New youth communities

In the last couple of years, two new communities have been born for youth in Auroville: Kriya and Anitya. Each has a very different model of community, and they both embrace low-cost alternative building technologies. The community of Kriya was initiated, and is stewarded, by the Housing Service, and has room for 50 residents. Anitya, on the other hand, is a small community that was initiated by the community members themselves. 

Housing Service’s Sonja and Ole point out that these two projects aim to address two major challenges of Auroville: the problem of encroachment on Auroville land, as well as Auroville’s need to attract more young people - a need that was identified in the 2014 retreat. The Housing Service has sought to enact this strategy, says Sonja, because “we need young people, as they are likely to start things and work energetically.” 

Both communities are located on plots of land that lie between Auroville’s centre and Edyanchavadi village - plots that were experiencing some encroachment. Ole also points out that these two communities and their low-cost housing aim to capture some of the “human unity and community spirit” of the pioneer days, which he claims has been lost as more people in Auroville become “separated by having more of a western lifestyle”.

Anitya - embracing impermanence

The seed for Anitya community was planted at an eco-village design course in Pitchandikulam Forest three years ago. Some of the participants were sparked by a dreaming session in which they expressed  their desire for a sustainable community space. They continued to meet and discuss how to find alternatives to the community and housing models that were being presented to them in Auroville. Serena, for example, was living at the time in the “concrete apartment block” Newcomer complex Maitreye 2, where, she points out, “you’re placed into a community, rather than creating it.” Over time, the group solidified into eight adults and one child with a common vision of wanting to create a community with people with shared ideals, where they could build their own houses and experiment with natural materials, and take care of some land.  “We had a longing for community, and this energy to give and serve,” says Serena. “We want to be like the pioneers, to work with our hands and create places and community.” 

For the first year, the group met three times a week to “work on” themselves and address “the human element” of community, says Serena. “If we’re supposed to have human unity, the first thing we should do is try to find shared values in each other and trust each other, and building a community is a very strong way of doing that. The pioneers had that.” The team also absorbed advice from many quarters, including from a human permaculture expert, and got their meetings “down to a tee”, says Serena. “We listen, share, our tasks get done, no one talks over the top of others.” Then they presented their ideas to the wider community. “It took a lot of work to gain trust from the Auroville community,” says Serena. “We did a lot of presentations, a lot of pitching, so people could understand what we wanted to do and how we could help Auroville. And finally we got given this land to take care of in November 2017.” 

When the Anitya community members brainstormed the ideals for setting up their community, they identified the concept of impermanence as a core value. “The idea is to build a community together, not just houses for each of us,” says Nikethana, one of the Anitya team. “We didn’t relate to the idea of being provided a house to go and stay in. We all wanted to choose the people we live with, and to come together for a vision that is larger than just a house to live in.” Therefore, the members aim to not “get stuck” on the idea of being attached to one piece of land or one home.  

The team’s larger vision is therefore an umbrella project named Joy of Impermanence, under which Anitya and two or three future communities will sit.  “It’s completely an experiment,” says Nikethana, as she explains that the existing Anitya community will live for five years on the Anitya land, before moving to another plot under the Joy of Impermanence umbrella. This may include moving as an entire community or dispersing into different communities, and possibly even taking their houses with them to the new sites.  “Can we be stewards of the land, of a space,” questions Nikethana, “and yet be able to let it go, and move somewhere else?” 

Serena points out that the Joy of Impermanence project aims to fulfill the Auroville charter’s statement that “Auroville belongs to no one in particular”, and she says the Anitya community is “really trying to live that.” She positions the community as “caretakers” of the land, who are bringing infrastructure into Auroville, enjoying using sustainable materials and having the freedom to self-build. “I learnt so much building this community,” she says, “and I have more respect for it. If something goes wrong, I can fix it. Whereas, in other communities, people take the building for granted because it’s given to them. In Kriya [when Serena is staying temporarily], if something goes wrong, I call Housing. There’s a sense of disconnection in that.” 

The plot given to Anitya lies near Sacred Groves (not far from Center Guest House), and was commonly used by villagers as a shortcut to Auroville’s centre, or for herding goats and cows. It was also used as a village toilet, so the Anitya team took advice from the village youth about how to sensitively establish their presence on the land.  “People advised us that if you instantly put up a fence, the next day you’re in trouble, because people use the land,” says Nikethana. “So we put in pillars, and we waited a few months before the fence was put in. We didn’t really have any issues, once the fence was put up.”

The community received a Government of India (GOI) grant for infrastructure, but were a little unprepared for the amount of work involved. “It’s been a godsend,” says Serena, “because infrastructure is super expensive and huge work, and it has been a huge learning for me.”  With the help of many enthusiastic volunteers, the team dug for four months by hand to connect to the water supply from Sacred Groves and Aurodam’s electricity. 

