In a unique course this summer, students of CEPT university will build no-waste toilet system in a school in a village in Gujarat. As part of the course 'Thinking Hands', a collective design workshop', students will spend few days in Punadra village in Gujarat and learn to build a low-cost sustainable toilet in a school.
Courses offered as part of summer and winter school differ from the regular semesters in terms of structure, approach and content. The courses are intense and short and help students understand critical sites, situations and create opportunities to learn by making. The course will be taught by Sangita Kapoor who is a sustainable design entrepreneur and a French architect Laurent Fournier who refurbishes existing buildings using frames of wood, bamboo, steel, concrete and stone, and masonry in walls, domes and vaults, using rammed earth, adobe, brick and stone.
The course will include discussions, story-telling sessions, cooking sessions and a talk by a social development practitioner and the students will work with master artisans from the village.
Professor Mercy Samuel said, "The idea to offer this course is to expose students to find their own way of combining the formal and the vernacular harmoniously and to benefit from the vernacular without destroying it, but striving to contribute to it. The focus of this intervention is to build a low-cost, context appropriate, sustainable Ecosan, a form of no-waste toilet system, in the village school that currently serves 300 students and 40 Anganwadi students. While the school has nearly 350 students, it however lacks basic infrastructure such as proper sanitation. Through a 10-day period of working, learning and living in the village, the workshop attempts to stitch a variety of technical, social and collaborative experiences expanding on the potentials of what architecture and design can accomplish."
Interestingly, the course is open for professionals as well. "Students will use traditional methods from last 30 years in vernacular architecture including shallow domes, bamboo framing, long-lasting thatch, etc."
FOCUS
- The aim is to build a low-cost, context appropriate, sustainable Ecosan, a form of no-waste toilet system, in the village school that currently serves 300 students.
- Course includes discussions, story-telling, and a talk by social development practitioner.
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