Yatin Pandya

Set amidst the largest slum of the city, Manavsadhnacentres are a cluster of multipurpose activity campuses consisting of school for the young,vocational training centre for the ladies, gymnasium for the men, crèche for the toddler, health camp on weekends, craft production unit forwomen and community centre for festive celebrations and events. The centre is an apt example of sustainable design using recycled waste as thebuilding components. Waste such as fly ash, dumpfill site waste, crate packaging, plastic water bottles, glass bottles, rag, wrappers, metals crapand broken ceramic wares, compact disc and electronic hardware etc. have been transformed into walling, roofing, flooring and fenestrationelements. The architecture thus creatively demonstrates environmental concern by reducing pollution and energy through recycling of waste,empowers the poor economically by generating economic opportunities through value addition processes and improves their quality of life bydeveloping affordable and durable alternative building products for their homes.

PROJECT HISTORY:
Nearly 27.4 million tonnes of waste is produced daily in the urban centers of India.  Cities like Ahmedabad alone produce 2750 metric tonnes.  Unfortunately nothing really gets processed of the same.  This waste is simply dumped openly in the landfill sites, which uses enormous volumes of fossil fuel, creating an altered, polluted, unsafe and unhealthy landscape. Thankfully India has a well-established tradition of waste recycling which is clearly demonstrated in daily practices and lifestyle.  Food along with many other objects, are given added value for their multiple uses and diverse applications even after its primary life cycle.  Can the building industry not learn from these applications?  An activity centre at Rama PirTekra, Wadaj in Ahmedabad has been one such attempt in the direction of recycling municipal/domestic waste into building materials.

The activity centre is located amidst the largest squatter settlement of Ahmedabad, and was created under the initiative of the social NGO, ManavSadhna.  The multi-purpose activity centre serves as an informal school for young children in the mornings, provides evening education for adults and serves as a vocational training centre and activity workshop for the manufacturing of craft based products by women and elderly during the day.  The campus also includes a dormitory, an administrative unit and an all-religion meditation unit. A crèche has been added later to look after the young children when their parents are away earning wages. The community centre apart from becoming interactive place during festivities also doubles up as health centre and Gym on the routine basis.

The campus is built using components prepared through recycling municipal/domestic waste.  This process simultaneously addresses environmental concerns, economic issues and affordable housing. As municipal waste from the domestic sector is used for producing building components, it helps to reduce pollution.  Through value addition processes of recycling the waste, it provides an economic activity for the poor as well as a sense of empowerment.  Finally as the recycled building components are cheaper and of higher quality than the conventional materials, they provide affordable and superior quality building alternatives for the urban poor. Thus a holistic improvement in the quality of life.