An Urban Designer & Architect
Community Centre
Mountain Architecture Internship | 2015
This documentation follows the onsite design and construction of a vernacular community centre, in the hilly villages of Uttarakhand, India. By using local stone masonry techniques during the CEPT University volunteer program.
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The aim was to understand and test the underlying causes for the poor seismic performance of stone masonry buildings and offer techniques for improving it in traditional buildings. The onsite work included the dressing of stones and the construction of a building. The proposed techniques have been proven in the field applications, are relatively simple, and can be applied on site in in spite of limited artisan skills.
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As a student in the Cept University summer school workshop, I helped a remote community in the higher ranges of the Himalayan mountain effectively build a bund wall and shelter by maximising their traditional building techniques. We learned the techniques from them and merged it with our architectural knowledge of aesthetics and load, in order to build infrastructure that was vital for the community centre. This built my interest in eco-vernacular architecture and human-centric design and helped me learn to work alongside communities in a respectful and interactive manner. I also realised that trust building was an essential part of any such interventions. The 'needs' and culture of the community must be prioritised over the knowledge of the designer. The summer school was 1 month long; the process and learning were later documented in a project report.
