Leaking roofs, lack of privacy, plenty of sound pollution

“The main problem of Maitreye I,” says Mandakini, “is that the roofs leak. It became a major issue in the last torrential monsoon, when the residents had to put buckets at strategic places.” “For Maitreye II, the problem is the complete lack of privacy, both visual and audible,” says Mariana. “The apartments’ metal grill doors provide no privacy from passersby. Neither is there any sound protection. I can hear my neighbours to the right, left and upstairs.” “Inspiration has similar problems,” says Meera. “Hearing the neighbours is common, and our visual privacy too is highly challenged. There are construction defects – water dripping down through roof slabs and walls, has flooded the electrical boxes, for example – and there are design problems, both in the building exteriors as well as in the apartment’s interiors.”

Maitreye I

“Maitreye I is quite a nice community,” says Mandakini, who is house-sitting a ground-floor apartment. “There is a common laundry and parking place, the architecture is pleasant and the houses have fantastic ventilation and natural lighting. Sound pollution is there, but it is manageable if you have good neighbours. But the quality of the house construction leaves much to be desired. Many walls have cracks and a few residents have heard the floor tiles coming up and breaking, sometimes with a loud bang. Evidently, the ground moves.”

But the main problem is that of leaking roofs. Ever since the community started in 2011, the roofs of all the ten top floor apartments have leaked. Requests to help out with fixing roofs were refused, as the Housing Service said it had no funds to maintain ‘private’ houses. The stewards then tried to fix their roofs themselves, spending a considerable amount of money, but no attempt has met with any long-term success. “We fear the next monsoon,” says Mandakini. “The residents are in the process of collectively appealing to the Housing Service again to find a solution, as the problems are due to bad construction.”

For there is another problem: many residents have exhausted their funds and cannot pay for the repairs from their Auroville maintenances. How will Maitreye be maintained in future? “We propose that Maitreye has a guest house or home stay facility, maybe a restaurant, whose profits will be allocated to the repair and maintenance of all buildings in the community,” says Mandakini. “In fact, that would be an ideal solution for many Auroville communities.”

Other main issues plaguing both Maitreye I and Maitreye II are the absence of waste water treatment and rainwater harvesting systems. A waste water treatment plant was promised, but did not manifest. The Town Development Council has been planning a centralised waste water treatment plant, not only for Maitreye I and II but also for a few other communities, but the land on which it was to be located could not be purchased. “So now we use a septic tank, which is an unsustainable solution. A decentralised treatment plant, similar to the one used by Invocation should have been built between Maitreye I and II, but the decision has still not been taken.” Consequently, precious ground water, not recycled waste water, is used for gardening, and landscaping for the Maitreye communities is yet to be developed.

Inspiration

Meera lives in Inspiration community in a ‘pro bono’ apartment. “Inspiration has been funded from a grant of the Government of India and the apartments were given ‘for free’ to Aurovilians working in services, and who were only having a community maintenance. “I got a studio on the condition that I became the building’s caretaker because, as an architect, I would be able to understand the needs of the building,” she says. She moved in while the building was still in the finishing stages. “In the meetings with the architect, builder and project coordinator I made many suggestions for functional improvement, but many remained ignored, possibly because the team was too busy with many other parallel projects,” she says. “My requests for improvement were also answered with ‘you get a free house, so you better be grateful.’ It was like a slap in the face. Asked why they did not want to invite users’ suggestions, the reply was on the lines of ‘if we listen to the residents, we will go crazy’. It was, in my opinion, an unhealthy way of building community projects, as the richness Auroville is aspiring for wasn’t used. User interactions would have guaranteed better results.”

For much went wrong in Inspiration, she says. “The proportion of the public versus private spaces is skewed – too much government money has been spent on public areas, on corridors that do not offer any protection from sun and rain. You also can’t use them for outdoor sitting as then you will be looking directly into your neighbour’s private space. No attempt has been made to prevent sound pollution, even though the problem is well-known as so many Auroville communities complain about this. The apartments’ doors and windows are designed in such a way that you don’t have privacy: if you close them, you don’t have cross-ventilation. The toilets are so high that, if you are short, your feet don’t touch the floor. Balconies had no outlet for rainwater: it flowed into the living room. There is no rainwater drainage design and my neighbour’s apartment floods in every heavy rain. The building has no overhangs to protect from rains and sunshine. Electrical switches and sockets have been put in oddly risky places, such as next to the gas connection and touching the sink tap, and the outside switches are exposed to the rain. The corridors have had no lighting for some years; Auroville’s Electrical Service has said that it can’t offer a solution unless we provide overhangs to protect these lights. The building’s plumbing systems leak and choke and are difficult to repair as the shafts are non-accessible. I could go on...”.

