SacredGroves: a model for construction with consciousness

Thirty-five sets of quivering and outstretched hands meet in the center of a large circle to pump up and down three times – a great instantaneous “whoop!” is shouted – and they are tossed into the air. Another work day at Sacred Groves has begun. These hands belong to the women and men that make up the design, project management and construction team responsible for completing Auroville’s Sacred Groves, an affordable ecological community living project currently under construction. The team is composed of a rotating group of individuals from disparate backgrounds, each one bringing a unique skill set and purpose. Most striking is the number of individuals in this morning circle that have come to Sacred Groves as volunteers and interns, paid in kind through housing and meals, and committed themselves for a minimum of three months to the project. “Does everyone know their team? Everyone all set?” Manu Gopalan concept designer, architect, project leader, manager and general group motivator – checks in before the teams take off for their stations on the red clay work site.

The Sacred Groves community, Manu’s brainchild, was conceived of as an alternative solution to the shortage of affordable housing for prospective Aurovilians that cannot afford the high costs of purchasing a home in Auroville. Three years ago, the emphasis of the project was to develop a new housing approach in Auroville that addressed this concern, with 12 different designs under consideration – including those using bamboo, mud, steel and concrete. This discourse segued into new project criteria: to use only ecological building materials and practices. Sacred Groves’ philosophical component as a community that naturally evokes interdependent co-living and generates less monthly bills grew from there. Here, families would have more time to spend together and with their community, and quite simply, more time to dedicate to activities that do not require money, but nourish the soul. Ground was broken on July 22nd, 2013 and a tentative completion date has been set for August 15th, 2017. The affordable Eco-village will provide 108 homes for Newcomers, Aurovilians and long-term volunteers, and will be available as single, double and family units. The resulting framework and objective of the development is entirely new, pioneering a resourceful and innovative model for self-sustainable, ecological community living, and is being built using only ecologically-sensitive construction methods. With a design that seamlessly integrates affordable high-density housing with farming, agroforestry, forestry, community living and urban co-working spaces, Sacred Groves is replicable in high-density urban areas throughout India and elsewhere. Not only will this lifestyle nurture a stronger, cohesive and more conscious community, but it will also take some heat off the planet.

The notion that individualistic, money-driven and high-carbon urban lifestyles are responsible for the world and its inhabitants’ ever-growing environmental, societal and individual problems is at the very heart of the project. The Sacred Groves blog states: “We offer the opportunity for a simpler, more self-sufficient yet interdependent and ecological way of living that allows more time for family, community and the nourishment of the soul.” Sacred Groves will achieve this affordable, low maintenance, off-grid Eco-housing by incorporating entirely self-sufficient infrastructure, including a power system that uses solar, wind, pumped storage and biomass energy; a water system that stores rainwater and harvests gray-water; organic vegetable gardens that provide a substantial amount of produce for each household; active preservation of forest areas on the site; use of thick walls and passive cooling systems that negate the need for air conditioning and even fans; installation of composting toilets; and construction of shared spaces and utilities that strengthen the community’s interdependence.

The intern and volunteer powerhouse

Sacred Groves’ aspiration to establish and nurture environmental and societal consciousness as a lifestyle is not mere branding, but something which one discovers manifests itself on the job site every day as volunteers, interns, laborers and project leaders engage in frank discussion over topics like recent technical mistakes, setting realistic objectives and improvement of management strategies. Team participation during problem-solving sessions – whether on a technical or interpersonal level – is mandatory and fundamental to maintaining a unified group and achieving a common goal. The morning circle, which takes place in the “Sacred Circle” under an inviting shelter of trees lined with benches and chalkboards, is a daily and essential ritual at the project site. Each morning, time is allotted for a group exercise, words of the day borrowed from The Mother’s calendar, collective agreement on the day’s task and respective team responsibilities, as well as any relevant discussion of pending large purchases or major construction issues. Loving care is taken to keep this communal space, where meals and teatime are also held, tidy and welcoming. An operations board hangs on a tree for anyone to float ideas or topics up for discussion – below “Water tank centering” someone has written, “Reiki offer” followed by a smiley face. A corner of the board is dedicated to “Initiatives,” where various volunteers have proposed Saturday morning micro-project ideas such as “Cow proof gates” and “Rubble management system.” These micro-projects are usually small, isolated tasks such as building a bench for the morning circle or organizing the tools, with the intention of maintaining a high standard of efficiency and comfort on the job site. Micro-projects are just one example of the strategies leaders implement to keep the teams on task; considering a project of this size that will take many years to complete, long outlasting individuals’ time spent at Sacred Groves, many find satisfaction in watching these small projects reach completion.

