Contractor

Name : Auropriya construction

Construction Manager

Name : Auroville Design Consultants

Contact : +91 413 262 2784

Stakeholders

Function : Designer

Auroville Design Consultants
+91 413 262 2784

Function : Other consultancy agency

Sunlit future
+91-413-2622992

Function : Developer

Auroville Housing Service

Contracting method

General Contractor

Owner approach of sustainability

This project has been undertaken as an applied research & demonstration project in habitat to address the challenge of closing the housing gap in a country like India, with limited energy to produce building materials like steel and cement, supply operational energy for lighting and ventilation and potable water to the millions of homeless, especially in urban setting.

Our goal with this project is to demonstrate the use of local materials like earth and so-called waste materials from construction and industry could become a primary building material that is reliable and resilient, meeting building safety codes.

We had a one-day workshop with experts from across the country to review the present national building codes and set appropriate standards for the local climate and culture in site planning, rainwater management, open space planning including landscape, building envelope design, building materials and technology including embodied energy, operational energy use, potable water use, recycling of sewage and biological waste and introduce catalysts to bring about lifestyle change in occupants. The goal is with post occupancy data analysis to influence policy planners and decision makers to review the national building codes to make them context appropriate rather than being a uniform national regulation, especially for a country like India which has 4 distinct climatic zone with diversity of local building materials and skills.

In all the planning and design projects undertaken by Auroville Design Consultants the commitment to be context specific (climate, culture and economics) is the underlying theme, so we have undertaken and completed several green building projects, saying that it should be clear that we have never sought to get certification for any of our projects from either LEED India or Teri Griha as we firmly believe that building green should be the new “normal” and does not need recognition or certification as if it is extraordinary!

Architectural description

The architectural design of the housing clusters and each dwelling unit responds to the context. Located in a zone with extreme climates of long hot summers followed by heavy monsoons and with cyclonic storms, so the site topography for managing rainwater while preventing heat island was considered in the layout of the housing clusters. Even though trees and plants grow fast in tropical climates, conservation of existing trees and ground cover was key for preserving the percolation capacity of the soil, so the site plan ensured minimum disturbance. As the dwelling units are not air conditioned but cooled with a combination of fans and natural ventilation the functional space design layout within each apartment is in sync with the predominant day time land breeze and night-time sea breeze, for increased evaporative cooling on the body surface. The architectural design following the inherent wisdom of the vernacular forms with appropriate window overhangs to minimize heat gain via walls and windows, protection from the driving rain and reduced glare. The choice of building materials was based on 4 criteria: (1) locally available, (2) reuse of waste from construction and factories, (3) low embodied energy with low U value, and finally (4) low tech and low skills needed for assembly to have a higher labour to material ratio.

If you had to do it again?

If we had to re-do the same project, I would provide for more secondary semi-open transitional spaces between dwelling units to allow for informal interaction spaces and more private open spaces to encourage urban gardens for food growing. Inside the dwelling units, provide for more visual privacy as people live with open windows in hot humid climate limiting sound privacy. So, I would provide for more staggered openings of windows and doors in living and sleeping spaces.

Building users opinion

In the direct interviews carried out by the promoters of the project “Auroville housing service” 6 months after the apartments were occupied, the respondents were happy with the spaces provided both in terms of size and quality, the thermal comfort compared to outdoor temperature and humidity was also satisfactory and day lighting conditions were good. But several of them complained about the noise levels from neighbours, especially during the evenings and nights due to TV’s, loud conversations and music. Due to the high levels of humidity at the ground level in the night, the sound travels in the tropics and at present we do not have any tools to deal with it in building design without compromising on natural ventilation.

