A high-performance building system unbiased to capital or skill
A carbon negative building built & grown
by the community, for the community
A Decentralised Habitat
Our society faces the great challenge of constructing healthy, high-performance, zero-carbon, zero-waste homes and neighborhoods. But is the direction of innovation we have been taking virtuous? Our expedient ways of solving crises often neglect the underprivileged who comprise most of our society. Hence, we must develop a new decentralised system for the built environment with materials and technology that are impartial to capital and skill.
Samudaya proposes a vision for a world with buildings that can grow, heal, and create an irreproachable sustainable cycle. Mycelium-based housing has the potential to show a new path in construction and transform our visceral and reflective senses toward our homes.
The project seeks to empower communities to build in-situ, by themselves, exactly how they need. It's not just about building homes, it's also about building inclusive local economic capacity, everywhere.
Decoding the current landscape of housing in India
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Living in a well-made permanent house is a banal thought to us. But for over 1 billion people living in slums and informal settlements across the Global South, this is a future they aspire to.
Informal settlements can be broadly defined as self-built neighborhoods, outside of city regulations, in conditions of extreme to moderate poverty. By 2050, 1 in 3 people on the planet will live in these places and will be in dire need of adequate housing.
Such growth requires thoughtful spatial interventions and radical housing solutions that are bottom-up, place-based, and responsive to the needs of residents. The paradox of informal settlements is how vast and common they are but the people who live in them are quite invisible. And ignorance creates barriers to developing tools to help them. This project aims to give an opportunity to create a fresh perspective to solve these issues.
Initial Research
Materials, Tools & System
Does it work for all?
The current system of building and what we need going forward
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on site off site >
see the build
Our society faces a great moonshot challenge of constructing healthy, high-performance, zero-carbon, zero-waste homes and neighborhoods. But is the direction of innovation we have been taking virtuous?
Thinking about any future building innovation, it is also imperative to make sure sustainability is inherent to the supply chain. Since 2020, the anthropomass, the mass embodied in the built environment which includes concrete, bricks, metal, and glass has exceeded the biomass on our planet.
As we project 200 years ahead, what are the values, principles, knowledge, and skills, that we must cultivate as we design a future that is inclusive and impartial of capital, skill, or location and one of synergy between natural and the built environment?
Public Housing
Beneficiary - led ?
The current system of building and what we need going forward
...
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see the build
see the build
Cities have public housing engrained in their city’s economic plan to provide people who cannot afford market-rate housing with an affordable decently planned house. In developing countries, the struggles to implement any low-profit solutions are immense. Identifying the local resources for building, knowing the precise community needs, and implementing smart strategies are imperative to affordable housing design.
An example of an ingenious execution is the social housing projects of Chile by Elemental, the architecture firm led by Alejandro Aravena. He built arguably perfect half-homes with a structural frame of a complete house. He left room for the families to expand their homes as their requirements and needs grew.
Aside from system innovation, another way is to bring front material and method innovation. An experimental architect, earlier based in Auroville, India, Anupama Kundoo demonstrated a clay home built on site and baked with open fire to cure in the open, instead of making them into blocks and baked in a clay oven. Although being more of a material exercise, it gives insights into new methods derived from vernacular practices.
Mycelium Acrhitecture
Precedents
Is this a potential future?
The current system of building and what we need going forward
...
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Mycelium has been at the forefront of this discourse. Its versatility has let a range of architects, designers, and artists develop designs around it. Phil Ross arguably gave the biggest push to the material with decades of experimenting and eventually setting up a successful venture, Mycoworks.
Other important mentions are Hy-Fi and Mycotree. Hy-Fi is a circular tower of both organic and reflective bricks. The organic bricks are produced through a revolutionary combination of corn stalks and specially developed living root structures, made by Ecovative.
MycoTree is a spatial branching structure made out of load-bearing mycelium components. Its geometry was designed using 3D graphic statics, keeping the weak material in compression only. Its complex nodes were grown in digitally fabricated moulds.
Interventions
Familiar > New
Experiments :
Our society faces a great moonshot challenge of constructing healthy, high-performance, zero-carbon, zero-waste homes and neighborhoods. But is the direction of innovation we have been taking virtuous? Our expedient ways of solving crises often neglect the underprivileged who comprise the majority of our society. Hence, we need to develop a new decentralised system for the built environment with materials and technology that are impartial to capital and skill.
Scaffolding/Support
Moulds
first ideation - one mould
made into walls and ceiling
blocks
generative model of supporting
scaffolding
versatile scaffolding to
produce freedom of form
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simplified design for
scaffolding
moulds with mahogany veneer
lattice
interlocking block after
2 weeks
first 50x50x20 cm block -
it failed
Composites
System
collapsible blocks to be
filled with mycelium slurry
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Lattice Moulds x Clip plates
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final assembly
oyster mushroom -
over-exposure to oxygen
wheat straw +
Pleurotus sajor-caju
the binding after two weeks
testing the interlocking
service blocks
testing with veneers for
composites
Birch veneer + mycelium > wood glue
testing jute x ply lattice
mould
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jute x ply lattice mould later deployed & made into bonded mycelium block
Bioinspired conceptual
foundation framework
shallow foundation
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testing foundation mechanisms
Foundation
testing final designs
Grad Show at CSM, London
Summary Video
Why Open Source?
The current system of building and what we need going forward
Our society faces a great moonshot challenge of constructing healthy, high-performance, zero-carbon, zero-waste homes and neighborhoods. But is the direction of innovation we have been taking virtuous?
Project in Ahmedabad, India
Interview with Prof. Mrugesh Shukla, Microbiologist & Mycelium expert
Interview with Mr. Harun, resident of an Urban Slum in India
To validate in real-time, a structure was built in Ahmedabad with the help of the stakeholders for whom the system would be built, to test the performance over a span of 6 months. To validate in real-time, a structure was built in Ahmedabad with the help of the stakeholders for whom the system would be built, to test the performance over a span of 6 months.
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add research findings of Ahmedabad prototype- feedback, improvements etc.
Our society faces a great moonshot challenge of constructing healthy, high-performance, zero-carbon, zero-waste homes and neighborhoods. But is the direction of innovation we have been taking virtuous?
Our society faces a great moonshot challenge of constructing healthy, high-performance, zero-carbon, zero-waste homes and neighborhoods. But is the direction of innovation we have been taking virtuous?
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