Auroville was born with a vision to bring peace, harmony and self- sufficiency. The structures in Auroville are built with earth as their primary component for construction. The Auroville Earth Institute is a non profit organization that specialize in research, development, promotion and transfer of earth based building technologies.
It was founded in the year 1989 by HUDCO and is now recognized as one of the world’s top centers for excellence in earthen architecture. They promote the construction of sustainable habitats through cost effective, low carbon and energy solutions for built structures.
Courtesy of auroville.org
Auroville Workshops
AVEI attempts to revive traditional skills and vernacular traditions of raw earth construction with modern technologies of stabilized earth. AVEI’s primary objective is to equip people with the necessary skill set to build their own energy efficient dwellings lowering the carbon footprint. They curate various courses and workshops to propagate the same. Some of them are as follows.
1. Compressed Stabilized Earth Blocks
Courtesy of earth-auroville.com
a) CSEB Production
The CSEB Production course covers the theory and practice of CSEB. The course covers basics of soil characteristics, design, calculations, block production, quality control and much more. The course is offered on-campus and spans for 6 days. The first two being theory followed by a hands-on approach in producing various types of blocks.
For more click here.
b) CSEB Masonry
This course is hand-on in nature. Participants are taught masonry with CSEB and various stabilized earth techniques. The course is offered on-campus and spans for 6 days. Participants learn various bond patterns, construction of plinth beams, basements, composite columns and much more.
For more click here.
c) CSEB Intensive
This course is a combination of the CSEB production and CSEB masonry courses. The course covers the theory of CSEB Production followed by a practical session on block production, masonry bond patterns and other earth stabilized techniques.
The course is offered on-campus and spans for 6 days. The first two being theoretical in nature with presentations and lectures followed by demonstrations and hands-on sessions.
For more click here.
d) CSEB Design
This course covers all aspects with respect to designing with CSEB. Participants need to have a design background in architecture and has to be proficient with AutoCAD. The course is offered both online and on-campus and spans for 6 days.
The first half of the week is theoretical with lectures, presentations followed by equipping participants with tools to design their own CSEB buildings.
For more click here.
2. Arches, Vaults and Domes
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a) AVD Theory
This course covers the structural design and construction of vaulted earthen masonry. It offers a deep understanding of carious methods of stability analysis for arches vaults and domes. The course is offered online as well as on-campus.
It spans for 6 days where the first 4 days include structural basics and stability analysis followed by test performances regarding the same.
For more click here.
b) AVD Masonry
This course is hands-on in nature. Participants learn various construction principles and techniques to build arches of varying scales and types. Focuses on construction methods developed by AVEI on vaults and domes. This course is offered on campus and spans for 6 days.
For more click here.
c) AVD Intensive
This course is a combination of the AVD theory and AVD masonry courses. This course spans for 6 days, the first 4 days focus on structural basics and stability studies followed by hands-on sessions where trainees construct different types of arches, vaults and domes.
For more click here.
3. CSEB for Disaster Resistance
Courtesy of earth-auroville.com
This course focuses on production and implementation of CSEB for disaster resistant construction. Special emphasis on hollow and dry hollow interlocking block systems for reinforced CSEB walls. The course is offered on-campus and spans for 2 weeks.
The first week focuses on production of hollow interlocking CSEB and the second week focuses on various construction methodologies with these blocks that prove to be disaster resistant.
For more click here.
4. Ferrocement Workshop
Courtesy of earth-auroville.com
This course focuses on various applications of ferrocement. The course spans for 6 days where trainees will learn how to prepare chicken mesh and reinforcement required. After which molding and the casting process will be laid out.
For more click here.
5. Earth and Bamboo Workshop
Courtesy of earth-auroville.com
This course is a joint collaboration facilitated by Auroville Green Practices and Auroville Earth Institute. The course spans for 5 days. It offers a hands-on experience in building walls with earth as well as harvesting, treating and working with bamboo. Knowledge on traditional and modern techniques using both earth and bamboo is imparted to trainees.
For more click here.
6. Bioclimatic Earth Workshop
Courtesy of auroville.org
This course focuses on earth architecture through environment reasoning. The course spans for 2 weeks where knowledge is imparted on various construction techniques to adapt to varied bioclimatic regions.
Week one offers knowledge on different climatic regions with design suitable for each along with hands-on sessions with cob, adobe, rammed earth and CSEB. In the second week participants apply their theoretical and practical knowledge in a design project.
For more click here.
Conclusion
Auroville Earth Institute has proven time and again for it’s excellence in earthen architecture. They are on a mission to demonstrate that earth, as a building material, can be used to make modern, progressive, eco-friendly and safe habitats. We can vouch for their expertise having attended some of their workshops ourselves. The courses for 2021 are now out. They provide Online as well as On-campus courses. Do click the link and register today.
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