projects using a range of building materials and practices. He is now a practicing consultant, based in Delhi, providing green building solutions. Pankaj shared lots of useful documents and manuals about appropriate construction technologies, came to the village during the second Visiting School, and introduced us to Raman, the master mason who train the locals in barrel vault construction. 14. Design consultants: Revathi & Vasant Kamath The Kamath Design Studio produces work informed by an explicitly environmental agenda. The work creatively synthesises attitudes and technologies into an aesthetic habitat and way of life. The studio’s projects have been published and exhibited internationally; three have been nominated for the Aga Khan Award. We contacted Revathi, after being introduced to her work by a friend. She invited us to her studio, her house, and for a two-day trip to one of her construction sites; she taught us a lot of what we know about mud construction. 15. Architectural advisor: Amritha Ballal Amritha is an architect and urban planner based in Delhi. She is a founding member of Space Matters, and a guest lecturer at the School of Planning and Architecture (SPA) in Delhi. She worked with Alex and Ivar on a small design/build project in Uganda led by two NTNU Masters students, when she was studying at NTNU in Norway. Amritha acted as an interpreter and mediator during the first stakeholder meeting we held at the exhibition in Delhi, and introduced us to interesting collaborators.
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16. Building Community II consultant & co-leader: Dhruv Chandra Sud Dhruv Chandra Sud completed his undergraduate studies (to some surprise but mostly relief) at the School of Planning & Architecture, New Delhi in 2001. Since then he has lived as a nomad, wandering between the lower Himalayas of Himachal & Uttarakhand. His work with rural communities seeks to explore design & craftsmanship through the lenses of anthropology, conservation & (ecologically sensible) development. Collaborators have included shepherds, weavers, potters, masons, sculptors, tailors, carpenters, monks, feminists and even the odd cabaret artiste. 17. Anna Heringer: architect Anna Heringer is an Austrian architect who believes that architecture can be a ‘tool to improve lives’. The motivation behind her work is to explore and use architecture as a medium to strengthen cultural and individual confidence, to support local economies and to foster the ecological balance. She has worked extensively with cob and bamboo construction, her most well-known project being the ‘Hand-made School’ in Rudrapur (Bangladesh), which was developed in partnership with the architect Eike Roswag. We have been in touch with her about our projects over the past few years, and she has provided useful advice and mentorship. Anna put us in touch with Sourabh Phadke, one of the consultants who visited during the second NTNU / AA Visiting School. 18. Natural building consultant: Sourabh Phadke Sourabh is a school teacher and an architect (the former by choice, the latter by chance) amongst other fictitious titles. He works with children on matters of exceeding importance including mud balls, the birds & the bees (literally), junk toys, pee-poo and stuff around us. He is also known to build houses of all things natural and junk, and is frequently found professing the same among organic circles. He is the author and illustrator for a few minor publications which include ‘The Muddy Micromanuals!’ and ‘Poo’. Sourabh joined us for a few days during the Visiting School, when he showed us how to build a cob wall. 19. Raman: Master Mason Raman is a Master Mason, who started training under his father at the age of fourteen. He is employed with a Delhi-based contractor, who allowed him to come and work with us for two weeks. During this time Raman oversaw the construction of two barrel vault bays, in doing so, training two local masons. 20. ‘Building Community II’ The aim of the first AA Visiting School was to make a series of 1:1 mock-ups in the grounds of the British Council’s Charles Correa building that would be installed in the gallery as part of an exhibition about our work. Having seen a number of mud houses in the village during our initial trip, we were keen to explore this further – in terms of structure or form, and also in relation to its status as a material and the social stigmas around its use. The exhibition became not just a way to communicate the processes behind our work and the built outcomes - but acted as a platform for engagement and exchange, and opened the project up to public input. Tyler Bollier (architecture student at the AA, London), Kritika Dhanda (architect, graduate of SPA, Delhi), Nirali Ganatra (architecture student at Gujurat University), Vishank Kapoor (architect, graduate of St. Andrews, Scotland), Jaykishan Mistry (architect, graduate of IES, Mumbai), Peter Loewi (sculptor, soon to be architecture student in Japan), Di Lu (graduate of the University of Melbourne, Australia), Divya Singh (architecture student at SPA, Delhi)
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21. ‘Building Community III’ Following on from the first AA Visiting School in Delhi, this workshop was a collaboration with NTNU and invited participants to collaborate with us during the early phase of work at site. Although initially planned to be construction only, delays in obtaining the land meant that a lot of design work was remaining once the participants arrived. This allowed them to be involved in the project more deeply – engaging with the teachers and parents in order to refine design ideas as well as with the construction team to begin work on site.
Himanshu Mam (architect, graduate of SPA, Delhi), Letitia Allemand (architecture student at EPFL, Switzerland), Maria Belen Sacheri (architect, graduate of the UBA, Argentina), Leila Thackara (soon to be architecture student at Pratt, Brooklyn), Jelmer Buurma (architect, graduate of TU Delft, in the Netherlands), Signe Helland Nyberg (architecture student at NTNU), Runa Dahler Sandø (architecture student at NTNU), Anne Widengren (architecture student at NTNU), Frøydis Hegnar (architecture student at NTNU), Jostein Fardal (architect, graduate of NTNU) 22. Parents & family members The parents and other family members of the school children ranged from farmers, daily labours, drivers to teachers and musicians. It is difficult to describe them as a whole and that is why we needed a platform enabling them to come together and develop a common visualisation of the new school. Saturday workshops played a crucial role to develop the new building in the context of the village, enabling parents and family members to be involved with the project in various ways. Saturday workshop attendees: Sanjay (auto driver, weaver, mason & wove chair), Nathai Kaka (wove chairs & notice boards), Harinder (carpenter), Panna Lal (wove chair), Sant Lal, Nagina (wove chair), Sarvesh (Seema’s brother), Grijesh, Ramendra, Lal Munni (cook), Kasim, Sushila (wove chair), Geeta, Premasila, Kusum, Shamdulash, Sunita, Champa, Sudami, Gunja, Santi, Pins, Santos, Sati (wove chair), Gullu (wove chair), Arvind (wove chair), Prem (made chair), Indu (wove chair), Sasikala (wove chair), Rubi (wove chair), Prince, Hausila, Mewati, Deomatin (Nagina’s wife - Seema’s mother), Sewati, Nandu & Salta, Ramesh, Adit, Jangbhadul (our milk man), Udai & Neha, Jitendra & Daya Other: Kamlesh (Beena’s husband; Project Co-Ordinator), Pawan (our neighbour Pawan and Chacha Nehru relative, wove chair), Ramesh, Pawan & Aditya (our neighbours; advisors and help in construction), Krishan, Murari (Office landlord), Ardarsh (Beena and Kamlesh’s son, our apprentice), Yashwant Singh (Lekhpal), Virender (harmonium player and cook), Mahinder (musician and cook), Neelam (cook), Anurag (steel supplier), Tinku (farmer; wove notice board, friend of Nagina ), Dipti (helped as translator), Pankaj (responsible for kitchen garden at the preliminary school), Santos (Seema’s brother; teacher at another school, guided us around the village), Annan & Nannan (Pawan & Sarva Mangala’s sons; guided to parents’ houses), Shamraj (Kailash’s father - guided us around the village), and many more! 22.a Karmi Karmi is an employee at school and also a mother of one of the students. Throughout the project, she demonstrated her role as a leader by consistently convincing others to attend Saturday workshops. She not only helped to set up the workshops but also actively participated in discussions and activities. 22.b Natai It was through Kamlesh that we got to know Natai, the amazing weaver. The people of Hariharpur would refer to him as Kaka (uncle), showing their respect towards him. He came to one of the workshops and taught Sanjay his special way of weaving. He completed the notice boards, which helped attract interest towards the project. Four of his grand children attend CNPS.
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22.c Sanjay Sanjay is an auto rickshaw driver who has been engaged in the project in every possible way. He used to be a sari weaver who once travelled to Saudi Arabia to sell his products. Now he is a father of one of the children going to CNPS. While driving us in his auto everyday, he contributed through weaving, sharing his knowledge about bamboos, and acting as liaison between other parents and us. We even found him in lungi at the construction site as a mason. 22.d Lal Munni Munni is one of the mothers at school, married to one of Natai’s sons. We got to know her through workshops and found out about her energetic personality which inspired others. She came for workshops even when she was the only parent participating, and also lent us a hand when we were struggling to prepare rice paint in the traditional way. 23. Construction team Jitinder (23.a - construction manager), Rajinder (23.b - labourer), Bhanu (23.c - main mason), Accha Lal (23.d - main mason), Shravan (young mason) Chadrabali (mason), Roop chand (mason), RamJatan (mason and shuttering supplier) Lallan (shuttering supplier), Pappu & family (brick-maker), Rajesh (labour), Vipin (labour), Bipin, Vinod (labour), Kailash (labour), Daya ram (labour), Mandeep (labour), Mahinder (labour), Bajarangi (labour), Dablu (labour), Shiv Nath (labour), Chandan (labour), Om Prakash & Gautam (metal benders), B.K. Yadav (welder), Amar Chauhan (electrician), Promod (plumber), Raghav (cement and sand supplier), Sita ram (hand pump installer), Grijesh (Seema’s bother, carpenter) 24. Faculty of Architecture and Fine Art – NTNU: Sami Rintalla, Hans Skotte, Frederik Shetlig The Faculty of Architecture and Fine Art is Norway’s oldest and largest institution for educating architects, dating back to the inauguration of NTH in 1910. The Art Academy in Trondheim (KiT) was founded as an art school just after World War II, and became a public art academy in 1987. In 1996, KiT merged into the new NTNU, as one of five departments at the Faculty of Architecture and Fine Art. There are approximately 500 students in architecture, property development and management and urban ecological planning, 100 art students and 40 research fellows / post-docs. As Ivar and Alex’s thesis tutors, Sami Rintalla and Hans Skotte acted as mentors and advisors. Frederik Shetlig provided funding for the second NTNU / AA Visiting School, allowing four Norwegian students to join the team of international participants. 25. The Architectural Association (AA): Brett Steele, Christopher Pierce, Priji Balakrishnan Unique, dynamic, independent and international, the Architectural Association School of Architecture was originally set up in 1847 as a public forum and learned society, in/ famously founded by ‘a pack of troublesome students’. The AA is much more than the UK’s oldest school of architecture; the school is the nexus of a global conglomeration of contemporary architectural culture, as well as its pasts. The growing AA Visiting School programme is collaborative and global, exporting the highly international AA pedagogical approach across the world. We led two Visiting Schools during the project, the second of which was in partnership with NTNU. The AA has promoted the project to its international audiences through its publications and online platforms and will host an exhibition about WORKSHOP’s projects later this year 26. Mud brick makers: Papu & family It was when Leika was going around the village to document mud houses that we came to know Papu’s family. The first contact was with his wife, who enjoyed talking a lot and told us about their experience in producing bricks. The whole family came to site to lay mud bricks and they worked even during the night using limited lighting.
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January - July
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We believe architecture should be deeply embedded in the social, economic, cultural and climatic context of the site. Our aim is never to start anything new, but to build up on what’s already there. One of the pleasures of working abroad – particularly in a place like India – is the wealth of architectural traditions to explore and learn from. The intelligence embedded in vernacular design, which has grown and evolved over centuries in response to climate, use and culture is something which we try to integrate into our projects. Our buildings are the result of an amalgamation of local traditions, our own architectural heritages, and our instincts as contemporary designers.
As in all our projects, research was an ongoing practice rather than something which occured during a distinct period before we began designing or building. Living in the village allowed for informal processes of observation, interaction, and discussion that continued to have an impact on the project long after we had broken ground on site. However, alongside this everyday accumulation of knowledge, we also developed structured ways of acquiring an understanding of the village.
Recce trips Before moving to the village we went on two ‘recce’ trips to familiarise ourselves with the local context, meet some of the people we would be working with, and gain a better understanding of ITRHD’s work in Hariharpur. We were shown the site during our first trip in December, and during the second visit in February we measured the land, in order to be able to start the design process before starting on site in midMarch. Having some initial design workshops with the teachers gave us a clear direction for the following design development. These trips also offered the opportunity to better understand what types of materials were available locally, how buildings in the area had been built traditionally, and how they are being constructed today. Over the course of the project, this research into vernacular design developed through frequent visits to people’s houses, the documentation of which can be found later in this chapter. Through this research we also began to build up a picture of what type of skills existed in the village, what we would be able to learn from local people, and what knowledge we could bring from the outside.
Project Hariharpur
WORKSHOP architecture
Top Local brick factory, separated from the village by agricultural fields. Bottom Alex testing the quality of bricks at a local factory.
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Top Leika developing ideas for the school with the teachers. Bottom Some of the mud houses we documented on the first recce trip.
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Exhibition & Visiting School The exhibition at the British Council and the associated AA Visiting School, held between January and February, offered an exciting opportunity for a period of in-depth material and structural testing, as well as design exploration. This took place within the shared space of a collaborative workshop, and
speak to the participants on the first day of the Visiting School, and to give us feedback on the opening night of the exhibition. Dhruv became a co-leader of the workshop, working with us for most of the two-week period and helping us in a very hands-on way with the techniques required to build with mud.
subsequently a public gallery. Although we were an
The mock-up construction happened ‘live’ in the
international group, with participants from Japan,
gallery, very much in the public realm, allowing us to
China and UK, the majority were Indian. Given we
engage with the British Council’s users in the same
wanted to use mud as one of the main materials for
way that we would interact with local people on site.
the project but had never built with it before, we
We set up a small notice board explaining who we
focused on making a 1:1 adobe structure during the
were, what we were up to, and inviting people to join
Visiting School that would be installed in the gallery as
us. The response was overwhelmingly positive, and we
part of the exhibition. In order to achieve this we had
soon found our team had expanded to include English
to enlist the help of experienced architects who had
language students and British Council staff, working
worked with earth, and who would also understand
with us voluntarily. They would take off their jackets,
the wider social and cultural ambitions of the project.
roll up their sleeves and get involved in the messy
Through our peers, we were put in touch with a young architect based in Bangalore called Noireeta
process of mud plastering – sometimes staying late into the night.
Chowdhury, who in turn gave us a list of earth
This type of hands-on interaction was put into practice
construction experts. In this way we were able to
again at the UnBox Festival, which we attended on the
introduce ourselves to Revathi Kamath, of Kamath
last day of the Visiting School. Both here, and at the
Design Studio, and Dhruv Chandra Sud, an architect
British Council, we were able to expose our work to
working independently on small-scale projects in the
a large audience and elicit feedback in a number of
north Indian state of Himachal Pradesh. Luckily, they
ways including discussion and comment cards – but
were happy to accommodate our lack of experience
most directly through the act of making. On the last
and became really engaged in the project. Revathi
day of the exhibition, we held a stakeholder meeting
invited us around to her office and her private house
with ITRHD, the British Council and members of the
and took us through countless projects which had
community in the gallery, which we felt offer a neutral
used mud. Her passion for the social and ecological
environment in which to discuss the project openly.
value of the material and the depth of her technical understanding were enthusing. We invited her to
Research
Left: Visiting School participants preparing mud for the mock-up in the British Council grounds in Delhi. Above right: Guests during the private view of the exhibition ‘Building Community’. Bottom right: A visitor interacting with the mock-up structure in the gallery space.
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Top Parents and teachers sketching ideas for the layout of the school during an early workshop. Bottom Ivar using a model to discuss the placement of doors and windows on the ground floor.
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Community workshops As soon as we moved to the village Leika established the regular Saturday workshops with the teachers and the parents of the Chacha Nehru (‘Uncle Nehru’) school, in the temporary building. These workshops functioned to open a way for all family members of the school to share their opinions and contribute to the project. At the same time, it became a tool to grasp the social context of the village. Observing things like who turned up for the workshops, and trying to analyse these patterns, revealed something about how gender and caste roles are played out in the village. From various experience, we understood that decision making was a role reserved for men. However, the workshops shifted this power balance since most of the participants were women. Inputs form workshop participants greatly impacted the design, which reflected their cultural values and customs. The importance of hiding the entrance for the girls’ toilet, for example, was something we learned through the workshop – an issue that mattered for the families to happily send their daughters to school without unnecessary worries. Workshops were also a place to identify local craft skills and to gain understanding of the level of skills possessed among the families. We ensured that each workshop had a program of ‘making’ rather than simply discussing. This way of communication eased the language barrier between ourselves and the parents, and also encouraged collective activities among participants. While we learned the local way of plastering mud, other participants who never took part in plastering before also had a learning experience just like us. Leika’s text in the Engagement chapter expands on her experience developing the workshops over the course of the project.
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Sketches and annotations from one of our visits to houses in the village.
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Vernacular building documentation Our research into vernacular building traditions was an ongoing process, that we tried to build up into a library of visual references. One motivation behind this exploration was to acquire an understanding of how to build efficiently (in terms of material, money and energy) within the local context: what materials are readily available? how are they used? how common is the knowledge about their application? As well as introducing new ideas and new practices, we wanted to take advantage of the knowledge already embedded in the community. It was equally important to grasp the social and ethical implications of using certain materials: What is the status of mud as opposed to concrete? Where is timber sourced and are the forests being managed responsibility (if at all)? What are the conditions at the factory where these bricks are produced? Additionally, this process of documentation was a way to create a record of the village’s traditional building culture. As older houses are rapidly being replaced by aspirational concrete structures (perceived as being more strong, durable, and respectable) there’s a risk that this heritage could be lost altogether. Aware of ITRHD’s plan to eventually host visitors within the village we have proposed to them that they identify the most beautiful houses in the village, and provide grants for families to restore them and open them up to guests as home-stays. As a part of this work we have drawn up a map of the village and located the existing mud structures and the names of the families who own these buildings, which we hope will become a very useful resource for ITRHD. The following is a brief summary of the vernacular design features that we came across in the village during our time there:
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1. Adobe Many of the older houses in the village are adobe structures, made from very thick ‘cob’ walls. These are built up slowly with large lumps of mud that are then moulded into place and smoothed by hand without the use of any tools or form work. The thermal qualities of mud, and the thickness of the walls, ensure that these houses stay incredibly cool in the hot summer months, and retain the heat of indoor fires during the winter. The depth of the walls also allows for alcoves on the exterior and interior, used to protect lit candles from breezes, or simply as storage space. Thinner walls can be achieved using a technique of wattle and daub, using reinforcement made from thin strips of bamboo. Walls sometimes had decorative and objects such as broken bangles and mirrors embedded into the mud plaster, and in one house an elephant had been drawn in relief on the surface. The other main decorative feature of these walls is the white rice paint, traditionally used during religious occasions. Despite the fact that mud has the potential to be a very durable material that can last hundreds of years, some of the building practices (such as the lack of proper foundations) undermine its ability to perform well over time. Furthermore, the regularity of maintenance required (the exterior needs to be re-plastered with mud twice a year) is increasingly perceived as a burden. This maintenance could be reduced by building deeper eaves, which would protect the walls from rain falling sideways during strong winds. As many of the more prosperous families have replaced parts or entire traditional houses with fired brick and concrete structures, cob buildings are now considered inadequate, out-dated and associated with poverty and ‘backwardness’. One problem we noticed with these structures is the lack of light. Many people, especially women, develop problems with their eyesight (also a result of malnutrition) as they are working in gloomy conditions indoors for most of the day. To use mud successfully, it would be important to develop a design for the windows that allows maximum light to enter and brighten up the space, whilst minimizing heat from direct sunlight.
Top: A courtyard of a traditional mud house, with a woven day bed on the right. Middle left: A hand-pump in front of a traditional mud house. Middle right: A bamboo wall creating a storage space in a traditional house. Bottom: A mud house being demolished in the village.
Project Hariharpur
WORKSHOP architecture
Timber beams and bamboo purlins, blackened by smoke.
Decorative timber struts supporting the roof eaves.
A bamboo and thatch extension, providing a shaded
A mud column propping up a bamboo and thatch roof.
exterior space.
A traditional mud house painted blue, with a lean-to
Terracotta roof tiles, typically found on older houses but
bamboo verandah on the left.
no longer produced locally.
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2. Timber The main roof beams of traditional houses are large timber logs (mango or sheesham), often selected to have a natural bend that corresponds with the slope of the roof. These members are either embedded in the mud walls, or rest on a timber lintel running around the top of the mud walls. On the exterior, the roof eaves are supported by beautiful decorative timber struts, usually carved out of sheesham wood. This type of locally available hard wood is also used for the intricately carved timber doors found at the main entrances to the houses. Timber is used elsewhere for shutters, window frames, and clothes hooks. Unlike in the West, where a properly managed logging industry has lead to timber being considered a ‘sustainable’ material, the illegal felling of trees and lack of re-planting in India has led to rapid deforestation. As a result, the use of wood in contemporary buildings is considered by many to be unethical.
3. Bamboo & thatch Bamboo is traditionally used for secondary roof beams, supporting smaller pieces of split bamboo, with a thick layer of thatch on top. Although very vulnerable to termites and other boring insects, its lifespan is naturally increased by the smoke generated by indoor stoves (‘chulahs’) found in domestic buildings. Although this creates a beautiful black surface on the bamboo, and is appealing because it’s a form of preservation which doesn’t require potentially hazardous chemicals, the respiratory problems associated with the lack of proper chimneys are an obvious disadvantage. Bamboo is also commonly used for the lean-to verandahs that provide shelter from rain and sun.
4. Terracotta tiles Terracotta tiles or ‘caphrael’ are the final layer of the traditional roof, providing a durable, water resistant surface. Unfortunately these have fallen out of favour, and are no longer produced locally - possibly because they require regular maintenance after storms and high winds when they can become dislodged. Monkeys are another challenge as they apparently enjoy dislodging them! Increasingly, corrugated tin or asbestos sheeting is used instead. We found a potter in the nearby village of Nizamabad who was willing to produce tiles for us, but most likely at a high rate as the lack of other customers means it would be a one-off job. The other concern was the inevitable damage of the batch during transit from Nizamabad to Hariharpur. Traditionally, the potter would have come to site, to make the tiles in-situ, before installing them on the roof; although he offered to do this for us, the process of setting up the kiln, finding space for production etc wasn’t something we were able to manage on this occasion.
Project Hariharpur
WORKSHOP architecture
One of the teachers, Gauri, and her sister-in-law at their
A shaded verandah, protecting the exterior wall of the
home.
house.
Courtyard of a joint-family home.
Some other members of the large extended family.
A barrel vault at the Isalmic library in Azamgarh.
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5. Verandah A portmanteau of the Hindi words’ bahar’ (outside) and ‘andar’ (inside), verandahs are covered spaces that run around the perimeter of buildings, or along one edge, providing a buffer zone between the exterior climate and interior environment. In the village’s more simple houses, the verandahs are usually lean-to structures along one side made out of bamboo and tin. In other houses, they are centrally located, and contained within the main roof structure, with small rooms on either side. Like porches and balconies, verandahs are very social spaces – part of the domestic house, but also in the public realm.
6. Courtyard typology The courtyard typology is very common is the village, with all the rooms of a house focused around a small centrally located outdoor space. Deep verandah’s run around this space, creating an indoor/ outdoor zone that is more private than the verandahs positioned at the front of the house. The domestic courtyard houses the hand-pump and is used for washing and cooking. It also has an important climatic function, keeping the house cool by ventilating it, whilst creating a exterior space protected from the harsh ‘loo’ winds. In contemporary houses with RCC roofs, often a square gap is left in the center of the slab to create a courtyard space before. Exposed reinforcement bars are left in place, spanning across the gap to create a grille.
7. Barrel vaults Barrel vault roofs are found in some of the older structures dating from the British Colonial era – usually public buildings such as temples and libraries, rather than houses. The beams between each vault are typically steel I-girders, the bottom flange of which are level with the lowest point of the vault. One problem is that the steel is vulnerable to corrosion due to water exposure from above; we saw one example where this has caused the steel to completely fail. The roof, however, had not collapsed as the arch structure seemed to be self-supporting. Having decided to use barrel vaults, finding ways to protect the I-girder from water damage became an important part of our design discussions with the engineers.
Project Hariharpur
WORKSHOP architecture
A corrugated tin roof, with eaves to protect the mud jali
Asbestos-concrete sheets covering a small lean-to
wall below.
structure.
A ‘collaged’ family home composed of an old part (mud & tiles) and a new part (brick & tin).
A modern concrete column/ brick infill structure
The chimney of a local brick factory.
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8. Asbestos cement & tin sheets Corrugated sheets of asbestos cement and tin are the most common materials for sloping roofs in new buildings. Mass-produced, cheap, easy to install and replace, these options are more popular that the traditional terracotta tiles. Sometimes they are used in conjunction with thatch. Although banned in the UK and Norway as a carcinogenic material, asbestos sheeting is common throughout India.
9. RCC / fired brick Reinforced cement concrete is used for the main structural framework of nearly all new-build two-story structures in the area. The exposed rebar is left sticking up vertically from flat RCC roofs, eloquently described by the artist, Mona Hatoum, as ‘spires of hope’, allow for future upwards expansion as a family grows. The infill material between RCC columns is typically fired brick, produced in one of the many local brick factories. Although the bricks are made from local clay (mud), the enormous amount of energy required to fire the bricks, and the CO2 emissions from the coal that is burnt, mean that they are problematic from an environmental point of view. Furthermore the working conditions at the brick factories are some of the harshest we saw, with itinerant families living in make-shift huts on the site. These families, including young children, are in bonded labour – in debt to their employers and unable to move on to a better job. The labourers are unprotected from the respiratory problems associated with dust and smoke, and many of the children do tough work unloading the bricks during deliveries.
In order to avoid some of these problems, we were interested in using unfired mud bricks, which we could either buy directly from the brick factories or preferably make at site ourselves using the mud that we had dug up for the septic tank. These bricks have the thermal and acoustic qualities of cob walls, but can be built much faster using the same technique of brick laying that masons are very familiar with.
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Feberuary -
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Engagement
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Engagement is one of those over-used words in development jargon that has become difficult to define. For us, it is about getting to know the community we’re working with, finding ways to involve individuals, and ultimately transferring ownership of the project to them as users. It is also a way to help ‘flatten’ the relationship between us, who come with an outsiders’ perspective, and the people with whom we are working, who have a local knowledge. The combination of these different forms of insight is invaluable to the success of the project. Engagement makes the process an even playing field, where each party understands the value of what they can bring to the table.
Community workshops Our most direct way to engage the local community was through the regular teacher/parent workshops, held every Saturday at the school. One of Leika’s main aims was to encourage the teachers to take charge of the development of the school to ensure that by the end of our time there they were in a confident enough position to continue. While the primary focus for the workshops was to generate ideas for the project, the longer-term agenda was to set up a model for problem-solving that the community could use in the future. The workshops were a chance to exchange knowledge, skills and ideas through doing and making. The most productive sessions happened when we had a clear design agenda that tied back into the building project – using a model, for example, to design where the doors and windows should be. But the workshops were also about getting to know the parents and generating a good atmosphere. Lack of stable electricity meant we couldn’t hold the evening film screenings that had been so popular in the Philippines and Chander Nagar, but Leika had some other successful tactics.
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Engagement
The information board, woven by Natai, Sanyai, Leika & Beena with images of the workshop and construction process. This board stood on site to keep everyone up to date about what was going on.
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The watermelon game, a Japanese school yard tradition involving attempts to hit a watermelon with a blindfold on, was a great way to break the ice and form bonds between everyone – including between the parents themselves. The biggest challenge, given the parents’ workloads, was attendance, something that Leika responded to by introducing an attendance card for the workshops. Stamping these cards to mark attendance became an event in itself, and collecting these became a reason for some of the mothers to attend. This was also a good way for us to understand how many people attended and how regularly. Occasionally we held these community gatherings at the site itself – usually to facilitate a better understanding of what was being discussed. This was particularly important during the early phases of the design process when we were determining the orientation of the master plan and basic organisation of the spaces. Sketching out the ground plan by laying out bricks was a really successful way to convey the location of the buildings, and the nature of the courtyard spaces between them. The workshops have continued after we left, and will, we hope be a tool for the community to take part in the development of the school as the master plan continues to grow.
Notice board & chairs As well as all the ideas that were implemented on site, the most beautiful made ‘outcome’ of the workshops were the woven notice boards (for the school and the site) and the woven chairs (made by a number of different families for the new classrooms). On one level the idea was simply to continue the beautiful tradition of weaving, and show that crafts many local people consider as obsolete are still valued and relevant. It was also a way to invite parents to have a hand in shaping the school for their children directly, thereby enabling them to make a personal contribution. It didn’t take a lot to weave each chair, but collectively the parents were able to help produce the furniture for their children, and it was the productivity of this type of group effort that we were trying to demonstrate throughout the project. Although the jute (commonly used for day beds) isn’t the most durable of materials for a school, its value lies elsewhere, in the history and personality of each weave. Understanding this, we hope that the teachers will motivate the parents to repair the chairs when they need to be rewoven or tightened in the future.
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Mud plastering & white paint The decision to use white paint on the surface of the mud plaster was both a design choice, and a strategy to add a personality to the building, to open up an opportunity for the community to make a contribution for the finishing touch, and to provoke ownership. In terms of the design we were interested in exploring local decorative patterns that we had seen in many of the village houses. White rice paint is traditionally used for religious ceremonies, and the ways that it is applied are surprisingly gestural – splashes, streaks and hand prints. The inspirations for the dotted pattern came from one of the houses in the village. In order to test the white paint design, we needed a wall we could practice on. The preliminary school was a perfect place for this, however, it turned out that the owner of the building was having some rent issues and we did not want to step into this debate. Then, our neighbor kindly welcomed us to apply mud plaster to their cow sheds and to hold workshops on their property. Preparation of the walls was actually a very interesting learning opportunity to understand how mud plastering is done locally. In addition, we discovered that plastering in general was considered as a ‘woman’s job’. When we asked the labour to help with the plastering, they started to laugh thinking it was silly. But the nice thing about women specialising in plastering was that when we finally reached the stage to plaster the walls on site, we had women on site, too! Once the mock-up walls were ready, we called in the community and used chalk to see how they would decorate the walls by themselves. Almost all of them generated very literal imagery such as flowers, which were commonly seen on cement buildings. However, we tried introducing the dotted lines saying we wanted to test our ideas as well. The participants quite liked the dots and when someone started to make lines, the others would say “it has to be dots!” The workshop was a success and our desire to develop a minimal and abstract graphic language was satisfied, until some overly religious symbol such as the Hindu swastika appeared on the beautifully decorated walls. We can never expect things to go exactly the way we want.