The GOI grant enabled the community to build some common buildings, which incorporated different construction concepts employed by Auroville units such as Earth Institute and Bamboo Centre. “The whole idea of this community is that we try and do things ourselves, or at least be part of the building process,” says Nikethana. “We’re trying to be self-sufficient in how we use our resources and how we use our manpower to do things.”  The rammed earth community social space-cum-office was built in collaboration with Auroville’s Earth Institute, and with the help of many volunteers in the heat of summer. “Earthwork is very exhausting and it was a great lesson to see what goes into these structures,” observes Nikethana. The community kitchen is a dismantlable structure that the community purchased from Evergreen community, which they took down, transported and reconstructed within one day. A “Johnny-inspired capsule”, previously used as a temporary office at Kalpana, was transported intact by truck through Auroville to its new home - as a light-hearted YouTube video depicts. The community built an earthbag dome house, based on a smaller prototype they built in Kriya, which will be used as a healing space. The dry compost toilets and showers were designed with the help of architects. The plot initially felt “like a desert”, so the team planted trees and vegetables as a first measure, and the community is still establishing landscaping, rainwater catchment and water retention measures. 

The constructions therefore reflect the Anitya team’s intentions of impermanence. Buildings can either be moved and taken with community members when they shift to another site. Or they can be demolished and “go back into the earth”, says Nikethana. “A key point for us is to be as ecologically friendly as possible in how we build and use land. For us, dry compost toilets were a must, not just for the water crisis, but also for completing the cycle of using the resources as much as possible.” A solar pump is used to pump water for the community, and the community - which is currently connected to the grid - intends to go fully solar when they can raise the funds. 

Now that the common buildings are finished, the Anitya community members are faced with building their own homes, from their own funds, and then they can start living on the land. They have, however, faced a few hold-ups due to personnel changes in Auroville’s working groups, which has meant that their applications for their own houses have been in limbo.  “It’s frustrating,” says Serena. “The paperwork we submitted was not passed on in the handovers. Different formats have come into place, and everything is questioned again. It’s constant stop start, stop start. The GOI grant wants us living on the land by 2020.” Serena and Nikethana point out how construction of the community’s office, made with the Earth Institute and many volunteers, was delayed by a few months due to Auroville’s slow approval process, by which time contractors and volunteers had moved on to other projects. “Then we had to build in peak summer, with fewer volunteers,” says Serena. “It was hard, building from 8am to 5pm in the full sun in April and May. Many people got sunstroke.”

Nikethana points out that - because some of Auroville’s temporarily dismantlable  communities have, in the past, “not worked out in the way they were projected” - the Anitya team is compelled to “rebuild trust” in this approach with the Housing Service and wider community. To that end, the team has now crafted clear documents that can be given to L’Avenir each time there is a handover, “so that we don’t get stopped each time,” says Serena. “We don’t want to be a pain and we want this to move, so we’re seeing how we can help.”

While the land is slated to eventually be a high-density residential zone, Housing Service says that this is unlikely in the next two decades. In the meantime, the Anitya team is focused on the grass-roots reality on the ground, and is making efforts to be a bridge to the nearby village.  A bamboo hut on the community’s plot has been provided to Auroville outreach project Thamarai, for homework support for village children every evening. Anitya also employs a gardener-caretaker from the village. “He’s been a saviour for us,” says Serena. “He talks to everyone who comes past, so it helps to be that bridge, which has been our mission. We want it to be a two-way thing. It’s been quite a journey so far!”

The Anitya crew are keen to get their own houses built because they have “itchy feet to get on the land,” says Serena. “As soon as we get the green light, boom! We’ll be there.”  In the meantime, they are all living at Kriya community, as a step in their own community-building process. 

Kriya

Kriya is the first project of its kind for the Housing Service. Most large residential housing projects in Auroville consist of permanent architect-designed structures that are built by a contractor, with a community member as a project holder, where people ‘contribute’ in order to become a steward of their own apartment. In contrast, with Kriya, the Housing Service itself has undertaken the project holder role in building and ongoing stewardship of a community. Kriya also aims to use as much sustainable and dismantlable  technology as possible, and to make housing as cheaply as possible.  The Youth Housing Selection Group chooses the youths who live in Kriya, who pay a monthly contribution which enables Housing to take care of the maintenance. While Housing Service has a similar project holder-steward arrangement with youth housing project Humanscapes in the residential zone, Kriya is different with its emphasis on simple sustainable technology and its feeling of being closer to the earth. 

The Kriya community spans a 2.5 acres plot (about 10,000 square metres) located on the tar road near Edyanchavadi, and includes a plot bought through Acres for Auroville’s fundraising initiatives. The residential community for 50 people also shares the land with the workshops of two Auroville units: TreeCare and Sumark, the construction unit that built Kriya in collaboration with Housing Service. “We’re all former youth of Auroville,” says Ole from Housing Service about the units, “and we all sat down together to figure out how to share the land, and then we went back to L’Avenir and Housing with a plan to share the infrastructure.” 

