Construction is one of the biggest industries in world, but innovations in construction are not

proportionate. Professionals are hesitant to use simple but logical solutions; they will not be spared if
they fail. In other professions one can do whatever he wants to, it does not matter even if he fails, we
might give him another chance to perform. We may also give him recognition for attempting
innovative thoughts. But in construction innovation may devastate you and it has happened many
times in history; this story is one of the examples of this fact.
Chandra Bhushan, Architect
haratiyam Village : 48 Days
B
Since the start of the year 1989, the
Mi ni stry of Youth Affai rs was
preparing for Pt. Nehru's birth
centenary to be held that year on
14t h November . Pt . Nehr u' s
affecti onate rel ati onshi p wi th
children gave him the title of
'Chacha (uncle) Nehru'. The ministry
wanted to cel ebrate thi s by
organising a children oriented
event named Bharatiyam at New
Delhi. For this they intended to invite
children from all over the country.
M. Vardarajan, the then secretary
of Ministry of Youth Affairs was
responsible for this gala event for
children. But the idea of Bharatiyam was put forward very late and by the time the ministry decided to
create Bharatiyam Gram (village) it was already August 1989. Usually such large social events were
organised in tents and it did not seem a problem to manage, but Vardarajan wanted a better
solution. The requirement was to create a beautiful model village where students could stay and
interact with each other.
While tents were the obvious option for many government officials, Vardarajan met S. K. Sharma, the
then CMD of Housing and Urban Development Corporation (HUDCO). Apart from financing
developmental projects, HUDCO also had the mandate of the development and promotion of
sustainable construction technologies with alternative materials for cost efficient structures. Sharma
suggested to Vardarajan that he avail the services of the Nizamuddin Building Centre.
The Nizamuddin Building Centre (NBC)
was a unique concept within itself,
supported by HUDCO. The centre
provided sustainable structures using
l ocal mat er i al s and i ndi genous
technology and had created many
structures successfully in the past. The
person behind this centre was architect
Anil Laul, who was instrumental in its
establishment.
Anil Laul was born on 6th August 1944
and did his schooling from Sherwood
College, Nainital. He was later selected
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for an architecture course in IIT, Kharagpur, one of the eminent technical institutes in India, but ended
up joining the School of Planning and Architecture (SPA), Delhi in 1963. He completed his degree in
1968 with record marks in Urban Design, which is still a record in the history of SPA.
On 4th September 1989, the first meeting was arranged at HUDCO where Sharma introduced Anil Laul
to Vardarajan. Sharma insisted that only Ar. Anil Laul could execute the project and Laul agreed to it.
But they were nearly out of time. It was September already and the children would start arriving from
25th October; only 51 days were left. The same day, 4th September, both Ar. Laul and Vardarajan
visited the site. The site was on land allotted to the Bharat Scouts & Guides, near the Humayun's Tomb
and was a thick, green forest. The site, with hundreds of trees, was allotted to the Bharat Scouts &
Guides as their camping ground.
As time and cost was the main constraints, Laul did his exercise in three days and made an integrated
designed village that could take up to 5000 children as per the requirement. The design was
presented on 8th September and was approved with very little suggestions. Surprisingly the cost of
structure was around Rs.93,00,000, almost equal to the renting the tents for 15 days covering 1,00,000
square feet of area.
Happy with cost estimates given by Laul, a special organising committee of Bhartiyam awarded the
project to Nizamuddin Building Centre (NBC). The construction period stipulated was 45 days; from
8th September to 25th October.
With this contract, Anil Laul became an architect, project manager, consultant and the contractor of
this project; it was turnkey project awarded to NBC. He had a big challenge, the budget was low and
so was the time. Laul asked for advance, but the government system refused as they could provide
money only if there was work in progress at site or the movement of material to the site.
Laul requested to all his suppliers to dump the material on site and in good faith they did. A few days
later he got an advance of Rs.40,00,000. In the process he lost 4 precious days; he had only 41 days
left. Construction started with few workers on 12th September and the count down began. Within few
days the site had 800 workers working in two shifts.
The task was to build 1,00,000 square feet of covered area. The design had 100 interconnected units
each with 1000 sq.ft built up area. A few days into construction, the ministry increased the number of
students from 5000 to 7,500.
The Area requirement then grew to 1,50,000 square feet, within the same timeframe, at the revised
cost of Rs.1,39,00,000. Though the cost was too low and Laul had to produce a built-up structure at the
cost of Rs.90/sqft, the main challenge was the huge built up area. Construction now continued in full
swing with three shifts of an increased labour force of 1,200 people.
The structure was temporary and did not require
any submission formalities to the municipal
authority. It was proposed to stand for two years
after which it was intended to be demolished. The
construction started with the foundations that
had funicular shells that were just 6 inches deep.
This would save time on excavation.
The funicular shells had a hole on top and these
were filled with fly ash and compacted so that its
edges would not punch the ground in the event of
loading. All the units had geodesic domes as the
roofing structure. These were made of steel T-
sections welded with the steel plates.
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Instead of using normal bricks Laul made concrete
blocks on site. The blocks were made of burnt rice husk
for the first time; the material which otherwise is
environmentally hazardous and to dispose it off is a
problem. Many government laboratories are still
experimenting on this material as to how it could be
used in construction. These burnt rice husk blocks were
provided with a protective layer made up a mixture of
cement and coarse sand. The exterior finish of these
blocks was washed with water to expose the coarse
sand which provides a permanent, non-erodable finish.
2% of the total budget had to be spent in the promotion
of traditional arts. A team off Rajasthani folk artists were
hired and the rest was left to their imagination.
Working on the blocks continued for 24hrs in three shifts.
The team of NBC had to produce more than 3,60,000
blocks and to accomplish that, they were producing
almost 10,000 blocks per day with simple block making
moulds, manually. That could jeopardise the project's
deadline, but Laul stuck to his belief of using appropriate
building technology, it also provided him the necessary
motivation.
A few days after the construction started, Sharma and Vardarajan visited the site and the duo was
astonished to see the work accomplished. It was not only the speed but the spectacular activities
taking place on site. Material manufacture and it's utilisation at site was simultaneous. The team of
labourers, working like an army of ants, was fascinating to watch. Sharma was so impressed that any
visitor to HUDCO, in those days, was taken to the Bharatiyam site. HUDCO later published this project in
many of its brochures.
All the water required for construction was supplied through tankers, as the Delhi Jal Board refused to
provide the connection at such short notice. Similarly DESU did not provide the electricity stating that
the site was not an approved land for construction. The entire fabrication was done on the strength of
generators. Eventually both departments provided the connection just a few days before the
opening of the actual event, under the pressure of the central government.
For the geodesic domes the fabrication started within ten days at Laul's workshop in Okhla. The
fabrication was done at his workshop because of the lack of electricity at site, while the assembly was
carried out at site. The geodesic steel frames were supported on four external columns and were
covered by MDF boards. The top of this was covered by a final layer of Red Mud PVC sheets to protect
the under layer from weathering.
But time was running out and many a time Laul felt
that he would fail, but his instinct forced him to
believe that it could be done, he had to. Every day
posed a new challenge and he was on site with
new vi gour every morni ng. Because the
technology he used was totally new, many workers
were not conversant with it. Therefore he had to
train the workers on site. Around 400 workers were
trained with special skills like the making of blocks,
geodesic domes and other pre-cast elements like
arches, lintels etc.
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