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The construction team Engaging our construction team, some of whom came from other villages, was as important as engaging the parents and local community members. We wanted to break down the traditional hierarchy of ‘Boss’ verses ‘Labour’, and to cultivate an idea of the building site as a platform for exchange. For one thing we are learning on the job and are not experienced contractors (let alone experienced architects!). More importantly it’s impossible for people to feel confident enough to contribute to the decision making process unless they feel comfortable contributing ideas and suggestions. One risk with this tactic is that people occasionally claim to be competent in something they actually can’t do (most notably when we tried to find a mason who knew how to construct barrel vaults). The second problem is that our building sites, like any other, are very difficult to manage unless someone is asserting their authority and demonstrating strong leadership. Our hesitation in coming to decisions often resulted in a lack of clarity, creating delays on site and a strong sense in the village that our building was taking much longer than any of the others also under construction in the area. One solution would perhaps have been to close the site during the community workshops and involve the team (or at least the main masons) in the design process more formally. This also would have given them a better sense of what they were working towards, and the overall vision of the project – rather than working from week to week. One of the problems on site was the lack of a feeling of loyalty and responsibility towards the project among the labourers. Bhanu, one of the leading masons took a number of days off during the time that Raman (the master mason from Delhi) was training him and Accha Lal in the barrel vault construction. We tried to impress on him the value of this training, the expense of getting Raman to the village, and how crucial this knowledge was for the rest of the master plan. Although he came back to site, he left again for a wedding at the end of May, and subsequently did not come back. Thankfully Accha Lal has stuck with the project, and is now in a position to pass on the new skills he attained to Shravan.
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Top A busy day on the site. Bottom left Using a cloth to plaster the final layer of the walls. Bottom right The construction team looking at one of our books in the office.
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Windows and doors designed in collaboration with the mothers.
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WORKSHOP architecture
Introducing workshops to Hariharpur - Leika Aruga
This essay will lead you through the unique experience we had over a limited period of time in Hariharpur, in our attempt to establish a platform for dialogue and collective activities. Preparatory workshops – map of Hariharpur and master plan When Alex and I travelled to Hariharpur in February 2013, we were just in time for the opening of the Chacha Nehru Primary School. The temporary school building is an old cow shed. Following the opening, we held two workshops with the teachers – Beena, Sarva Mangala, Priyanka, Gauri, Ankita and Seema. The purpose was to create experience for teachers so that they would understand what workshops are about and would later be able to take over the leading role in holding workshops with the parents. Despite the fact that they had just opened the school, all six teachers were in harmony and there was a positive attitude there. 1st workshop – master plan When we went back to the village in March, we held a workshop with the parents and repeated what we did with the teachers: drawing the master plan for the new school building. When the participants arrived one by one at the school, it turned out that the average age was quite high. Many of them seemed to be grandparents of the pupils. Also, it turned out that three-quarters of the participants were women. Women and men sat down separately on the jute mat and there wasn’t any interaction between them. I got nervous thinking how could the teachers lead the workshop if they were not supposed to communicate with men in public? After drawing up the plans in six sub-groups, each group was welcomed to come to the front to present their ideas. The teachers did an excellent job on this, and of course, the fathers’ groups also received huge applause. After all the hard work, the teachers prepared chai for the participants and even a surprise lunch for us. Whenever we were invited for lunch or dinner, the hosts never sat down with us to eat. It was a pity that the teachers couldn’t relax until everyone else had finished eating and left.
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Top The men developing a courtyard layout for the future school buildings Bottom . Working with the teachers and parents on the design and organisation of the toilets.
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2nd workshop – toilet plan After the first successful workshop, I was a bit
of branches disappeared in a second as they were
doubtful whether the teachers would still be willing
carried home for fuel use. There were some men who
to hold Saturday workshops. Would it be too much
came to help out, too. Otherwise, we had a good
work for them? Would it be too tiresome to hold one
number of teenage boys from the neighbouring area
every week? Contrary to my worries, the teachers
who were too busy posing for the camera. One of
were already thinking ahead and told me “you said we
them said he could not risk hurting his hands because
are having workshops every Saturday!” I actually said
he needed to practice music. In fact, some of us has
so in the first meeting and was happy to hear it from
gone around the neighbouring area the day before
them this time. The school was on holiday that week
to invite families for the ceremony and site clearing,
since the country was celebrating Holi – the festival
in vain. We got positive answers from almost every
of colours. At the same time, the Visiting School
family, but it turned out that they were only being
participants arrived, so the village was suddenly
polite to us. Or perhaps, we were in the wrong area.
accommodating twenty something outsiders! The locals looked quite excited to see many new faces and some of them were even shocked to see so many foreigners at once. While both sides were quite curious about each other, communication was quite challenging. Bhojpuri was widely spoken in the area in addition to Hindi. English was a third language for
The next day, Anne, Litchi and Belu joined the Saturday workshop to discuss the toilet plan. This time we had fewer participants, and the only father was Kailash, the only male worker at school. The discussion about toilets was quite interesting because it gave us an insight into their customs and cultural values. One
those who had the chance to be taught at school.
of the points they made was that the entrance for the
On Friday that week, we were ready to start a first dig
was an interesting point as there is a study showing
on site and held a ground breaking ceremony. It was
the link between girls’ toilets and female attendance
the first formal contact between the families at the
at school. Lack of proper toilet facilities is one of the
school and visiting school participants. Doing physical
reasons that girls drop out from school. In this regard,
work together helped us overcome communication
it is important to gain understanding from family
problems. We were surprised that there were many
members that the new school has proper toilets for
women who came to the site and worked continuously
their daughters.
carrying heavy piles of bushes and branches. The pile
girls’ toilet must be less obvious from outside. This
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3rd workshop – design update & site tour The next workshop turned out to be another big
key for building community capacity – the capability
workshop with many participants. It was the last
for issues to be addressed by its own people. After
chance for the Visiting School participants and the
updating the families with the latest designs, we took
locals to interact. This time, we moved the location
a tour around the site. Some of the parents became
from the preliminary school to the site. Prior to the
very enthusiastic and discussed details of the new
workshop, some of the teachers and I prepared ladhu,
school building under the setting sun.
an Indian sweet made of flour, butter and sugar. The teachers’ original idea was to have a different type of sweet which needed to be served with plates and spoons, but I refused. The reason was simple:
4th workshop – measuring chair heights
no disposable plastic waste! During our stay, we did
However, our greatest challenge was to keep up the
our best to minimise the use of plastic. We carried
enthusiasm and to develop a dialogue. No one came
our own shopping bags and said no to plastic bags.
for the next workshop after having had such nice
Plastic waste was all over Azamgarh and that was a
interaction with family members the week before. It
real pity. The situation in Hariharpur was much better
was because no invitation had been sent out, but the
than in the city, but the amount of plastic waste
teachers also pointed out that all family members
was increasing over time, gradually destroying the
were too busy harvesting wheat anyway. The scenery
beautiful scenery of the village. It was shocking to see
of Hariharpur dramatically changed from time to
people throwing away trash everywhere. If we were
time. In February, the whole village was covered with
invited to dinner and served with plastic plates, those
yellow mustard flowers. In March, it turned green,
plates would just remain around the house for days
and summer came. In April, the fields were turned
or weeks. At school, they installed a dust bin to train
gold by the colour of the wheat, and thousands of
children to separate non-bio waste from the others,
fireflies lit the night. When May arrived, it was high
which seemed quite successful until I witnessed a
summer. The sun was harsh on the naked fields and
worker dumping the waste right into the field over the
we covered ourselves with cloth to protect ourselves
school fence.
from the loo wind. Exposure to the loo could result
The workshop proceeded with the help of Hindi speaking participants and teachers explained how the design had been altered based on input from the community. As in WORKSHOP’s previous projects in Tacloban and Chander Nagar, it was an important factor to engage the parents in a way that they could make contributions toward their children’s future. In Tacloban, this brought back hope to not only parents but also to children who were too used to seeing their parents withdrawn in alcohol. Creating a positive attitude towards the future in a community is the
in fatal heat strokes due to its high temperature (45 °C–50 °C / 115°F-120°F). The villagers always warned us to cover ourselves up. We learned so much from the locals about how to cope with the extreme climate in a basic but clever way. Since we didn’t have to organise participants that day, the workshop with teachers and staff members turned out to be quite efficient. We measured heights of chairs and tables for different age groups while the students modelled for us. The children looked happy and excited to play an important role in the workshop.
Project Hariharpur
WORKSHOP t architecture
Top Gathering on the building site in front of the toilets to discuss the master plan; what works and what doesn’t Bottom left Seema presenting her design. Bottom right One of the mothers suggesting a entrance from the side of the building.
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Top Weaving chairs during the 5th workshop. Bottom Modeling the windows for the ground floor in the card model.
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5th workshop – window infill, chairs & notice board
6th workshop – first floor & materials for roof
After the previous workshop, Seema’s brother, who
The next week, we planned to continue with the
is a carpenter produced several samples of stools
weaving, but no weavers were available, or in other
and chair frames. We also prepared a wooden frame
words, they did not show up contrary to their promise.
for the notice board. A local wood shop donated
This kind of disappointment happened so many times.
timber for us after learning that it was for the use
It could be that people were merely being polite and
at the school. We were happy to find people who
that is why they would give only positive answers, or
were supportive of the project, and we maintained a
perhaps we didn’t understand their hidden language
good working relationship with the shop. Having the
telling us the true answer? It is still a mystery how local
samples and the frame ready, we called in weavers
people get along with this unpredictability especially
for the workshop. The technique of weaving with jute
in business. Anyway, it was not a problem for the
rope was gradually dying out in the village, so we
workshop programme as we were planning to discuss
thought of utilising the technique in the new school
about the first floor using the advanced model. Having
and holding weaving sessions to pass on the tradition.
ups and downs holding workshops, we learned that
Kamlesh ji, the former village chief who always gave us
success is more likely when you have one focused
tremendous support invited Natai kaka as one of the
activity and keep things simple. The discussion was
key weavers. Natai kaka was a special person. People
fruitful. Concern over security was a hot topic as there
had a lot of respect towards him and he never hid his
had been a recent theft at a nearby school, and this
big smile from his face. But what made him so special
was new information for us. The participants wanted
was the fact that he never talked about money. While
to make sure the new building has good security. It
meeting many fascinating individuals through the
was also important to find out what they did not know.
project, we were getting used to being turned down
When we were discussing the materials for the roof,
when they suddenly demand money from us.
asbestos was preferred at first. Therefore, we needed
Another key weaver was Sanjay. He was actually an
to communicate why it was not good to use.
auto rickshaw driver and everyday he would give us
After the discussion, we gathered the children and
a ride back and forth between Hariharpur and the
parents to play a traditional Japanese summer game
city. Before becoming a driver, he was a weaver who
– firstly, spin a blindfolded person till dizzy; secondly,
travelled to Saudi Arabia to sell saris. He was quick
the crowd would verbally guide the person to the
to pick up Natai kaka’s weaving technique and even
watermelon; and thirdly, hit it! Everyone got quite
started to teach Prince, a young apprentice from the
excited about this new game, shouting and laughing
village. One day we were very excited to find out
hard even with some tears! The beauty of this game
that Sanjay was one of the parents at school. He also
is that it is a collective effort to make a hit, and in
transformed into a mason on site and a guide around
the end, everyone would get a piece of watermelon
his neighbour when I visited other parents’ houses.
to taste the success. Later, Gauri mentioned in her
Apart from the weaving, Ivar was successful with the mothers in designing window infill. He used a model prepared by Jostein (visiting school participant) which provided a visual image of the new building and attracted a lot of attention. One of the mothers also made a model visualising her idea for the window infill.
interview that playing the watermelon game was something special because people are always working, working, working, and never have time to have fun.
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7th workshop – alternative solution for weaving chairs This week, I started to go around the village with some
she was feeling nervous. I didn’t get an answer
teachers to find out how we could better engage more
because others interfered – “it is the custom”. But I
families in the project. The workshop participants
saw her face becoming stiff.
became mostly the same, so we thought about conducting a survey to find out whether there were people with skills we were looking for (e.g. weavers and plumbers) while spreading the word for Saturday workshops. At the same time, we documented mud houses in Hariharpur as nicely maintained mud houses
The teachers were not an exception to the custom, and we had to keep in mind their relationships between their in-laws, because in the end, the inlaw family were in the position to make decisions. Having this situation, not every teacher could take
were becoming rare.
me around the village but I was experiencing a huge
Meeting people in their living environment was an
son or brother to go around the village, but at this
amazing experience which allowed us to better
point, I was finally with the teachers. It was great to
understand their life. We were wondering, for example,
be able to see how the teachers interacted with their
“where are the village girls?” Teenage boys were
neighbouring families, and the relationships seemed
playing cricket on fields quite often, or we saw them
to be mostly positive. Throughout our trip, we met
on motorbikes and bicycles. But it was rare to see girls
seven more weavers who could come to Saturday
at that age. Visiting houses one by one, finally I was
workshops to teach others how to weave with jute
getting closer to an answer. I met many girls helping
ropes.
with domestic work at home. Since schools were on summer holidays, it was hard to tell whether they were enrolled in schools but I heard a lot of stories that they were waiting to get married. It was easy to distinguish married women from unmarried women. Firstly, they wore saris and had a red line separating their hair in the middle. Secondly, a lot of jewellery decorated their body from head to toe and their movements were decorated with jingling sounds from anklets. In addition, some women even had a tattoo of her and her husband’s names on their arm. Most of the marriages were arranged, and the girl wouldn’t know who she was marrying up until the moment she sat on the stage at the marriage ceremony. I asked a girl who had a marriage scheduled in the same month whether
change. In the beginning, I was always sent with their
However, nothing is straight forward. No weavers arrived on Saturday while other participants were rather unusually on time. But this time, the teachers had a solution. They said it would be better if the participants took the chairs home and brought back completed chairs. At first, I was hesitant to give up the idea of “working together” and holding “training workshops”, but there were enough activities for the workshop so we distributed chairs. After all the struggle of organising weavers, the chairs were delivered at school on Tuesday, woven.
Project Hariharpur
WORKSHOP architecture
Top The watermelon game creating a lot of excitement amongst the parents and their children. Bottom Some of the parents picking up empty chairs for weaving.
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Engagement
Top Lal Munni and the teachers placing the bricks for the floor. Bottom Karmi testing her turmeric and rice paint mix on the mud wall.
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8th workshop – brick patterns While the number of completed chairs increased,
Parents didn’t arrive until we were about to close the
we started preparing a mud wall to practice white
workshop after finishing one wall with staff members.
paint designs in the next workshop. The first wall was
It was a nice surprise, and some of them were new
quickly plastered by the experts called in through
faces. Since none of them had taken a chair yet, it
Seema’s father Nagina ji. As for the second wall, I
was a good chance to distribute the remaining chair
challenged the teachers to put their hands in mud
frames. By this time, we had decided a design for the
and cow dung to do the plastering themselves. My
weaving pattern, so Gauri explained the design. In
expectations were low, but they actually managed and
the beginning of the project, I struggled and spent
even had fun plastering!
time communicating to her what we wanted to
The walls were ready for practicing, but we didn’t have the white paint ready. As an alternative, Alex and Ivar set up brick frames to design patterns for the veranda on site. When we started to lay bricks with the teachers, it felt like it would take forever to fill the frames. But then Munni didi came to join the
communicate to the parents. But that was not the case anymore and Gauri knew what exactly she was going to say and was very good at persuading others as well! It was also the same with other teachers. I didn’t have to explain everything anymore because they knew what they were doing.
workshop, and finished filling a frame without any problem. Her presence was very strong and brought inspiration to the group. She said she could teach me how to make traditional white paint made of rice, so I asked her if I could visit her house on the next Saturday. Then the teachers interrupted saying, “why do you have to wait for so long? We should hold a workshop before that!”
10th workshop – white paint on site Although not the final, the 10th workshop was the last gathering before we left the village for more than a month. From previous experience, I was confident enough to leave the workshop to them. Teachers, school staff and participants decorated the new building with two lines of white dots around doors and windows. At this stage, the structure for running
9th workshop – white paint practice Consequently, we had the next workshop on Tuesday. As promised, Munni didi welcomed me to make rice paint at her home. It was such a simple process and the white colour was vivid on the mud wall. We used up the freshly made paint quicker than we thought so decided to continue the designing on Saturday. This time, Karmi said she could prepare the rice paint. On Saturday, Karmi brought a beautiful bright yellow rice paint which was mixed with turmeric. Meanwhile, Kamlesh ji was concerned about using rice paint for purposes other than puja, which is a religious ritual. Therefore, he kindly prepared alternative natural colours that we could use on walls. It was great that the local people were preparing materials for the workshop, another step forward!
weekly workshops may be still weak, but at least, we demonstrated the possibility for the locals to come together and take on roles to improve the environment for their children. At the same time, workshops have the potential to gradually transform people’s traditional roles and societal status, just like some little changes started to show among the teachers. One day, Gauri suddenly told me with excitement – “Leika, this is good. We can empower women through workshops!”
Engagement
Top Arvind and Leika working with teachers and parents to mix mud. Below left Leika decorating the wall with the teachers and the parents. Below right Mr Misra taking part in the white paint workshop at site.
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WORKSHOP architecture
Map of Hariharpur A map drawn up in collaboration with Leika Aruga, based on her research in the village. The map shows the network of relationships built up within Hariharpur during the project. It identifies a number of mud structures that we hope will be preserved with the help of ITRHD, and shows the location of the village’s hand pumps.
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Index of points from the map of Hariharpur
A1 PRELIMINARY SCHOOL ITRHD rented an old cowshed and open the Chacha Nehru Primary School (CNPS) in February. 2013. A2 OFFICE & KITCHEN ITRHD used to rent an office space nearby the preliminary school until there was a dispute over land for the new school building. The use of the office is not finished, however, the school is still dependant on the kitchen right behind the office where they prepare and provide mid-day meals for students. The owner, Pankaj, is responsible for the maintainance of the kitchen garden across from the office and next to the school. A3 OUR OFFICE SPACE We rented a vacant house which belongs to Kamlesh´s relative who lives in Varanasi. The house was used as our base in the village and also accommodated Visiting School participants. A6 OLD TEMPLE An intresting structure with a barrel vault roof, that is cared for by members of the Mishra community. A7 SARVA MANGALA & PAWAN´S HOUSE Sarva Mangala is one of the teachers. She is good at leading activities and has the potential to lead workshops. Pawan, her husband and co-owner of the land for the new school has been very supportive for the project. A8 PAWAN´S COW SHED We plastered part of the cow shed to practice white paint during some of the workshops. Pawan also let us keep some of our construction tools in his out door storage space.
A9 KAMLESH & BEENA´S HOUSE Kamlesh is an ex-panchayat and is a person who received a lot of respect from the villagers. When the dispute over the land for the new school happend, he quickly arranged an alternative land owned by multiple Brahmin families. He is a lawyer specialising in real estate. Beena is the head teacher of CNPS because she is the elderest of the teachers. When we held meetings with teachers after school hours, they often took place at their homes. A13 GAURI´S MUD HOUSE The mud house is one of the nicest in the village and is in good condition. It is the best place to take refuge from the extreme heat during the hot seasons. A17 ANKITA´S HOUSE One of the teachers at CNPS. She lives in a tiny house compared to other houses in the Brahmin cluster, consisting of merely one room. Ankita built a storage space using fired bricks right outside the room. A19 PANALAL KAKA´S HOUSE He is a weaver but never really helped us. It´s also the house where our cook Mahinder lives. A24 TEMPLE A new temple and step well built by Kamlesh in memory of his deceased brother. A26 MUSIC HALL An old government project to donate a music hall to the musicians. Due to disputes, the hall has remained closed since its errection but ITRHD plans to renovate and reopen the hall. There was a family with a newly born bady temporarily evacuating from their mud house which collapsed.
A32 RATNA’S HOUSE Ratna works at school as a cook and her son is one of the students at school. Jitendra, her father-in-law is the owner of the cow shed rented out for the preliminary school. He runs a shop right outside of the school and I used to buy namkeen from him to take to the meeting with teachers. B1 NAGINA & DEVMATI´S HOUSE Nagina owns some farming land and helped us conecting people for the project through his working contacts. His wife Devmati helped us plastering Pawan´s cow shed for white paint practice. B2 PRIVATE SCHOOL Another private school in the village which opened in 1996. The buildings made of fired bricks are very simple and have four class-rooms in total. It accommodates nearly 200 students from covering from primary to secondary education B4 RAJINDAR´S MUD HOUSE Rajindar is one of the labours on site. He lives in a beautiful mud house which lead us to get to know him. He shared his knowledge on traditional buildings materials with us. B5 MUD HOUSE The mother of the house made elephants on the walls next to the entrance for her children B10 KARMI´S HOUSE Karmi works at CNPS. Most of the workshop participants were brought by her. She has a leading role in her neigbouring area.
Engagement
B11 SEEMA´S HOUSE Seema, the youngest teacher at CNPS lives with over twenty other family members in a brick house. Four of their children belongs to CNPS. B12 SANJAY´S HOUSE Sanjay, a father at school, was the auto driver who drove us around the most. He got more and more involved as the project proceeded, as a weaver, mason, guide. B14 PAPU´S MUD HOUSE Papu, his wife and his children are brick makers. Once, we questioned about his primary school aged children working on site laying bricks. He strongly reacted saying that he has the right to decide how to bring up his children. His house is quite unique and beautiful as the walls are made of tatch which is plastered by mud. B16 KAILASH & SHAMRAJ´S HOUSE Kailash is a worker at school and his two daughters also goes to school. He takes care most of the physical work. Shamraj, Kailash´s father has guided us different construction material suppliers. B18 MUD HOUSE WITH WHITE PAINT It is the house of Sarvesh´s teacher. The house is decorated by a very simple line of white dots, which gave us the inspiration to make dotted lines around doors and windows of the new building.
C1 NATAI KAKA´S HOUSE It is one of the most beautiful mud houses in the village. Natai was a figue who served as a village father due to his great personality. His contribution to the project was huge and his hand-woven notice boards has became everyone´s favorite, a symbol of the new school. His daughter, Lal Munni was also a key player of the project. Her energy stimulated others to actively take part in the workshops. When our cook Neelam was unable to come to work, she came to our office, made food and shared us stories about her life in the village. C3 JANGBHADUL´S HOUSE He is one of the parents and also a milk man who occasionally delivered fresh milk to our office in the morning. He actively took part in the weekly workshops. C4 TINKU´S HOUSE He is a close friend of Nagina. You would often find him in the fields with his longi on. He was curious about the project and came visit our office and even attended some of the workshops. One of the notice board was partly weaved by Tinku. C7 PRIYANKA´S HOUSE Priyanka is one of the six teachers. While her husband is absent working in another city, she takes care of her big in-law family and support agricultural and domestic work. She guided me around her neigbour introducing me to the parents at school. She is confident in the way she interacts with her neighbours.
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C15 NANDU & SALTA´S MUD HOUSE Their house is one of the most beautiful mud houses of Hariharpur. Nandu is a milk man and he also used weave using bamboo before his knees were damaged. They are family members of CNPS student and have made a chair beautifully woven. Whenever we visited them, they wlecomed us with smiles. C16 KUSUM & LATA´S TWO-STORY MUD HOUSE We have visited their house several times as they have a rare two-story building made of mud. The family seemed to live in the neigbouring brick house while using the mud house more as a storage as it is getting old. C17 WATIKA & LILAVATI ´S TWOSTORY MUD HOUSE The neigbouring two-story mud house is actually a continuation from Kusun´s house. The mud house is now too dangerous to go on the upper floor. The mother and grandmother are living with a young child in the adjacent brick house.
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March – June
WORKSHOP architecture
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Design Process
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The name of our studio – WORKSHOP architecture – is indicative of our collaborative approach to design, and the way in which we try to think with our hands. By physically testing ideas at 1:1 on the site, in such a way that people can interact with them, we try to communicate form and scale directly in order to understand how this will shape use – for our own benefit as well as the building’s future users.
The challenges set by the brief had many overlaps with the issues we had faced during our previous two projects (both educational spaces) so the project offered an exciting opportunity to refine some of our ideas rather than start from afresh. We had four starting points: our direct experience of the village during the first research trips, the design workshop with the teachers carried out during the second recce trip, the research carried out in collaboration with the Visiting School participants in Delhi, and a preliminary design for a replicable prototype that had already been drawn up by ITRHD’s architect Shiban Ganju. Mr Ganju was very open to us as young architects and not at all protective over his work. Nonetheless we studied it carefully, and considered which elements to take forward in our own design, and which to alter. We also needed to ensure that ITRHD’s chairman, S.K. Misra, didn’t feel that we were renegade architects who were going to hijack his project! Although there was some concern that we would take a very different approach to that which Shiban Ganju had adopted, it soon became clear that while the form might differ, the logic behind our design was very similar. Shiban Ganju’s design proposed a series of square single-story structures composed of reinforced brick columns and brick infill walls, with steel roof trusses covered in tin. The idea was that each unit could accommodate a range of functions, and could be arranged on any site to form a cluster of buildings with small spaces between them. Our proposal was to use a similar structural system but to conceive of the ‘unit’ as a single 2m wide bay that could be repeated to create a block in a range of ways. On the ground floor of our building, for example, two bays accommodate the toilets, while three bays accommodate the classroom. This allows for complete flexibility depending on the function and size of the plot. In late February we were informed by S.K. Misra that
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he was applying for funding from ONGC, India’s
set off for the village. Soon after arriving, however, it
largest oil and gas company, and would therefore
became apparent that there were many unresolved
require a design for a two-story structure. Although
issues relating to the land. The man who we had
we weren’t obliged to actually make the second
been told was ‘donating’ a plot of land for the
story, the foundations would have to be designed
school seemed to have reservations about handing
to accommodate it at a later stage. Whilst it would
it over; there were repeated delays in providing the
have been much simpler for us to construct two
appropriate documentation, and then demands for
classrooms at ground level, we decided to go ahead
recognition in return for the donation, such as being
with the second story so that the building would be
given the title of Head Master and Project Manager.
a complete prototype – acting as a built reference
He had attended two events in Delhi, firstly the
during the completion of the master plan.
UnBox festival we were involved with on the last day
During the second research trip around the same time, we carried out a series of workshops with the teachers to brainstorm ideas about the new school. Consistently, the form proposed in their drawings was a courtyard: three buildings surrounding an open space with a stage or gate along the fourth side of the plot. Having measured the site during this trip, we set to work in Delhi to refine the design based on these two principles: the repeatable bay, and the courtyard typology. We were also keen to integrate many of the exciting ideas that had been generated during the Visiting School in Delhi. While the built research had focused on the use of mud and jute weaving, we also explored many other design elements during the first half of the workshop
of the Visiting School and secondly the stakeholder meeting in the British Council gallery. On both occasions he presented himself as the ‘land donor’; this change of heart was surprising. It was unclear what exactly had caused this, but it seemed as though he was under pressure from his family, who perhaps thought he was being taken advantage of and not getting enough in return. As a consequence, ITRHD was forced to turn to other members of the community, and enter a 30 year rental agreement on a piece of land nearby. Although to a certain extent this presented a set-back, the whole premise of the design was that it was adaptable, and so we were able to accommodate the new conditions on site relatively easily.
such as ventilation strategies, orientation, and the
Once the second Visiting School started, we had
integration of playful structures in the building.
a chance to refine the design more – carrying out
We evolved these drawings into a master plan which included the building we were intending to construct, and subsequently proposed this to ITRHD. With the approval of their architect, Mr. Ganju, we
a proper site survey, deciding how many bays to build, where to place the septic tank, how to orient the building, and resolving the interior plans. These decisions were made with the parents and teachers during the first couple of workshops.
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A sketch made by the teachers during one of the initial workshops. The design is primarily a courtyard with classrooms facing a central space, or “hall� as Gauri called it, which could be used for performances or as a gathering space.
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Left & right The six teachers presenting the results of the master plan workshop. Most of the designs are based on the idea of having a courtyard space between the classrooms.
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A lot of time was spent on the toilet block in particular, and the participants truly collaborated with the teachers to find an appropriate and elegant solution. Multiple design iterations were developed, presented, and altered until everyone was satisfied. The most important factor was separating the entrance for the boys’ toilets from the girls’ toilets, and providing enough space in the teachers’ cubicle to wash a child or change clothes. We started construction during the Visiting School, and got as far as we could with the design of the first floor and the roof structure while our two engineers from Ramboll were in the village. As our understanding of the availability of bamboo increased over the course of the project, however, we were forced to adapt the design accordingly. It became apparent that the local species available to buy in the markets was not as strong enough, and that it wasn’t growing abundantly enough for us to cut it from clumps directly. We therefore decided to bring the reinforced brick columns up onto the first floor and have a second ring beam. Although the engineers had been worried that pouring a ring beam at this height would prove difficult and were therefore in favour of a ‘light-weight’ first floor, this type of construction is incredibly common in the area and relatively easy to achieve. Harvesting, treating, joining and fastening bamboo on the other hand is a complete unknown. It is used as a temporary support for single story structures such as lean-to verandahs, and also in roofs, but never as longspan beams or columns. The design process therefore continued during construction, not only in terms of the first floor structure, but also in terms of details such as doors, windows, final finishes and so on. While this means that the work load becomes rather tricky to manage – on site one minute, and back to the drawing board the next – it allows the building itself to become a 1:1 model where you can make decisions based on a direct experience of the space.