Like Anitya, Kriya is located on land that is projected to be a high-density housing area in future, so the Housing Service has prioritised cheap and semi-permanent housing solutions that can be easily removed after 20 or 30 years. Because the Housing Service received a Government of India (GOI) grant to build Kriya, it was necessary for them to use a “tried and tested” prototype for semi-permanent housing, says Ole. Therefore, the prototype for Kriya’s single units is the Maison des Jeunes units behind Town Hall; and the model for Kriya’s family homes is the dismantlable structures in Pony Farm.

With the help of Kevin and Peter from Sumark, Ole then took up the challenge of refining these models within the “very minimal budget”, trying to make them “more environmentally friendly” and with a “smaller carbon footprint.”  The GOI grant provided Rs50 lakh for each of three phases of building, so it was a considerable challenge to build housing for 50 people at a cost of Rs 10-20,000 per square meter, including fans, electricity, and implementation of a borewell and waste water system.  Ole recounts that, according to the requirements of all GOI-funded projects that they be inspected by engineers, the project came under the purview of the Pondicherry Engineering College, whose experts were very interested in this non-standard approach to construction.

In order to construct the homes as cheaply as possible, Ole and Sumark made the infrastructure as simple as possible, for example, adapting designs in order to minimise sewage, water and electrical lines. The first phase of 14 single units - based on Louis Cohen’s model in Maison des Jeunes -  utilised prefabricated wall panels made of thermocol and fly ash sandwiched between cement boards. The second “more environmentally friendly” phase of units for couples are made from mud walls, based on the prototype of Sumark’s workshop. “We thought, wow, this works well, let’s build houses out of it,” says Ole. Designed by Kevin from Sumark, these homes are made from mud and coconut fibre that is plastered onto welded mesh panels that sit tongue-in-groove into an exposed metal frame. “This is new - to have the metal inside the mud,” says Ole. “Lots of architects have come and some are starting to copy it inside Auroville.” 

For all homes, a false ceiling of pine wood sits under an open metal roof that enables hot air to circulate, which keeps the building cool and gives a “cottage feel,” says Ole. “They’re  mostly mosquito and rat proof, relatively comfortable. They have a really low thermal mass, so the second the sun is gone, they cool down quickly.  The residents went through a whole summer last year, and we had no complaints from them. We have more complaints from Humanscapes, which cost four times as much!”

Ole points out that the project had to keep things minimal and cut corners, “but not corners that will cost us later.” For example, Ole bought the electrical materials himself in Pondicherry, in order to save costs. And while the engineering college told them they could not make glass windows within the small budget, the team at Sumark devised glass windows that slide on small wheels but do not have an aluminium frame. “It’s possible with some improvisation,” he asserts. “Everything is minimal.”  

As well as its own borewell, Kriya has a state-of-the-art wastewater treatment system imported from Germany, which treats the sewage with pressurised air while using low amounts of electricity. Ole shows me the system’s last chamber, by which stage the water is clear and free of smell. “You can put it in a bottle and it looks like mineral water. It meets international standards for gardening and food production.” While the treated wastewater is provided to each home through an outdoor tap, Ole says there has been a mixed response from the residents. “The foreigners were immediately happy to use it to grow bananas and vegetables, but the locals living here initially didn’t like using waste water. It’s not considered to be clean. But I think now they have seen that it’s clean and they are using it.” 

The Kriya community now has room to house 50 people, and consists of 14 rooms for singles with a common kitchen, six two-bedroom family flats, and six couple flats. The houses are designed to last for about 25-30 years. If and when necessary, the houses can be dismantled and the walls, roof and ceiling can be reused.  

One significant difference between Kriya and most Auroville communities is that it consists of ‘residents’ who pay a monthly contribution to maintain the buildings. (In Kriya, singles pay Rs1500; couples Rs2500; families Rs3000). While Housing Service has been criticised by some for implementing this rent-like model, Ole claims the contributions are barely enough to maintain the buildings and infrastructure. And despite the complaints, youths continue to put their names down for housing in Kriya. “More of this needs to be done,” says Serena, who is living in Kriya until she can move to Anitya. “Some of the prices out there for housing are ridiculous. So this is amazing.”

In contrast to Kriya, most Auroville communities consist of stewarded apartments, which Ole says, has become more like ownership in Auroville. “Stewards in Auroville feel more entitled than owners in other parts of the world. They want to have a say on who lives 200 metres on the other side of the community. Where in the world do you have that kind of say? You don’t even get to choose your next door neighbour elsewhere.”

