Living & Learning Design Centre(LLDC) – Ajrakhpur Kutch

Brief : The LLDC project was initiated by Shrujan, an NGO based in Kutch to ensure, transfer of crafts skills from the master craftsmen and women to the next generation of karigars (artisans). It was intended to be a tactile and visual repository of the various crafts of Kutch and ensure the preservation of the crafts.

Program : Museum Galleries for the crafts of kutch, a library, textile conservation/storage areas, auditorium, administration, temporary exhibit gallery, demonstrative hands on leaming spaces, work shops, classrooms, guest house and public amenities define the program.

Site & context: The site is an 8 acre patch of orchard land in Ajrakhpur, Kutch, a settlement of Ajrakh printers nearby, industrial units, the diverse landscape of dusty flats, hot dry hostile dusty arid conditions make for the context

Architectural response: The buildings are approached though an existing fruit orchard of mangoes, chickoos and coconuts trees. An entry
pavilion, that is reminiscent of the ‘bus stop’ and the ‘traditional delo’, is the metaphorical point of arrival. It straddles the open orchard at one end and the water pool on the other. Symbolic of ablution and rejuvenation, the pool is home to an installation of abstract steel cut flaming  forms that highlight and comment on the nature of migrations in this land and the evolution of its cultural milieu. The forecourt is a preamble to the buildings, a place of repose and congregation. Through its informal definition, it becomes an effective transition into the ticketing block, cafeteria, the museum shop and orients one to the large entry volume of the museum itself. The trees in the forecourt and spaces in the shade make for a convivial public character. A vocabulary of earth coloured platonic volumes, receiving the intense desert sun with small, punctuated openings, deep shaded passageways is prevalent through out. Complementing these volumes are the informal spaces such as the café, museum shop and other functions, in the fore court defined by elements in exposed concrete and rough stone. The main buildings, comprising, the museum, workshops and the guesthouse block are organised around a large congregational sunk court, accessed by ramps. Shaded walkways provide refuge along its perimeter to access the classrooms and workshops as well as the administrative areas. The architectural design is purposefully reticent and non- hierarchic. It was essential to give primacy to ‘place’ rather than ‘form’ in order to establish the dialectic between formal functions of the museum and auditorium and informal workshops. The buildings present, an open ended, amorphous quality and a contemporary visage, being both deliberate and desired.

This design responds to the social, economic and climatic reality of Kutch, with the freedom to define its own architecture and a public space, avoiding the known archetypes Of the region of Kutch. In addition, the need to create a thermally stable environment for textiles and other crafts challenges the dictates of expensive consumptive, climate controlled environments in museums today.

The adaptation of multiple sustainable design strategies, materials and details, form an architectural language that is expressive of these concerns.

Sustainable design strategies: Salient points

Plan organisation: Segregation of service functions, layering of spaces with circulation and ancillary functions ensured a stable and protected core. A solid facade and porous layered inner spaces ensure breathability allowing for breezes to tunnel across during the night and day ensuring comfort.

Light and its modulation: The quality and quantum of light in the galleries is guided through carefully crafted concrete conical skylights, which orient to the sun allowing for a diffused play of light. A special IR/UV film over the glass covering the oculus, cuts off the harmful UV and keeps the heat out.

Fenestrations: Meticulously detailed windows and cutouts on the west and south allow the winter sun to warm the interiors while keeping out the summer sun. Controlled apertures, calibrated to the sun angle ensure its working and becomes a simple strategy to effect ventilation without increasing thermal gain.

Thermal barriers/materials: Lime and fly ash bricks were manufactured on site using waste carbide lime slurry, sand and fly ash to reduce costs. Gauged lime mortar using 5% cement as per IS 2290 for stability was followed in the masonry work and plaster using natural dolomite and lime in the galleries. Stored rainwater cools the structure: Rainwater harvesting tanks, integrated in the design, hold 500,000 litres Of rain annually for drinking. Use of radiant cooling pipes circulate the same stored water below the floor on terraces and other slabs, draining the heat continuously to maintain the mean radiant temperature of the structure between 30 to 34 deg c, ensuring, that very little energy is used to cool the air and maintain the desired humidity.

Fresh air and cooling: Night-time cool air is passed over a thermal mass created by stored bottles of packaged drinking water, stacked in crates,on each floor Kutch generally experiences a drop in temp. to about 15-18 deg c.during summers nights. Stored water at the base of the tower is showered over this mass. Simultaneously, cool nighttime air is drawn into the shaft from the louvers above, using an exhaust fan at the bottom between Ilpm and 7 am. The moisture is then drawn out of the system using exhausts, leaving behind a thermal mass, devoid of humidity and much cooler than the prevailing ambient temperature in the day. Dehumidified cooled fresh air is guided to the auditorium area through ducts, that run below the seats to make for extremely comfortable conditions.