Volunteer and intern commitment, which makes up over two-thirds of the workforce, is essential to the success of the construction of Sacred Groves on both a practical and ideological level. This challenging approach to larger scale housing construction, though in part due to budget constraints, is an intentional departure from the usual employment of large truckloads of materials and hired labour that come from outside Auroville. Not only does this lower the cost of construction, but builds the intentional philosophy of the community from the very ground up. Of the volunteers and interns that he guides and advises every day, Manu says: “This approach is superior to an approach in which many hired workers are brought on to the job site because here everyone has come with a fundamental motivation beyond payment. They come with natural passion and drive. Without the element of money, people tend to be more creative and more open to discussion. When people are talking about design decisions in a corporate environment, they tend to be ‘yes’ men or women to the boss. This is problematic because it doesn’t allow for objectivity and makes it difficult to analyze the real value or worth of different ideas in a detached way. Egos become enlarged and people tend to stick to a hierarchical approach of response. Here, there is a lot of freedom for people of all levels of experience and backgrounds to say what they feel will and won’t work.”

The tendency to take ownership ideas and manifest this attitude during the construction process is exactly what Sacred Groves is lacking, and objectively speaking, is exactly what seems to allow it to thrive. The experimental process of refining building techniques levels the playing field and encourages all interns, volunteers and laborers to actively participate in decision-making; awareness that there is always a better and more efficient way of doing things keeps egos at bay. It is this compassionate and dedicated discourse that allows social boundaries to disintegrate; the traditional structure of decision-making and delegating tasks is leveled. When asked about their interactions with the paid workers on the project, the volunteers and interns mention that occasionally there are basic language difficulties, but enthusiastically agree that once they began working alongside the laborers a feeling of comradeship immediately grew. Shreya, an architecture intern from Mysore, appreciates that no one is treated differently here: “Elsewhere, you wouldn’t know the workers’ names. Here, you work with them and you have fun with them. They treat us the same way; that’s what happens. If you look at them one way, they look at you a new way…they share their lives and their families.” Subramani, a highly skilled mason who worked on the Matrimandir, has been a vital resource for many of the interns who had no practical experience on a job site before, perhaps had never even learned how to take measurements. Shyama, an architecture intern from Mysore, acknowledges the wealth of information the Tamilians hold, having worked with the earth their entire lives. Shyama mentions her gratitude for this opportunity, adding: “In a more sterile or corporate environment, you lose the opportunity to learn from others.”

The drawbacks of unpaid labor

To ignorant eyes, the work site is still just heaps and craters of red clay dirt. However, over the course of a week, one notices significant marks of progress as the clay is molded into the foundation of a new water tank here, and the foundation of the first apartment there. The pace at which the job site evolves is a reminder that work is being done entirely by hand, with minimal use of machines. This is beneficial to the design of the project. “Here we are in it for a longer period, and need to look at it with a more reflective approach,” Manu says. Naturally, there are also drawbacks to using a team of two-thirds unpaid labor. The most obvious is the transient nature of knowledgeable and skilled volunteers who have come to Sacred Groves to learn specific, practical skills and enjoy hands-on involvement in a project that appeals to them on an ideological level, but have a full-time career or school waiting back home. This is one of the greatest challenges Manu faces: “The coming and going of volunteers is difficult as it is hard to be the hub of knowledge. However, we are lucky to have attracted people who are committed to longer stays, and individuals with highly specialized skills always seem to arrive just at the right time. Until now, we haven’t felt the need to advertise for help. Call it divine chance or providence or whatever you want, but one day we will notice a need for specialized help, then somehow someone will come and fill the gap.” When electrical expert, Nicholas from France, left to travel around India for three weeks, another electrician, Richard from the UK, turned up the next day perfectly filling in the three week gap. The work force of 35 people is just right at this stage of the project as it allows for teams to work on sub-projects – a larger number would be too difficult as there wouldn’t be enough work for everyone.

