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Construction is one of the biggest industries in world, but innovations in construction are notproportionate. Professionals are hesitant to use simple but logical solutions; they will not be spared ifthey fail. In other professions one can do whatever he wants to, it does not matter even if he fails, wemight give him another chance to perform. We may also give him recognition for attemptinginnovative thoughts. But in construction innovation may devastate you and it has happened manytimes in history; this story is one of the examples of this fact.Chandra Bhushan, Architect

haratiyam Village : 48 Days

BSince the start of the year 1989, theMinistry of Youth Affairs waspreparing for Pt. Nehru's birthcentenary to be held that year on14th November. Pt. Nehru'saffectionate relationship withchildren gave him the title of

'Chacha (uncle) Nehru'. The ministrywanted to celebrate this byorganising a children orientedevent named Bharatiyam at NewDelhi. For this they intended to invitechildren from all over the country.

M. Vardarajan, the then secretaryof Ministry of Youth Affairs wasresponsible for this gala event forchildren. But the idea of Bharatiyam was put forward very late and by the time the ministry decided tocreate Bharatiyam Gram (village) it was already August 1989. Usually such large social events wereorganised in tents and it did not seem a problem to manage, but Vardarajan wanted a bettersolution. The requirement was to create a beautiful model village where students could stay andinteract with each other.

While tents were the obvious option for many government officials, Vardarajan met S. K. Sharma, thethen CMD of Housing and Urban Development Corporation (HUDCO). Apart from financingdevelopmental projects, HUDCO also had the mandate of the development and promotion ofsustainable construction technologies with alternative materials for cost efficient structures. Sharmasuggested to Vardarajan that he avail the services of the Nizamuddin Building Centre.

The Nizamuddin Building Centre (NBC)

was a unique concept within itself,supported by HUDCO. The centreprovided sustainable structures usinglocal mater ia ls and indigenoustechnology and had created manystructures successfully in the past. Theperson behind this centre was architectAnil Laul, who was instrumental in itsestablishment.

Anil Laul was born on 6th August 1944

and did his schooling from SherwoodCollege, Nainital. He was later selected

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for an architecture course in IIT, Kharagpur, one of the eminent technical institutes in India, but endedup joining the School of Planning and Architecture (SPA), Delhi in 1963. He completed his degree in1968 with record marks in Urban Design, which is still a record in the history of SPA.

On 4th September 1989, the first meeting was arranged at HUDCO where Sharma introduced Anil Laulto Vardarajan. Sharma insisted that only Ar. Anil Laul could execute the project and Laul agreed to it.But they were nearly out of time. It was September already and the children would start arriving from25th October; only 51 days were left. The same day, 4th September, both Ar. Laul and Vardarajan

visited the site. The site was on land allotted to the Bharat Scouts & Guides, near the Humayun's Tomband was a thick, green forest. The site, with hundreds of trees, was allotted to the Bharat Scouts &Guides as their camping ground.

As time and cost was the main constraints, Laul did his exercise in three days and made an integrateddesigned village that could take up to 5000 children as per the requirement. The design waspresented on 8th September and was approved with very little suggestions. Surprisingly the cost ofstructure was around Rs.93,00,000, almost equal to the renting the tents for 15 days covering 1,00,000square feet of area.

Happy with cost estimates given by Laul, a special organising committee of Bhartiyam awarded the

project to Nizamuddin Building Centre (NBC). The construction period stipulated was 45 days; from8th September to 25th October.

With this contract, Anil Laul became an architect, project manager, consultant and the contractor ofthis project; it was turnkey project awarded to NBC. He had a big challenge, the budget was low andso was the time. Laul asked for advance, but the government system refused as they could providemoney only if there was work in progress at site or the movement of material to the site.

Laul requested to all his suppliers to dump the material on site and in good faith they did. A few dayslater he got an advance of Rs.40,00,000. In the process he lost 4 precious days; he had only 41 daysleft. Construction started with few workers on 12th September and the count down began. Within few

days the site had 800 workers working in two shifts.

The task was to build 1,00,000 square feet of covered area. The design had 100 interconnected unitseach with 1000 sq.ft built up area. A few days into construction, the ministry increased the number ofstudents from 5000 to 7,500.

The Area requirement then grew to 1,50,000 square feet, within the same timeframe, at the revisedcost of Rs.1,39,00,000. Though the cost was too low and Laul had to produce a built-up structure at thecost of Rs.90/sqft, the main challenge was the huge built up area. Construction now continued in fullswing with three shifts of an increased labour force of 1,200 people.

The structure was temporary and did not require

any submission formalities to the municipalauthority. It was proposed to stand for two yearsafter which it was intended to be demolished. Theconstruction started with the foundations thathad funicular shells that were just 6 inches deep.This would save time on excavation.

The funicular shells had a hole on top and thesewere filled with fly ash and compacted so that itsedges would not punch the ground in the event ofloading. All the units had geodesic domes as the

roofing structure. These were made of steel T-sections welded with the steel plates.

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Instead of using normal bricks Laul made concreteblocks on site. The blocks were made of burnt rice huskfor the first time; the material which otherwise isenvironmentally hazardous and to dispose it off is aproblem. Many government laboratories are stillexperimenting on this material as to how it could beused in construction. These burnt rice husk blocks wereprovided with a protective layer made up a mixture of

cement and coarse sand. The exterior finish of theseblocks was washed with water to expose the coarsesand which provides a permanent, non-erodable finish.

2% of the total budget had to be spent in the promotionof traditional arts. A team off Rajasthani folk artists werehired and the rest was left to their imagination.

Working on the blocks continued for 24hrs in three shifts.The team of NBC had to produce more than 3,60,000blocks and to accomplish that, they were producing

almost 10,000 blocks per day with simple block makingmoulds, manually. That could jeopardise the project'sdeadline, but Laul stuck to his belief of using appropriatebuilding technology, it also provided him the necessarymotivation.

A few days after the construction started, Sharma and Vardarajan visited the site and the duo wasastonished to see the work accomplished. It was not only the speed but the spectacular activitiestaking place on site. Material manufacture and it's utilisation at site was simultaneous. The team oflabourers, working like an army of ants, was fascinating to watch. Sharma was so impressed that anyvisitor to HUDCO, in those days, was taken to the Bharatiyam site. HUDCO later published this project inmany of its brochures.

All the water required for construction was supplied through tankers, as the Delhi Jal Board refused toprovide the connection at such short notice. Similarly DESU did not provide the electricity stating thatthe site was not an approved land for construction. The entire fabrication was done on the strength ofgenerators. Eventually both departments provided the connection just a few days before theopening of the actual event, under the pressure of the central government.

For the geodesic domes the fabrication started within ten days at Laul's workshop in Okhla. Thefabrication was done at his workshop because of the lack of electricity at site, while the assembly wascarried out at site. The geodesic steel frames were supported on four external columns and werecovered by MDF boards. The top of this was covered by a final layer of Red Mud PVC sheets to protect

the under layer from weathering.

But time was running out and many a time Laul feltthat he would fail, but his instinct forced him tobelieve that it could be done, he had to. Every dayposed a new challenge and he was on site withnew vigour every morning. Because thetechnology he used was totally new, many workerswere not conversant with it. Therefore he had totrain the workers on site. Around 400 workers weretrained with special skills like the making of blocks,

geodesic domes and other pre-cast elements likearches, lintels etc.

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