living & learning design center

Ajrakhpur, India

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Other Projects by indigo architects

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Koba House

living & learning design center

Ajrakhpur, India

Firm

indigo architects

Type

Cultural › Cultural Center Museum

STATUS

Built

YEAR

2015

SIZE

25,000 sqft - 100,000 sqft

BUDGET

$100K - 500K

Name: Living & Learning Design Center- Ajrakhpur Kutch – Gujarat India

Project type: Public institution for the arts/crafts of Kutch

Site location: 20 kms east of Bhuj. Off Bhuj Bhachhau highway

Site Area: 8.38 acres = 33000 sq.m approx.

Site Dimensions: 320 m x 112 m

Constructed Area: 8554 sq.m approximately 25% of site area

Cost/ sq.m 22500 INR /sq.m = 350 USD/sq.m

Project cost: INR 180 million = USD 2.68 m

Duration: January 2010-December 2016 (1.5 year delay due to the economic slowdown after 9/11)

Project program: The broad elements of the program are as under.
• Entrance zone
• Ticketing & Café
• Museum Galleries
• Auditorium
• Conservation area
• Library
• Administration
• Workshops & classrooms
• Out door public area for the crafts fair
• Guest house & staff housing

Project background

The region of Kutch is a part of the state of Gujarat in western India. It is one of the most seismically active and geologically diverse zones in the Indian subcontinent with a history of devastating quakes and cyclones. The last earthquake of 2001 in Kutch was one of the worst in recent memory causing serious loss to life and property. Kutch is also rich and diverse, from a socio cultural and anthropological perspective due to its geographical positioning, in the context of the early migrations of settlers into India from Central Asia. Its r artistic traditions of the various crafts (textile, weaving, printing, embroidery, smithy, pottery, wood working and leather) bear testimony to its cultural identity and diversity.
From the pastoralists in central Kutch, to the traders and shipbuilders to the south- west, the region has several distinct communities who have co-existed for centuries, excelling in their trades and remaining rooted to the land. Kutch has a rich tradition of master crafts persons, handing down their skills across generations.
It is important to note that the craft’s were never a commodity but a means of personal expression and celebration of the many events in the lives of its people.
Several NGO’s working in the region prior to the earthquake had been engaged with income generation and women’s economic empowerment programs with its many artisans. Subsequent to the calamity in 2001, came an outpouring of financial help and international attention to the region. The State Government declared a tax holiday for Industries, in-order to bring investment into an otherwise neglected region of Gujarat and create jobs. By 2005, data indicated that there was a decline in the number of skilled crafts persons connected to the crafts and evidence that the indigenous crafts were under a serious threat. People with native artistic skills were being lost to jobs offered by industry in the construction and manufacturing sectors causing a disruption in the continuity of traditional transfer of skills within artisan communities.

The Initiative
Shrujan, an NGO, led by Chanda Shroff, took the initiative to seek our assistance in the development of an architectural program for the creation of a residential design learning center that would ensure transfer of skills from the master craftsmen and women, to the next generation of karigars (artisans). Our engagement with the project began at this stage of the idea.

The client brief
The LLDC (Living & Learning Design Center) was primarily, meant to be a ‘place’ and a tactile and a visual repository of the various crafts of Kutch. The brief mandated frugality in achieving longevity and stability of the buildings, comfort for its habitants, ideal conditions for the preservation of textiles and the use of passive methods to achieve these goals.

Program/ Intent
The LLDC was to define its position as a resource center for artisans, the museum being its public face that included galleries for the various crafts. More importantly, it was to house and conserve, 1500 panels of exquisite classical embroidery samples along with other textile antiquities. It was also envisaged that the institution becomes a common ground for local masters to interact with designers and practitioners to synergize and educate the new generation of young artisans with modern day skill sets to design, engage, produce and create a stable means of income for the artisans for many generations.

