CSE’s workshop on “indigenous and climate appropriate building technologies” as part of Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav

The habitat team conducted a workshop at the National CPWD training academy, Ghaziabad, on Monday, 6th June commemorating ‘World environment day, 2022. The workshop was focused on “Indigenous and climate appropriate building technologies and practices” and was attended by around 85 officials from CPWD

The inaugural address was delivered by Sh. Rajeev Gupta (Chief Engineer, CPWD) who spoke about the need for climate appropriate construction techniques and technologies and how CPWD’s documents also speak about the need for usage of more natural materials.

The keynote address given by Mr. Rajneesh Sareen who introduced the key elements and the need and relevance of thermal comfort and climate appropriate building technologies in India. This was followed by Mr. Sugeet Grovers session, who introduced the audience to CSE’s research on Self built housing. The session focussed on how the traditional construction technologies have been adopted in modern buildings to respond better to the need of thermal comfort. The next session on ‘Natural building materials and Technology’ by Shagun Singh, founder Geeli Mitti focused on debunking the myths behind nature-based construction techniques/materials and how they are applied in modern buildings.

The audience then moved onto the ground where a live demonstration of two-soil based construction technologies took place. Two structures were made in front of the audience by the ‘Geeli mitti’ team with the help of CPWD labour. The two technologies demonstrated were ‘Cob’ and ‘adobe bricks. These are now permanent usable structures in the CPWD compound for outdoor seating. Elements such as lighting fixtures and phone charging points were incorporated into these structures so as to make the audience understand how modern services can be incorporated into traditional technologies. The outdoor session included explanation of the whole process that was followed including soil-testing, process of treating and preparation of thatch, soil, lime for preparing the base materials. The attendees had an opportunity to freely interact and ask questions about the process.

The last session of the workshop was an interactive question and answer session between the audience and the CSE team. The questions were based on the topics covered in the workshop. The program was concluded with a vote of thanks by Sh. Santosh Kumar, from CPWD.