Raising the Bar

By Flying Elephant Studio

Photography: Manoj Sudhakaran; Courtesy the architects

A true synthesis of contemporary sustainable architecture meets the eye in an energy-efficient design that is inviting, user friendly, thermally comfortable and aesthetically stimulating.

Adopting a ‘building within a building’ concept as a response to the extreme hot semi-arid climate of Dharmapuri in rural Tamilnadu, architects Rajesh Renganathan and Iype Chacko of Flying Elephant Studio, Bangalore have designed a high quality outpatient, primary healthcare facility that intends to serve a group of villages set in the neighbouring agricultural lands.

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Here is a contextual archetype, dictated by a compact footprint, made linear for better day lighting and cross ventilation. An inherent programmatic split has the core clinic functions and waiting areas arranged as two concentric layers creating a ‘building within a building’. A generous and airy waiting verandah wraps around the core hospital, while an additional outdoor layer of varied cultivated landscapes provides an aesthetic climatic buffer that controls glare and dust. Further, a low-cost stepped amphitheater-like extension at the entrance end, allows for small gatherings related to public health awareness initiatives.

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Incorporating Green Design features, and working on a shoe-string budget, the architectural vocabulary exploits local construction skills and utilizes a material palette predisposed to available building skills in grass thatch and random rubble masonry to accomplish a highly weather tight, secure and easy to maintain clinic building. Innovative structural design utilizes the strength characteristics of individual materials. This is furthered by simplicity of plan and repetition of building elements.

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Sensitivity to local produce and practice imbibes ‘Vetiver’ grass woven thatch window panels and the agricultural practice of clearing stone rubble from fields to prepare for cultivation. While the Vertiver grass grows in the region and is a traditional building cooling system (by wetting woven grass mats and allowing air to pass through), the rubble stones are used to build retaining walls for the raised floor plinth including the outdoor gathering space and for landscape bund elements. Besides, the project also employs the best sustainable water management practices including both, rainwater harvesting and ground water recharging and drip irrigation.

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While these functional elements are brought together in a simple design that maximizes a holistic ambience for a rural healthcare facility, feel-good aesthetic elements are proposed as a peripheral landscape to be developed along varied distinctive themes recalling the five landscape types referred to in traditional Tamil Sangam poetry.  

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Essentially, the project gives visual expression to the idea of water as a life-giving element appropriate to the theme of health and well being. This also recalls local folklore pertaining to the place – Devara Outhou Pallam, literally meaning ‘God’s Spring Village’ and the ancient stories woven around it; adding another layer of culture specific meaning to the visible architecture.