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Sketch of the short section of the building.
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Sketch of the long elevation (pencil on paper).
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Models exploring materiality and the master plan.
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Master plan | Building stages
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Design Process
Phase 1 Ground floor: 1 three-bay classroom and toilets First floor: 1 three-bay classroom and staff room
Mainly overseen by WORKSHOP architecture and currently under construction
Phase 2 Ground floor: 3 four-bay classrooms First floor: 3 four-bay classrooms Will be constructed under ITRHD’s supervision
Phase 3 Ground floor: 1 four-bay classroom, Kitchen and dining hall First floor: 2 four-bay classrooms Will be constructed under ITRHD’s supervision
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Toilets Two boys’ toilets, two girls’ toilets and one teachers’ toilet with separate entrances. As requested in one of the community workshops the boys’ toilet entrance is located around the corner
Phase 1 This building was the focus of Project Hariharpur. The prototype two-story structure contains two classrooms, an office, five toilets and has a verandah running along the front and side.
Entrance The main entrance to the site is an opening between the east facing building and the north facing classrooms.
Four-bay classrooms 8 x 5.3m 42m2 These are the largest classrooms that will be built for the school and can accommodate 30 students. The middle classroom opens up to the courtyard and can function as a stage for larger events.
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‘Shankar Balram’ septic tank A modified Shankar Balram system combines a septic tank with a reed-bed system that treats the sewage and prevents it from leaking into the groundwater.
Stage 4.2 x 5.6m 23.5m2 At the north side of the courtyard is a stage that can have a lightweight structure on top if needed. This will serve as a stage for musical performances or children’s plays.
Kitchen 4 x 5.3m 21.2m2 The kitchen is a one-bay structure that also utilizes the space below the staircase. Dining hall 10 x 5.3m 53m2 A second entrance is located next to the eating area.
Master plan | Ground floor
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Office 3.7 x 5.3m 19,6m2 The two-bay office space is located next to the water tanks.
Walkway An elevated walkway connects all the buildings on the first floor.
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Courtyard 10 x 17m 170m2 The courtyard is a protected play area for the children, surrounded by buildings and boundary walls.
Library / Classroom 10 x 5.3m 53m2 A multifunctional space; library, classroom or a room for vocational training, art, music and dance.
Master plan | First floor
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Plan | Ground floor Girls’ toilet The girls’ toilet is designed to have a separate entrance from the boys’ cubicles, to ensure adequate privacy.
Slide One of the fun elements that came out of the NTNU / AA Visiting School Small stage
Three-bay classroom
Boys’ toilet
According to CBSE standards: 5.7 x 5.3m (30m2)
The boys’ toilet is entered through a doorway on the side of the building.
A 30 cm raised platform functions as a small stage.
B
A
A
B N
Verandah
Wall niche
Water pump
The verandah is a covered walkway that protects users from rain and sun, as well as functioning as an intermediate space between inside and outside. The brick work pattern of the floor was designed during an on-site workshop.
A recessed bench is located in a wall niche, with a shoe rack below, so that children can easily remove their footwear before entering the classroom.
A hand operated water pump is provided for drinking. The motor is also located here, to pump water up to the tanks on the first floor. Teachers’ toilet The teachers toilet is separate so that it can be used by both men and women. It is a large space with a shower, allowing children to be washed after accidents.
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Plan | First floor Water tanks The water tanks are located on the first floor to ensure adequate pressure in the toilets below. They will also serve the kitchen, once it is built.
Storage / stage This space can be used either for storage or as a second performance space.
Office The office is located adjacent to the water tanks. Additional space around the tanks can be used as storage.
B
A
A
B N
Staircase landing
Three-bay classroom
The additional landing at the top of the stairs enables to the roof top to be accessed before the walkway is built.
According to CBSE standards: 5.7 x 5.3m (30m2)
Doors The folding doors make it possible to open up a whole wall of the classroom.
Elevated walkway The walkway will connect the first floor classrooms in the larger master plan. The covered space also protects users and the building from the harsh climate.
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First floor classrooms
Slide The slide is accessed from the staircase landing and exits through the rear of the building.
The first floor classroom is roofed by the bamboo structure, and insulated with mud and straw. It is enclosed by brick walls with similar windows to the space below. Office The office is accessed through a side entrance off the elevated walkway.
Play area
Ground floor classroom
Teachers’ toilet
The space beneath the staircase ranges in height between 2.5m and 0.5 m. This area will be used as a play space by the younger children.
The ground floor classroom has a barrel vault roof. Large windows of different sizes perforate the rear wall, and the classroom is accessed through two large doors on the front wall.
The drop-height partition walls in the toilets allow for light and ventilation. The windows are located high up on the exterior walls, ensuring adequate privacy.
Section AA Section through classrooms, toilets, office and staircase
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Office Water tanks / storage
Boys’ toilet
Elevated walkway
Teachers’ toilets
Verandah
Section BB Section through toilets on ground floor and office/library + room for water tanks on first floor.
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South elevation In the next phase of construction the elevated walkway will be extended to connect this building with the adjacent structure. This will also create a roof above the entrance space.
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West elevation The west-facing rear of the building has small openings to prevent the strong evening sun entering the classroom and over-heating the space.
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East elevation The classrooms are accessed via large folding doors along the front of the building. Slats are mounted on the front of the bamboo verandah structure to create an animated facade and increase shading.
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North elevation The verandah and walkway wrap around the north edge of the building allowing access to the boys’ toilet on the ground floor, and the office on the first floor.
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The construction process is not only about building a building, but about building trust, a sense of ownership and pride amongst the people involved throughout the process. The building site becomes a platform for exchange of knowledge and experience.
Construction is challenging in any context – coordinating materials, labour, finances and a schedule requires hard work, patience and persistence. Working in India, in a small village with little electricity, without speaking the local language, can be more than a little stressful. Although being organized is useful, learning to let go a bit and accept whatever comes your way is more so. The need to accommodate unpredictability is crucial. As one of our steel suppliers, Anurag, used to say with a glint in his eye as we double checked the certainty of an order: “99% sure, 1% God’s will...”. Although Anurag’s inability to commit was frustrating, his honesty was relatively refreshing – we found that many people would much prefer to guarantee something and then simply not show up, rather than admit it was not going to be possible. To a certain extent this was because it’s hard to know whether there will be power, transport or labour. Festivals, weddings, and wheat harvesting were some of the things that interfered with construction, and the only appropriate response was to adapt the schedule accordingly. This ability to accommodate any situation with what you have at hand was one of the many things we learnt from local people on the site. Seeing us watch with admiration (and a little terror) the labourers lift the steel I-girders in place by hand, one of the local people told us ‘We call that jugarh - the village way’. On our return to London we had the opportunity to visit the site for the Herzog & de Meuron’s Tate Modern extension. Only after equipping ourselves with hats, gloves, fluorescent jackets and goggles were we finally allowed to swipe into the electronically sealed construction zone. The contrast was a bit of a reality check, and reminded us to ask Ramboll to sponsor some gear that we could take back on our next trip to India. Our challenge is to find a balance between the highly regulated and litigious world of construction in the London (with the benefits of control and safety), and the more informal world of construction in the village (with the benefits of flexibility and possibility for a more direct engagement in the process).
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Detail drawings by the engineers developed during the NTNU/AA visiting school.
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Given that we were based at the site, and involved in every aspect of construction from procuring materials, to sourcing labour, to laying bricks and mixing mortar, the need for a conventional contractor figure was diminished. At the same time, our limited on-site experience (three built projects between us) and minimal local knowledge, meant that we required help to ensure things ran efficiently. Kamlesh Ji, a former village chief and one of the landowners who agreed to rent the site to ITRHD, took on the role of co-ordinating certain things without hesitation. His knowledge, however, of specific construction details was limited, and so while this arrangement worked well when we were able to be on-site everyday, we had to find someone to run the site after we left. In order to allow ourselves to withdraw gradually from managing things, we started looking for this person as early as April. In ITRHD’s previous experience working with a contractor, he had taken a chunk of the overall budget as his personal profit, and had resisted using construction workers from the village. We therefore decided to employ a local contractor as a ‘Construction Supervisor’ on a daily wage; in this way we had full control over the funds, and could ensure that local people (as far as possible from Hariharpur itself rather than neighbouring villages) were working on the site. After meeting a number of potential candidates we selected Jitinder, who agreed to hand the other sites he was managing over to his brother, and work full-time on the school. Although to a certain extend this arrangement has worked out well, the clear disadvantage is that he felt less overall responsibility for the project. As a conventional contractor, if things are running behind or you’re being over-charged for materials, your profit will suffer. In Jitinder’s case he carries on getting the same daily wage, regardless of the progress at site; in fact it’s almost in his interest for things to be delayed! Another challenge was finding the balance between keeping the design open enough for people to contribute to it meaningfully, and resolving things so that the construction team felt well-led and able to work efficiently. In some cases, the strategy of leaving ‘gaps’ in the design for people to respond to worked well; more often people became impatient with indecisions that were causing delays on site, and occasion led to work having to be redone. We learnt the importance of fully resolving the structural framework, before starting on site, perhaps even before moving to the village. We see huge potential for the construction phase to trigger dialogue and exchange; but we’re realising that this needs structure (both physically and organisationally) to occur productively.
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Foundation Compacted crushed brick in 900mm wide trench; 50mm thick layer of plain concrete to create level base; reinforced brick columns with brick walls; reinforced concrete damp proof course 450mm above ground level that also acts as lower level ring beam; water pump installed to tie into verandah at front of building.
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Construction
1 Compacting the trenches
3 Laying brick walls
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2 Smoothing concrete to make a level surface
4 Pouring the damp proof course / lower ring beam
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Ground floor columns, beams & staircase Reinforced brick columns spaced 200mm apart; steel I-girders rest on columns in central bays; concrete ring beam tying columns together at the top for seismic resistance; concrete T and L-beams above columns end bays; steel footings for first floor bamboo structure cast into ring-beam; sleeves for steel tierods beneath barrel vaults cast into concrete T and L beams; smaller ring-beam cast around staircase; diagonal concrete slab for staircase cast; fired bricks laid to create steps.
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Construction
1 Building up the reinforced brick column
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2 Placing the steel I-girder on top of a column
4 Pouring the slab for the staircase
3 Installing the rebar cages for the concrete beams in the form work
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Ground floor roof
Bamboo and mud form work; fired brick barrel vaults spanning 200mm bays between beams; crushed brick bats above vaults; reinforced concrete slab with embedded electrical ducts.
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1 Bamboo and mud form work, seen from below, resting on timber props
2 The form work for the three classroom barrel vaults at various stages of completion
4 Broken brick infill in the foreground; concrete beams being cast above girders in background 3 Laying bricks on top of the form work of mud and concrete plaster
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Ground floor infill walls, flooring & plumbing Electrical and plumbing installed; first floor concrete slab cast above barrel vaults; water tanks installed; infill bricks between columns laid; three layers of mud plaster applied on both walls and columns, metal footings cast into verandah foundation columns; fired brick flooring laid, pipes installed; bathroom fixtures installed.
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1 Electrical and plumbing work before casting the first floor slab.
2 Casting a reinforced concrete slab on first floor with water proofing additive.
3 Infill walls between the columns on the ground floor
4 The first layer of mud plaster completed
5 Laying fired bricks for the verandah flooring
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First floor columns and beams Continuation of reinforced fired brick columns spaced 200mm apart; concrete ring-beam at angle of roof slope to tie columns together at top; doors and windows installed;
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Construction
1 Making reinforced brick columns
3 Leveling the shuttering, placing reinforcement bars and steel footings for the bamboo structure, before casting the ring beam.
2 Scaffolding for making the brick columns and shuttering.
4 Casting the ring beam. Some fired brick infill wall are made to stabilise the structure.
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First floor infill walls Sun-dried mud bricks laid to create full-height walls between columns and balustrade around stairwell; doors, windows, screens and shutters installed; three layers of mud plaster applied on both walls and columns; decorative white paint used to articulate openings; educational white paint used to implement BaLA strategy (Building as Leaning Aid).
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1 First floor walls being built.
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First floor roof & verandah Thick bamboo roof beams spaced every
the front of the middle ring beam and
200mm laid on top of upper ring beam
bolted to columns; flooring for balcony laid;
(and secured with a J-hook); bamboo col-
thin bamboo laid perpendicular to beams
umns into metal footings at verandah level
to act as purlins, split bamboo attached to
and bolted to beams at the top; bamboo
underside of purlins as finished ceiling sur-
struts slotted into metal footings at the
face; thatch laid on top of purlins, tin laid
back of middle ring-beam and tied to the
on top of thatch and attached to bamboo
bamboo roof beams at the top; balcony
purlins with J-hooks.
beams slotted into the metal footings at
Construction
YET TO BE COMPLETED
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Electrical, furniture, slats & occupation! Wired threaded though electrical ducts, fans, lights, switches & sockets installed, furniture installed,
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YET TO BE COMPLETED
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1 Foundation & key plan of primary structural grid Detail of brick foundation, reinforced with a 100mmx100mm core of concrete and rebar. With a center-center distance of 2052mm the column distance defines the module of the toilet (2 bays) or the classroom (3 bays)
Column plans:
Toothing patterns
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Section AA
Section BB
Section CC
Section EE
Wall foundation
Front verandah foundation column
Foundation column
Side verandah foundation column
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2A Ring beam Ring beam plan & section. Showing the square- , Tand L -beam as well as the steel I-girder. As well as casting steps
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Construction
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2D Steel footing for I-Girder This steel plate functions as a footing for the steel girder and spreads the load evenly over the 355x355mm of the column section
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2E The I-Girder Detail of how the I girder needs four holes to alow it to be treaded onto the steel footing. Also how the I girder needs reinforcement for the concrete infill detail.
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2F Step-by step schedule for placing of I-girder on columns Vertical rebar needs to be threaded through the holes in the steel plate, and then through holes in the top and bottom flanges of the steel I-girder, before being bent and welded. As the rebar needs to be cast into the columns before the beams are place, the sequence of steps becomes important. (Two more steps on the following page)
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1. Dont cast the concrete all the way up in the column 2. Place the rebar extension into the hole 3. Position two bricks on either side of the hole 4. Place the steel footings on top of the two bricks
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5. Fill the hole with the extension with concrete in the gap between the bricks and the steel footing. 6. Tread the I-girder on top of the rebars
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7.-8. When the I-girder is positioned, weld the cage rebars and the column rebars to the I-girder.
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2G Jointing rebar cages Plans showing how the rebar cages meet in the corner and how it jonts with the T-beams, L-beams and the I-Girder
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2H Section of rebars in the meeting between the column and the I-girder The sections shows how the rebar treads through the I-girder and goes into the concrete beams.
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Tie bars Arches are structures in compression. They result in lateral forces which need to be restrained. For a vertical loead of 1, the lateral load is 1.15 at both ends for our geometry. Ties needs to be provided.
3A Barrel vault Above: section showing barrel vault structure, with step-bystep construction notes. Right: conceptual load diagram
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Steps of construction: 1. Place steel plate in place propped up on two bricks only (to sure filling in column center with concrete)
7. Fix tie bars, nice and tight. 8. Weld tie bars to steel beam
2. Lift steel beam into place + Temporary props
9. Make formwork
3. Install shuttering for concrete
10. lay sections of barrel vault, wait for four days before removing
4. Fix reinforcement + other cast-ins (sleeves, footings) 5. Pour concrete 6. Cure for at least four days, ideally seven days + remove shuttering.
formwork. 11. Cast concrete around steel beam
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Handing Over
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We see our role as initiators of processes that are designed to continue long after we have left. While it’s important to take responsibility for what we have started, we encourage our partner organisations to work with local community members to take the project forward. Understanding our limits, and what is achievable in such short timeframes, is something we’re learning with each project. Equally important is being realistic about the capabilities of the community and the partner organization in terms of delivering the project through to completion.
Towards the end of May, we started the process of handing over the project to ITRHD and the local community. We had decided to come back again in mid-July, after a month or so in Europe, to check up on the site and to deliver a full set of construction drawings signed off by our engineers from Ramboll.Although most of the building would be complete by this stage, we wanted to produce these not only for ‘good practice’ but also as a construction guide for the rest of the master plan (which is essentially the same unit repeated). Although in one way it would have been more efficient to continue straight through, we had commitments in Europe that we couldn’t get out of, and after three months in the village, we also really needed a break! However, this interim period was in fact a very good way to test the extent to which the community and ITRHD were able to successfully manage the project. Another aim for us to go back is also to strenghten the framework for the weekly community workshops. ITRHD’s representative in Hariharpur, Arvind, began to take over key roles such as managing and paying the labour, and keeping the accounts, at the end of April. Althouh we were worried it was a big task given his lack of project management experience, in keeping with our belief in ‘learning by doing, we tried to support him as much as possible. In late May we transferred the remaining money for the project to ITRHD’s account in two payments, which they then transferred to Arvind’s account incrementally so that he could withdraw cash and make the necessary payments. We requested that ITRHD provide him with a laptop and a camera so that he could stay in touch and send us updates as the project developed. Kritika agreed to return on three occasions during the time that we were away, and stayed in touch with the Construction Supervisor Jitinder on almost a daily basis.
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Just before we left, S.K. Misra appointed Anshu Ahuja as part of the ITRHD team – as an architect who would oversee the construction of the master plan, along with a number of other projects elsewhere. We had invited Anshu to join us in Hariharpur for the second Visiting School, as a barrel vault expert, but wasn’t aware that he subsequently had introduced himself to Mr Misra. Although we were slightly taken aback when he unexpectedly arrived at the hand-over meeting (a lack of communication of both his and ITRHD’s account), we realised he could play an incredibly valuable role. During the two weeks when Arvind had to return to Delhi to take some exams, Anshu was able to be on-site in the village. There was however, almost inevitably, some conflict between Kritika and Anshu during this period – both with enormous responsibility on their shoulders but unable to make any major decisions themselves. On the one hand a classic case of ‘too many cooks in the kitchen’, but also problematic because there was no-one there full time, and therefore miscommunication and a lack of continuity. Unfortunately during the period we were away there was extensive damage to the ground floor mud walls during the heavy monsoon rains. Although the site was well equipped with plastic sheets, the lack of an overhang in the design meant that is was easy for water to drip behind the sheets. Additionally, they were often poorly secured in place by the construction team, easily blowing away in the strong winds. In the case of two small sections, the damage ultimately led to collapse. After consulting with experts when we returned to Delhi in late July, we decided that the safest option was to remove the mud walls entirely and replace them with fired brick. During this period we also collaborated with the bamboo architecture firm Karyashala (which fittingly means ‘workshop’ in Hindi) on the design of the first floor roof and walkway. They developed a very beautiful design, and although the structural principles were backed up by technical research, ITRHD remain apprehensive about the use of bamboo. Particularly after the failure of the mud walls, they are understandably nervous about using an unconventional material. Anshu is very keen to implement the bamboo and has committed to staying in the village until it’s be chosen. As this book goes to print, in early August, it’s not yet clear what direction will choose. We hope ITRHD will follow through with the bamboo but also understand that having now officially handed over the project, the decision rests with ITRHD and needs to be something they are confident about.
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Handing Over
Top The labourers at work on site. Bottom Clem, Alex and Ivar helping to build the foundations.
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After being taught how to build the two first barrel vaults by the master mason Raman, the three following vaults were completed by our labour and masons independently after we left.
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Handing Over
Top The teachers supervising work on site after the community workshop. Bottom The community workshop continued after we left; in this image, the teachers are discussing the playing ground.
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Cost Estimate
The original amount slated for construction, from the British Council funds, was approximately Rs. 1,300, 000 (£15, 500) - our biggest budget to date. Accurate budgeting requires both extensive research and experience. Being based in Delhi at the start of the project when we were designing, however, made it hard for us to do an adequate survey of the local markets. Given this was ITRHD’s first built project, and that their office and staff are also located in the capital, meant that they were unable to assist us in this respect. Our limited experience in India as a whole also made it difficult to predict things which would affect expenditure at site. This problem was exacerbated by the fact that we and ITRHD mutually decided not to appoint a Contractor on the project. The intention was to omit the ‘middle man’ and work directly with the local community - retaining control over the funds, and ensuring that a construction team from the village were employed. Although we appointed a Construction Supervisor, who also happened to be a father of one of the Chacha Nehru pupils, he wasn’t in a position to manage things in the same way that a Contractor conventionally would. Moreover, he was being paid a daily wage, rather than a fee taken out of the overall budget, meaning there was little motivation to avoid delays at site, and the extension of the construction phase. Another challenge we faced in managing the budget properly was that the design altered during the construction process. This was in part a consequence of the fact that we started building before we were really ready in order to stick to the schedule, and the agenda for the second Visiting School - which had been promoted as a hands-on building experience. It was also due to the fact that our community consultation process took place during construction, rather than beforehand. The decision, for example, to replace the light-weight design of the first floor with brick walls and an upper ring-beam (which was taken in response to local concerns about the strong ‘loo’ winds) took place very late in the process. Knowing we had additional funds to tap into from additional sponsors meant that we were less cautious about making big alterations such as this without analyzing the financial impact more rigorously. The necessity to replace the ground floor mud walls with fired brick obviously had a serious financial impact in terms of labour and material; a fired brick costs approximately Rs. 5, compared to Rs. 2 for a mud brick. In our haste to rebuild some of the ground floor walls, we ended up laying the fired bricks in the same ways as the mud bricks - building solid 355mm walls. For the rest of the walls we will adopt the material and cost-saving ‘rat trap’ bond promoted by Laurie Baker, which will lead to significant savings.
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Some decisions were reached based on design and aesthetic preferences, with an awareness that they would cost more than alternative options. We decided, for example, to use steel I-girders for the intermediate beams between the barrel vaults rather than reinforced concrete beams, which although slightly cheaper would have been much less elegant. We subsequently received a critique from an experienced architect in regards to this, who said the use of perforated steel beams would have saved a lot of money. On making some inquiries with a local steel merchant, however, it transpired that these are not readily available in Azamgarh. This was also the case with other items we needed to procure, such as the bolts for the bamboo structures. Prefabricated threaded rod costs approximately Rs. 250 for two meters in Delhi, compared to Rs. 1000 for the same length in Varanasi (the nearest supplier to the village) where it is threaded manually. No doubt this included an unofficial ‘foreigner tax’, which is invariably added by Indians doing business with Westerners. Although on the whole professionals offered us their time and expertise very generously on a pro-bono basis, on a couple of occasions we invested in people financially with little gain. During the Visiting School we were keen to build with both bamboo and cob, and invited the well-known ‘natural builder’ Sourabh Phadke to join the workshop as a consultant. Although we paid him a very modest honorarium, we covered his flights from Pune. In the event, he got a stomach bug and spent most of the workshop in bed rather than at site. In the end the total cost is protected to be around Rs. 800,000 (roughly £9500) more expensive than originally budgeted for. Probably the biggest lesson we learned was to formalize the design process more - to prepare a proper set of construction drawings before starting on site, and to give ourselves enough time to alter these in consultation with experienced architects, local builders and the community. With a mutually resolved set of drawings in hand, the construction can become more efficient, more enjoyable... and within budget! However, although the shortfall was partly due to mistakes and inefficiencies at site, it was also down to bad budgeting – with more experience it would have been clear that what we were aiming to build was going to cost more that we predicted. Additionally, the structure was designed to be much stronger (with more reinforcement for example) than is typical in the local area - therefore raising the costs in comparison to similar sized buildings. It’s also fair to say that this was a prototype and therefore required the time and funds for a certain amount of focused and collaborative experimentation. Having tapped into existing sponsorship money to keep construction going on site, both we and ITRHD are fundraising to collect the approximate Rs. 400,000 needed to complete the building.
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Expenditure Cost breakdown up until July 2013. The projected expenditure in order to complete the building is a further Rs. 10.2 lakh.
₨
kr £
₨
kr £
Material 630,505 64,512 6,933
Material 1,044,895 113,698 12,510
Labour 217,830 22,288 2,395
Tools 41,524 4,248 456
Workshops 8,551 874 94
Transport 15,190 1,554 167
Cost Estimate
Electrical 5,179 529 57
Plumbing 60,630 6,203 667
Shuttering 42,470 4,345 467
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Consultation 57,938 5,928 637
Design + Admin 49,570 5,071 637
Receipts from the course of the project.
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Reflecting
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Reflecting is an important part of our work and contributes to our learning experience, enabling us to improve with time. Being so closely involved in every aspect of the project means it’s sometimes hard to gain perspective, and see things in an objective light. Listening to the many people who have been collaborators is crucial in order to be able to piece together a true understanding of what took place and what kind of impact has been made – both locally and more broadly.
The contributions on the following pages come from a number of different people, who have been involved with the project in very different ways. The first insight is provided by the teachers, through interviews in which they talk about how the project has affected their lives and their ambitions for the future. Jelmer, Belu and Jostein, all participants in the second AA / NTNU Visiting School, write about their personal experience of the project and the village, and the ways in which this has affected their understanding of what architecture can be and do. Kritika’s text gives us an insight into the project from her point of view, as an Indian in the unique position of mediator between us and the local community. Keelan and Yanchee touch on the motivations behind being involved the project as professionals, highlighting the moments that stood out for them. The penultimate text is from the Finnish architect Sami Rintala, who is one of Alex’s and Ivar’s thesis tutors at NTNU. Although he didn’t visit the site, and wasn’t involved in many discussions about the project, his ongoing mentorship from afar has shaped the way we practice. For us, his words are an inspiring ‘call to arms’ and also a reminder to position the work we do in a larger global context. Finally we are honoured to include a reflection by the Indian architect Revathi Kamath who has informally guided us throughout the project – practically, intellectually, and philosophically.
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Interview with the teachers Gauri, Seema, Sarva Mangala, Priyanka, Ankita and Beena After Leika’s interview with Gauri in English, Gauri has interviewed the remaining teachers in Hindi. Kindly translated by Himanshu Mam.
Beena: Meeting all the participants was quite an opportunity for us to interact with people of different cultures.
What were your expectations when you became a teacher at Chacha Nehru School?
Seema: I felt very happy and privileged to see that so many people from all over the world kept aside their busy schedules and took out time to work towards the welfare of our village.
Seema: I expected to see a lot of progress in the years to come, and more and more teachers join the team and help the children make a better future Priyanka: I feel very proud that I am associated with this school. My expectation was to learn a lot during the training sessions conducted by Deepika ma’am and then transfer that knowledge in the correct manner to the children. Did your life in Hariharpur change after having a job? Ankita: Before I started teaching at Chacha Nehru Primary School, I used to be mostly at home, doing household jobs. I was a home bound girl whose education couldn’t be put to any use. Since I have stepped into this experience, my life has become so much better and hopeful. I see a big change in myself today. Beena: This job has given a purpose to my life. Earlier I spent most of the time at home as a housewife, but now it feels great to have a purpose and an objective beyond the house. Working for the school and being at a platform where I am able to interact with the entire community has changed my identity. Seema: I hardly moved out of my house before. Since having the job, I am happy to get an opportunity to interact with so many people of the community. It gives me happiness and confidence. My lifestyle changed too. How did you feel when we arrived to make the new school building? Also, when there were so many people from outside the village for the visiting school? Gauri: I was shocked to see twenty to twenty-five foreigners arriving in Hariharpur, but I was happy and now all foreigners are my friends.
What do you think about the new school building? How did you react when we said we are using mud walls? Sarva Mangala: Initially, I was quite surprised to know about mud being used as a construction material. But when its advantages were communicated to us, I learned that how a cost effective building can be made comfortable owing to its properties consisting of a fine combination of both mud bricks and fired bricks. Seema: It’s a pleasure to see that the new building is respecting the tradition of mud walls. Ankita: When I heard about using mud in the new school building, I really liked the idea. Staying in a house made of mud has its comfort benefits and it’s a pleasure to live. We experience warmer interiors in winters and cooler in summers. How is the community reacting to the new school building? Ankita: People of the village feel extremely fortunate to have a new bigger building, as it lays the foundation of a better and a brighter future for their children. It is a good opportunity especially for girls of the village, who are not allowed to travel outside the village to study. Priyanka: The community is very happy to see the new building coming up, that is why we can see they are so enthusiastic in lending their support in the best possible way. What do you look forward for the new school building? Sarva Mangala: I hope that the new school building
Reflecting
serves as a model for other schools in the nearby villages in the coming future. Ankita: I look forward to a wider community of children, even from nearby villages coming to study here. The new building will be more spacious and better organized so we can accommodate more functions and more children. Do you feel like you are a big part of the project/ school making? Do you think your opinion has been reflected in the design? Priyanka: We all are an equal part of this project. And anyone like us can be a part anytime and contribute in some or the other way. Like all the other teachers and parents even I drew a plan for the school and it gave me immense pleasure to see that some of the points have been considered in the final plan. Sarva Mangala: Saturday workshops have empowered us to be an important part of the building making. Do you think the community has been engaged in the building making process? Beena: Yes, starting from my own house, my husband, my son Adarsh, and also the members of the entire village are doing their best to contribute to the making of this building. Help or assistance came in any ways, through a cup of tea or a cup of water for the laborers and masons, or a hand to lay a brick, we saw so many engagements. Do you enjoy having Saturday workshops? In what way? Sarva Mangala: Yes very much. It has been an interactive forum for teachers to interact with the parents and discuss the developments of the building. Gauri: Saturday workshops were very interesting. We were asked how the building should be like, about the toilets, rooms, chairs, tables, the roof, and also about weaving. Then everyone started to discuss that the gate should be here, not there, the windows need to be big, not small... It’s not only about teachers’ ideas, but the parents were giving their ideas. The parents got excited and said “oh, it is my school.”