The Context
The state of the crafts and the physical milieu define the context of our intervention. About 20 kms east of Bhuj lies the new Ajrakhpur, a settlement of Ajrakh printers adjacent to the site for the LLDC. Random industrial units dotting the diverse landscape of verdant patches, dusty flats, hot dry arid conditions, define the immediate context. From the simple mud ‘bhunga’ (a cylindrical dwelling with a conical thatch roof) belonging to the pastoralists, to the ornate complex courtyard houses of the merchants arranged along rectilinear streets in Mundra, to the introverted palace structures of the kings and their many institutions define the historic references to buildings in the region. The site finds itself, located in a geologically impervious crucible stretching about 50 sq.km with bentonite and marine clay making it imperative to deal with its own issues of water management.

The architectural response

During our many interactions with the artisans, we were struck by their enterprising and progressive nature, willingness to embrace new ideas into their fold and yet staying within the strict disciple of their craft. Frugality and innovation being the cornerstones of their ethos, we found virtue in responding to this reality which is the subtext of our intervention.

Within the 8.3, acre campus, the buildings are approached though an existing fruit orchard of mangoes, chickoos and coconuts trees. An entry pavilion, that is reminiscent of the ‘bus stop’ and the ‘traditional delo’, is the metaphorical point of arrival and departure. It straddles the open orchard at one end and the water pool on the other. Symbolic of ablution and rejuvenation, the pool is home to an installation of abstract steel cut flamingo forms that highlight and comment on the nature of migrations in this land and the evolution of its cultural milieu.
The forecourt is a preamble to the buildings, a place of repose and congregation. Through its informal definition, it becomes an effective transition into the ticketing block, cafeteria, the museum shop and orients one to the large entry volume of the museum itself. The trees in the forecourt and spaces in the shade make for a convivial public character.
A vocabulary of earth colored platonic volumes, receiving the intense desert sun with small, punctuated openings, deep shaded passageways is prevalent through out. Complementing these volumes are the informal spaces such as the café, museum shop and other functions, in the fore court defined by elements in exposed concrete and rough stone. The main buildings, comprising, the museum, workshops and the guesthouse block are organized around a large congregational sunk court, accessed by ramps. Shaded walkways provide refuge along its perimeter to access the classrooms and workshops as well as the administrative areas.

The architectural design is purposefully reticent and non-hierarchic. The ensuing language is an outcome of the various sustainable design strategies deployed to be pertinent in this context.
A freedom to express our concerns was discovered through an intense design process exploring the ideas of opacity, porosity, transparency and an honest material pallet. It was essential to give primacy to ‘place’ rather than ‘form’ in order to establish the dialectic between formal functions of the museum and auditorium and informal workshops. The buildings present, an open-endedness, their amorphous quality and contemporary visage being both deliberate and desired.
The design responds, to the local climate, program, economic realities and the need to create a thermally stable environment for the exhibits.

This intervention successfully challenges the dictates of expensive climate controlled environments mandated by international museums today, a reality that few in our country can afford.

Salient features of the project and design strategies

Plan organization: Segregation of service functions, on the heat gain sides, layering of spaces with circulation and ancillary functions ensured a stable and protected core. A solid façade and porous layered inner spaces ensure breathability allowing for breezes to tunnel across during the night and day ensuring comfort.

Light and its modulation: The quality and quantum of light in the galleries is guided through carefully crafted concrete truncated conical skylights, which orient to the sun allowing for a diffused play of light. A special IR/UV film over the glass covering the oculus cuts off the harmful UV and keeps the heat out.

Fenestrations: Meticulously detailed windows and cutouts on the west and south allow the winter sun to warm the interiors while keeping out the summer sun. Controlled apertures, calibrated to the sun angle ensure its working and becomes a simple strategy to effect ventilation without increasing thermal gain. Windows avoid glass especially on exterior surfaces.

Thermal barriers/materials: Lime and fly ash bricks were manufactured on site using waste carbide lime slurry, sand and fly ash to reduce costs. Gauged lime mortar was used in the masonry work and natural dolomite lime plaster using traditional methods, prepared on -site was used in all the internal areas.

