Water plays a role of primary importance in the culture of India. Here it is both a vital resource for daily life and also an element charged with sacred, even spiritual value. Architect Vedhant Maharaj, whose firm Rebel Base Collective is located in Johannesburg, South Africa, developed a proposal on this theme which won a LafargeHolcim Next Generation Prize for Asia Pacific in 2017. 

Vedhant Maharaj, Rebel Base Collective, Johannesburg, South Africa

Towards Yantra: Democratising Sustainable Design

Yantra presents a vision of sustainable design that acknowledges global technological development, responds to infrastructural needs and respects local context. It captures the founding principles of Rebel Base Collective, a collaborative space for changing design and designing change. For us, these principles translate into a committed engagement with:

• Community – Grass-roots engagement, education, skills development and project ownership
• Progressive infrastructure – sensitive integration of technological and ecological solutions within local contexts
• Sustainable materials – using robust materials that are resilient, low in embodied energy and ecologically responsive
• Socio-political conversations – engage political, social and traditional knowledge systems to shape public spaces

Sustainable construction in Asia Pacific also means building for the community. This was clearly shown by the projects that won prizes in the regional Holcim Awards presented in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The three main Awards winning projects deal with buildings for education – involving the community and sustainably improving neighborhoods.

Water has always played an important role in the culture of India, both as a resource for everyday activities as well as a source of spiritual value. It is in this respect that the project, located on the edge of the Ganga River in Varanasi imagines a new typology of water purification infrastructure that transcends mere utility. Merging the disciplines of engineering, architecture, and urban design, not to mention sociology and anthropology, technical requirements are combined with places for social gathering and cultural rituals, in a set of carefully designed architectural interventions at the threshold between river and land. Key to the proposal is not only the treatment of the highly polluted water, but most importantly the making of a genius loci, uniting the sacred with the profane.

Cleaning the polluted Ganga River through a national network of localized infrastructures

The building addresses a network of water pollution by creating a prototype which forms a catalyst for cleaning the whole river. By implementing a network of rehabilitation infrastructures along the river at all polluting tributaries, a 5,000 km-long infrastructural system, which adapts to various city conditions, is created. The sanctuary is located at the junction of the Assi tributary, which carries the waste of 500,000 people into the Ganga River in Varanasi. This water is treated in an omni-processor which turns waste water into potable water. River water is filtered through a series of charcoal and plant gabian walls and enters a “safe-water” stream along the river’s edge. Scientific research facilities experiment with, monitor and test cleaning technologies.