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Do you feel closer to parents after some workshops? Are the workshops empowering teachers to have a better role in the community? Beena: Yes no doubt, it is by means of the workshops, parents could communicate a vision for their children’s school. They have come up with very interesting ideas, some of which have been incorporated into the final plan. Also, after interacting so much with them we learnt about their personal skills and knowledge too. Workshops have given us a responsible image in the community. Sarva Mangala: During the workshops, I was conveyed by parents that they are very happy to see a good change in their children as they have started realizing the importance of schooling and education. Conducting these sessions has given me a confidence to interact with a large community of parents and bring new ideas towards making of the school. Will you continue holding workshops every Saturday after we leave? Priyanka: Yes why not. We will have it surely. Gauri: Yes. I will try holding workshops every week, but examination period, 26th of January, 15th of August are not possible. Other than that, we have workshops on every Saturday. How do you think Chacha Nehru School will develop in the future? Ankita: I think Chacha Nehru School will set an example of a good school and a good building amongst all the neighboring villages. Priyanka: If we the community of the village, keeps contributing in some or the other way and let the whole building come into shape as desired by all of us, I foresee a very bright image of the school in the years to come. Gauri: The school future is very good. Some children are waiting for the admission of this school. I think its future is dependent of three different groups – teachers, children and parents.
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Kritika Dhanda Project Coordinator and Site Manager
I was in between projects that I had been working on and had a couple of weeks to spare before work would start on the next one. The British Council announced a Visiting School for architects. Ten days of brain storming ideas for the design of the upcoming Chacha Nehru school at Hariharpur in Uttar Pradesh exploring vernacular techniques. Since it was different from anything I had done earlier, I had decided to join. After the workshop was over the AA group was to move to Hariharpur for execution and an opportunity came to join the team and to build the school.
However this also had an upside, I soon gained the confidence of the villagers and made many friends among them. Invited frequently to their homes I got a first hand experience of their lives. Soon things settled down and we started work on the project. The interactive process helped us to learn new methods of coordination. Also having to explain everything to the workers what they needed to do meant thinking the process through in two languages since it needed translation. This too is interesting as it brings out clarity and precision in the thought process
Life in a large city like Delhi (where I have lived all my life) and at the village is quite different. Facilities we take for granted in the city simply do not exist in the village. Interaction between people too is different in the city, you may not live next to somebody for years and not get to know him whereas in the village every one knows everyone else and is involved with them. It was this sense of involvement which helped us get the village together to help build the school, in the city it would never have been possible.
Being an outsider, a foreigner in rural India is sometimes an advantage; you are considered exotic. The project duration wasn’t long enough for people to see their human side, however, which is an important factor in getting local participation. This is also a sense of pride in most villagers at seeing the school building come up with the help of the community. The project has been insightful in many ways. The community spirit in rural India can be an example to people living in cities. We need to work and understand local materials and construction methodologies which have withstood the best of time for hundreds of years and integration with modern building technologies.
But all this I discovered later when I went to Hariharpur. The first two weeks were hectic and somewhat disappointing as I was one of the few Hindi speaking members of the group. I ended up doing most of the coordination work between the architects and the villager. This is not what I had come for and I had moments of doubt (at home I have never entered the kitchen even and here I was even coordinating that and thought of returning back to Delhi).
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Keelan Hegarthy and Yanchee Lau Ramboll Engineers
We are Keelan and Yanchee, structural engineers from Ramboll’s London office. We travelled to Uttar Pradesh to provide structural advice for WORKSHOP’s latest project in Hariharpur. Having been involved with WORKSHOP before we knew that the two week workshop would be both an intensive but highly rewarding experience but it far exceeded our expectations. On arrival the overall scheme was yet largely undecided and is something we worked on with the architects and the Visiting School students. This was a great opportunity to explore different solutions at an early stage of the project. Over the initial few days we worked with the students to come up with a solution that was worked best for the community. This required closely liaising with both the parents and the teachers of the school students. We were unaware of the local traditions/taboos so it was crucial to work with the community so we could give them a building that meets their needs. Having spoken to Clem, Ivar and Alex before our arrival we knew they were interested in having a barrel vault roof. We were also keen to explore this idea. Barrel vault ceilings were part of the local vernacular architecture but the local knowledge of how to actually build one had seemed to be lost through the years. Getting the right mason to construct a barrel vault would prove challenging! After the first few days of design it was time to get stuck into the hard labour. The breaking ground was marked by a Pooja ceremony. The entire community
came together to help us to clear the site. It was great to see the community get behind us and buy into the project. It was hard going on site and working in the hot sun took all our energy. The tough conditions on site weren’t helped by the lack of electricity and a proper workspace, things we take for granted at home. After days of hard digging, it was finally time to build up. With the help of the local masons the whole team got involved in helping build the brick walls which brought the whole team together. After spending two weeks in Hariharpur it was time to leave. It was great to be immersed into the community for our stay. It was a completely different way of life compared to what we’re used to but one that we thoroughly enjoyed. The standout highlight for us was Holi festival. Playing Holi was a strange concept for us but one that we embraced and we are still washing the pigment from our hair! It was hard leaving the village as the community had made us feel so welcome; from the first night of our open air rooftop performance by the local musicians to the final day send-off. For a project of this scale and size it was always going to be impossible to complete the construction in two weeks. What we did achieve in that time was impressive given the working conditions. It’s great to see ITHRD fully behind the project. Using our design they’ll be able to take the project beyond Phase 1 and complete the master plan. It was fantastic to be a part of the project and we hope that the community gets the school they deserve.
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Jelmer Buurma NTNU / AA Visiting School participant
It’s been great seeing the building go up the past few
know and experience every day. So in Hariharpur the
weeks, the arches look beautiful! The entire workshop
importance of how people use architecture became
was a really good experience, I don’t think I ever
much more apparent, even in simple things like the
learned so much and had so much fun at the same
layout of a toilet block. Also, working on a school
time in the two short weeks we worked together in
was interesting because children will experience a
Hariharpur.
space in a very different way, for example the position
It was great to learn really basic crafts like laying brick and pouring concrete; I think every architecture student should do something like this at least once to get a feel for how a building is actually built. Without these basic making skills it’s impossible to make good
of a window should be different for a child. It was also interesting to think about how architecture can contribute to the learning process of the children and also everyone else involved in it, involving the local crafts and traditions.
architecture I think, because in the end architecture
So what is architecture? Good question...I think it’s
is about constructing something within the physical
about being sensitive to the needs of the people
world we live in.
you’re working with/for, to the surroundings and to the
This experience was very different from any other projects I’d done before, it was different because we were working directly with and for the community, this was a great motivation and also provided many different views and opinions on what the school should be and what it should look like. It was also very nice to design the school and build it at the same time, testing out Jali patterns by building them for example, was a very practical and useful way of designing I had never done before. The Visiting School changed my perception of architecture and what it does. It has emphasized the importance of the human aspect of architecture for me, especially because we were working in a culture that is quite different, this became much more apparent. When you are working within your native country you are much more likely to design something in accordance with the local conventions which you
culture in a broader sense. Another thing which struck me is that nowadays we tend to look at a lot of images of beautiful buildings, but forget a little bit about the building process, the craftsmanship, the people who were involved in it, and those who use the spaces we design and make. I think you’re doing a great job changing that, by involving the local community but also by providing so much information about the projects on the blog, so people can see what architecture is really about! Thank you so much for providing the opportunity to do this project, I really enjoyed it and would do it again anytime. I’m looking forward to see how the project continues!
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Maria Belen Sacheri NTNU / AA Visiting School participant
I’ve been thinking a lot about this great experience
Indeed, there are certain aspects of design that are
that we shared, although I’m in an extremely
universal, like the space a person needs to move, or
different situation right now. I’m in the clean, cool,
the need of natural light and ventilation. But there is
over-organised Vienna, and I find myself trying to
a lot about architecture that cannot be generalised.
reconstruct the whole experience of India all the time,
Facing the differences in culture and circumstances
embracing it and trying to keep it all in my memory. I
is that we as architects face the need to decide if
can tell you about what I’ve learnt during the Visiting
to give them what they know and want, or what
School.
we know and think is best for them. Here is where
Firstly, I’ve learnt about construction: I’d seen a building being built before, but not from my own hands. It was quite an experience to hold tools and feel the materials, know the difficulties of each task and bond with the labourers at the same time. I’ve learnt lots about design, too. I experienced from the workshops with the teachers and parents, how
participation, dialogue, and overall engagement with the community is essential. In the end, architecture shouldn’t be designed for other architects to judge, or for magazines to publish. Their goal must be the fulfillment of the people that will use it. It’s about giving them what they need, and what they will enjoy on a daily basis.
important it is for an architect to describe spaces with
So, what is architecture for me? Architecture is
simple words and a lot of gestures. You can’t take
the answer to the need of shelter, common to all
anything for granted, or any architectural drawing for
human kind. For architects, it’s also a valuable tool,
understood until you explain it enough. Everything
and a service to others, which means it’s a series of
I have learnt in college was tested. I had to rethink
decisions filled with responsibility. It’s certainly an
every decision, that I would have normally taken for
activity that suddenly grows into passion.
granted. For example, why should the toilets for girls and boys have the same kind of entrance, if they really are treated differently in this culture? I learnt that some cultures give a lot of importance to symbologies, or traditions, before thinking of the general use of the building. They can give much more importance to the meaning of colours, of orientations, of shapes. And the only way of knowing or understanding them is by asking them.
I’m sending you love, and all the best! Tell me if I can still be helpful from the distance! I’m following your steps anxiously from the blog.
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Jostein Fardal NTNU / AA Visiting School participant
Project Hariharpur is not only an architectural project; it is also a collection of individual stories pivoted around the process of making a new school in the village of Hariharpur. It is the story of the weaver who regained faith in traditional patterns, the boy who became a mason’s apprentice and the girl who became a teacher in order to be able to improve the conditions of her community’s children. And it is also the story of a team of international students, architects, engineers and volunteers who have contributed with their passion and skills in a collaborative effort to strengthen a local community. Eventually someone will also describe it as an architectural project, in which they will regard the physical outcome in terms of a building and review it. But the last part is not essential, as it is the method and process together with the stories of the people who took part in the project, which are, in my opinion, the most valuable endeavour towards the aim of approaching a more sustainable and sensitive way of addressing our built environment and the people who inhabit it. So what is the process all about? Where does this story begin? The WORKSHOP architecture team undertook Project Hariharpur with the deepest passion and responsibility, committing to a local community whom they initially hardly knew. Passion always comes from within, while responsibility can either be given or taken. The WORKSHOP architecture team has both taken and been given a huge responsibility by ITRHD, the British Council, various sponsors and of course the villagers of Hariharpur. They have probably been given responsibility beyond their own comprehension, as they find themselves sort of filling the gaps between cultures, people, languages and expectations while working in the field. They are facing a different kind of responsibility that is hard to compare to the responsibility found in regular practice. I think that far too many architects are never confronted with this form of responsibility; where a whole community is depending upon you and trusting your choices and the consequences of what you are doing are utterly clear from the moment you act.
Based on my own experience in school design, it is obvious that there are many factors that differ from building a school in a Western country in comparison to an Indian rural context. In countries such as Norway, designing a school is more about achieving numbers, making square meters that can fit into already designed schemes and building standards. This is no doubt a demanding and worthy task, but building a school in rural India as a foreigner shakes your comprehension about what the basic foundation of our profession is. But there is one particular similarity between the two cultures that intrigues me, and that is how important the position of the school’s flagpole is, which symbolises the most important common space. The main discussion in Hariharpur often focussed upon the space where people gather, meet, perform activities and so on, which indicates that it is crucial to understand the social aspect of architecture when designing a school, no matter which country it is in. Therefore understanding the method used to engage the community throughout the design process is key to understanding the story of this project. It is also something that can be extracted as general knowledge and applied regardless of context. During the Visiting School, we spent a lot of time interacting with local people, attending local music performances and visiting some of their homes, in order to get a broader experience of how people live and how their relationship with their built environment is. As most of the participants were young architects or architecture students, the whole team got an excellent training in the role of ‘facilitators’, which can be described as a role in which the architect makes things happen. How can you put the right people together and make them cooperate to strengthen their skills? Can you trigger a response that makes the community more aware of their valuable traditional heritage and use it for developing the village? Or can you contribute to improving the status of a building material to prevent a cold globalisation of concrete? It is hard to figure out what can be done, but sometimes you just have to ask the right questions. Often I had
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to reflect on each question before posing it, as each formulation would bring about a different outcome. For instance, if you need to find out something about a material that you have no knowledge of, how can the question be put in order to get as much information as possible? A task obviously more complicated when you add the language barrier. To practice as an architect in a foreign culture sometimes feels like learning the whole profession from scratch again. There is no space for nuances or fancy materials. When asking about materials it is crucial to understand the fundamentals; is it a solid material, locally available, low cost or easy to handle? Most of the time we spent in Hariharpur was actually working on tasks that one does not expect to do as an architect in a traditional office. We were trying to develop a relationship with the locals and gain their trust by drinking chai with them, participating and performing in local traditions and rituals, as well as inviting them to our temporary home in Hariharpur for various events. Breaking down barriers was an important task and we were encouraged to treat everyone as equals, regardless of their gender, age or caste. Much time was also spent on locating the appropriate resources in terms of people, collaborators, shops, materials and so on. There are so many resources that can be found locally when you learn how to see and listen. Working and living within the community 24/7 influenced the project greatly, as we were able to use our senses and receive impulses on a constant basis. The international team in Hariharpur created some sort of interactive creative hub, easily accessible for everyone. Without doubt we received a lot of attention from the community, and there is a careful balance between collaborating professionally with the locals and drinking chai all the time. Over 90 percent of the time is spent organising the puzzle and putting the different pieces into position, while the remaining 10 percent is the actual design development. It is a
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huge contrast from the studio, where most students are only trained to come up with a design that rarely leaves the paper it is drawn on. There is seldom a realistic social aspect in architecture schools that can prepare students for these kinds of projects, and so it is very important to trust your own passion and take responsibility when you are given the opportunity. The process of working in this way can be very unpredictable in many ways. Despite WORKSHOP architecture being a small team, Project Hariharpur consists of a large and extended network, in which each person and every relationship is valuable. Even though we live in a globalised world, we are still dependent on local knowledge, which is the core of this project. As most of us experienced when we came to Hariharpur, we knew very little about the local conditions such as crafts, skills, traditions, customs, climate and so on, and none of us spoke any Hindi. Therefore it was important for us to accept our ignorance and start to adapt to the village by observing the local people and talking and acting on their terms. After participating in a project such as this, one can ask if the goal is to build a school, or is it the process of engaging the community? I’ll leave the question open, and rather comment that to be able to work that close in the field, see a building take shape and get instant response from the people who are going to use it is of great value for our profession. While a hairdresser gets feedback everyday on his or her work, a city planner might wait years before someone values a nice bench in a park that has been built for the public by his or her planning department. I guess if you ask people to tell their story for a day, they could tell two completely different stories. I want to hear the story that describes joy, passion and responsibility for their choices.
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Sami Rintala Architect, NTNU Professor
ON PARACENTRIC ARCHITECTURE Inside the urban hubs of the Western world a feeling of safety prevails. We continue enjoying the highest standards of living ever known to humankind. At the same time we are fully informed of the results of our culture of consumerism. Therein lays the greatest paradox: we are forced to actively forget the reality to be able to enjoy the façade of excess we have created around us. This façade is what we keep on designing. Yet outside the main stages of metropolis is where our work is needed. There are a few architects who challenge the conventions of the profession and ever-dictating forces of the market; they go where the real problems are and try to solve them with insight, economy and wit. These people are the pathfinders towards the next revolution in architecture, which will not focus on style, but on the balance between man and nature, or in short, survival. Architecture is a complex subject to be described satisfyingly with words only. One reason is that it is a language system of its own which human beings use for expressing their need for shelter, their understanding of their place in the universe, and their mere existence. Architecture is the language that leaves the most permanent traces of human intervention and presents therefore a high responsibility to us as professionals. Like any normal mother tongue, this language system is also learned during childhood, by using spaces and experiencing different atmospheres. We all are formed by the houses we have lived in and worked in. Every person carries a sense-based bank of childhood memories; a collage of smells, touches, sounds, contrasts of daylight and shadow. This material is the result of pure perception and therefore reliable information. Moreover, this raw material is commonly shared by all people to a great extent. Today there are around 6500 spoken languages in the world. 5000 of them have less than 100,000 speakers. It has been estimated that in 100 years there will be left some 1000 languages.
This other side of globalisation is happening to architecture as well. We are losing local architectural languages and dialects, formed by the necessity of the local climate, local work force and local materials. In other words, what is at stake is fully ecological architecture that could inspire to contemporary solutions. This could be called the human biodiversity. We architects are responsible for preserving it. Like human beings, also their language and architecture are integral parts of nature by definition. The spaces we make have their roots in the reading and understanding of our natural surroundings, and these qualities are still present in good architecture. The problem arises when architecture becomes selfreferential and loses its connection to the users and to the nature. Architecture has become an introvert language of the architects, a pathological form of communication. Yet architecture belongs to everyone as all have the same right for well-being. Therefore we have to open up the process of producing human infrastructure. And this is not, from an architect’s perspective ‘letting them in’, it is rather about ‘letting us out there’. This way architecture would regain its wider meaning outside of professionally produced definitions and return into the realm of everyday life. Good architecture is not a matter of taste or education; it is a passionate unification of a person and a space. The new ecological ethic and consensus that is being born currently around the globe needs necessarily an aesthetical dimension. The new meaning has to find its shape. The answer to ecological architecture in my mind does not lie in technological solutions, where the focus has mostly been; it is in creating poetic everyday spaces that continue the natural primeval course of architecture as a shelter and a mediator between man and nature. The way we build our buildings is a serious matter as good architecture is a sign of vitality in any given culture. Today, more than we are perhaps willing to admit, we need spaces filled with an atmosphere of hope.
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Revathi Kamath Architect
THE ECOLITERATE ARCHITECT Ecological consciousness is a civilization pursuit, essential to comprehend and activate the self-organizing and self-healing capacity of the ecosystem that we inhabit. The holistic nature of the environment needs to be valued and nurtured as we create our material reality. The current global economic space, based on industrial and post-industrial consumerism, results in a skewed distribution of the resource base, creating four categories of human beings - the biosphere people of the developed world, who enjoy the produce of the entire biosphere, the omnivores of the developing world, the ecosystem people, and the ecological refugees (Madhav Gadgil). Seeking to redress this imbalance in resource use across humans, we must, through activism, transition to an ecological civilization. The built environment and architecture express the characteristics of the interface between nature and culture. In an ecological continuum, nature and culture blend into a seamless whole, and so should architecture. 33 years ago, at the outset of my career as an architect and planner, the words of Mahatma Gandhi, influenced my thoughts and energized my action, He said “Recall the face of the poorest and weakest man you have seen, and ask yourself if the step you contemplate is going to be of any use to him. Will he gain anything by it? Will it restore him to a control over his own life and destiny?� Following these words, I was led to the exploration of earth and craft-based architecture that ensured the involvement of unskilled, semi-skilled, and skilled labour for the production of buildings. Creating an architecture that involved the current skills of the woman labourer, the beast of burden, the lowest in the hierarchy of the workers in the building industry, became a short term goal. Site-specific buildings, using local materials and skills, and being guided by traditional wisdom that has evolved over millennia became the characteristic of my practice.
While gathering materials to build with, it became obvious that the environment and natural ecosystems are being abused to an extent far beyond their ability to replenish themselves. The self healing capacity of our resource base has become a major concern and therefore assimilating the wisdom of nature is imperative to the practice of architecture. Human patterns and forms should not colonize or destroy nature, but must be harmonious and evolutionary, sustaining life purposefully.
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Afterword The theme of this year’s UnBox Festival, which we were invited to take part in earlier this year, was “Hands On, Minds On, Hearts On”. It’s a sentiment that relates well to this project, which we tried to approach in a holistic way – intertwining the processes of designing and building with a belief in the possibility of creating positive social change. Given that the building in Hariharpur is still under construction as this goes to print, it’s too early to assess the final outcome and fully understand the effect we have had. The process of compiling this book has, however, been a valuable chance to consider which aspects of the project were successful and which could have been improved. Collaboration was a key part of our strategy; finding and engaging people who had the skills or knowledge we needed to realize our ambitions was often very productive. However, choosing not one but three construction challenges (mud brick walls, a barrel vault roof and bamboo verandah) during such a short time frame, which were unfamiliar to us and the local community, was perhaps a little too bold. It also meant that there was little opportunity to innovate, to learn about something and then have the time to push it a little bit further. The barrel vaults were very successful, both in terms of our partnership with Raman the master mason from Delhi and in terms of the transfer of skills to the local community. The time Raman spent in the village was focused and efficient, and the three masons we trained in the technique were easily able to build more vaults after his departure. The outcome was very beautiful and was clearly admired by the local people. Although we did extensive research into adobe construction, specifically mud bricks, pressures at site and the rush to start construction during the Visiting School meant that we foolishly didn’t follow through with much of the advice and knowledge we had spent time gathering. The extended duration of the construction phase also meant that the bamboo structure was not started, let alone completed, during our time in the village – and at present it remains to be seen whether ITRHD will choose to proceed with the design drawn up in collaboration with Karyashala or choose to repeat the barrel vaults on the first floor. Given our limited experience, retrospectively it seems obvious that researching, designing, drawing and constructing a two-story building (in collaboration with the local community) within five months was an enormous challenge. In one way the time scale was too long – half a year away from family and friends, working almost incessantly on a project can be difficult and tiring. On the other hand it’s much too short a time to really understand a place, to develop and test ideas. We need to find a better balance between on-site experiences and interaction, and more focused periods of design. Whilst the process ‘designing through making’ can be very valuable, the making needs to refer to mock-ups rather than the actual building site. Too often we failed to reach clear decisions until things were under construction - causing delays and frustration. Operating within clearer phases, and being better prepared for the next steps, would be very helpful.
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White rice paint dots used decoratively to articulate the windows.
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The first layer of mud plaster on the rear wall of the building.
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The original brief from the British Council was in fact a three-four month renovation project in an existing school building. Although we knew we would be building a single story structure from scratch if we partnered with ITRHD, the project soon grew to a two-story structure, included not only a classroom but also a toilet, and encompassed the design of a master plan. While this seemed like a great opportunity, realistically it was a challenge we could not meet. We perhaps should have been more aware of our own limits, and communicated them honestly to our partners. Although initiating a process, and handing it over to the local community and partner before completion can be a good thing, the scheduling needs to realistic enough for each step of the building process to be resolved and demonstrated while we are at site. In this case the bamboo structure was not at this stage before we left. Fortunately we had the time and the funds to return to site after the initial phase – but the cost of four additional international flights, not to mention the environmental impact, was concerning. Whilst the project reconfirmed our belief in the framework as a strategy for both design and engagement, we learnt that had we defined this earlier and more clearly we would have been a lot freer to respond to local input and adapt accordingly. Spending time with the engineers in advance of the project, and arriving on site with a full set of approved construction drawings would not only make construction phase smoother, but would allow our time in the village to be spent interacting and engaging much more fully. Although our strategy of community engagement was in many ways very successful, the productivity of the weekly workshop was questionable. Although we know these can be very useful, we often struggled to prepare adequately for these events, and to communicate properly when they were taking place. Given it was a big commitment for parents to take time away from household chores or work to attend workshops, the most successful and tangible aspect of the engagement was the woven chairs, which were made people’s own homes. Understanding the habits and routines of the local people can therefore help to make the engagement process more productive. Much can be learnt from this project, and we’re looking forward to the ongoing process of reflection, until there’s an opportunity to test different ways of doing things. We are also interested to see how the ideas and approaches that we’ve developed during this project could be adapted in different contexts, closer to home. Can we train our eyes to see things from an outsider’s perspective in our own home towns; are there hidden crafts that we take for granted or have forgotten to enjoy; what skills could be taught that would improve people’s livelihoods? How we would go about navigating an industry where roles are more clearly defined, processes are more distinct, and construction is more formalized remains to be seen, but it’s a challenge we’re looking forward to embracing.
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Mud plastered walls of the toilet block, with the fired brick barrel vault roof above.
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Top The view from Satoli towards the Himalayas. Right One of the students and his grandfather of Aarohi’s school. Bottom A pathway through a forest down to the village’s main road.
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Finding a partner: Visiting Aarohi 19.12.12
At the start of December we began a series of recce trips to choose the partner for our next project, which is being funded by the British Council. We were looking not just for the right charity, but the right proposal – in terms of location, site, scale and the community. One thing that we were keen to ensure in advance, was that the project offered the opportunity for skill development and capacity building within the community. Our criteria, defined in consultation with the British Council, were:
1. Necessary: •
Local administrative and process support through the organisation
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Context ready for an intervention with clearly defined architectural need
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Local community to benefit from learning building skills
2. Desirable: •
Regional distinction from our current project in Dehradun
•
Climatic conditions suitable for building in summer months
•
Local existing craft or building skills or distinct architectural style as a potential feature for the project
Our first trip was to Aarohi, a small charity focusing on healthcare, education, and livelihoods in the Kumaoni region of the Himalayas in eastern Uttarakhand. Satoli, the tiny village where Aarohi is based is absolutely beautiful – with a small cluster of shops and houses dotted around the mountainside that look across a valley towards the snowcapped peaks of the high Himalayas. Although it seems idyllic, especially after the fumes and noise of Dehradun!, the life here is hard with many people struggling to farm on the difficult terrain, and young people finding few opportunities. As the younger generation leave for the cities, city folks are moving in, building second homes, or coming to stay in ‘Himalayan retreat’ hotels. We were introduced to Aarohi through a friend of ours, Amritha Ballal, who came across them many years ago by chance when she was trekking in the area. Intrigued by whoever was building a new structure using traditional methods and local materials (a pretty rare phenomenon!), she met Sushil Sharma - a doctor who was setting up a health clinic, and understood the value of vernacular architecture.
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The charity has now expanded to include a primary school, and a small factory which produces natural body products from locally grown apricots. Sushil approached us with a clear list of potential collaborations, including a prototype house for the region’s farmers, the development of fuel efficient and emission-controlled wood-burning stoves, the construction of play equipment and landscaping on the school’s field, and the addition of a third floor on top of one of their existing school buildings. This additional space would have to house classrooms, as well as have the capacity to host community events and after school activities – so the overlaps with our research and design development from Dehradun were striking. However, it was already funded, so on this occasion wouldn’t be appropriate.
Once we had arrived in the village and started talking through the options with Sushil and Pradeep, the charity’s secretary, the potential project that emerged was a vocational training center focusing on carpentry and bakery. The site would be below the existing school building, on an area of terraced land looking across the valley. We were incredibly inspired by the local architecture we had seen, particularly the dry-stone walls, and were very interested in using similar methods in our own project . One immediate pragmatic concern was that we would need to quarry these as soon as possible if they were to be ready in time for the project. We were also anxious that there wasn’t a pre-existing and immediate need for the training center, as we didn’t want to find ourselves trying to invent the program as well as the design – and wanted to absolutely sure of the need for what we were building. On the other hand, we all fell in love with the place, and liked the people we met and would be working with very much. After a lovely couple of days, we left feeling excited, but trying not to become too attached to the project before visiting the other two potential partners.
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Right Driving to Satoli. Bottom A abandoned house standing in the middle of a plum orchard.
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Finding a partner: Visiting ITRHD 19.12.12
After a frantic few days wrapping things up in
The village community (of around 3000 people) is
Dehradun before the Christmas holidays, we headed
comprised of three distinct groups defined by caste:
to Uttar Pradesh, to meet the team from the Indian
the musicians all come from an extended family of
Trust for Rural Heritage and Development. ITRHD
Brahmins, and the rest of the villagers are either
is a new charity, headed by S.K. Misra (one of the
Yadavs or Scheduled cast. Although located in the
founders and former chairman of INTACH), that is
Brahmins area of the village, the school´s pupils are
working across the country to develop rural areas
representative of each of the communities, including
through the protection and innovation of cultural
50% girls. Although we would be designing a school,
heritage. One particular area of focus in the Azamgarh
the hope is that this building could act as a prototype
region in north/eastern UP, about 3-4 hours drive
that could be used as a performance space, and
from Benares. Within a small radius there are three
gallery space to exhibit some of the village´s valuable
villages with unique craft traditions - hand-woven
instruments. The challenge for us would be to use a
silk in Mubarakpur, black pottery in Nizamabad and
structural system that can be easily replicated, but is
folk music in Hariharpur. Despite this cultural wealth,
open enough in terms of design to accommodate the
these areas are underdeveloped and lacking in basic
input of the local place and the community. Although
infrastructure. ITRHD´s goal is to introduce services
we all had some concern about the future of the
such as schools, clinics and sanitation, in order to
village being dominated by tourism (however ethical
allow the villages to promote their heritage, and
this would be) it isn´t clear how else it will be able to
benefit from its commercial value more directly,
retain its young people. The creation of opportunities
through the introduction of ´sensitive´rural tourism.
for employment and social mobility in rural areas is the
The ambition is to ´rehabilitate Azamgarh district´s
only way to stem the flow of people from villages to
reputation (currently tainted by its association with
cities.
terrorism), so that it becomes known as a hub for contemporary craft activity with a strong historical legacy. The specific project we came to see is a new primary school for Hariharpur, which is famous for its musicians. ITRHD places an emphasis on community engagement, and has encouraged the villagers to contribute to the project in ways that they can – the land for the school has been donated by a member of the community. ITRHD was having trouble raising money for the new building, but did not want to loose the faith of the community, so proceeded to train the teachers (local married women) and will open the school in February temporary accommodation.