Energy consumption

• Primary energy need : 7,14 kWhpe/m².year
• Primary energy need for standard building : 30,00 kWhpe/m².year

Calculation method : Other

• Final Energy : 7,14 kWhfe/m².year
Breakdown for energy consumption :

Hot water + ventilation + lighting = 7.14 kwh/m2

More information :

Electricity consumption from July 2019 to June 2020 = 14019 kWh

Envelope performance

More information :

Envelope is build with a mix of Poured Earth Concrete walls, Waste Cuddapha stone wall

Real final energy consumption

14 019,00

Systems

Heating system :
• No heating system
Hot water system :
• Individual electric boiler
Cooling system :
• No cooling system
Ventilation system :
• Natural ventilation
Renewable systems :
• Solar photovoltaic
• Renewable energy production : 115,00 %

The renewable energy system in the project is the use of photovoltaic system to generate electricity (16000 kWh) to the grid connected system.

Solutions enhancing nature free gains : The project is in a coastal tropical zone with over 30°C daytime temperature and 50% RH for at least 300 days a year, the natural gain would be to trap, channel and enhance the flow of land and sea breeze within the dwelling units to ensure evaporation

Life Cycle Analysis

Eco-design material :

Eco Design materials

Walls : Poured Earth Concrete (PEC) wall, Waste Cuddapah stone wall

Roofing: Brick vaults

Floor insulation: Waste thermocol filling

Flooring: Natural stone flooring, Indian Patent Stone (IPS)

Compound walls: Rammed Earth walls

Wood works: reclaimed wood

46% of the global budget 

Water management

• Consumption from water network : 58,11 m³
• Consumption of grey water : 52,00 m³

Water Self Sufficiency Index : 0.47

Water Consumption/m2 : 0.03

Water Consumption/Dwelling : 4.15

Indoor Air quality

Naturally ventilated with no air filtering and circulating systeming

Health & Comfort

Health & comfort :

The health and wellbeing of the residents is ensured by (1) the fact that they live closely with the diurnal rhythm including the cycle of seasons as metabolically human immune systems function best when it is in sync with the natural climatic conditions. (2) Instead of adopting ASHRE standards of climatic comfort, we work with adaptive comfort model which besides being less energy intensive, allows the natural evolutionary capacity of the human body to build up resilience and robustness. 

Calculated thermal comfort : Indoor temperatures calculations in winter/summer : maximum operating temperature during summer = 32.6 °C and minimum for winter = 26.8 °C, (natural ventilated buildings)

Product

Priya Cement
Priya Cement
chennai@priyacement.com

Product category : Structural work / Structure - Masonry - Facade

Portland Pozzolana Cement

JSW Neosteel
JSW
+91 22 4286 1000

Product category : Structural work / Structure - Masonry - Facade

JSW Neosteel 550

Plywood
Oswinply
enquiry@oswinply.com

Product category : Structural work / Carpentry, cover, titghtness

Marine plywood

Glass
Saint Gobain
Support.India@Saint-Gobain.Com

Product category : Structural work / Carpentry, cover, titghtness

Construction and exploitation costs

• Reference global cost : 456 864,00 €
• Renewable energy systems cost : 9 054,42 €

Reference global cost/Dwelling : 456864

• Cost of studies : 4 741 €
• Total cost of the building : 528 374 €
• Subsidies : 528 374 €

Urban environment

The project is in a green field site, part of the township under development, so as such there is no public transport except for school buses, and buses for elderly and differently enabled persons. Most people use cycles and motorcycles with only basic access to shops that all lie within 3 kms radius.

Due to a low density of population, decentralized system of water supply and sewage recycling has been provided for. The waste is segregated on site with composting on site for the biodegradable and off-site sorting facility for recycling and reuse. The project is located along what is envisaged to become the main urban spine with shops, galleries, workspaces and residences. Some social amenities like libraries and health and healing centres have been developed and are less than 100 meters from the site, while the main food coop with the community and the dining center is about 350 meters away. So, the project is already part of a network of social and collective interaction spaces.  

Land plot area

2 825,00 m²

Built-up area

49,00 %

Green space

1 443,00

Parking spaces

30 numbers: on site parking for 2 wheelers, Surface level covered parking
10 numbers: entrance 2 wheeler parking, 3 numbers : entrance 4 wheeler parking, surface level open parking for visitors

Building Environmental Quality