Stored rainwater cools the structure: Rainwater harvesting tanks, integrated in the design collects, 500,000 liters of rain annually for drinking. Use of radiant cooling pipes circulate the same stored water below the floor on terraces and other slabs, draining the heat continuously to maintain the mean radiant temperature of the structure between 30 and 34 deg c. ensuring that very little energy is used to cool the air and maintain the desired humidity using low energy humidity control.

Fresh air and cooling: The space within the vertical shaft of the overhead water tank is designed to act as a cooling tower. Nighttime cool air is passed over a thermal mass created by stored bottles of packaged drinking water stacked in crates almost three floors high. Nighttime temperatures in Kutch generally drop to about 15 -18 deg c. during summers. Stored water at the base of the tower is showered over this mass. Simultaneously, cool nighttime air is drawn into the shaft from the louvers above, using an exhaust fan at the bottom between 11pm and 7 am. The moisture is then drawn out of the system using exhausts leaving behind a thermal mass, devoid of humidity and much cooler than the prevailing ambient temperature in the day. A dehumidifier controls excess moisture while fans push this cool fresh air into the ducts leading to the administration office, through tubes right up to the workspaces.
The same cooled fresh air is guided to the auditorium area through ducts that run below the seats. The auditorium has a two tier cooling system. A dehumidifier carries the latent and fresh air load, while cooling happens by cool (not cold) air supplied under the seats. This works in conjunction with structure cooling and heating as explained earlier, to make for extremely comfortable working conditions in the administration and auditorium areas. Improved fresh air quality, a treated fresh air system and energy saving is achieved.

Grey water usage: Decentralized wastewater treatment system (DEWATS) is designed to handle all the wastewater from the site including the process effluents from the workshops and toilets.
Site & landscape strategies: Water from the site is managed within the site through a series of percolation wells and trenches that hold water along the perimeter of the compound wall section. Flash bouts of intense rain are managed in these holding systems and can be used for irrigating the landscape.

Vegetation: Local low water consumptive, dense canopy, tree species planted to augment existing trees in the orchard. Tree shaded enclosures ensure appropriate use of outdoor spaces for people in the intense summers.
Building Systems and Materials

Structure: The structural system is designed for zone V seismic conditions using an intelligent dual system of moment resisting frames with shear walls for larger spans and a load bearing system with confined masonry using reinforced columns. A verendial transfer girder system supporting the roof slabs help increase the stiffness and reduces mass.

Masonry: Locally made sun dried lime-fly ash bricks with lime mortar and lime plaster were used including dolomite plaster for internal finishes. Traditional methods of mixing lime mortar uses methi (fenugreek) Gud (Molasses) and Guggal (resin) to achieve plasticity, impermeability and quick setting of mortar respectively.

Plasters and external finishes: All ceilings are un-plastered raw exposed RCC using local waste timber planks and steel shuttering.
Exterior plaster in 1:3 cement mortar and lime plaster in some areas.
Internal plasters use dolomite lime plasters and low VOC paint on plastered walls.

Timber & steel: Locally fabricated mild steel hollow metal sections were used for all shutter frames with infill panels of recycled timber sourced from old local demolished buildings. Linseed oil, turpentine solvent and wax was used for preserving the wood and avoided any toxic substances.

Flooring & ceilings
Local yellow polished khavda sand stone in flooring.
Natural brown kotah flooring in the exterior and river washed brown kotah stone flooring in the internal areas.
Rough unpolished flooring in the exterior with fine river gravel and cement grouting.
Roof slabs finished with broken china mosaic in white cement grout for deflection of heat.
Ceiling soffits were form finished un-plastered using local timber and steel plate shuttering.

Miscellaneous
Employment for local master craftsperson into the process of making objects to be used in the details from jali’s, wood turned members, ornament in doors, dolomite plasters in the interior spaces, directly inform its making and sustenance in this context.

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living & learning design center

Ajrakhpur, India

Other Projects by indigo architects

Koba House

living & learning design center

Ajrakhpur, India

Product Spec Sheet

Collaborating Firms

Team