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Right A music performance at a home in the village. Bottom Vernacular buildings and a small kitchen garden used by the provisional school, set up by ITRHD.
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Finding a partner: Visiting SCAD 05.01.13
At the start of the New Year, while Alex and Ivar
community. None of the cultural heritage of the
were still in Norway collecting their new visas, Clem
gypsies were visible, nor did there seem to be any
made a trip to Tamil Nadu to visit our third potential
acknowledgment of their itinerant lifestyles.
partner, SCAD (Social Change And Development). SCAD is much larger than the previous two charities we had visited, working in over 500 villages across the state – focusing on a whole range of development areas, from health, education, livelihoods, and female empowerment. They work with a number of diverse communities who are facing social and economic challenges including costal fishermen, lepers, and nomadic gypsies. Capacity building is at the core of SCAD´s work, which is initiated by them by managed by small teams of community members who decide how to distribute funds or run programs. The ultimate intention is to make the villages self-sufficient and independent of SCAD.
The next stop was another housing project, this time for a leper community that SCAD has been working with for more than 20 years. This also revealed an architectural evolution of sorts from the first palmfront shacks original the charity originally built, to the brick and tile-roofed huts built 10 years later, to the flat-roofed concrete houses currently under construction. In many ways it was depressing to see so much money being spent on buildings that demonstrated none of the intelligent vernacular responses to the hot southern climate (deep eaves, verandahs), no local materials (terracotta tiles, palm fronds) and showed no identity or individuality. The houses were being arranged in straight ´streets´, from
There were two projects proposed before the trip,
which all trees and shrubbery had been removed to
a school renovation project and a water harvesting
allow easy access for the concrete mixers.
project. The first morning was spent at the main SCAD campus, visiting a school for physically challenged children. The curriculum was designed around unconventional learning methods, with specially dedicated rooms for aural, sensory and visual stimulation. The school also had a workshop for making custom fitted crutches and prosthetic limbs, where some of the teenage students were able to pick up vocational training. Clem then visited a nomadic gypsy community, which SCAD was encouraging to settle so that the children could attend school on a regular basis. The housing program being implemented was a partnership between the government, SCAD and the villagers themselves who contributed financially. The settlement was in a very interesting state of transition, with some families living in tents, others in half-built houses, and some in completed houses including tiled floors and electricity connection. Although adequate, the brick and concrete boxes seemed like an unimaginative response to the housing needs of a nomadic
In the afternoon Clem was taken to a fishing village, which had been badly damaged in the 2003 Tsunami, where SCAD had built a community center. SCAD were keen to show this structure, which had been cast in-situ using a mix of concrete and fly ash. Fly ash is a toxic industrial by-product, and using it in composite building materials is a safer alternative to dumping it. However, the asbestos corrugated roof of the building served to undermine any ´green ‘credentials! Like most of the other SCAD projects I had seen, it was clear that they were in need of some architectural input. While their strategies for empowering communities to help themselves were impressive, the built outcomes of their work could have done with a lot of improvement.
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Unfortunately we ran out of time to visit the school
interested in the Aarohi project, the time scale seemed
building that had been identified as the renovation
to tight to do it justice. In Hariharpur, the program
project, but the evening meeting clarified the fact that
was clearly defined, the need was urgent, and the
its location would require a very long daily commute
community was already engaged. One additional
if we were to stay in the main guest house during the
advantage was that ITRHD is based in Delhi, meaning
project. It seemed that developing a prototype for
all the preparation in the two months prior to the
the gypsy house for the gypsy community would be a
project starting (including the next AA Visiting School,
more viable option.
and the exhibition at the British Council building)
Back in Delhi, after presenting and discussing the
could be handled much more efficiently and smoothly.
three options with the British Council, we made the decision to partner with ITRHD. It seemed clear that SCAD was too large an organization for us to work productively with, and although we were very
We´re super excited to get started, and are looking forward to moving to the village in March!
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Day One: Building Community II 27.01.13
Today was the first day of our second AA Visiting
and they aspire to do a lot. bring changes!. in the
School, being held at the British Council’s building
villages like hariarpur.
in New Delhi. The aim for the two-week project is to explore design ideas and test materials for Project Hariharpur. We have decided to work with mud, and with the help of Dhruv Chandra Sud (an architect with a lot of experience using vernacular methods in Himachal Pradesh) we will be building a 1:1 mock-up in the gallery as part of our upcoming exhibition. The first day was an introduction to the way in which we work, and the nature of the next project. We were really excited to have a talk from Kamath Design Studio, who have done a lot of socially engaged participatory projects, as well as worked extensively with mud. We met Revathi Kamath a couple of weeks ago when we were doing our initial research into earth architecture, and its through her contractor that we are sourcing the mud for the workshop… so we´re very grateful for her advice and support! In the afternoon, we introduced the participants to Mr. Misra from ITRHD and Shiban Ganju, an architect who has been developing some initial ideas for the school project. We were also joined by Pankaj Misra, who we met during our recce trip to Hariharpur, and who very kindly brought a sack of earth for us to test for compressive strength, once we have made an adobe brick with it here in Delhi. Here´s an account of the day from Divya Singh, a 5th year student at the School of Planning and
its near varanasi. and we can go and do some site work if we wish to. after march 1st. i thought so yesterday. and today is the beginning. but after talking to the people involved and those villagers. everything seems quite positive and aspiring they r so ready to do it. they just want us to develop a prototype.. which they can develop at their village with the help of other villagers. and they r here to tell us the conditions, their requirements and they even brought the mud from their village, so that it can be tested here and a prototype is made keep such a soil in mind. they r musicians and they do farming to earn their living. so basically this prime minister’s secretary wants to preserve the cultural heritage of this village. its nt just this village but 3-4 villages, with weavers,
Architecture here in Delhi:
musicians and potters.
hello! how was my day?
they r basically shifting to big towns to have a better
well, amazing!
standard of living. and by providing a low cost vernacular building, we
it started with a brief introduction and it ended with a
are trying to empower the community and regenerate
meeting with the former secretary of prime minister
well being.
of india. everyone is good! everything looks positive.
so that they can preserve what they have.
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Above Ivar presenting our work, and the aims of the Building Community II Visiting School. Left Discussing today’s experiences in the courtyard of the British Council.
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Day Two: Building Community II 28.01.13
We began the morning discussing the parameters of the project as a group, before working in teams to express some of these ideas through design. In the afternoon Ivar and Vishank headed to the market to source materials (surprise surprise our contractor let us down and couldn´t provide the sun dried bricks he had promised!) while the rest of the participants resolved some of their ideas individually. Here’s an account of the day from Nirali Ganatra , a 5th year student at College of Architecture, Baroda: After an brief idea about vernacular architecture by Mrs. Revathi Kamath and about the project by the organisation ITRHD we started our day today with three trigger issues for building the community. What is the project about?? What do we want to explore?? How do we, as architects, want to explore these things?? Is the project about the organisation, who is backbone of the development, or is it about the users which is the “community” here.. How strong is the voice of the community in designing by participation!! Various factors like empowering of community..gender equality..lifestyle.. blending music with primary education.. Establishment of school will act as an epic enter which will trigger by time and will reach all the various factors directly affecting the community.. Various factors can be explored for empowering the community and making the space as sustainable by introducing new techniques of construction with the locally available materials with the community.. Lifestyle of the community need to be explored.. incorporation of their gift of music in the space of school to encourage churning of young minds towards innovations and betterment.. As an architect we need to blend with their lifestyle.. their clothing.. their qualities to unfold the hidden treasure.. To get the answers to the questions without actually asking them directly.. Exploring new construction techniques for the school which is simpler and easy to adopt so that it reaches as many corners of the community as possible.. Its about going beyond for the community by the community.
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Top left Vishank, Divya and Kritika discussing how to approach participatory architecture and their aims for this workshop. Top right Jaykishan presenting some design ideas for a classroom. Bottom The group listening to Jaykishan, Vishank, Kritika and Nirali’s presentation.
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Day Three: Building Community II 29.01.13
Here’s an account of the third day of the Visiting School from Kritika Dhanda, an SPA architecture graduate, working in Delhi as a product designer: We began the day with a brief presentation of our work formalized with CAD drawings. The idea was not only to get an idea of what each of us was working on individually but also at the same time learn the five minute presentation technique. Though personally I think, I at least need a few more rounds, as I tend to get a little lost while I speak about my design ideas. I end up missing out on important design points. Or take a rather round route to get to the main idea which can get distracting!! I realized this as I listened to other people speak as well. I could see a few glazed looks all around me...! So after this was done we started making the work-shed in the BCL driveway under which we will be storing our material and working on the prototypes in the coming weeks. Well it was what could be expected of seven ingenuous architects and even aspiring architects who are put together to design (and make) a simple shed out of bamboo, tarp and rope. The structure would take a carpenter about two hours to make would be my estimate. If he had one helper. We started with a forty minute discussion on what form would best hold up its shape under wind pressure, rains and the space restrictions we had. After lunch having finally decided on a course of action we proceeded to make the preplanned structure. Around 3 hours later. Dhruv came to the rescue and modified the design with short discussions and quick decisions to make it more feasible. The whole construction process was quite fun as most people had not worked with bamboo before and got a chance to do so under the guidance of our very own wood work expert Jaykishan. We ended the day on a positive note at the BCL art gallery where there was an ongoing art exhibition at 7 pm, which meant wine and chips. That made everybody quite happy :)
Right Tyler presenting her idea to develop an architectural game board to engage people in the design process.
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Day Four: Building Community II 30.01.13
Here’s an account of the fourth day, written by Jaykishan Mistry, a graduate of IES College in Mumbai: Everyone were content that they finished the tent the previous day so the materials could be stored in them, but unfortunately materials didn’t arrive as there’s a specific time frame when a heavily loaded vehicle can enter the center of the city and so the materials were confiscated by the Delhi police. So we decided to move on while Clem, Alex, Ivar and Dhruv were trying to mange the materials with the help of Vishank. We started by making the mixture for the clay bricks by using the sand which was excavated at 4 ft below ground level from Hariharpur, everyone gathered around to get their “hands dirty” as Peter would say, grinding the soil clumps by hand (using small bamboo logs) into fine sand-like particles. The behavior of the soil made us realize that the clay content in the soil was high. So then slowly adding water and all of us made the mixture for the bricks. During this time there were interesting points thrown in as in how to make the brick termite proof. Trying not to waste time we split up in groups of three: Divya and Kritika doing the jute weaving, Tyler Nirali Vishank doing the bamboo joinery & Peter and myself doing the mould for the clay bricks. D and k did an amazing job trying to figure out the weaving technique used in charpoy and then coming up with their own patterns. This weaved screen was idealized to use as a transparent screen/ wall. T, N and V explored a huge amount of joinery details used in bamboo construction with guidance by Alex. Peter and I made the wooden mould for clay bricks which we could use the next day. In all, the workshop is progressing in terms of production value.
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Top Tyler weaving a jute frame for the exhibition. Right Jaykishan, Vishank and Peter cutting bamboo for the bamboo frame.
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Day Five: Building Community II 31.01.13
Today’s blog was supposed to be written by Maryam, who unfortunately couldn’t attend the Visiting School due to difficulties getting an Indian visa in Pakistan. We’re really sorry you couldn’t make it Maryam, this one’s for you!: This morning we were joined by our 8th participant, Di Lu from Beijing - who jumped right into making bricks. Having prepared our mound the previous day, we just had to break it down again and add more water before filling the molds, and flattening the top. It only needs to set for about 5 minutes before you can lift the mold, and make the next one - but this all depends on getting the consistency right! We had a few overhydrated mixes, which resulted in some good old ‘Delhi belly’ bricks.... Each participant had a go making their own brick, meanwhile we were preparing timber frames to test different weaving patterns, as well as wattle and daub. It’s unlikely that we’ll use wattle and daub, as it’s not really appropriate for damp climates, and UP has a heavy monsoon season - but the panels will be great for testing different types of mud plaster. ‘Wattle’ is essentially any reinforcement (strips of bamboo, rope, wire mesh) and the ‘daub’ is the filler (plaster, mud etc) – in our case we’re using mud and bamboo, we we’re soaking in water before weaving into a coarse mesh structure. It was nice to see our patch in front of the building getting nice and messy, as a construction site should....everyone is getting more confident in their making skills and things are starting to feel really productive. In fact our passes were upgraded this morning from the purple visitor cards, to the green contractor cards - and we’re wearing them proudly! The day was, however, punctuated by endless phone calls to our elusive contractor, who sent an email in the morning saying ‘delivery, 10.30pm’ but then never answered our calls to confirm. Desperately hoping he would turn up regardless, we left his payment with the night guard and headed home for some rest...
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Top Nirali, Tyler, Ivar, Di, Dhruv, Kritika and Peter posing next to their mud bricks. Bottom Mixing mud for the mud bricks.
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Day Six: Building Community II 01.02.13
The first installment of today’s blog is written by Di Lu, a recent Melbourne University graduate from Beijing, who joined us yesterday: This is the sixth day of the workshop, while for me it’s the second, but I’m already quite impressed by what we had done so far and the amazing people I came across. Today began with the fun jumping into the mud hill we made yesterday, in order to fully mixed it. We just take off socks and stand by the hill, trying to wet the outer by hand and let the water resolved. After a while, everyone just step in to the middle, and fully mixed the mud. It’s so much fun and I guess the steps would even made to a dance. It’s said this is how the community builds houses, even in a larger scale, and they would split into groups. No doubt the building process will bound people together, as they understand every steps, also enjoy and share the joy along the way. After a few round of stepping, it finally well mixed with good consistency, and formed the dome structure which we did in smaller scale before. In the end, we left our hand print on it, marking our work and leaving it for tomorrow. The second part of the day started from shopping in Bhogal market, looking into bamboo mat and weaving techniques. It’s one of the biggest market in Delhi, as Kritika said. The atmosphere made me miss the old morning market in Beijing, which is getting rigid and cold nowadays. The stores are all different and they specialise on different things, like chain store, planting store. We were mainly looking for the bamboos. The way they display and move the bamboos was quite amazing: the very long one in the basement just moved out through a tiny window on the top. Well, in general I’m just so happy to see these bamboos in market. We got pattern bamboo, beautiful as it is. We also got some mesh for testing as reinforcement within wall, strings and sample mats of weaving, including basket. The really fun part began from when we got back to BCL, with two craftsmen specialised in weaving bed. They showed us how to do a weaving from making a knot on the frame. They move too fast, I almost click my camera every 10 seconds to catch their steps. We are fast learners, and sooner we got several patterns going on, like big phool, small flower and shakal pasa. What interesting is, the string could go on to both sides of the frame, where pattern could be different. There’s another small pattern called zanzira, where happened on the sides. The pattern was getting very compact, and I’m sure it’s good to sit on. Tyler was trying to draw all of them in the end, well, I can tell it’s hard.
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Meanwhile... Clem and Vishank headed South of Delhi, to pick up pots from one of the Nizamabad potters, Ramjatan. Here’s an account of their adventure, written by Vishank: Why are expectations so different from what actually happens? The potters from Nizamabad, were supposed to give our order of pottery today. They are exhibiting their rare talent and products from their exquisite clayey earth in one of the biggest crafts carnival held in outskirts of Delhi called the ‘Surajkund Mela’. This is the same crafts carnival referred by Mr. Misra on the first day as being his brain child. So Clem and I reach Surajkund after a number of stops on the way. We were expecting to collect our ordered pottery, pay its price and head back. But we needed to come inside the carnival to collect the pots from the stall, so passing by camels, and Bollywood cops decked out in aviators, we finally reached - after a number of trials about directions - stall number 677. Although they had some cracked or broken pots which we’ll be using in the mock-up as a construction material, they didn’t have any unfired pots ready. So Ramjatan has agreed to come and make them for us at the UnBox venue, during our event there on the 8th (which is actually perfect!) Clem, after a lot of calculations and phone calls started picking up each pot which met her requirements. For example being black and bulky, so that it looks nice and covers a lot of volume: the idea is to set up the local work environment of Nizamabad in the exhibition. We met Anand, son of the main guy (Ramjatan) and his best friend Sandeep... who were so full of energy, asking me again and again to tell Clem to teach them English, come to their village again and ask her if she liked the ‘pakoras’ they had served her when she first visited the village last month. So overall it was worth it! The mud plaster walls, wooden shacks, thatched roof, Indian crafts and art at the carnival were all some sort of inspiration for our workshop.
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Right Divya, Nirali and Tyler being thought how to weave with jute by a jute expert. Bottom Dancing in the mud outside the British Council.
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Day Seven: Building Community II 02.03.13
Planning the Exhibition 03.02.13
Today’s post is written by Tyler Bollier, a second
Whilst the participants had a chance to get some
year student at the AA:
rest, or see some of Delhi, we took advantage of
The bricks arrived! It was the great news of the morning. We started the day dividing into two groups. One team had the task of sifting through the mountain of clay soil while the other half started experimenting
the empty gallery space to start planning how to organize the exhibition...The show is going to display images, drawings and mock-ups from our two completed projects (Chander Nagar and Tacolban) along with the research we’re doing right now for the next project in Hariharpur.
with bricks. We were trying out different ways in laying out the bricks to create openings in wall structures, and getting ourselves familiar with the material. A few designs came up. There were walls playing with the size of openings, hollows walls as well as recycled bottles integrated with the bricks. The clay fired bricks were bounded using our clay mortar mixture and water. Once in contact together the bound seems quite strong. It was a challenge to find the right pattern of bricks vs bottle to ensure the structure was stable. eventually through practice we could possibly obtain an interesting design. This was also our day to wrap up some of the unfinished work. The bamboo joints and weaving frames were finalized in the afternoon. This week has been a great hands on experimentation with material, but now the question we must ask ourselves, is how would be want to represent this in the exhibition? And what could now be explored further? For some, working with clay got quite messy! But there was no time to change. We brought our filthy selves into a wonderful Tibetan restaurant in Haus Khas village to celebrate altogether a challenging
Top left Clem testing ways to display the drawing by the
week.
children of Chander Nagar.
Check out more from Tyler on her blog
Top right Our working station outside the British Council.
(www.tylerbollier.tumblr.com)
Bottom Di and Peter practising placing the mud bricks.
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Top Nirali and Tyler making jute frames. Right The group stretching out after a long day of work. Bottom Starting to build the mud walls inside the Queens Gallery.
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Day Eight: Building Community II 04.02.13
Today’s blog is written by Peter Abraham Fukuda
After my 3 hours of napping (and everybody else’s
Loewi, a sculpture graduate from Haverford College
3 hours of sifting dirt, making bamboo joints, and
in Philadelphia.
unwinding rope for the jute jhalis,) I made it back to
I’m no stranger to manual labor. I’ve done competitive athletics my whole life, studied sculpture (large scale) at University, and have worked on production lines in factories. The funny thing about manual labor though, is the time it takes to feel pain. You can work for weeks on end without feeling anything, but as soon as you take a break, it hits you all at once. So, our first (and only) day off was a tough one, most of which I spent on my back. At 1.93m (6’4”), lots of bending and lifting, shoveling, etc, really gets to you. This, paired with the start of a fever due to the constant change
the British Council, still with a savage headache, but at least I was cheerful! Not being able to help out with my usual back-breaking work, I helped unwind and separate the jute for jhalis into smaller rolls. It was a nice change from what I had been doing the first week, and very cathartic. While a couple people worked on making a large bamboo frame for the jute jhali, the majority worked the newly sifted dirt into mud. Think mashing grapes for wine, but, you know, dirt for mud. Never in my wildest dreams did I expect to hear so many poop
in weather, meant I was far from happy to get up this
jokes from a bunch of architects!
morning.
We closed the day the same way we began it, with
We spent the morning inside, the rain deterring most
about 10 minutes of stretching and aerobics to work
of our mud work, planning the layout of the exhibition. We split up into groups with the plan of the gallery space, and filled in how we thought the mock-ups should be displayed. After presenting, we all went to the gallery to mark out the walls, and broke for lunch About this time, the fever and muscle pain started to get to me, and a headache strong enough to stop an Indian elephant knocked me off my feet. I went back to the hotel to try and sleep it off, while others started to sift more dirt.
out all of the kinks in necks, shoulders, backs, arms, legs and ankles. Starting tomorrow morning we can start making the mock-ups in the gallery, which means it will be an early day! On that note, its off to bed for my tired and sore (but cheerful and somewhat less feverish) self.
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Day Nine: Building Community II 05.02.13
This blog is written by Vishank Kapoor, an architect
brick wall. The next task was to install the horizontal
from Delhi:
members which support the jute in the frame. After
So the day comes when we got the gallery space for exhibiting our work and make the 1:1 mock up. But our workshop is full of Bollywood drama, because whatever you don’t expect has to happen. We have fought the material companies who backed out at the last moment, cops have confiscated some materials
a lot of brainstorming we agreed upon making holes in the column and just pushing the thinner bamboo inside it. After breaking two hammers and two drill bits we completed the task by seven. The tool of the day was Ivar’s Swiss knife. This tool managed every small detail from the filing of the hole to going deeper.
or potters not getting our material and what not. So
It was ready, after a lot of prayer, a lot of hard work
today it was the thunderstorm, delivery of mud was
and a lot of stress we finished it. As decided in
cancelled, all our workplace was soaking in water and
afternoon we headed for dinner to Halidrams. It was a
all our experiments were washed away. It seemed
much needed break. We came back around 8.15 and
like a new beginning. We start our day with shifting
were back to business. Four to five layers of brick were
the mud bricks and the bamboo frame inside the
laid after coming back. Me, Jai started shifting the
exhibition hall. After a lot of complaints from the
bricks. It was 10.40pm when Ivar, Kritika, Jai, Dhivya
adjacent class we are requested to do the noisy things
and me finally called it an off. We placed the bamboo
like the drilling and hammering in the basement. Me
structure on the boundary wall and were ready to go
and Jai work on finishing the bamboo structure which
home.
we think can break any moment. Meanwhile Tyler preferred working on the jute frames with Nirali. Di, Dhivya, Peter and Kritika started building the mud wall inside the hall with the help of Ivar, Clem and Dhruv. They kept on evolving the space as they placed the bricks and mud mortar on them. Ivar finally came to help us finish the bamboo frame which was being too difficult because of the aligned drilling. That is drilling three thick bamboo’s at the same point. It does not sound hard but it was the most difficult thing ever. After a lot of mental and physical stress we managed to complete the main bamboo structure by 5 pm. As expected we were supposed to finish it within 20 minutes and help others with making the mud
A lot was completed but a lot was still remaining. Everybody is working hard now but I am sure it will be worth it. With the passing days strangers have become good friends, we now know a lot about each other. Sharing our different experiences all together the experience of this workshop is very enlightening. Not just using different tools, or mud walls or joints or bamboo we learned things beyond education, wisdom and knowledge. Thank you, WORKSHOP architecture, for giving me this opportunity.
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Right Kritika and Peter placing the first bricks on the clean marble floor of the Queens Gallery. Below Mixing mud mortar.
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Day Eleven: Building Community II 07.02.13
Today’s blog is the second written by Divya, a student
either double the manpower or double the time; and
at SPA in Delhi:
we had neither of the two. We were already behind our
After a long tiring day, people arrived at 9.45 am, the next morning. This was quite late acording to the workshop standards. So, for today, mud walls and the corbel-led arches are almost finished with plastering on the way. The whole scene of the queen’s gallery is comparable to an ethnic village filled with a scent of mud and the textures of jute. We all loved the outcome of our hard work. The bamboo frame with secondary jute members is ready to be weaved with different jute patterns. The frame looked like an art piece in itself. Beautifully composed and still so rustic. There was still a lot yet to be finished. Di and Nirali were working on their patterns quite hard. And with devotion. It seems like the duo was playing a harp creating a symphony. Di, Nirali and me (Divya), we all were quite excited to imagine how the final product could look like. About the challenges and the possibilities. Kritika went to Bhogal to get the bed makers and more jute ropes. And THEN, the ‘tragedy’ happened, Kritika gave us the bad news that one of the bed makers have gone back to their village and the other one is out of reach. And we all knew without the bed makers, finishing this frame is not going to be an easy job. We needed
Top Leika, Ivar and Tyler discussing the hollow brick wall while putting the bricks. Right Di splitting mud bricks. Left Clem, Nirali and Leika mixing mud mortar on the mud covered marble floor of the Queens Gallery.
schedule, and there was a lot which was yet supposed to be done for the panels apart from the mock-up. After a lot of discussions and clashes,the work on the side frame began with Clem’s help. Peter, Tyler, Leika and Jaykishan were working on making the mud walls and plastering them with mud and cow-dung mix side by side. Walls were getting plastered and were almost ready to put the jute wall in. Tragedies like depleting mud bricks, Tyler getting hurt, jute weaving going all wrong, workshop printer went out of ink and then the new ink was not good enough to print the cards; kept on happening throughout the day. By the end of this day, weaving group had 4 frames ready which are just a third of what we need. We all then went for Dhruv’s exhibition at AF, Lodhi Road. Wine was a relief. After the dinner, I went home and everyone else was back to the workshop to finish the pending walls and frames.
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Top Di, Nirali, Deepraj (from Hariharpur) and a participant of the Unbox festival discussing jute. Above Tyler being taught to make pots by a Nizamabad potter. Left Kritika inviting Unbox festival participant to engage and help design the school for Hariharpur.
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Day Twelve: Building Community II 08.02.13
Today we decamped from the British Council and
The participants at UNBOX were very enthusiastic
headed to Zorba in South Delhi to take part in the
and we got lot of useful inputs from them which will
UnBox Festival. Nirali Ganatra, an undergrad at the
help us build a better space for the community..They
College of Architecture in Baroda, has written an
helped interacting with the village people..knowing
account of the day.
their needs..their requirements..their inputs for the
Flying speed of time can never be measured and same
school..
happened with the people engaged in the Building
Various inputs we got were like...a lot of ground work
Community workshop. Today was the last day of the
required before starting of design...interacting with
workshop and ended with participating in UNBOX
more voices of the village..thinking about the future
festival. The journey of two weeks and the journey
empowering of the people engaging in building of
ahead at Hariharpur had to be fit in just few hours of
school..lots of boxes for the board game at the village
doing by engaging workshop at UNBOX..which was a
to help villagers put their needs on board more freely..
challenging task!
house typology(pukka or kuccha) as a status symbol..
We split into groups of two and engaged participants in various technologies and activities..Board and Card game by Tyler and Kritika...Mud and Mud bricks by Vishank and Peter...Bamboo joints by Jaykishan and Divya..and weaving by Me and Di. We started the workshop at UNBOX by breathtaking music performances by musicians of Hariharpur Village. We were even lucky to have Potters from the village of Nizamabad to teach us pottery!!!! This was the first time when we got to interact with the village people..Got to know about their culture.. their traditions..about their music..their customs.. their means of livelihood..their requirements..their livelihood..It was interesting to know that they have come above the old tradition of caste differences and live together at par..
various activities practiced by different communities within the community..laying of sample bricks as a first task after reaching at the village..moving forward slowly with the community instead of hurrying to the final products and many more It was a good end for a two weeks journey and a very resourceful start for a far more longer and challenging journey ahead at Hariharpur!
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Exhibition opens! 12.02.13
After Ivar and Clem left for London, Alex and Leika continued preparing for the opening of the exhibition. The gallery felt empty without having the two other WORKSHOP members or the participants from the Visiting School. However, our enthusiastic volunteers have been a huge help! We want to especially thank Vikas and Saurabh for their support. Vikas and Leika were working on the final layer of the plastering, which felt like it would take forever as most of the mock-up structure had only two layers (we needed three). Then Thomas, the brilliant painter who has been working for the British Council over 20 years, started to give us some tips to make the plaster look professional and beautiful. Eventually, he joined us and actually covered 90% of the remaining surface himself!!! We were amazed how fast he could apply the plaster, particularly as it was his first time to work with mud plaster! It’s important to mention that it was because of Vikas that Thomas got interested in joining the plastering... engaging different people in the making can bring unpredictable advantages. Meanwhile, Alex was working hard printing out and mounting images to the gallery wall. A major issue was to get the brackets for the shelves to display pots, the soil from Hariharpur, and the freshly printed book about our previous Chandar Nagar Project. Here, two Visiting School participants Vishank and Kritika continued to help us even though they were back to their daily work. They drove throughout Delhi to look for the brackets! Peter also dropped by and trimmed the bamboo structure to give it a final touch. There was still a lot to do before we could call it an opening for the exhibition. The professionals at the British Council were very helpful through out the preparation process - thank particularly to Madan Ji and Vipin Ji. By the evening of the 12th, our exhibition was finally ready!!! Please do come visit the gallery if you are in Delhi. We invite you to come and participate throughout the exhibition as it is a space to trigger discussions that are part of our upcoming Project Hariharpur. The exhibition will close on 1st March.
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Top The completed mud structure. Above The mud structure seen from behind. Right Leika finishing the plaster on the mud wall before opening the exhibition.
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Top A visitor listening to pots embedded in the mud wall. Right Thomas putting the second layer of mud plaster on the structure.
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Right Our Project Chander Nagar book, on display. Bottom A wooden bench to sit and read the exhibition blurb in the background.
