Made a flying visit to Pune to meet potential consultants for dealing with grey and kitchen waste water. At the very least, we’d like to deliver kitchen water to the landscaped areas of the garden. If possible, the soapy shower/washing machine water can be filtered and reused for flushing. Sometimes, people hesitate to adopt such systems, but if it is demonstrated that the filtered water is as good or even better than what they get in the municipal pipeline, one can usually convince them of the benefits.
Tag Archives: architecture
Pune Bungalow Sanctioned
Permissions from the Pune municipality for the bungalow I’ve designed there, came through a couple of days ago. Three cheers!
Now I have to get cracking with the services plans!
Looking for Eugine Pandala
The “Inside-Outside Mega Show” this year took quite a while to go through and there was a fair amount of new stuff (after you’ve been to many of them, a sort of staleness creeps in). The nice part is that the organisers hold lectures at the end of each day.
The theme for 2004-05 was Conservation and Environment. I was very happy to attend the talk by Professor Eugine Pandala, an architect from Kerala on “building with natural materials”. Had to rush off after the lecture so didn’t have time to get his email ID. Now if only I can find a way to contact him by email. After much hunting, I came across a postal address to maybe I’ll have to do it the old fashioned way and kill a tree…
Construction begins at Khairne [2P]
The office building that I’ve designed at Khairne is coming along at full steam, now that the monsoons seem to be subsiding. The external plastering is almost complete and very soon the interior work and finishing will begin.
Am trying my level best to explain to the clients that double-glazing will pay for itself in the medium term because of reduced air-conditioning costs. Have also specified water-saving cisterns for all the WCs. This is an area where water is relatively expensive, so for a change, that argument is easier to make.
Detailing for Pune Bungalow
I’ve had this project on the back-burner for a while since the papers have been submitted to the Pune municipality and it will be another month at least before they come through. In the meanwhile, I’ve worked on most of the details and am happy that the clients like the results.
I know; I’ve been promising to make a separate dedicated page in the design section for a while now… It’s a matter of getting down to it and spare time has been relatively scarce these past few months.
Builder for Pune Bungalow
Made a flying visit to Pune yesterday to try and decide on a builder for the Bungalow project there. The client and I agreed on a young man called Manoj Kanase. He seems to have a fair bit of experience with rain-water harvesting and recycling of waste water etc, so that should make life easier.
New Office Building at Khairne [2P]
Along with the bungalow at Pune (I still haven’t got around to making a separate page for that one), the other current architectural project is an office-cum-laboratory building at Thurbe (New Bombay) for an ISO 9001 company for whom I had also designed a logo a couple of years back. Project Architects based in the area were appointed to get the required permissions, do the working drawings and supervise on a regular basis.
All was going well until we found, during excavation, that the neighbouring industrial unit had leaked acidic water into our site. Apparently they had a a broken storage tank which was promptly removed when we pointed it out to them. However, just a few days ago when we dug another pit, we found some more corrosive liquid.
Precautions had already been taken to protect the foundation but those chaps next door should really be hauled over the coals or, better still, be made to jump into their own acid!
Pune Bungalow Project
Was in Pune today meeting potential contractors for a bungalow that I’m designed there. I guess I should have a page that describes the project but, for the moment, here is an outline:
It’s a single family residence where we will harvest the rain, recycle the water and have solar panels for heating. The site is located on the top of a hill in the Kondhwa area so, budget permitting, there might even be a windmill to run the pump.
High energy materials like reinforced cement concrete – RCC – are going to be avoided as far as possible. The structure will be load bearing with a foundation made from local basalt and the superstructure will be brick masonry.
The client wished the design to be done as per Vastu principles and hired a consultant to vet the drawings for conformity. All’s well at the moment. People don’t often think of Vastu and ecological or green architecture together, but there is a significant overlap of principles; not always, I have to admit, but to a very large extent.
Forgot to Mention my Trip to Germany
Made a trip to Germany for ten days last month. Got tied up with work on my return and never did get around to writing about it at all.
Visited Interzum (interior products and services fair) in Cologne and Ligna (for the wood industry) at Hanover. Both were huge – the latter needed bus routes inside the grounds! Finally went to Wismar on the Baltic coast to visit a factory that manufactures OSB. It’s a material that should do well in India provided the price is right. The only city I didn’t like was Frankfurt. Dirty, crass and very very cold (not the temperature – I sweated there).
Had a fairly good (if hectic) time and saw a new country. Was very impressed by the public transport systems and the fact that people went out of their way to be helpful.
The French could learn a thing or two about how to treat tourists…
Trip to Rajkot
Was in Rajkot from 16-18 June and quite disappointed with the architecture – or lack of it. Expected to see beautiful Havelis and old style houses but my hopes were dashed on the concrete boxes that have sprung up like weeds in an unkempt garden.
On a single trip to the town of Wankaner I didn’t get an opportunity to visit the old Palace – it was undergoing repairs for the damage suffered during the terrible earthquake of 26 January 2001 – our first Republic Day in the new millennium. I’m talking about the real start of the 21st century and not Y2K. I hope there isn’t still some confusion about that!
On a personal note, I took the monsoon there with me. It poured cats and dogs (and fish and frogs) in Rajkot – an area that suffers from almost perennial drought. I hadn’t even carried an umbrella and I encountered low-level flooding on the streets!