“ANANDSHALA” at THADA, Rajasthan
A place for Learning

Project Category
Rural Schools

Project Type
Public, Government, Non-Government, CSR

Number of People
1000

Project Location
Rural

Issues
Education, Awareness, Modernity, Details, Adaptability, Contextual, Resource Saving, Sustainability, Vernacular

“Anandshala” Project – Thada is a school up-gradation project based on the processes of community empowering and developing a sense of ownership and values of education in Government Primary Schools. This project was a part of a CSR activity of Ashiana Housing Ltd. Their active and encouraging attitude is a key to the success of the project.

This project renovated an old school building; re-imagined the school maidan and added new Anganwadi and MDMS building blocks.

The pedagogy of the project is participatory in nature where village children studying in the school, teachers and villagers become active vocals. Scientific methods were employed to generate active participation by CEE as part of their software programs. BPSA, Rajkot as a joint team with CEE interpreted the pedagogy into the physical manifestation.

The school is also an example of development to suit local culture, climate & technology. The development is indigenous; however, intra-village co-operation is sought and advised in order to develop a kithship.

Local crafts and skills were employed as much as possible.
Use of local material was resorted to meet most of the physical built needs of the school.
Construction waste also was put to use in building development.

For the success of this project, of paramount importance were participation of school children and the villagers in decision making. In order to do this, some ground rules were established and adhered to during the entire duration of the project.

And finally, the most important aspect of the project is meta-physical…
and can best be described as…

To instil a sense of belief in one’s situational and existential conditions!
And
To make amends while remaining aware of ones’ rootedness to these conditions.

MATERIALS & CONSTRUCTION

Care has been taken to incorporate local materials and building techniques for most of the repairs as well as new building works.

The masonry is out of bricks with load bearing system of construction. Where required steel stanchion give additional support to the roof.
The vernacular house type uses flag stone method of roofing as well as flooring on the upper floors. Thus, flag stone system of roofing was adopted for the new kitchen building using the locally available red stone.
Similarly, flooring was done using odd lot kota stone as well as using the building industry waste.
Construction waste was put to use in classroom repairs. Thus, left over cut outs of wash basin in the platform top finds usage as a flooring pattern in one of the class rooms. In other areas, waste ceramic glazed tiles are used as patterned floor. Thus, each class room gets a different flooring pattern.
An important outcome of this demonstration was that the Realty Company itself started adopting these methods in the design of their ongoing projects. This amounted to resource savings on a much larger scale then what was anticipated for the school work.

AESTHETICS & FINISHES

The design is integrated in terms of finishes.

The walls of semi open areas have high dado out of stone. This minimizes the wear and tear due to rough use,
The exterior of the new buildings are clad with local rough stone in sync with the village character and also reflecting the semi-arid nature of the site. It will have a rustic feel typical of a village building.
The interior of the newkitchen & anganwadi buildings and of the old class rooms are plastered keeping in mind the need to achieve a certain level of cleanliness. These areas have natural stone finish.

The roof water is fed into a 50000 litre underground tank.
This will be sufficient to provide drinking water to the school during the water scarce summer months from February to April.

DRAWINGS

Project Details:
Client: Principal, Primary School, Thada.
Sponsored & Supported by: Mr. Vishal Gupta, MD, Ashiana Housing Ltd
Address: Government Primary School, Village Thada, Tehsil Tijara, Dist. Alwar, Rajasthan.
Structural Engineer: Mr Ojha, SCON Pvt Ltd, Patna.
Contractor: Ashiana Housing Ltd.
Design Team: Parth Shah, Brinda Parth Shah, Shivani Kotecha, Kruti Choksi