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Arriving in Hariharpur 16.03.13 As the exhibition in Delhi was mounted and opened to public, Alex and Leika packed up all the tools and drove to Hariharpur. The purpose of this short trip is to gain a better understanding of the community: research locally available materials, techniques and skills as well as grasping the social context of the village. Throughout our trip, Saswati, a very sweet and caring woman from ITRHD, has been hugely supporting us by arranging accommodation, transportation and various other things. After a 19-hour-long car drive from Delhi (no one recommended us to take the road, but we just had to do it to shift all our construction tools!), Alex and Leika finally arrived in Azamgarh late on Friday night. We didn’t expect to be welcomed by pouring rain and frightening thunder. The rain continued the next day when we visited Chacha Nehru School. Saswati and all six teachers were busy distributing the brand new uniforms to the pupils, preparing for the opening of the nursery on the following day. ITRHD is renting an old cow shed which is now transformed into two nursery rooms. WORKSHOP will build classrooms together with the community on a separate site where they will have primary education. Currently, the nursery holds over 60 children, mostly between three and five years old. Not everyone appeared to receive the uniform due to heavy rain. It was a good learning for us to understand the impact of the weather. Many locals were gathering around the nursery, interested in finding out about the two new arrivals. One of the musicians who performed at UnBox recognized us and warmly invited over to his house for a cup of chai. He showed us his huge collection of musical instruments carefully stored in his closet, and we were given a wonderful private music performance by a team of musicians. Arvind, the local coordinator assigned by ITRHD, was together with us. He later on took us for a walk around the area as the weather recovered. Hariharpur is covered by a variety of crops and hena trees. The yellow flowers of mustard plants are most visible, giving the village a warm atmosphere. There is no concrete road in the village; along the paths in the village you’ll find nicely shaped piles of cow dung. Many of the houses are made of fire bricks but there are also mud houses, the type of technique we are interested in implementing for the new school. At the edge of the village, there are three brick factory chimneys standing high up. We were very excited to know that bricks were produced locally. We also noticed that bamboo was often used as part of roof structures and was growing locally. Filled with new ideas and inspiration, we went back to our temporary home in Azamgarh.
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Top Leika, Archana and Beena walking toward Kamlesh’s house to discuss land ownership and where to build the school. Bottom The busy streets of the market in the nearby city, Azamgarh.
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Provisional school opening ceremony 17.02.13
The day started with the opening ceremony of the nursery in the temporary accommodation being rented by ITRHD. The students were dressed up in new blue uniforms, some of them looking a bit nervous before their performance in front of the big audience. Both teachers and students entertained us by singing and dancing. At the ceremony, the head of ITRHD, Mr. S.K. Misra and the three trainers of the teachers from Azamgarh and Varanasi were present. They all gave their blessings for the nursery and were amazed by the performance. After the ceremony, we were invited for lunch at one of the teacher’s house. The food using all local ingredients was so fresh and tasty. While eating lunch, more youngsters entertained us with their singing. Boys of the Brahmin community receive musical training by family members from a very young age. The house right next to us also belonged to another teacher. They told us that this house is one of the oldest houses in the village. It had a beautiful ceiling made of wood. The main structure of traditional roofs is often made of timber, if not bamboo. On top of it is a secondary bamboo structure covered with clay and terracotta roof tiles (locally called caprael). After lunch, the land owner of the new building site, Pankaj, volunteered to show us around the village. He told us that 15% of the villagers work at the brick factories. We wanted to visit the brick factories right away, but first, we were taken to a cluster making sugar canes. The people there sell sugar cane and the juice made out of them at a nearby market in Azamgarh. They were using a huge machine operated by diesel oil to produce the juice. After thanking the people for treating us to sugar cane juice, we visited a private school in the village. Since it was Sunday, the school was totally empty but we could still examine the school structure as there were no fences or doors. The building was in a simple brick structure with four classrooms (approximately 3m x 6m each) and one tiny office space. The only facilities we could find were the water pump outside and two blackboards in the classrooms. The brick walls had many openings where the sunlight poured in. It was very interesting to find out about other school buildings in the area. We were told that there is also one government school in the village, so we shall have a visit.
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Top left Ankita sitting in front of the Rangoli made for the opening ceremony. Top right Children holding boards with the names of Chacha Nehru, Lal bahadur shastri, Rani Laxmi bai & Mahatma Gandhi. Above The teachers talking to S.K Misra. Left Priyanka’s daughter dressed up as an angel.
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Top Leika and the teachers having a workshop. Bottom Drawing up the map of Hariharpur together with the teachers and their own homes.
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First workshop with the teachers 18.02.13
The weather recovered and the first day of the nursery
Meanwhile Alex was measuring the building site
began under sunshine. Some of the children could
together with Siam Raj, one of the locals. He lives in
not stop crying during the school hours, which is
a small charming mud-brick house. The site for the
from 9am to 12pm, so that the teachers will need to
school is quite small, approximately 30m by 15m.
visit their parents. After sending off all the children
Currently, lentils are growing on the site and will
home, Leika had a mini workshop with all six teachers
be harvested by the end of February. Surrounding
– Ankita, Bina, Gauri, Priyanka, Sarve and Seema. We
the site is one old well which is out of use (now it is
began the workshop by drawing a community map
used for drying cow dung), a large tree which will
of Hariharpur. Each teacher drew the location of her
provide shade during hot summers and refuge during
house together with the path she takes to reach the
monsoons, and a school garden producing various
school site. We then roughly identified the areas the
crops for mid-day meals.
students live and locations of two other schools in the village (one private and one government). The teachers were enthusiastic to tell us about Hariharpur. One of the findings was that some of the parents work at the brick factories. Tomorrow, Seema will guide us to different parents’ houses and hopefully we can meet the brick factory workers as well. Beside the map, we also created an agricultural calendar showing which crops are being harvested in which timing of the year. The food supply in Hariharpur seems to be enough for the whole village as they have no need to go to a nearby market for grocery. There is only one path leading to Hariharpur from the main road or bypass which belongs to Azamgarh. We also talked about the two classrooms they are using now. For example, the size of the bigger room is alright but the other room is too small to use. It seems like the smaller room is merely used for storage at the moment. We will have another activity tomorrow to have more ideas for the new classrooms.
We also visited one of the brick factories located near the bypass. Unfortunately, there wasn’t anyone from the village working there but we were told that there are villagers at the other factories. After the heavy rain, the soil was still soft, and many of the clay bricks were ruined. We managed, however, to get two mud brick samples to bring back and examine its strength at an institution in Delhi. The workers told us that they can produce 1500 to 2000 on a daily basis by two workers. The bricks will dry within a day or even in half a day depending on the weather. In order to produce good mud bricks, the bricks need to lay in the shade for 20 days. They kindly demonstrated the way they make mud bricks in front of us. Firstly, the mould was applied with a thin layer of sand. Then, the expert took a scoop from a pile of mud and sand and dumped it into the mould. Within a second, a nicely shaped mud brick was produced! We thanked them for their help and left the village for the day.
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What makes a good classroom? 19.02.13
The workshop with the teachers continued today, but this time with Gauri, Seema, Ankita and Priyanka as Sarve and Beena was busy with Saswati. We made drawings of the existing nursery and the new building site. The major problem with the existing nursery structure is the wall dividing the two rooms. Because it has a huge gap before reaching the ceiling, sound easily cut across the rooms and it becomes too noisy (the structure used to be an old cowshed). This problem was reflected in the drawing for the new building site as each room was separately placed. Initially, we asked the teachers to draw three classrooms and two toilets in the building site, however they had a bigger vision, including a hall, library, office space, principle room and playground with a stage. Gauri was keen to have a hall where everyone can gather and carry out various types of activities. She showed us a huge collection of toys for the children which was stored in the smaller room. The teachers were very serious making the plan for
teachers and students will use the library. • Each classroom should accommodate 20 students and the hall should be big enough to fit 60 people. • Gauri drew a staircase leading to the hall. Later that day, we found out that all classrooms in the government school were placed about three steps above the ground. Also, it was interesting to find out at the private school that students took off their sandals before entering classrooms. • Seema drew a stage in the playground. The stage could be roughly 4m x 3m. • They also wanted a principle room for Beena, who is the head teacher. The teachers were in harmony and we had a lot of fun together!
the new site that we also used the measure to have a
Alex spent time conducting an architectural research
better idea of our plan.
around the area, especially on the traditional mud
The followings are some notes from the workshop: • A good classroom size is 4.5m x 5m, same as the larger existing classroom. • Teachers like the “big” windows in the existing
buildings. The main load bearing walls are made of mud bricks stacked in a two-layer pattern. The main structural element of the roof is either bamboo or wood. On top of this is a layer of bamboo which holds the mud placed on top. Below or above the mud are leaves that protect the roof in case the water
nursery and natural light was preferred over
comes through the top layer of terracotta roof tiles.
artificial light.
Beautifully detailed pots are used to cover the joints
• Teachers were keen on having an office space for themselves. Every day after closing the nursery, all teachers gather to have a meeting. • Boundaries around the school site as well as between the playground and the area with buildings are sought. • The library could be the size of the existing smaller room (approximately 4m x 4.5m). Both
of the tiles. The main decorative pots are placed on top where two roofs in different directions meet. The eaves of the roof are supported by timber haunches that go into the mud, or a timber lintel that goes along the whole building. This lintel also opens up for the andara/bahara (inside/outside) entrance space that is located on the longer side of the building. The construction has two dark buffer spaces leading to the main hall at the centre of the building. Common problems with these structures are the lack of light
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Top Leika and the teachers discussing what is working and what is not working in the existing school buildings. Bottom Gauri explaining that the current classrooms are only separated by a short division wall; noise is a major issue. Above Ankita measuring what a good classroom size is.
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and the fact that the eaves are not long enough. When
of the scheduled caste community seemed to work
rain falls down from the roof, it bounces back to the
there. Instead, we came across two contractors living
building. The constant amount of water cutting into
in a two-story buildings which stood out from the
the brick walls leads to the collapse of walls. Some
rest of the community. During our walk, we got to
locals have dealt with this issue by making a little
visit one of the teacher’s house and also the family of
slanting downhill along the edge of the building. This
the gentlemen working at the nursery. Siam raj, one
protects the structural mud walls and leads the water
of Alex’s friends, also joined our walk and shared his
that falls down from the roof away from the building,
knowledge on mud construction. One trick he taught
rather than being reflected back to the building by the
us was to put one layer of whitewash on the brick
flat ground. Mud bricks are not the only construction
wall before you add more layers of miti (cow dung
technique used in Hariharpur, rammed earth is also
& mud) to strengthen the wall. Thatched roofs were
available.
commonly used as well as terracotta roofs. The use of
In the afternoon, Seema’s brother Santos took us around the village. First he took us to the other private school and it turned out that he is one of the teachers there. The school opened in 1996 and now holding
terracotta roofs, however, was more obvious among the traditional buildings of the Brahmin community. As a contrast, the use of mud was more alive in the scheduled caste community.
classes for primary, secondary and higher secondary
We asked Santos to take us to the government school
education. The building had four classrooms, but in
located at the very end of the village, opposite to
addition, one class was held outside. There, they had
the entrance from Azamgarh. The school property
a small blackboard on a chair in front of the students.
was massive, with classrooms for different levels of
In all classes, students were sitting on the ground
education and a huge field. Santos told us that there
without any tables. Girls and boys were separately
are about 1500 students going to the school. The
seated and one of the classes had only girls. They
school was built in cement and little light was coming
are having one morning session and one afternoon
through the tiny windows. The concrete floors felt
session in order to double the amount of students.
quite cold and hostile. Classrooms were approximately
Currently, they have over 200 students with 8 or 9
5m by 4.5m. Beside the classrooms, the school had
teachers.
a kitchen, four or five toilets and a principle room.
We thanked the principle for showing us around, and went off to take a walk around the area where the scheduled caste community lives. Hariharpur could be roughly divided into three groups based on the former caste system: the Brahmins, Yadavs and the scheduled castes. Although many efforts have been carried out legally to abolish the caste system since the 1950s, the division of caste is still visible in a conservative state such as Uttar Pradesh and especially in a village like Hariharpur. It is obvious that houses are located according to caste and different caste clusters are divided by roads. Family names are another element indicating which caste people belong to. Therefore, some people prefer not to mention their family name. In the scheduled caste cluster, we found many mud structures. Some of them were nicely maintained with daily water supply applied by hand, others seemed to be halfway broken. Hay was present on the mud walls. We were expecting to meet some of the workers at the brick factory, but only one or two members
The toilets were semi outdoor spaces attached to the side of some of the classrooms, including two urinals and one closeable Indian style toilet. On the school walls, curriculum and national slogans were painted in yellow. The school building seems to be replicated in government schools as we saw more of the same buildings along our road trips in Uttar Pradesh.
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Top left A hall for gathering is the center point of the schoolyard. Surrounding is the classrooms, staff rooms and toilets. Bottom left Mud is one of the vernacular building materials found in Hariharpur.
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Top right Seema and Gauri drawing up the existing classrooms. Bottom right Gauri and Priyanka designing the new school.
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Top & Bottom Visitors standing in front of images of our project in Dehradun and Philippines. Bottom right Visitors were invited to write their opinion on the wall. Throughout the exhibition the wall filled up until there were no notes left to pin up.
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Back in Delhi: Talk and reception at the British Council 06.03.13 Last Friday was the final day of our exhibition ‘Building Community’ at the British Council in Delhi, and was marked by a joint event with the Charles Wallace India Trust. In advance of the reception we held our first stakeholder meeting with ourselves, the partner charity (ITRHD), the British Council, and members of the community from Hariharpur. It was a great opportunity to share the fist phase of our research with the villagers, and show them the outcomes of the Visiting School - which some of them had caught a glimpse of during the UnBox festival. The British Council building also offered a neutral space to discuss everyone’s expectation’s for the project openly and honestly. We were keen to be able to partake in the conversations fully ourselves, and so invited our friend Amritha Ballal from the Delhi-based practice Space Matters, to facilitate and translate the discussion. She did a fantastic job – as always we’re very grateful for her support! – and the outcome of the meeting was really productive. The topics covered ranged from the size of the classrooms, the skills within the village, and attitudes towards mud as a construction material. The event was recorded by a documentary film crew who will be visiting us a number of times on site, and capturing the progress of the project from start to finish. Having just arrived back in Delhi from London that morning Clem found herself not only doing a filmed interview, but up on stage presenting WORKSHOP’s projects. But the jet lag and exhaustion were soon surmounted, as it was time to relax and celebrate the outcome of all the hard work over the past month. The Hariharpur musicians gave a beautiful performance in the court yard, and it was great to have a drink with the volunteers, British Council staff, and Visiting School participants – without whom the exhibition would never have been finished! The mock-up has since been knocked down, and turned back into soil (that’s the beauty of using mud) and the rest of the exhibition material is packed up waiting to be shipped to London, where it will be reinstalled at the Architectural Association in November. Working at the British Council has been a great experience - and we’re really appreciative of all the helpful and friendly people who made it such a pleasure : ) Now it’s time to put pen to paper and start resolving the design for the project....
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Top Ankita from Hariharpur posing in front of the images of her village. Bottom Alex and Deepraj (from Hariharpur).
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Top Vasant Kamath giving feedback about the mud wall to Vishank and Divya Above Kritika and the tibetan monk Tenzin standing in front of the structure. Tenzin joined in during the workshop and was of great help to finish the mud walls in time of the opening Bottom right Musicians from Hariharpur performing for the exhibition audience.
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Visiting Anangpur 10.03.13
Over the weekend we had a great opportunity to learn
material. He is promoting the use of thin cement
about some clever building technologies that might
slabs, named Ramlochan Tiles (after the mason who
come in very handy for our design. Both Aanchal
invented them) which can be cast in front of the mud
from the British Council, and Shiban Ganju (the
brick in order to act as a waterproof membrane. He
architect we are collaborating with on the project)
mixes cheap and readily available marble chips in with
suggested we get in touch with Prof Anil Laul - an
the cement to create a surface which addresses the
Indian architect who has dedicated his career to
aspirations of poorer communities who can’t afford to
developing appropriate technologies and runs regular
build with stone. It was really interesting not only to
hands-on workshops for architects. As soon as we
understand his building processes better, but to talk
called him up, he invited us over to his property on the
about the motivations behind them, and how best to
outskirts of Delhi / Faridabad in a small village called
put them into practice in the context of communities
Anangpur - which is where he lives, works and runs the
like Hariharpur.
workshops. Other than doing a workshop (which we unfortunately just missed) the best way to learn about his work, is simply by walking around the property and seeing the structural systems evident in his buildings. One of his employees, Tanya took us around pointing out things to notice and answering our (many!) questions. The thing we were most interested to understand more about were the funicular shell roofs he promotes. We had in fact seen these a number of months ago at the Forest Research Institute in Dehradun - but we had never seen the flat funicular shells that Prof. Laul has put into practice, and it was great to see these up close.
We remembered during lunch, which Prof Laul kindly invited us to stay for, that Revathi and Vasant Kamath lived nearby...we cheekily rung them up to ask if we could pop round to visit their house, which we had seen so many photos of in publications and lectures. Luckily they were in, and it turned out weren’t just in the area, but actually living on the adjacent property, in the same village! Having completely rehabilitated the land, which had been used as a quarry and stripped of its eco-system, the Kamath’s house is now surrounded by lush trees and a huge variety of plants and animals. Not so enchanting are the monkeys, which were rounded up by the Delhi authorities and
We were also keen to discuss the use of mud bricks, as
dumped on the outskirts of Delhi a few years ago.
pure abode was conspicuously absent from any of his
We arrived to find Revathi repairing her solar cooker,
buildings. In his opinion there’s a reason why people
which had been stripped of its mirrors by monkeys
are moving away from adobe, and why fired brick is
(who it turns out are as vain as the rest of us!). They
so ubiquitous (although he complained of the tyranny
very kindly took us on a tour of the house, and invited
of the British brick, the size of which requires more
us to stay for a delicious dinner. We left re-convinced
fuel to fire than the traditional Indian ‘tile brick’ - and
of the beauty and durability of pure mud buildings
can’t be fired as evenly). His concern is in regards to
- and are looking forward to moving to one of their
the erodibility of mud, and he wasn’t convinced by
construction sites in West Delhi at the end of the
the idea that as long as it’s constructed in the right
week to learn how to make bricks on a larger scale!
way (for example with a waterproof course of fired
Thanks both to Prof Laul and to the Kamath’s for their
bricks or stone at the base and deep eaves to shed
generous hospitality and time : )
rain water away from the building) it is a very durable
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Top Revathi’s livingroom is fully made of mud. The ceiling is made
Bottom right Clem and Revathi’s husband standing on the roof.
of eucalyptus and bamboo.
He has a toy gun to scare of the monkeys that keep invading his
Bottom left Alex, Revathi and her husband standing on the grasroof of their house.
house.
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Kamath’s Design Studio’s adobe construction site 18.03.13
At the end of last week, after we’d sent our belongings
However, constructing the roof first means that the
off in a three-wheeler truck (crossing our fingers very
walls are being built under a large shaded canopy
tightly that they would arrive in Hariharpur three
- which seems very intelligent given the rapidly
days later in one piece!) Leika and Alex headed to the
increasing temperature! Our design for Hariharpur
village on the train, while Clem and Ivar relocated to
wouldn’t accommodate this, but we’ll definitely be
West Delhi. They had kindly been invited by Revathi
putting up a shade of some sorts to protect us from
Kamath to spend a few days at one of her construction
the sun. There were a lot of other great details to learn
sites, to see first hand how adobe bricks are produced
from, including the brilliant Shankar Balram septic
on a larger scale. The site was at the Gnostic Center,
tank, which Revathi has adapted to include a reed bed
a retreat and learning center, where they are building
and banana grove that filters waste water before it
a number of new accommodation units. The design
re-enters the ground. Overall it was a great few days -
is based on the idea of a large span, curving bamboo
very informative, and a lovely peaceful place to spend
roof which is supported on steel columns, and
a couple of nights. Thanks so much to Revathi for
thick mud walls below. While these walls aren’t the
sharing her work with us!
primary load-bearing structure, they will take some of the weight of the roof, which will improve their performance over time (the load acts to compress and compact the mud). Because the walls aren’t taking any heavy loads immediately, the bricks have only been drying for 5-10 days (up to two weeks is best for maximum strength). There were three husband & wife teams (plus their kids!) working on the site in pairs. The women tend to do the preparatory work - carrying the bricks on their heads, or making the lumps of mud to be molded into a brick - whilst the husbands so the more skilled brick laying or brick making. The speed at which the brickmaking duo worked was incredibly impressive, but spending a few days at the site made us realize how monotonous and hard the work is.
Tomorrow Ivar will head to Hariharpur to prepare for the Visiting School with Alex and Leika, while Clem will stay in Delhi for the next week, to meet experts who might be able to collaborate with us on the project, as well as Vicky Ricardson from the British Council who’s on her first trip to India.
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Top Clem making mud bricks. Bottom left One of the mud brick experts. Bottom right Carrying the bricks.
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Top left Passing by some of the Hariharpur locals.
Top right Leika having a design workshop with the teachers
Bottom left Alex and Arvind testing bricks together with Shamraj.
Bottom left Leika’s reunion with the teachers, Ankita and Gauri.
One of the grandparents of the schoolchildren.
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Returning to Hariharpur 22.03.13
Since the 15th of March, Alex and Leika have returned
bricks) and consulted the owners for prices and
to Hariharpur and Ivar joined us from the 18th. The
proportion of the mix for making bricks. We were taken
time quickly passed by sorting out accommodation,
to a nearby cement/gravel/sand/iron supplier as well.
finding our way in the area and trying to make ourselves comfortable. We were grateful to the generous support from our landlord and to the fact that our house is only three kilometers away from Hariharpur. We went to the village almost every day in order to meet the local people and to learn more about them. It was great to meet the people who we have got to know through our previous trips and especially the teachers. Together with the teachers, we started to plan for the ceremony where we will invite the community for the first activity on site. We agreed on having a pooja which is a Hindu ritual performance and to cut the lentil trees growing on the site. Unfortunately, this plan did not work out as issues regarding the building site emerged and eventually ITRHD could no longer provide us with the original land. This was a huge surprise for us but we needed to somehow carry on the project. Luckily, three ladies from ITRHD arrived to Hariharpur and solved the issue by identifying an alternative site. The change of site had a great impact on the design we have been working on, however, it revealed positive aspects of the village as well. The teachers, for example, spoke out and said that they would not stop teaching even without a school building and they will continue teaching from home and also provide lunch for the pupils. It was heart moving to learn how deep their
Another huge task for us was to prepare for the Visiting School where we will accommodate 15 people from around the world in Hariharpur. We decided to rent a vacant house of which the owner was living in Varanasi. As no one was using the house for a long time, the house looked like a ruin, however, we trusted the villagers’ word that they can turn it into a ready-made house. After white wash was applied and furniture was placed, the house became a very cosy place with a gorgeous view from the roof terrace. We are very thankful to Kamlesh who helped us arrange everything from electricity to food and so much more. While we were going back and forth from Chacha Nehru School to the Visiting School accommodation, we passed by a beautiful mud house and naturally started to examine its structure. The grandmother of the house warmly welcomed us inside. The house was nicely maintained and the temperature inside was cooling and very nice. It was perfect for the storage room right next to the mail entrance to keep fresh vegetables. Interior walls of the building were used very effectively, having shelves for lightings and some mirrors of different shapes were nicely attached to the surface. We were all amazed by the beauty of the mud house.
dedication for teaching was only after a month since
Right before Saswati, Pamela and Archana from ITRHD
they opened the nursery.
headed back to Delhi, we had been introduced to
Meanwhile, we started to look for locally available materials. We asked Shamraj, the father of the caretaker at the school, whether he can help us finding materials such as bricks, bamboo, steal, etc. He guided us to several brick factories surrounding Hariharpur and at each place we checked the quality of different bricks (some mud bricks and mostly fired
the District Magistrate of Azamgarh. It was a very honourable thing to be introduced to the top person in such a huge district. We hope to invite Mr. Ravi Prakash Aroia to Hariharpur one day to show him the progress of our project and to introduce him to the wonderful people of Hariharpur.
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Parents’ Workshop 23.03.13
At the start of Today we held the first workshop with
School where we installed a mock-up classroom in the
the parents of Chacha Nehru Nursery. All parents
gallery of British Council. They both got attached to
were informed about the event through a hand
this project and now are crucial members of Project
written notice that the teachers gave out to each
Hariharpur. In this regard, Divya, Jaykishan and Nirali
student. At 10:30am, we became anxious as only
(also participants of the previous workshop) have
one parent and her child appeared for the workshop
also been contributing from afar with research into
on time. However, people started to arrive one by
materials, structure and design parameters for a
one and eventually the whole seating was packed.
composite climate such as in Uttar Pradesh. Kritika
Many students came along with their parents or
will remain with us here in Hariharpur until the end of
grandparents too. There were more mothers than
the project as a project co-coordinator, and Vishank,
fathers and they seated placed themselves in separate
who is an expert on sourcing materials, will stay with
groups separately on the jute mat. The workshop
us during the visiting school which starts on Sunday.
began with the head teacher Bina’s opening remarks
Now the full WORKSHOP team has arrived on site and
and a welcoming song by all six teachers. The purpose
are very happy to be able to work with the wonderful
of the workshop was firstly to introduce ourselves
community of Hariharpur.
and the project to the parents, but more importantly, to have a moment with the parents to think about their children’s future and how the new school can accommodate the best possible study environment. Having prepared for one week together with Leika, the teachers led the entire workshop and guided the parents to draw plans for the new school building. Some groups were very specific about the classroom size and other groups drew up a whole master plan, including many classrooms, assembly hall, office, stage, toilets, kitchen, kitchen garden, flower garden, park and so on. Trees and green areas were also included in the plan, recalling the rich and beautiful nature of Hariharpur. Each group proudly presented their plan in front of everyone and the audience gave huge applauds. Gauri, one of the teachers, was a key person to the workshop as she was very good at keeping the parents focused and making them proud of their drawings. We will keep encouraging the teachers to hold regular workshops with the community on Saturdays and to foster ownership of the new school building within the community. Half way through the workshop, Clem, Kritika and Vishank arrived from Delhi. Kritika and Vishank, both architects, are participants of the previous Visiting
In the afternoon, Alex, Vishank, Arvind and Kamlesh went out on a field trip to do further research about the locally available materials such as different types of steel, burned bricks and mud bricks. Arvind is working for our partner organisation ITRHD to make sure the smooth establishment of the Chacha Nehru Primary School. Kamlesh is Bina’s husband and used to be the village chief in Hariharpur. Even nowadays he is receiving respect from the community for his generosity and compassion. The trip turned out to be a great opportunity to engage the wider community into the project as Kamlesh introduced us to steal suppliers, cement/garble/sand suppliers and mud brick suppliers. In addition to our trip, some of the fathers that we met during the workshop also started to look into bricks and bamboos which could be used for the new school. Also, one of the nearby brick factories is keen on helping us out and will start to produce mud brick samples in different proportions and size upon our request so that we can test the strength in Varanasi. Today has been a really productive day and we are excited to keep working with the community.
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Top A group of mothers and grandmothers designing a plan together with the teacher Priyanka. Right Gauri, Seema and Sarva Mangala presenting one of the parents designs to the crowd.
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Left Some of the fathers presenting their design for the school. Right Priyanka showing her drawing. It is showing how the main entrance should be located between two of the classrooms. Bottom One group of fathers, brothers and uncles designing a courtyard house for the school.
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Day One: Building Community 24.03.13
Sunday marked the arrival of the first batch of participants for our third Visiting School in India (the others were waylaid by missed planes and trains‌). It’s exciting to be finally starting on site, and great to be joined by so many more hands and minds. The first blog entry has been written by NTNU students, Anna, Signe, Runa and Froydis: We are four Norwegian girls who arrived India 24th of March. We were glad to be met by Jostein (also Norwegian) at the airport, who guided us through all the crazy taxi drivers. To get to Hariharpur, we drove by two and a half hours of small towns and and narrow roads with overloaded scooters, cows, elephants, goats and naked men. In Hariharpur everybody knew why we were here and where we were going. Exhausted from 36 hours of traveling we tried to stay awake, helping Ivar making the house ready. In the evening we were served a delicious meal and the boys from the village performed classical music from the region on the roof terrace. Magical.
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Day Two: Building Community 25.03.13
Day two of the Visiting School, written (once more) by the Norwegians: Today we started measuring the site, learning that nothing is straight forward in India. Kamlesh Ji and other community members are donating land for the building community project in Hariharpur. While measuring the site, the rest of the workshop participants arrived late due to a missed flight and a missed train. The female nursery school teachers showed us around, and later we had a meeting with them to learn what their needs and dreams for the new school are. In the evening the older musicians of the village played their magical music under the stars in the moon light with the fireflies blinking in the sky. The engineers from Ramboll arrived just in time for another delicious meal. After a day filled with impressions we slept like babies in our mosquito nets.
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Top Gauri and Himanshu presenting the parents design for the school. Bottom The teachers lead a group discussing for the participants to update them on the work that has been done until now.
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Day Three: Building Community 25.10.12
The third day of the NTNU / AA Visiting School, written up by Jelmer Buurma a student from TU Delft: Today we’re starting early while it’s still cool outside, we had breakfast at 7.00 am on the rooftop, lovely rice and chai of course. After breakfast we did a bit of stretching and yoga, to recover from our chaotic journey from Delhi. We discussed the design together with the engineers (who arrived the night before), and the impact it could have on the community. Then we started working out specific parts of the design in groups, thinking about the kitchen, toilets, staff rooms and classroom furniture. We had a great lunch with Dal, Sabzi, Kheer and Papaya. After lunch we went to look at one of the beautiful traditional adobe houses in the village, the people were very friendly, showing us around the entire house and sharing sweet Holi pastries with us. The house had a beautiful white washed courtyard and lots of little niches in the thick walls, it was surprisingly cool as well. We documented as much as we could for the school design. While the sun was setting, we walked around the village and fields, visiting an existing primary school and a pond used for the adobe. After a few minutes it seemed like the entire village came out, curious about our arrival! In the evening we had a great dinner on the rooftop again and went to bed early after another great day!
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Top Group discussion next to the temple. Bottom left Visiting one of the old vernacular courtyard houses of Hariharpur. Bottom right Walking through Hariharpur.
