URBIZEN

Currently I am involved in a project, with Hidaya Foundation , for designing and constructing low-cost housing for the victims of the tsunami in the Indian Ocean. As a non-profit organization founded in 1999, Hidaya Foundation has undertaken a mission to implement educational, social welfare, and charitable projects in economically depressed areas of Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, USA and Canada. The project involves designing, training and construction of houses for widows and orphans in the regions affected by the disaster. The idea is not only to build structures, but to build communities that are self-sufficient and sustainable. The main principles will be: 1. Use of local materials 2. Use of local labor 3. Training of locals in sustainable building technologies 4. Constructing communities that the people living there can associate themselves with 5. Managing within a very low budget The idea is to involve dedicated and willing volunteers who will learn the technology and train the l...

Ralegaon Siddhi, a success story –In 1975, when Anna Hazare, a retired army man, went back to his village in Ahmednagar district, Maharashtra, he found the village reeling under drought, poverty, debt, and unemployment. He decided to mobilize the people and, with the collective support of all the villagers, he began to introduce changes. Today Ralegaon Siddhi is being taken as a role model for other villages by the Maharashtra government and by other states too. Massive tree plantation has been undertaken, and hills have been terraced to check erosion. Large canals with ridges on either side have been dug to retain rainwater. As a result, the water table in this area is now considerably higher and the wells and tube wells are never dry, making it possible to raise three crops a year where only one was possible before. The village's biggest achievement is undoubtedly in the area of non-conventional energy. All the streets in the village are lit by solar lights, each with a separate ...

The Global Ecovillage Network is a global confederation of people and communities that meet and share their ideas, exchange technologies, develop cultural and educational exchanges, directories and newsletters, and are dedicated to restoring the land and living "sustainable plus" lives by putting more back into the environment than we take out. Network members include large networks like Sarvodaya (11,000 sustainable villages in Sri Lanka); EcoYoff and Colufifa (350 villages in Senegal); the Ladakh project on the Tibetian plateau; ecotowns like Auroville in South India, the Federation of Damanhur in Italy and Nimbin in Australia; small rural ecovillages like Gaia Asociación in Argentina and Huehuecoyotl, Mexico; urban rejuvenation projects like Los Angeles EcoVillage and Christiania in Copenhagen; permaculture design sites such as Crystal Waters, Australia, Cochabamba, Bolivia and Barus, Brazil; and educational centres such as Findhorn in Scotland, Centre for Alternative Tech...

The global need for housing includes millions refugees and displaced persons – victims of natural disasters and wars. Iranian architect Nader Khalili believes that this need can be addressed only by using the potential of earth construction. After extensive research into vernacular earth building methods in Iran, followed by detailed prototyping, he has developed the sandbag or ‘superadobe’ system. The basic construction technique involves filling sandbags with earth and laying them in courses in a circular plan. The circular courses are corbelled near the top to form a dome. Barbed wire is laid between courses to prevent the sandbags from shifting and to provide earthquake resistance. Hence the materials of war – sandbags and barbed wire – are used for peaceful ends, integrating traditional earth architecture with contemporary global safety requirements. The system employs the timeless forms of arches, domes and vaults to create single and double-curvature shell structures that are bo...