Does she regret having moved in? “I am grateful for having a free apartment,” she says. “It is a great relief that I need not move around anymore. The buildings problems have brought me a psychological and physical earthing and have anchored my energy. But yet, something needs to be done.”

For it’s amazing, she says, that though Auroville is notorious for its bureaucracy – it takes on average nine months to get building permission – there are no checks on building and interior designs. “A peer group consultation could have prevented the proportional mismatch between public and private spaces and design mistakes. And a user-interface would have created a sense of ‘belonging’, which today is almost completely missing for some of the residents.”

Maitreye II

Mariana is house-sitting one of the apartments in Maitreye II. This one has a private living space, but she shares the kitchen and bathroom with her neighbour. Does it work? “Sharing the kitchen is ok, but not the bathroom, that’s too private,” she says. Maitreye II’s apartments are located along public walkways, which means that people keep passing one’s front door. “There is no privacy as the doors are double mesh-grill doors. We’ve all hung a curtain across them, some people even have two curtains, but that cuts the ventilation, and still doesn’t give a sense of privacy. Also the sound pollution is terrible. It isn’t only that you hear everyone, but also everybody hears you. I don’t even listen to music for that reason. It feels too exposed.” The lack of consideration for privacy, inherent in the design of Maitreye II, has resulted in quite a few residents lacking the feeling of ‘home’. “When you get home, you don’t feel you can relax and replenish for the next day,” says Mariana. “There is no ‘resting’ space for yourself, which is so necessary if you are serious about doing yoga.”

Like Inspiration, Maitreye II was also built from a grant of the Government of India. It is especially intended to house Newcomers. “That’s the feeling you get, that the building is designed so that people won’t want to stay,” says Mariana. “I wonder why this building was designed the way it has. What kind of lifestyle is it meant to accommodate? There is nothing wrong with basic housing – there are other types of basic houses that meet the requirements of good living. But this one is just too much of an in-between space, somehow not matching in terms of purpose and function. Yet, as Maitreye II is a very new building. I would like to think that it can still become a more apt and welcoming living space. So then the question is, can it be transformed?”

The problems of sound

Didier is Auroville’s sound specialist. His main job, as main designer at the unit Sound Wizard, is building sound-specialised spaces, like music production studios, cinema theatres and auditoriums, all over India. Sometimes he is consulted by Auroville architects about the problems of sound pollution. “In fact, rarely,” he corrects. “Generally speaking, architects are not interested to consider the problems of sound pollution. Like most architects in the world, Auroville architects are mainly interested in the visual and structural aspects of their buildings. I have been asked for advice only a few times. But my proposals were not always incorporated, or only partially so they had little effect.” Preventing sound pollution, he says, could be a costly affair, and disturb some of the aesthetics – and for that reason such measures are not popular. “But with the projected density of the Residential Zone, the problem of sound can no longer be ignored. Town planners and architects have to become aware of the impact of noise and learn about ways to avoid or alleviate it.”

Can something be done to remedy existing situations, such as in Maitreye or Inspiration? “It will be very difficult,” he says. “If you include the prevention of sound pollution from the outset in your design, much can be done at low cost. To correct buildings afterwards is often not possible. If it is half done, it is ineffective; and well done, it becomes very costly.”

But is it possible to include the prevention of sound pollution in the planning of the city? “Yes,” he says. “Several simulation softwares have been developed for doing that work, like ‘Terrain’ or ‘SON architect’. We would need to hire specialists since it is not exactly our field of work, but it can be done.”

A proposal from the Housing Service

“The Housing Service is receiving more and more complaints from the residents of new housing and apartment buildings about the deteriorating quality of their buildings which have been built recently,” opens a recent letter from the Housing Service to the Town Development Council. The Service, which is client and project holder on behalf of Auroville and appointed the architects and contractors for Inspiration and the two Maitreye communities, and as such bears responsibility, now proposes that a professional agency is recruited to do a detailed and time-bound study of the failures. To execute its recommendations, a monitoring system should be put in place “to ensure that a housing project is executed more professionally, up to the satisfaction of the clients”. It also proposes that the builder and the project holder give a building quality guarantee for at least three years after completion of the construction.

It is a good start, but more will be needed. For the problems of Inspiration and Maitreye are not only due to construction mistakes but also to mistakes in architectural designs, and, presumably, to lack of guidance from the client, who did not include prevention of sound pollution and privacy protection in the architects’ briefs.

A monitoring system, then, should include the vetting of architectural designs by peer groups, interior designers, acoustic experts, and possibly, a user’s group. For questions of privacy and sound pollution can no longer be ignored. They need to be addressed if Auroville is not going to build the slums of the future.