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Day Four: Building Community III 27.03.13
Written by AA Visiting School participant Letitia Allemand, who has been working for the past eight months in Chennai with MOAD, and is about to move to Delhi to work for INTACH. Happy Holi! Holi is the color festival! We were all really looking forward to playing with pigments and water. But we have to be patient... We first have a nice breakfast, while hearing drummers and singers walking next to the house, celebrating Holi. After this, we splitted the students in three groups in order to get the design going on. We talked a lot about the orientation on the site, what side should be the courtyard, the toilets and the kitchen according to Vastu, the teachers’ will and the given site. We also focused on the toilets because it will be the first part we’ll be building. The research was also about the walls and how the thickness could be used. After this research and discussions in small groups, it was finally time to play! Some villagers came to play with us, one was playing drums and we all danced while throwing color powder at each other. We really enjoyed to play and we all ended really colored! It took us a while to get “clean” - less colored at least - before having lunch. This playing quite tired us but we had to get back to work. After discussing and drawing what we have on big sheet, we all went to Kamlesh’s house to do a Pooja. We were welcomed with more powder. They played music, we danced, it was really nice. We went home and each group present what has been done earlier. It was nice to have a feedback from everyone and to see what the other groups have done. We all agreed that it was going forward but that a lot of work needed to be done before the beginning of digging on Friday. Another great meal on the rooftop and we had the surprise to have some beers for this special day. We were all really tired but happy to have had the possibility to be part of this amazing celebration in India.`
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Day Five: Building Community III 28.03.13
Today’s blog has been written by Himanshu Mam,
the structure during any change in the foundational
a graduate of the University School of Architecture
setting... Then we moved towards Gauri’s house and
and planning - and a former employee of our mentor
we were welcomed by a sudden downpour that made
Revathi Kamath .
us sit inside for a bit .
After spending a busy evening with some fulfilling
On reaching back home, we were introduced to Pankaj
live music followed by a lantern lit discussion on the
Khanna, an architect from Delhi who has been working
roof top , the next morning light , promised a very
for Development Alternatives for a very long time. We
important day wherein we were informed about
served him with lunch in our newly transformed blue
the decision of constructing toilets as a part of the
courtyard. Well that was the tarpaulin saving us from
workshop phase. Hence, the old groups had new tasks
the rains that started again!!
, one dealing with toilet plans, another with toilet elevations, and the third one with the orientation. Soon after the briefing ended, there was a meeting with the labourers followed by the orientation group
Getting back to groups, we occupied the temple verandah, and began our thinking, sketching and refining all over again. The late evening saw a
visiting the site to finalize the setting.
headlight pointed presentation which began with
Taking a short break from our work, we marched
following which we witnessed a headstrong discussion
towards the house of one of the teachers - Gauri . Her
on accessing the toilets, whether from the corridor
mother in law’s house being the first one we visited
side or from outside separately. Much on the part of
was clad in adobe bricks , with some portions of fired
awareness, a discussion on importance of having a
ones for the strength. The cross ventilation of this
shaft or a vent for pipes was crucial to our progress
house was a striking one, no wonder we just wanted
with the project as eventually the school will expand
to lie down on that big bed in the central room after
and an upper floor shall be built as well. Finally, all
relishing the tasty gujiyas being served to us. An
the three options were agreed to be workable, and
interesting feature that was brought to our notice by
we proceeded with dinner and hitting our sacks for a
Anshu, was the wooden beam running at the lintel
comfortable sleep after the long rainy day!
level all around the building envelope that protects
Belu’s group displaying alternatives for toilet plans,
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Top The participants exploring the village. Bottom Left Discussing the site boundaries with Kamlesh Ji.
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Bottom Right First meeting with the local artisans of Hariharpur, masons, carpenters, plumbers, electricians and so on, some of whom were parents or relatives of the school children.
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Top right Clearing the site together with the community. Top left Kamlesh giving blessings in the end of the puja Middle right Everyone having lunch together. Bottom Left Kamlesh and the eldest Mishra taking part in the puja. Bottom right Ivar, the village pandit (hindi priest) and the eldest Mishra in the village performing a ceremonial puja before we start digging on site.
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Day Six: Building Community III 29.03.13
The sixth day of the Visiting School, described by
maximizing strength and minimizing effort. Secondly
Jostein – a graduate of NTNU
the soil was very hard to dig, and third the heat was
After spending lots of time designing, discussing and absorbing the local atmosphere, this was the first day
becoming quite a big problem. A roof of some kind was needed to give some shade.
where things started to get physical. Finally we could
During the day we also had lunch with the teachers,
start clearing the site and dig the foundations.
parents and some of the kids. All sat on the big jute
As a way to show respect to the community we decided to mark the beginning of the construction by arranging the traditional ceremony called pooja, which is a holy act performed by a priest. Some of us had already informed the villagers the previous day
under a tree. The intention was to mix them with us and show that we share the same food and space as equals. I think this was an important step in terms of breaking down barriers, although it is hard to change a perception in one day.
about this event, and we managed to gather quite
In the evening we had a discussion about the
many people this morning. We prepared a large jute at
upcoming workshop with the teachers and the
the site for sitting, while the priest and his assistants
parents. The topic was to figure out which questions
arranged the materials needed for the ceremony. Ivar
should be posed for the bathroom design, how they
was chosen to sit next to the priest and aid the various
should be posed and what kind of drawings we should
procedures as a representative for the building team.
present to them. Where should the entrances be? Can
Pooja is basically a set of procedures performed with
they face the courtyard? Should the teachers have an
local crops, incense and leaves which are supposed
individual toilet? Then we went to bed, preparing for a
to bless the building with prosperity and good luck.
hard day of digging, starting at 6.00 am.
The whole ceremony went on for about 1 1/2 hour and ended with the priest and Ivar getting their feet painted red, and then the priest dug the first hole at the corner of the building. After the ceremony we started to clear the site for bushes and trunks, greatly aided by some of the locals. Then we cleared some points and directions for the foundation and stared to dig the trenches. The first challenge was to get to know the tools, since very few of us had done digging on a regular basis before. You need to know how to swing the pickaxe properly for
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Day Seven: Building Community III 30.03.13
Today’s account from Leila Thackara, an AA Visiting School participant who’s starting her masters in architecture in New York this autumn. Another day of digging, but most of us were now accustomed to the tools and their various benefits so we were able to lift the pace. Pick axes and ‘backwards shovels’ (the technical term) were used for breaking the earth, spades for clearing it away, and axes to straighten the sides of the trenches. We enlisted the help of a couple of labourers to speed things up and onlookers young-and-old pitched in when we showed signs of flagging (including an elderly man in a loin cloth who the girls affectionately dubbed ‘six pack’). The engineers had settled on the dimensions of the trenches (70x90x400 for the front and back walls; 70x90x600 for the side and central walls which will support the load of the barrel vaults) and wouldn’t be moved. It probably doesn’t sound like much but digging through sun parched earth by hand with the temperature hitting the 40C’s took all the strength and motivation we could summon and we were relieved when the sun finally sank below the trees. We find it’s best to avoid working the middle of the day so we continued late into the night and as the gasoline lanterns were brought out we started to look less like architects and more, as Clem put it, like Victorian grave diggers. Then as if we hadn’t creating enough of a spectacle, the Uttar Pradesh press arrived on the scene to take our picture for the morning’s paper.
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Top The teachers and parents designing toilets with Belu, Kritika and Leika. Left Seema presenting her solution how to split the boys and girls toilet in a proper way. Right Starting to build the foundation on site.
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Day Eight: Building Community III 31.03.13
Today’s blog has been written by AA Visiting School participant Maria Belen Sacheri, a recent architecture graduate from Argentina: It’s sunday! Our first week in Hariharpur is over. So many things have happened, so many experiences to be remembered! But there’s still a lot to build and learn! We started early, very early considering it was Sunday. But there was too much to be done! The trenches were finally ready, so we started with the compaction of the soil, for the concrete to have a strong support. Then the concrete came, and we all had to stand in line to take the buckets full of concrete to the trenches. Even the villagers who were around the site to watch us work helped carry the buckets. We all took turns spreading it, which was quite an experience for many of us who had only seen it done by labourers before. The mason then finished the leveling so that the surface was left ready for the fired bricks foundations. After lunch we could finally relax! While the concrete dried we went on a road trip! We travelled indian style: we managed to fit 13 people in one car! And giggling and talking, off we went to Nizamabad. Nizamabad is one of the three villages ITRHD is trying to encourage, which has a very rich tradition in pottery. We were welcomed there with indian snacks and cold drinks, and we had a go with the wheel, making our own pieces of pottery! After some walking around and shopping, we faced a group of curious people of all ages, who had gathered around us to study and take pictures of the white strangers that had intruded their village. We really felt like stars! Back in Hariharpur, we had lamb for dinner, and ended the night watching a Bollywood movie projected on the terrace wall.
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Top left The participants escaping the building site to go to Nizamabad to look at the black pottery. Left Pankaj and Ram Krishna discussing a barrel vault mock up.
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Top right Leika planing the concrete foundation. Bottom Everyone passing the concrete to cast the bottom layer of concrete before starting to place the fired bricks.
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Day Nine: Building Community 01.04.13
Today’s blog has been written by Signe Helland Nyberg, a 3rd year student at NTNU: It is Monday, and we had to get up early and go back to work after a short break and a nice trip to Nizamabad yesterday. The layer of concrete at the bottom of the trenches had set, and we could start building with bricks! We used fired bricks for the foundation. The laying of bricks was a bit slow at first. It was very important to do good measuring work, especially on this first layer of the base. While most of us laid bricks, some of us were still working with drawing details and drawing the plan, and Runa and I got to experiment with plaster samples for the walls. We used different ingredients, like clay, sand, cow dung and rice husk. We tried the different mixes on small parts of the walls on the barrel vault mock-up. It will be interesting to see which of the samples that looks the best tomorrow when they have all dried up!
Top Working till the sun goes down. Left Belu and Leika having a design workshop about the toilets with the teachers. Right The bottom layer of the brick foundation is three brick deep. Bottom left Clem & Ankita placing the fired bricks in the foundation.
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Day Ten: Building Community III 02.04.13
Day ten of the Visiting School, written by Runa: Today we continued laying bricks, and the progress is noticeable! But after lunch we had a bit of a panic, noticing that the mortar didn’t cure as well as it should, it seemed too sandy. The engineers tested a few more mixes, and found that it probably hadn’t been added enough cement to one of the mixes. So we had to remove the last bounds, clean the bricks and redo the bonds. This gave us just the right fighter spirit to work late and get further on the foundation, almost reaching ground level, which means we can start on the columns tomorrow. The further we get, the faster it goes, as the bonds become thinner. The Indian architect Sourabh Phadke joined us today. He works with cob and will share his experience with us. The plan is to make parts of the toilet walls using cob to learn how it can be done, and find out how it can be integrated in the rest of the project.
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Top Jelmer and Leila sifting the sand. Right Building up the foundation. Bottom All the participants having a mid day lunch break.
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Day Eleven: Building Community III 03.04.13
Todays blog is written by Jostein – a graduate of NTNU: Today one of the labourers invited us to see his mud house nearby, in order to give us some input on how to make a building with cobb walls. The cobb wall technique is basically to shape a wall with your hands by adding big chunks of mud, and then trim the sides for an even surface. It is really an organic way of creating shapes, where you have to use your hands to work and mix the mud into a homogenous mass. Your creativity is only restricted by gravity. We were also able to get some inspiration the small details in his house. There was a nice door made of bamboo, pivoting from the ground on an iron bolt, and niches cut into the cobb wall. Back to the bricklaying; the aim for the day was to finish the foundation and be able to place all the reebars for the columns, and hopefully lay the first courses of brick columns. Ideally we aimed to also cast the DPC layer so that it could dry overnight, but a combination of heat, sickness among the participants and the issue with the bad mortar mix the previous day, slowed down the process. After lunch we decided to put more effort into raising the columns around the entrance corner, in order to be able to start to construct a section of a cobb wall to test the technique in full scale. The work went on faster, as people had got more skills and the wall thickness got thinner. In the evening we managed to place the rebars for the first column, after spending some time to measure the exact center point of each column in the structure. Finally the building started to raise above ground level!
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Top Casting the DPC with the film crew in the background. Bottom right Yanchee documenting the DPC casting. Bottom Left The mason working on the brick wall.
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Top right Passing the cob form the mud pile to the girls working on the wall. Left Yanchee and Keylan sorting out the bricklaying on top of the DPC layer. Bottom Molding the mud wall.
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Day Thirteen: Building Community III 05.04.13
This blog is being written by the Swiss architect student Letitia Allemand:
In the morning we did the mix for the cob wall, so we “danced� in soil and water for a long time before deciding it was dry enough. At the same time, the masons continued to build the columns. We started to build the wall in the afternoon. It was a long but very interesting technique. It took us a while to built a little bit of this wall between the toilets and the classroom. It was very nice to be able to experience this technique we had never heard of before coming here. We learned how to put the cob in place, how to do benches and shelves. On this day, Runa and Signe also did tests for the mud plaster. The made some with sand, with more water, with cow dung. Very experimental and interesting day for all of us!
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Day Fourteen: Building Community III 06.04.13
Having prepared for several days together with the teachers; Leika, Himanshu and Belu made sure that today’s event was a real success. The aim of todays community workshop was to communicate the design of the toilets that the participants and the teachers have been developing over the past two weeks. Also, to follow up on the previous workshop where the families designed a master plan for the school a modified drawing was presented for discussion. Here’s an account of the last day of the NTNU / AA Visiting School from Himanshu Mam:
It was referred to as the finale of the visiting school phase but ideally it was the beginning by all means. On continuing with the task of brick laying for the columns , our very dear masons and labourers seemed to enjoy every bit of their synchronicity with the Ramboll superheroes ! After an interesting presentation by Sourabh Phadke the previous evening, completion of the cob wall became all the more intriguing for Anne’s group who were quite skillfully engrossed in setting and sculpting the wall and reinforcing it with bamboo for it to structurally suffice for an alcove with a sitting bench laid in stone. Meanwhile Alex headed some of us for the plinth infill job, Ivar & Kritika were discussing the installation of the Septic tank with the plumbing team. After a fulfilling lunch, the mock-up groups continued with their final finishing, be it the mud plastering or Top 1:1 mock up of the master plan on site.
the brick jali ( lattice) alternatives. As a matter of preparing the material for the workshop finale, Leika
Left The masons kept working throughout
was organizing the making of display boards for the
the workshop.
workshop which comprised of the sketched imagery
Right The visiting school students leading the parents through the building site. Bottom left Gauri presenting the toilet structure for the parents.
of an ideal school visualized by the parents and also the current master plan drafted by Belu. Quite significantly, the latter has been evolved primarily from the inputs offered by the community of parents and
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teachers so far and it shall still be open to suggestions
building process of the remaining phases. They
and modifications, which forms the main focus of the
also emphasized on the fact that this school is
upcoming event.
entire community’s dream, and the workshop team
The teachers, who had to be at the forefront of the event, communicating our process and progress with design, gathered for a brief discussion minutes
has initiated the process of its translation into an acceptable reality, but now it’s their turn to join hand in hand and make the building come into space.
before the event. Finally, the ground was all set, slowly the numbers increased from a few to a many. The workshop began with a prayer song sung beautifully by the teachers followed by a brief introduction in “ hindi “ by all of us. Our teachers took charge and began the discussion, showing the current master plan as opposed to each of the previous images drawn by the parents, quite assertively mentioning about their inputs that have been fundamental in forming the current plan draft. The factors addressed were, a secluded location of toilets from the main classroom corridor, a U-type plan having a central open space/ courtyard with a stage for performances and the classrooms arranged around it, a flagstaff for patriotic events and a hand-pump for washing and cleaning, ventilated classrooms flanked by a shaded corridor, a kitchen garden for growing vegetables, fruits and flowers and a park for playing and recreation. The parents were quite convinced and happy to see the efforts gone into the making.
Sun was setting down and we were all excited for a small informal gathering which was organized for teachers at our homely terrace. From the savoury samosas, to thirst quenching pepsi, cultures and cultures were face to face, each enjoying their festive bit. Whether it was Gauri’s classical dance, or the Norwegian choir, Ankita’s melody or Jostein’s stunts, Sarva Mangala’s musical surprise or Belu’s song, all went in vain. An experience of an interactive journey filled with exchange of knowledge, leading to learning, followed by experimentation and application, consistently sufficed by an outpour of invaluable support and hospitality on behalf of the entire Hariharpur community, is what WORKSHOP Architecture has offered us. And truly, the whole experience is marked in our memory for the years to come.
Simultaneously, the teachers also declared the plan open for any further modifications and we saw some coming our way, like having a space for a notice board on the entrance being the first one, followed by having an office and a staff room on the ground floor, and an entrance door in every classroom adjacent to the blackboard wall. The toilet being constructed as a part of the first phase, was the next topic of discussion. Parents had requested for an exclusive toilet for staff and guests, proper ventilation and separate entry points for both the boys and girls toilet, which were quite well taken care of, according to the final toilet plan. Just before everyone was fed with delicious sweet balls, popularly known as besan laddu, the teachers delivered one of the most important message to the entire village community, which was, a dire need for their participation and involvement in the
Top Sarva Mangala, Beena, Leika, Belu and Himanshu presenting to the parents. Left Parents discussing the master plan. The positioning of the kitchen was a hot topic. Right Preparations with the teachers before the workshop. Bottom left The teachers reading through their presentation notes for the parents.
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Top left A vernacular two story cob building in Hariharpur. Top right Seema and Ankita cutting legs for the children’s chairs according to the size decided with the children. Above left Gauri and the children drawing chairs and tables for the future school. Above right Jostein, Alex, Aanchal and Kritika visiting a half fired brick/half mud brick building. Left Seema’s father, Kailash and Jostein measuring bamboo to use for the children’s chairs.
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Completing the toilet walls 13.04.13
After a couple of lovely days off in Varanasi with most
It soon became apparent that parents were thin on the
of the Visiting School participants, the core team
ground too - the result of the intense work harvesting
(Alex, Kritika, Ivar, Leika and Clem) headed back to
wheat which has just started and will continue over the
Hariharpur with Jostein & Litchi that will help out with
next twenty days. It’s really vital that they become more
the project for another few weeks. Having stuffed
involved with the project before we leave, so coming
ourselves with ramen and tempura (weirdly, there’s a
up with strategies for working with them - either
bit of a Japanese scene in Varanasi), and stocked up
on a part-time basis or outside of wheat harvesting
on enough pasta and floaty cotton garments to last the
hours - is crucial. Despite all this, the workshop was
rest of the project, we were ready to get back to work
really productive and we were able to get a full set of
on Tuesday morning. Without a construction manager
measurements for the furniture, along with lots of good
to run things in our absence, activity on the site hadn’t
ideas for the design of the chairs. Seema’s father, who is
been as productive as we had hoped, which acted as
an expert jute weaver, was a great addition to the team,
good reminder that finding someone local to share our
and we’re really looking forward to involving him more.
role - and ultimately take over once we’ve left - is crucial to the success of the project. We’re also keen to involve many more parents in the construction, so that they are more invested in the project, and also to ensure the work becomes more meaningful - rather than just
We were joined on Friday by Aanchal Sodhani, the Senior Arts Project Manager at the British Council, who has been working closely with us throughout the project. It was great to be able to show her what
another job.
we’ve been up to, and have an excuse to visit some
Communicating this was one of the aims for the
the courses of fired brick are complete and it’s adobe
Saturday workshop, along with initiating the process
bricks from now on. The new mason (we think he’s a
of designing and building furniture for the school.
keeper!) made a start with the Ronchamp-inspired deep
We had had a great meeting with a local carpenter
windows - and it’s really exciting to see the toilet block
about the workshop earlier in the week, and had
take shape.
bought the bamboo and mango wood in advance, but unfortunately the carpenter (who doesn’t have a phone) apparently forgot about the appointment and didn’t show up. Although frustrating, we’re learning to go with the flow and accommodate these hipups - accepting that nothing ever goes quite to schedule or as planned!
of the village’s mud houses once again! On the site,
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Finalizing the master plan & starting the classroom 21.04.13 Now that the project is fully underway, and the master plan has been finalized with input from the community, it seemed the right time to meet with ITRHD to update them about all the developments and get their feedback. It was important that things didn’t slow down at site, so Clem headed to Delhi solo for a meeting on Wednesday. Along with representatives from ITRHD, she was joined by Aanchal from the British Council, Shiban Ganju (who is acting as an architectural consultant on behalf of ITRHD)… and the documentary crew, who were keen to capture this side of the project. Having prepared a comprehensive document for all our sponsors, which included not just the latest drawings but all our blogs since the very start of the project, it was easy to communicate all our progress so far – and everyone seemed impressed by how far things have come along at site. Mr Ganju provided a welcome critique, suggesting was reassess the window sizes in the classroom, the size of the kitchen, and how we phase construction – particularly emphasizing the need to start the barrel vaults as soon as possible. The head of the organization, S.K. Misra will be visiting the site on Tuesday, so it was also a chance to discuss issues that he can help to resolve when he visits – most urgently sourcing a construction supervisor who’ll be able to take over management of the site once we leave at the end of May. Meanwhile, back in Hariharpur the rest of the team were discussing the same document with Kamlesh Ji, the husband of the school’s headmistress Beena. He’s also one of the (many!) landowners who are leasing the site for the new school building to IRTHD, and has taken on the role of helping organize and run the project at a local level. He liked the plan, but emphazised the importance of keeping the staff room on ground level and not to bring it up to first floor. He also asked us to provide a 5ft high perimeter wall on the north side of the courtyard, as well as plant trees around the school to provide shade during the hot summer months. On the building site work is gradually progressing. The mud brick walls are coming up, and the Ronchamp-inspired windows are starting to take shape. In the teacher’s toilet, which is also a shower room so will be exposed to water, we are laying a composite wall with fired bricks on the interior and mud bricks on the exterior. In all other spaces there are fired bricks as high as 4ft above the DPC before the mud bricks start. We’re starting to build a really good working team, headed by our mason
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Above Ivar, Ankita, Beena and some of the mothers placing and composing the windows and doors for the future classroom.
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Bhanu Prasad, and it’s becoming easier to schedule things now that we have contacts and suppliers in place. Yesterday we finished digging the trenches for the classroom / staffroom foundation, and managed to pour the concrete before 6pm! We celebrated with laddoos all round, and then feasted on Italian pasta and real parmesan, brought from Delhi from Clem’s friend Margherita – who was visiting for the weekend. Thank you Marghe ; ) Although it’s still proving hard to engage the parents to work on-site, this week’s community workshop was a real success! Not only did many more parents show up, but this time we were prepared with a framework for the them to respond to and work within, which made it a lot easier for them to engage and partake. We decided on three ‘making stations’ – the first was exploring weaving options for the children’s furniture. Seema (one of teachers) put us in touch with her brother, a local carpenter called Grijesh, who made two timber frames for the parents to work with. The plan was for Sanjay, our auto driver (and also a parent of two the school’s pupils), to lead other parents… but after an hour of so of weaving, all was unraveled as it became clear he wasn’t quite sure of what he was doing! The day was saved by a local farmer called Nathai, who dropped by and showed us all how it was done. Sanjay picked up the technique pretty quick, and was happily weaving away with his nephew Prince long after the workshop had ended! The second making station was to resolve the final elevation for the classroom windows, and was focused on model-making with the mothers and teachers. This proved to be a great way to discuss the design, and the women were really engaged. The last making station was focusing on making a notice board that can explain the project, and show our progress so far. We had been given some eucalyptus wood free of charge by a local merchant and had made a frame out of this ready for weaving….but it became apparent that it was a bit too big and unwieldy – so we’re going back to the drawing board to make smaller boards out of a stronger hardwood called Sheesham that grows naturally in Azamgarh. This should be finished by the start of next week, and will – we hope! – be a good way to draw in the rest of the village into the project.
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Top left Sarva Mangala explaining about the two different chairs
Top right The local farmer Natai teaching Sanjay (father of one of
that are being made for the classroom.
the children of Chacha Nehru) how to weave chairs for the future
Bottom left Clem, Sanjay, Sarva Mangala, the children and the mothers preparing Jute-rope for the chairs.
classroom. Bottom right Hands on knowledge.
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Top left Our amazing mason making a half mud/fired brick wall. Top right The windows in the teachers bathroom. Above left One of the land owners, Kamlesh, together with the Lekhpal sorting out the site boundaries. Above right Krirtika Dhanda, overlooking work on site.
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Top left Rajinder, our mitti (mud) guru. Top right The WORKSHOP team casting the foundation. Bottom The fired brick columns and mud infill of the bathroom structure. The foundation for the classroom is being dug next to the bathroom.
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Preparing for the ring beam 27.04.13
This week began on a slightly damp note, when very
full time until the project is complete. Mr Misra was
heavy rains filled our newly dug trenches with a lot of
visiting with the Commissioner of Azamgarh, so it
water and forced everyone to take a day off (maybe
was a big event for the school – and we were eager
not such a bad thing!) Clem’s friend Margherita was
to finish the jute notice boards for the site and the
in town, so it was a perfect excuse for a trip to the
school before their arrival. Natai and Sanjay (one of
pottery village Nizamabad… a brief account of which
the fathers, our auto driver, and the latest addition
can be found here. The next day the skies cleared,
to the construction team!) did an amazing job to get
and work began laying bricks on the DPC, which
them finished, and the boards are working really well
had thankfully survived the inundation in tact. While
to inform the village and other passers by about what
worked progressed on site, we were on the hunt for
we’re up to.
two people: a supervisor to manage the site after we leave at the end of May, and a barrel vault mason. One thing we’re getting better at is triple checking that people can actually do what they claim they can do – when it comes to the roof structure, this is obviously very important! So when a local mason claimed he had built many jack arches, we jumped in an auto with him to check it out in person. The building was a beautiful Islamic library in Azamgarh, but doubts about his claim arose as soon as we walked in and he couldn’t remember exactly where the barrel vaults were…. after finally finding them, we ascertained from the staff that they were more than 100 years old, and after a completely bizarre and evasive conversion it eventually emerged that in fact our guy had build an RCC roofed extension to the building in 1986. It was time to call Pankaj, and organize for a master mason to come down from Delhi to help us… he’ll be arriving next week, so the focus now is refining the design of the beams and getting them cast – with all the footings for the 1st floor – as soon as possible. We met a number of potential supervisors – as many as possible from the village – and set up meetings between them and SK Misra from ITRHD when he visited on Wednesday. We’ve now appointed Jintindar, a contractor from Hariharpur, who’ll be co-running the site from now until we leave, and then working
Towards the end of the week we said sad farewells to Jostein, who’s headed back to Norway having stayed on for a couple of weeks after the Visiting School… and Kritika who’s attending a wedding in Delhi. Arvind has had to step into her masterful shoes to help us manage things and is doing a great job – but all we can say is thank god for mobile phones, and for Kritika being amazing enough to answer hers in the middle of wedding preparations! Today’s Saturday workshop focused on the first floor, a light-weight bamboo structure, that rests on the heavy brick and mud walls below. Given how successful the model had been last Saturday, we used this again to get feedback from parents about how to clad the structure, and how to organize the space. This is a five-bay space (above the two-bay toilet, and three-bay classroom) that could work as one large hall / classroom or a classroom and a smaller space such as a library or office. There was some useful feedback such as the importance of dividing these spaces properly, and ensuring proper acoustic insulation. We also discussed the cladding, and the mothers made some nice samples of woven bamboo screens. There’s some concern within the community about the high summer winds, and how resilient the bamboo structure will be – so we need to make sure
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this is designed as ‘pukka’ as possible. We also played a great watermelon game, which Leika introduced us to, causing much laughter, and even some tears for the mother who managed to hit the watermelon and win the game!! We were also joined by Harenar, a father at Chacha Nehru, who’s a carpenter and was working on third model for the school chairs. We’ve already had a set made out of beautiful sheesham wood, and Harendar has now completed a mango and bamboo option. These will be woven during next week’s workshop – and can soon be put into action at the school.
Top The current and former Commisioners of Azamgarh District laying bricks in the foundation together with S.K Misra. Bottom Jostein showing S.K Misra the model that was made together with the mothers.
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Top left Natai teaching Leika and Alex how to weave. Bottom left Kakai (grandfather) Natai in front of the information board. Top right The teachers, Sarva Mangala and Beena making a model of the school. Right Lak Munni, one of the mothers, explaining how we can make a bamboo wall on the second story of the school building. Bottom Arvind asking the mothers what they think about having a second story of bamboo.
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Ready for the roof 04.05.13
We’re relieved to have got through what’s probably been the most anxious week so far… not least due to the absence of one of our most crucial team mates, Kriti Ji. Things didn’t quite fall apart when she was in Delhi for a few days, but suffice to say we were very happy to have her back on site! The main goal was to get the ring beam cast, and allow it to cure for at least four days before the arrival of a master barrel vault mason from Delhi, who’ll be training the locals we’ve been working with. Casting at height is a challenge in itself – but we also had to design, fabricate and install all the metal footings for the first floor bamboo structure before the pour. After copious emails to our engineers in London (who no doubt have their hands full with their own work!) we finally settled on a system of threaded rods, cast in to the beam at regular intervals, to which we will attach steel footings (at the back) and a timber batten (at the front and side) at a later stage. It sounded simple enough, but the ongoing wheat harvesting means finding labour – for everything from transport, welding to metal bending – is a challenge. Add to this linguistic confusions, a local habit of being extremely optimistic about production / delivery times, our habit of being extremely optimistic about scheduling, and you’ll begin to understand why things became a bit delayed! By the time Kritika returned mid-week we’d managed to get the rebar cages up into the (very shabby-looking) shuttering. After a lot of measuring, leveling, and readjustments, it was eventually time to install the bolts - and the sleeves through which the tie rods will pass. The main reason we had decided to pour the ring beam above the toilet, rather than the whole building, was to accommodate the mason’s schedule – but in fact it turned out to be very advantageous to complete a small section first, learn from the process, and improve for the rest of the building. One thing that now seems obvious is to pour the beam before laying the adobe brick walls below, to avoid damaging them during the casting. Although we had covered the walls in tarpaulin in advance of last week’s rain, this was removed by the shuttering guys for some reason, which explains why it ended up inside the formwork! While this succeeded in making the shuttering water-tight(ish) and prevented the adobe walls to erode and collapse, it has resulted in a slightly ridiculous shopping bag surface on the beam…and didn’t solve how to cure the concrete with water over the next week.
