Elegant simplicity on a tight budget

Incorporating “green design” features, and working on a shoe-string budget, the architectural vocabulary of the Primary healthcare center exploits local construction skills and utilizes a material palette predisposed to available building skills in grass thatch and random rubble masonry to accomplish a highly weather tight, secure and easy to maintain clinic building. Innovative structural design utilizes the strength characteristics of individual materials. This is furthered by simplicity of plan and repetition of building elements.

Sensitivity to local produce and practice makes use of vetiver grass woven thatch window panels and the agricultural practice of clearing stone rubble from fields to prepare for cultivation. While the vetiver grass grows in the region and is a traditional building cooling system (by wetting woven grass mats and allowing air to pass through), the rubble stones are used to build retaining walls for the raised floor plinth including the outdoor gathering space and for landscape bund elements. The project also employs the best sustainable water management practices including both, rainwater harvesting and ground water recharging and drip irrigation.

Multi-role roof

The lightweight corrugated galvanized steel “shade roof” channels rain water into the central concrete gutter (which also supports it) for collection, groundwater recharge and storage. The cost of conventional water/weather proofing over the lower concrete roof is eliminated; while creating an additional intermural envelope serves to house service units and piping which are easy to access and maintain. The initial proposal to use recycled tetrapak™ roofing sheets was aborted because the material was not available locally (the nearest source being over 1,000km away and hence greater logistics and environmental costs) and furthermore because no clear performance guarantee for long-term use with respect to alternating exposure to extreme heat and heavy monsoon rains could be secured.

Composite structural frames

The unique portal type frames combine slender 65x65mm double steel angle sections that sandwich two structurally profiled “shera” 12mm thick flyash cement fiberboards. The resultant structural frame produces optimal structural efficiency and stiffness while consuming a minimal quantity of expensive steel.

Movable thatch panels

This uses the aromatic vetiver grass thatch mats as infill. A simple drip irrigation pipe is used to wet the panels in the hot dry summer; lowering temperatures and humidifying air passing into the interior by evaporative cooling. The panels can be opened or closed depending on the degree of climatic protection required for the interior. The earth toned panels also filter the abundant ambient dust prevalent in hot dry summers.

The landscape plan uses vetiver cultivation for soil stabilization at the terrace edges and also for future use in making woven thatch mats. The project client, Mahalir Aran Trust-MAT, operates a garment stitching unit within a kilometer of the Primary healthcare center, which employs local women who belong to a rehabilitation halfway home also run by MAT. These can be manufactured locally by MAT to replace existing panels after their expected usable life of 3-5 years.

Plinth retaining walls

These are clad with small stone boulders cleared from the soil at the building site. The natural earth texture of these rocks provides a maintenance-free plinth protection; a perfect visual foil which absorbs dust / earth splash without looking “unclean”.

Objectives of the project design

The overall objective was to create an innovative prototype modern building (inspired by traditional architectural elements like the protective “verandah”) that would serve as a benchmark for the construction of buildings in the local region. By employing a “hybrid” construction team that consisted of a core group of skilled craftsmen brought from a few 100km away and local workers, a very high quality of workmanship was achieved while transferring the expertise to local agencies.