The Auroville Building Centre is the unit under CSR which carries out the activities connected with appropriate building technologies and architecture.
Auroville Building Centre Ferrocement: a cost-effective building technology
CSR became active in this field of research during the early eighties while trying to develop prefabricated elements for small scale floating drum type biogas plants.
A first grant from MNES helped to establish a workshop for the prefabrication of ferrocement biogas plants.
After receiving a grant from HUDCO (Housing & Urban Development
Corporation, Govt. of India), "Auroville
Building Centre" (AV-BC) was established for research and training in cost-effective
building technologies.
Over the past decades, Auroville Building Centre specialised in two cost-effective building techniques: ferrocement and unfired earth. The Centre offers regular training courses and has constructed a number of buildings in Auroville and elsewhere to demonstrate the advantages of ferrocement and earth technology.
Grants for projects under AVBC were received from the Govt. of India (HUDCO, BMTPC & NBO), the German Govt. (KFW & Gate), the UK Govt. (ODA), the Danish Govt. (DANIDA), the United Nations (UNCHS, Nairobi , Kenya ) and several private funding agencies.
The Auroville Building Centre is one of India 's leading organizations in ferrocement and earth technology. The Centre received in 1992 the Egyptian "Hassan Fathy International Award for Architecture for the Poor", and received twice the "Best Building Centre Award".
Ferrocement technology
AV-BC developed a variety of prefabricated
ferrocement building elements . It is also the inventor of cost-effective and durable 12mm thick ferrocement doors and of a fully prefabricated, ready-to-install ferrocement latrine, which is one of the latrine models approved by India 's Ministry for Rural Development. AV-BC's ferrocement doors and latrines are now manufactured all over the country.
AV-BC has been the promotor of highly cost-effective ferrocement roofing techniques in India . A code of practice for ferrocement roof channels was written in 1997.
The IFIC (International Ferrocement Information Centre, AIT, Bangkok ) recognizes AV-BC as one of their Resource Centres in Asia.
Waste water recycling & sanitation
CSR's interest in natural wastewater treatment systems has grown steadily over the last two decades. Increased activities and developments in that field took place from 1995 onwards, when CSR received a grant from the Commission of the European Union, via BORDA (a German NGO), to build 4 wastewater treatment plants in Auroville for study and demonstration of the viability of DEWATS (Decentralized Waste Water Treatment Systems). A second EU project also with Borda-India took place from 2002 to 2004.
Through partnership programs in China , Indonesia and India , the natural decentralized waste water treatment technology is now fully developed for implementation in rural, semi-urban and urban situations. Dewats treats mainly domestic waste water and industrial effluents with similar characteristics.
At present more than 40 Dewats systems are operating within Auroville. Partnership projects are taking place in Kutch with Hunnar Shaala.
Consultancy projects and implementation is in progress with several organizations and industries.
Csr is also part of the CDD (Consortium for Dewats Dissemination) which is a group of 27 diverse institutions working towards the wider promotion and implementation of Dewats.
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