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Top left Casting the ringbeam. Top Left Ivar preparing the formwork together with our mason Banu. Bottom Ache Lal grabbing the I-Girder when we were raising it to the second story.
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Yesterday we added a section of sloping mortar along the edges of the the beams, against which we will lay the first bricks for the barrel vault. We’ll need to wait until Monday to start the vault, but this gives us time to set up the curved formwork between the beams. This morning our master mason, Raman, arrived from Delhi and (to our relief!) swiftly took control- so we’re hoping this will be more precise and thorough than the shuttering…. Meanwhile, off-site Leika has begun documenting all the traditional cob houses, meeting their owners and marking them on a map. The idea is to gather this information as a record for ourselves, but also for ITRHD. As well as building new structures such as the school, we’re encouraging them to develop a program to protect some of the existing buildings in the village. She has discovered some really beautiful houses with great details and finishes – and it’s really nice to see where many of the people we’ve been working with are living. At the same time, Leika and the teachers started to visit parents at their homes to find out their occupation, skills and to remind them about Saturday workshops. We came across labourers, painters, carpenters, weavers, etc. apart from the majority who are farmers. Such information is highly beneficial to increase the engagement of parents and we are now able to directly contact parents for specific skills and hiring opportunities on site. In addition, it was very interesting to meet parents at home and to grasp their living environment. Today’s weekly workshop was a little disappointing, as none of the weavers who were supposed to teach the parents showed up. It was particularly frustrating given the parents had taken the time to come along and shown their commitment to the project, only to have nothing to do. It turned out, however, that many of them had a friend or nieghbour who knows how to weave, and so they each took a chair home to complete over the course of the coming week. We’re excited to see the variations in the finished products, and be able to put them into action at the school as soon as possible. We also had some unexpected visitors this week from the Bank of Baroda, who have agreed to sponsor the rest of the master plan for the school – which is great news!
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Top Accha Lal placing the reinforcement. Above Leika’s extremely popular Japanese watermelon game has become a tradition in the weekly Saturday workshops. Right One of the mothers laughing as she receives the chair she will weave for her son.
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Starting the barrel vaults 11.05.13
After much preparation, delay and anticipation, the first two barrel vaults are up! Thanks to Pankaj we were put in touch with Raman – a master mason from Delhi was has been on site with us for the past week. After a number of very frustrating delays with the metal form work that we had had fabricated, altered, and re-altered, we eventually decided to use the good old fashioned method of bamboo, mud and a thin layer of mortar for the form work. Although the plan had been to have all of this ready before Raman arrived, it was great to have him here as his experience was very useful! Raman has been working closely with two local masons, Accha Lal and Bhanu, who have been trained through the making of these two bays – and will have to complete the remaining three bays next week on their own. We’re hoping that this knowledge transfer is useful not just for the completion of the master plan, but might revive the construction of barrel vaults in the area. Although prevalent in many of the older buildings, almost all roofs in contemporary construction are RCC slab – which are quicker and cheaper in terms of labour, but require excessive amounts of cement, and are far less beautiful. At least one of this week’s visitors, a civil engineer from Azamgarh, seemed very interested…..so fingers crossed word spreads and there’s a demand that Accha Lal and Bhanu can respond to! Meanwhile, at the other end of the building we were preparing the form work for the stairs and slide, and building the foundations for the verandah and column footings at the front. As soon as the form work comes down under the vaults on Monday, we’ll be completing the mud Top left Our mason Banu being trained by the Delhi barrel vault mason, Raman.
walls, installing doors – and will be ready for the mud plastering. Although this is something we did a lot of research during the mock-up for the exhibition in Delhi, we’re keen to learn how they do it locally. As we’ve been told many times in the past six months vernacular architecture is a
Left Laying the bricks on top of
lot like cooking – it’s not something you can be too rigid about and there
the formwork with 5mm mortar in
are many regional variations. Leika’s been working with relatives of the
between. Right Accha Lal, our second mason being trained by Raman. Bottom The barrel vault being constructed on a mud and bamboo scaffolding. The curve is molded with mortar on top of the mud.
school children, and the teachers, to acquire the local flavors (the main anecdote being that the cow dung in the village – freshly scooped from under the cow’s bum – is much warmer than it was in Delhi!!). These mock-up walls will be used to try out various patterns using the traditional white rice paint that we’ve seen on some of the local mud houses.
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For this week’s workshop, we asked the teachers to design the brick flooring for the verandah, and treat the remaining sheesham chairs with neem oil (boy did that smell take us back to Dehradun!). The first set of chairs had been sent home with a number of families to weave in their own time, and it was great to see the results! Although some of them were a little over-woven (the chairs ended up looking a little like bandaged car crash victims : )… it was really nice that they each had their own personality. Although there’s been a lot of progress this week, and the building’s really starting to take shape – time is running out and we’re going to have to assess what’s realistically achievable before the rains arrive in midJune. The plan has always been for us to complete two units (one toilet, one classroom) before we leave at the end of May, and for ITRHD to complete a third unit (the 1st floor classroom) before the monsoon. Although we have designed the bamboo structure for the 1st floor, it feels a little too ambitious to expect it to be constructed without us here on site overseeing things. It seems more responsible to complete the ground floor, plus a shaded verandah to protect the walls from sunlight and rain, and provide the funds for a third ground-level classroom to be build after the monsoon. One other option is to consider returning in the autumn to complete the 1st floor bamboo structure, but we’ll have to see how that works out with the rest of our lives (and the budget)! We’ll need to discuss this with ITRHD over the next week or so, but for now all our energy has to go into getting the rest of the roof up, and the interior spaces finished.
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Top left Parents testing mud plaster during a workshop. Top right The teachers and mothers deciding on the flooring pattern for the classroom and the verandah. Above A 1:1 mock up of the verandah. Right The mothers weaving chairs for their children.
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Mud walls and stair case being made .
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Defining the interior spaces 18.05.13
We’re relieved to have got through what’s probably
By the time Kritika returned mid-week we’d managed
been the most anxious week so far… not least due to
to get the rebar cages up into the (very shabby-
the absence of one of our most crucial team mates,
looking) shuttering. After a lot of measuring, leveling,
Kriti Ji. Things didn’t quite fall apart when she was in
and readjustments, it was eventually time to install
Delhi for a few days, but suffice to say we were very
the bolts - and the sleeves through which the tie rods
happy to have her back on site!
will pass. The main reason we had decided to pour
The main goal was to get the ring beam cast, and allow it to cure for at least four days before the arrival of a master barrel vault mason from Delhi, who’ll be training the locals we’ve been working with. Casting at height is a challenge in itself – but we also had to design, fabricate and install all the metal footings for the first floor bamboo structure before the pour. After copious emails to our engineers in London (who no doubt have their hands full with their own work!) we finally settled on a system of threaded rods, cast in to the beam at regular intervals, to which we will attach steel footings (at the back) and a timber batten (at the front and side) at a later stage. It sounded simple enough, but the ongoing wheat harvesting means finding labour – for everything from transport, welding to metal bending – is a challenge. Add to this linguistic confusions, a local habit of being extremely optimistic about production / delivery times, our habit of being extremely optimistic about scheduling, and you’ll begin to understand why things became a bit delayed!
the ring beam above the toilet, rather than the whole building, was to accommodate the mason’s schedule – but in fact it turned out to be very advantageous to complete a small section first, learn from the process, and improve for the rest of the building. One thing that now seems obvious is to pour the beam before laying the adobe brick walls below, to avoid damaging them during the casting. Although we had covered the walls in tarpaulin in advance of last week’s rain, this was removed by the shuttering guys for some reason, which explains why it ended up inside the formwork! While this succeeded in making the shuttering watertight(ish) and prevented the adobe walls to erode and collapse, it has resulted in a slightly ridiculous shopping bag surface on the beam…and didn’t solve how to cure the concrete with water over the next week.
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Leika and the teachers arranging a painting workshop for the families of Chacha Nehru.
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Teamwork when lifting the heavy I girders onto the columns.
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Mud plastering begins 26.05.13
This week we’ve been focusing on completing the toilet block, and preparing for the final interior finishes. Although a lot has been completed, the delay with the shuttering for rest of the ring beam – which has taken an incredibly long time! – has made everything feel very delayed; much of the work has been inside the two completed bays, so there haven’t been any dramatic structural changes. It’s also fair to say we are definitely behind schedule, and won’t manage to complete the ground floor before we leave, as originally planned. We have therefore decided to come back in early July, after a month in London reflecting on the work we’ve done so far and making the book about the project. It will be a great chance to finalize the design for the first floor, which has had to be re-thought due to low quality of locally available bamboo, and to discuss the structure with our Ramboll engineers in person. This means that the meeting on Saturday with ITRHD and the British Council, which was supposed to be a ‘hand-over’ event, in fact turned out to be more of a progress update – and a chance to plan for the period that we’ll away in June. Arvind, ITRHD’s man on the ground in Hariharpur, will be running the project – and Kritika will be returning every two weeks to make sure that everything is going to plan on site. So we’re confident that things will be in safe hands! In a way, it’s a great opportunity to test how well the community take on the project without us being here. On our return we’ll be able to work out what’s been going well, what hasn’t – and have a chance to improve things. It also means we’ll be able to see the building in its finished form, and focus on the final interior details that will really define the spaces. The weather is pretty intense now – up to 50 degrees celsius on some days!! - so we’re all happy to return to the non-existent English summer, and sleep under a blanket rather than the stars. It’s not going to be much better in July – a little cooler, but much wetter, and mosquito ridden. We’ll just have to hope that the excitement of seeing the building through to completion keeps us motivated and in one piece!
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The mothers plastering the building with mud plaster.
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Given how nice it is to see the toilet block taking shape, this seems very likely : ) The window frames are now all completed, with a layer of cement mortar, which sharpens the edges and contrasts with the mud plaster. Getting some of the mothers on site to do the plastering has been really great – it’s nice to balance out the construction team with some more women at last. Following on from last Saturday’s workshop, when the parents and teachers decorated the sample mud walls with paint, we were keen to plaster the walls of the toilet block with the final layer of ‘black soil’ from a local pond. This meant that the walls were ready for Mr Misra to symbolically plant two white finger marks on the doorway as part of this week’s workshop. He was also part of the first tree planting ceremony at site, a mango tree as per the teachers’ request… which will be joined by many other varieties once construction is completed. Yesterday we had another group of visitors, this time from ONGC (the Oil and Natural Gas Company), who have verbally agreed to sponsor the construction of the rest of the master-plan as part of their corporate social responsibility program. They were here to understand better what they would be supporting, and how the project is being implemented. It was good to meet them and hear their suggestions, which included introducing BALA (“building as learning aid”) into the interior design… something we’ve been talking about since our previous project in Dehradun, and will definitely be able to implement once we’re back in July.
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Images Mr. S. K Misra making a finger print on the building and planting the first three together with the teachers.
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Work continues on-site independently 18.06.13
The end of our first stint in Hariharpur drew to a close at the beginning of the month, and after various journeys, Alex, Clem and Ivar are now back in London – squatting in a small office on the top floor of No. 39 Bedford Square (AA HQ). We’re here for the next two weeks, finalising the master plan drawings and preparing the Project Harihapur book – which will form part of the exhibition here in November. Leika is based in Norway, putting together her extensive research material for the book, and Kritika is back in Delhi – where she’s on call resolving problems and keeping track of the site from afar…being as wonderfully efficient as always! She’s also been back to Hariharpur for a few days (escorted by her lovely friend Shantanu) and will be going again once or twice more before we get back, to oversee the work and make sure things are going as planned. Arvind’s been working hard on the ground full-time until today, and the project will now be overseen by Anshu (who came briefly during the Visiting School, and will now be working with ITRHD long-term) until we come back early next month. After a few tentative rain showers, the monsoon has now started in all its glory – great news for the farmers, not so ideal for mud buildings construction! Thankfully we got the barrel vaults completed in time, but as the second roof structure isn’t up yet, the walls aren’t protected by the deep eaves. Additionally, because the slab hasn’t been cast yet, water has leaked through the holes in the barrel vault made for the electricity ducts. Nothing is beyond repair, but it’s frustrating to have to re-do work… so it’s time to buy a lot more
Top: Scaffolding for the classroom barrel
plastic and make sure every inch of the building is
vaults.
covered!
Left: The bamboo has arrived!! Right: Exterior and interior view of the windows.
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Top: Ivar and Leika working in the British Library. Left: Meeting with Yanchee and Keelan in the Ramboll office. Right: View over Bedford Square and British Museum from the AA.
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Apart from the rain, things have been going smoothly – the plumbing is now complete, with all the sewage pipes connected to the septic tank. The curved brick retaining wall for the reed-bed surrounding the tanks (design courtesy of the Kamath Design Studio) is coming up, and will be plastered with cement, before being filled with earth as soon as possible so it doesn’t become a big water logged pond!! The electrical ducts, which run through the barrel vault and along the top of the roof have now been laid, so that the slab can be cast later this week. Electrical wire will then be threaded through these as one of the last steps once the rest of the building is complete. The mud walls surrounding the classroom and stairwell are coming up; doors, which are designed but not yet fabricated, will be installed on our return. After Leika and Clem left the village, Alex Ivar and Kritika stayed on for an extra week preparing a document for ONGC (the Indian Oil and Natural Gas Company) – following on from their visit to Hariharpur at the end of May. The application for funding from their CSR department is currently under consideration, so fingers crossed that comes through and work on the rest of the master plan can start soon! Back in London Alex, Clem and Ivar met up with the Ramboll engineers to go give them and update and go through various issues that have come up in the past few weeks. We’ve also had a meeting with Chris Pierce, who runs the AA Visiting School program, to show him the latest images from the site – and talk about future plans and projects. It’s great to be back in the big smoke, catch up with everyone, and sleep under blankets at night (what joy!) but it feels a bit weird not to be at site, so we’re looking forward to getting back there soon!
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Making of form work and the laying of bricks for the barrel vault.
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Top This barrel vaults were completed after we left. Bottom Final pointing of the barrel vault.
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Back in Delhi 20.07.13 After a number of weeks in Europe, we’re now back in India – in order to assess how things went in our absence and to hand over the project more officially to ITRHD. Work has been progressing steadily, and the team is about to cast the upper ring beam, which ties the first floor columns together. In order to ensure lateral stability, certain in-fill walls (behind the water tanks, on the short side of the building, and between one bay at the front) have been built in fired brick before the ring beam is cast. However, we will leave the rest of the walls until the secondary roof structure has been completed. The two water tanks have been installed, one on each bay to spread the load across two of the barrel vaults, and all the internal piping is now in place. The septic tank is nearly complete, and just needs to be filled up with soil in the reed-bed area. The heavy monsoon rains have inevitably created some delays (not just on site, but in terms of getting things fabricated and delivered). They have also caused some damage to the non-structural mud brick walls – which act as infill between the brick columns. Generally this was due to avoidable water exposure, as the plastic sheeting that was supposed to be covering the walls wasn’t installed properly. But in the case of the wall at the front of the building that collapsed, it was also due to the fact that the fired brick column hadn’t been built with a ‘toothed’ edge, for the mud bricks to tie into. Additionally, as it was adjacent to the staircase, it wasn’t braced on either side by a column. In retrospect, it would have been best wait until the second floor roof (with its deep eaves on all sides) was erected before laying the mud bricks. Luckily no one was hurt, but safety has to be the top priority, and so when we visit the village next week, we will assess the structural integrity of the walls that have already been built, and in consultation with ITRHD’s architect Mr Shiban Ganju, will take a call about whether to keep them or rebuild them. The other area that needs to be resolved and finalized is the bamboo roof structure for the first floor and verandah. As with the barrel vaults, our ability to implement this depends on securing the expertise of people with the relevant experience. Through the barrel vault mason, we were put in touch with two artisans who visited the site in mid-March. Although we spent a day going through the design with them, and they left the village promising to source the appropriate bamboo in Lucknow, in the end they never came back! However, since we have been away (and in between her three trips to oversee work at site) Kritika attended
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Top Clem and Anshu meeting Karyasha in Delhi. Right Acha Lal and Sharvan making walls on first floor. Bottom Walls damaged after monsoon.
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a bamboo workshop led by the architects Bhaskar Kandpal and Ashish Pant. They have very kindly agreed to help us refine the design, and spent the whole of yesterday morning running through the requirements and suggesting alterations to the proposed structure. They are thinking through some of the remaining details, and coming over again tomorrow morning to finalize the solutions. If we are confident that the structure is achievable (which in part depends of whether or not one of his artisans is able to join us at site), we will go ahead and make at least one section while we are in Hariharpur. It’s also important that they can verify the structural integrity of the design, as our UK engineers are not involved with this part of the building. One other key objective of our time in the village is to continue to develop the community workshops, and ensure there is a clear strategy to take them forward. In light of the recent tragedy in an Indian public school, where a number of young students died due to contamination of the free midday meal, ITRHD would like to focus carefully on the design of the new kitchen. The plan is to integrate the design process with a educational strategy that will improve understanding of nutrition and hygiene within the community. This will tie in very well to the agenda for the workshops that the teachers have been running while we were away, which focused on ideas for the exterior school spaces, including a kitchen garden. Over the next few days in Delhi Leika will be working with Ms Archana Capoor from ITRHD to carefully plan the workshops. Alex, Anshu and Clem will be meeting with the architects Mr Anil Laul and Ms Revathi Kamath to get advice about how to solve the issues in relation to the mud infill walls. Finally we will be officially handing over all our drawings and notes to ITRHD, so that they can take the project forward relatively independently. We will obviously be staying in touch from afar until the building is fully completed, but it’s important that Anshu and Arvind are in a position to manage the site on their own. We learned from our time away that it’s impossible to be involved on a daily basis through email and very crackly telephone calls! Ivar is due to arrive in Delhi on Tuesday, and on Wednesday we will all travel to the village – where we’ll be staying until 4th August.
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Top The upper flight of stairs under construction in Hariharpur. Left Work at site during monsoon. Right Rain in the monsoon turning roads into rivers.
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Returning to site & developing the bamboo structure 29.07.13 We were joined last week in Delhi by Ivar, who spent a couple of days here catching up with the progress before heading to Hariharpur with Leika (meanwhile Alex and Clem stayed in Delhi with Anshu to keep on refining the set of drawings for hand-over). They were met at the station by none other than Sanjay, and it was great to be reunited with everyone in the village. After all the monsoon rains, the whole area has turned green, and the fields are being replanted with rice. Even though it’s cooled down a lot since we were last here in May, it’s still pretty hot and sweaty. Soon after arriving, and checking the progress of the building, Leika visited Beena to make an appointment for a meeting with the teachers. The meeting started with a surprise dance performance by the children, who had learned new songs. The children had already grown a lot since we were last here. Following the meeting, we held a regular Saturday workshop together with the parents. The workshop started with a presentation by the teachers to update us and other parents who were absent from recent workshops. They have been developing a plan for playground, kitchen garden, boundary walls and flower pots for the new school. In today’s workshop, we took their progress forward and focused on defining a location for the kitchen garden and the playground. The teachers naturally divided the participants into groups and copied the master plan by hand onto several chart papers so each group could draw their own plan. Today we had a broader range of participants, from younger sisters of the mothers, to several fathers (normally its the grannies who are most active in workshops)! It was great to have different ideas coming out, yet, interesting to find out that some were identical (e.g. fencing the playground and kitchen garden was a common desire). We then moved to the site to check out whether their plan would work in reality. Some of their suggestions had conflicts with existing bamboo bushes or path ways. We didn’t
of their studio, ‘Karyashala’, means ‘workshop’ in Hindi – so we’re a good match! They met up with two bamboo artisans, Kishan and Sitala, who would be working at site along with other labourers, and local people who will be trained in bamboo construction techniques. We still need to do a little more work to develop the details, and put together a presentation about how we plan to assess the structural strength of the design, in order to convince Mr Ganju that it’s the right direction to take for the roof and verandah. Having never worked with the material before, he is understandably apprehensive about using it and wants to be absolutely assured of its suitability. Mr Anil Laul kindly took the time to discuss the proposal with us yesterday, and made a few recommendations in terms of the design, but otherwise seemed confident in it. The challenge, as he sees it, will be to convince ONGC of its suitability. One thing he was clear about was that the bamboo we already have at site will only be adequate for secondary structural members such as the purlins, and not for the main beams or columns. Bhaskar has been in touch with a bamboo supplier in Assam, and is planning a trip there with Anshu to procure the 200300 pieces we need for the structure. Nevertheless we should start treating what we have as soon as possible, so there is material for the artisans to work with when they arrive. Alex, Clem and Anshu are meeting Bhaskar once more this evening to go through the latest design developments, and then will head to the village tomorrow evening – to join Mr Ganju and Mr Laul for a site visit on Wednesday. We’ll be there until 4th, continuing to work with Bhaskar from afar, and then will hand everything over fully to IRTHD when they return to Delhi on the 8th August.
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Top The full construction team is back to work. Left Workshop of how to make the playground and kitchen garden. Right Parent /teacher workshop discussing bamboo structure and placing of kitchen garden and playground. Bottom Ivar, Kamlesh, Arvind and Jetinder discussing how to progress at site.
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manage to reach a conclusion during the workshop, so the task of identifying an exact site remains for the community. During our stay, we will go through a list of things in relation to the new school building which the community can take charge of, and put up a schedule for future workshops with the teachers. Meanwhile, Ivar was focusing on the building work – spending time with Kamlesh and Jitinder to hear about how things have been going over the past six weeks. Although everyone on site was very up-beat and seemed smiley and happy, it’s clear that they feel some kind of architect or formal contractor needs to be onsite supervising things, as they are struggling to manage independently. The main anxiety among the community is, unsurprisingly, the damage to the mud walls. Work has started to replace the walls which collapsed around the staircase with fired bricks. After consultations with the Kamath Design Studio and Mr Anil Laul, it has become clear that we unfortunately will need to replace all the infill walls which have been built, and replace them either with fired bricks, or stabilized blocks. The choice about which to use will ultimately be up to Anshu and ITRHD, as this work will be completed at a later stage. Currently there is only enough money to complete the roof structure, so this is what we are focusing on for the moment. We will be launching a fund-raising campaign to cover the cost of the new infill walls (approximately £6000) as soon as possible. Ivar has been resolving details such as the metal frames for the doors, levels and walls under the staircase, treatment of bamboo and marking out the plot boundaries (hopefully for the last time!) – but is being careful not to start managing things too directly, as we’re there for such a short period of time. Back in Delhi, Alex, Anshu and Clem have been working closely with Bhaskar and Ashish to develop the bamboo design, and come up with strategy to implement it on site. It turns out that the name
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Top left Acha Lal and Sharvan placing re bars before casting the ring beam. Top right Bhaskar discussing the bamboo design with Prof. Anil Laul. Bottom left Updating the Kamaths about the progress of the project. Bottom right The full construction team is back at site.
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Saying goodbye 11.08.13 After six months of preparation, research,
For the final workshop, on our penultimate day,
collaboration, design and construction we said our
we presented the community with a copy of our
final farewells to Hariharpur last weekend. Clem, Alex
book about the project – to be kept at the school
and Anshu had joined Leika and Ivar in the village a
for everyone to share. Watching the teachers’ and
few days earlier, to help hand everything over and
parents’ excitement as they leafed through the
bring our direct involvement in the project to a close.
pages was really touching. Given the building is
ITRHD’s architect, Mr Shiban Ganju, came for a brief
still under construction, it was nice to be able to
visit the same day they arrived, in order to see the
give them something complete and tangible. This
progress on site. He also needed to familiarize himself
workshop was also a chance for us to introduce Anshu
with the design so that he’s in a better position to take
to the community, and for him to explain recent
on the project from now on, in collaboration with
developments, including the decision to remove
Anshu. The conversation at site was focused on the
the mud walls and replace them with fired bricks.
roof and verandah structure in particular – which are
Everyone was understanding. and seemed excited
the two main areas of construction still remaining.
about the agenda for the future workshops which
We’re really hoping that Mr Ganju will meet Bhaskar in
the teachers will lead from now on – starting with the
the coming days, and be as excited as us about using
establishment of a kitchen garden at the site.
bamboo, but ultimately the decision rests with him. Having never used the material, he is apprehensive about its strength and durability. As an alternative, he is considering repeating the barrel vaults on the first floor. Although it’s hard, given the time and energy we’ve put into the project, to let go – we have to acknowledge that we can’t be involved from afar, and will of course respect the decision that IRTHD comes
On our last morning we were invited to Bina and Kamlesh Ji’s house for a delicious breakfast, and then had our final lunch with the construction team. Each person was presented with a certificate and photo from the construction site, and we said a few words of thanks and encouragement. It was really nice to have this chance to say good bye properly, and to
to about how best to proceed.
feel like the hand-over has happened in a formal way.
The time in the village was also a chance for Leika to
and Anshu, who’ll be staying the village until the
develop the community workshop program further,
building’s complete – and will watch with interest as
and bring together her extensive research so that it
the first floor roof comes up! Living with the people
can be a useful tool for ITRHD. Having drawn up a map
of Hariharpur has been an amazing experience and
of the village, collaborating with the teachers she then
we’re really going to miss village life and the wonderful
filled it with information about where hand pumps are
people we met. We will, however, definitely come back
located, where the ChaCha Nehru pupils live, where
for a visit someday, and are looking forward to seeing
the most beautiful mud houses are and so on. One
the building complete and in use.
very exciting revelation occurred during this process, when we discovered that our construction supervisor, Jitinder, has a son at the school! During months of trying to involve more parents, we somehow never realized that Jitinder was actually a father himself.
We’re looking forward to regular updates from Arvind
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Top Rajinder, Clem and Ivar during the ring beam cast. Bottom left Teachers and parents looking at the book. Bottom right Mr Ganju on site to discuss the roof structure
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This project was entirely collaborative, and couldn’t have
grateful to Akshay Roongta & Noireeta Chowdhury for introducing
happened without the hard work, dedication and passion of
us to experts in earth construction – without whom we couldn’t
countless individuals. Although they were fully part of the team,
have achieved what we did. In particular we would like to thank
and so shouldn’t necessarily be on this list, Leika Aruga and Kritika
Revathi and Vasant Kamath for their guidance, generosity and
Dhanda deserve special thanks for their commitment – and for
hospitality, and to Dhruv Chandra Sud for his time and energy.
putting up with us so patiently! Thank you to Anshu Ahuja for
Thank you to Mr Anil Laul for his time, advice and delicious
offering advice in the early stages of the project, and for taking it
lunches. Thank you to Bhaskar Kandpal and Ashish Pant for
on into the future.
collaborating on the project with us. We were very lucky to have friends like Kevin Shane, Ryan LeCluyse, Margherita Stancati, Elliot
We are incredibly grateful to Aanchal Sodhani, firstly for taking
Hannon and John Butler who sheltered us – for weeks at a time!
the time to meet us, secondly for believing in us, and lastly for
– in Delhi. We are very thankful for being welcomed so warmly
supporting us throughout the project at every stage. We’d also
into the community of Hariharpur, for the invitations to meals
like to thank ITRHD for partnering with us, and for embracing the
and blessings and weddings – for making us feel at home. Thank
way that we work so fully. Thank you to Hans Skotte and Sami
you to Shatanu for escorting Kritika to Azamgarh in our absence;
Rintala for their nuggets of truth and advice, signed off from
thank you to Mr and Mrs Dhanda for allowing her to join us on this
various exotic places in the world. We are grateful to Brett Steele
adventure!
for encouraging us to be ambitious, to Chris Pierce and Priji Balakrishnan for supporting us in delivering the Visiting Schools,
We also want to thank our friends and architects in Norway and
to Frederik Shetelig for approving funding for the second AA
London that without their initial funding, none of this could
/ NTNU Visiting School, and to Kathleen Formosa, for helping
have happened: David Chipperfield Architects, Rojo Arkitekter,
us with some of the issues we forgot to think through whilst on
Svein Skibnes Arkitektkontor, Øystein Thommesen, Madsø Sveen
site! A big thank you to all the Visiting School participants who
Arkitekter, Carl-Viggo Hølmebakk, Per Knudsen Arkitektkontor,
worked incredibly hard in difficult conditions, and still managed
Solem Arkitektur, Arc Arkitekter, Rambøll Trondheim, Arne Winther,
to be jolly and fun! Thank you in particular to Jostein Fardal,
Eggen Arkitekter, Manijeh Verghese, NTNU, Eric Wragge, Michael
Vishank Kapoor, Leticia Allemand, Divya Singh, Jaykishan Mistry,
Frayn, Tatiana Tunstall-Behrens.
and Himanshu Mam for their involvement and help, even after the Visiting Schools finished. Thank you to Yanchee Lau, Keelan
Special thanks to our families for their support, and to Heater
Hegarty for leaving the comfort of their office to join us in far
McVicar and Ryan LeCluyse.
less glamorous conditions. And to Pankaj Khana for providing invaluable information and connections. We also owe thanks to
If we’ve managed to forget anyone in particular, you have both our
Julia King for her support, and to Amritha Ballal for her words
enormous thanks and our sincerest apologies!!
of both encouragement and (very welcome!) criticism. We are
Acknowledgements
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