Living in Kriya

Serena has been living in Kriya since it was implemented 18 months ago. “The first thing we did was plant the trees,” she says.  “This was nice, and connected us to the space and gave us a sense of working on the land.” She initially lived in a single unit, and then took a “step up in quality” to a couples unit. “Living in a mud earth building, the energy is amazing,” she says. “And we have glass on the windows. I’ve never been dry in Auroville when it rains! This double ceiling is really nice. So the physical structure of these couple units are fantastic. I can hardly fault it.”

The challenges for Kriya residents include noise from neighbours  – “That’s a standard problem for Auroville” says Serena, “people drinking in the nearby field” – and the slightly inconvenient location on the “fringe” of Auroville, which necessitates taking the tar road and leaves the homes vulnerable to occasional theft. 

Most Kriya members are new Aurovilians, like Serena. About half the community’s population is Tamil, from the nearby village of Edayanachavady. Serena points out that “there was a bit of a divide” in the beginning, and that not enough people attended community meetings and quite a few residents returned to their village homes to eat dinner. But she says that this has changed as more Tamil youths have joined the community. “Now they cook and eat together in the shared kitchen, so there’s a strong bond now, they have created a community.” And for the last two seasons, the Kriya community has taken charge of its own cashew harvesting, which means early morning work throughout the hot months. 

Ole points out that many local youths did not originally want to live in Kriya, because they felt the houses were not “proper” enough. Some of these youths instead sought to live in the “more proper housing” complex Humanscapes. But this has now changed. Ole and Sonja claim that many youths now request to come to Kriya for the “community spirit”. Sonja says that Kriya’s composition of “people from everywhere” means that they “invest more energy in community building and deciding things together.” She contrasts this to Humanscapes’ composition that includes many second-generation Aurovilians who “go home [to their parents] to eat. They don’t need to create a community.” Ole points out that Kriya residents can plant their own vegetable gardens, for which there is abundant recycled waste water.

Ole says the Housing Service is “happy” with the way in which Kriya has manifested.  “This was an empty field a few years ago, and people were so critical when we first put these buildings, saying ‘No one will want to live here, and it’s horrible and in the sun.’ Now you can hardly see the buildings because it’s already green. And now a lot of people ask to live here now. We’ve even had people who went to look at Humanscapes, and said they prefer to stay in Kriya. Here, they water the trees, and can grow vegetables, and have some connection to the place and each other.”

Learnings for the future

Can Kriya be seen as a model for building communities for youth? Ole argues in the affirmative, especially in terms of cost and the speed at which it was achieved.  Kriya’s construction began in January 2017, and the first two phases were completed within one year. Ole compares this with Sacred Groves, an environmentally-friendly low-cost housing project that has been in process for five years, where the prototypes “are still not completed,” and where no one is living yet. He also compares Kriya to Humanscapes, which cost four times the amount of Kriya.  

So what has been Housing Service’s main learning from these projects that aim to build with sustainable technologies? “Small cheap prototypes,” says Ole. “Definitely not more than one storey, so if it falls down it’s not so dangerous. Things should be tested before making them.” He points out that Kriya’s building team took feedback from residents living in the prototypes in Maisons des Jeunes and Pony Farm, and the team keeps trying to modify existing designs or try new things.

Housing Service plans to build more projects along Kriya lines, with Housing Service as the project holder. They plan to engage youths, architects and builders in a collective design process in order to come up with prototypes. All of this is intended to replace the early keet hut with a more contemporary version – keet being an unviable material these days, due to its high cost and need for regular replacement. 

“In all ways, it’s fantastic,” says Ole, about Kriya’s potential as a model. “It protected the land, created a new community, created the possibility for young people to come and settle in Auroville. The whole project cost about 1.5 crores to accommodate 50 people. This is the most innovative of the low cost housing projects at the moment.”

The Anitya team – who are all currently living in Kriya until they can build their homes on Anitya’s land – also hope that their approach to community building under the Joy of Impermanence umbrella can become a showcase. Serena points out how it can be hard for new people in Auroville to get access to knowledge, so the Anitya team is documenting everything, so that on open days, “visitors can come through and see what’s possible. We will make signs with QR codes so people can scan their phone and learn everything about how that building was made.” The team also hopes to help other people set up communities, to share their own knowledge and “help with the bureaucratic side”. 

“Joy of Impermanence is a dream of mine, and it’s coming true,” says Serena, “and I’m very grateful for that opportunity that Auroville has given us to create that space. As youth Newcomers, we want a chance to do what the pioneers did. Let us get our hands dirty. We have energy and some sweat to spare, so let us do something positive. There’s so much bureaucratic process now, we’re getting stuck. We’re putting many hours day and night into this project, not for any maintenances, but because we believe in it, and we want to achieve. We want the chance to help manifest this dream.”