Project phasing

Sacred Groves has been designed in phases; at this moment, the team is still in the “incubator phase,” which includes the construction of three homes, a common house for meals and communal gathering and the infrastructure, which includes waste management, water and power systems. Allotment of the first homes will begin in October 2014. The next phase will be up to 20 homes, the next 88, and so on until completion. These phases will take shape in different ways: the first consists of experimenting with the materials themselves, exploring different strategies to organize work crews, tweaking the design and developing infrastructure. As kinks are worked out, Manu anticipates that the process will gain speed and momentum so that the future phases are about replication rather than innovation. The team has anticipated that work on the infrastructure will evolve as each phase of the project is completed, since Sacred Groves will not use mega, centralized power, sewage and water systems, but rather modular upgrades. Each row of houses will have its own shared systems of waste management, power, food growth and water storage. The ratio of volunteer and intern labor to hired labor may change as the project picks up speed, but this depends on the success of the crew’s construction of quality living infrastructure at the site; if the crew does well in this stage, the hope is that this accomplishment will attract more long-term volunteers committed to building teams of short-term volunteers around themselves, so that the majority of the construction will be managed by the smaller teams of volunteers. Inevitably there will be more hired laborers, but this will not sacrifice the integrity of the current aim, which is to always have proportionately more volunteers.

Setting an example for greener construction in India

On a larger scale, Sacred Groves is a sober reaction to the detrimental and unsustainable practices of the construction industry in India, which is responsible for devastating ecological problems, such as the illegal mining and quarrying of rock that destroys vast new areas of forest and hills in India every day. The dredging of sand from rivers alters their flow, adversely affecting aquatic life. Indiscriminate dumping of construction and demolition waste into the wetland areas surrounding cities results in the saturation of vital water bodies and naturally occurring aquifers. With each of these major concerns in mind, Sacred Groves reuses building rubble from various sites in Pondicherry and Auroville, such as the Matrimandir and Sri Aurobindo Ashram, recycled wood from packing crates, reused discarded petrol pump pipes for shuttering, reused Tetra Pak cartons to make innovative furniture; practices mindfulness of its own construction waste by reusing, recycling and composting as much as possible; and is diligent and aware of its own use of scarce resources like energy and water. The team has developed several innovative building techniques, including the use of “earth concrete,” which is a mixture of water, recycled rubble and a small amount of cement.

The far-reaching goals and impact of the project has caught the attention of young architecture students from all over India. India, as an incubator for accelerated technological development and new construction, draws the attention of young people interested in overcoming many of the mistakes that the West made in the 19th and 20th centuries, aspiring instead to jump ahead to the green and environmentally conscious developments of the 21st. The architecture interns are in unanimous agreement that what drove them to this internship in particular was the possibility of working with the materials hands-on, therefore gaining tangible insight into sustainable Eco-design methods. Students that have spent their education behind computer screens, thinking solely conceptually, eagerly embrace the opportunity to tactilely experience building materials. Awareness of each element of the building process leads to smarter choices during the design stage, reducing construction waste and stemming the destruction of natural resources, which is fundamental to India’s impact on the world. Shreya chose to come to Sacred Groves rather than intern at a corporate firm in Bombay where she anticipated working on a product, such as a skyscraper, because she wants to be aware of what her design means for the environment and for the people working on it once it is handed over to a contractor. Venkat, an architecture intern from Chennai, is interested in how a community like this impacts individual lives: “This is changing the way we live! The social aspect is the key thing to focus on,” he says. He adds that he will never look at products the same way, and now tends to deconstruct the components of a chair, for instance – thinking, “I can make that myself!” – astutely conscious of the waste that resulted from its assembly in a factory. Gilles, a volunteer from Canada with a background in patenting and theoretical work, feels that his mission is to try to distill the best that the West has to offer: “This is an opportunity to say, ‘Don’t do this! This is where we’ve screwed up. Be careful of this!’” There are volunteers motivated by even more personal stories, like Mani, a Newcomer and volunteer on the project, who grew up in a Tamil Nadu village now threatened by a river that has been encroaching on the village for the last couple decades because of ruthless sand dredging and damming. Regardless of the initial impulse, however, the interns and volunteers each independently remark that this has changed their entire consciousness – environmentally, socially, even spiritually – regarding their future designs and work.

Maintaining “creative tension”

A phrase often uttered around the job site is “creative tension” or “dynamic tension,” an expression of the daily tension that arises from the result of individuals amalgamating both Western and Eastern perspectives and expectations and bringing, at times, diametrically opposing notions of time and organization. The morning circle discussion of how to structure each day would be an example of a classical Western approach. Acceptance that this is simultaneously a creative and experimental undertaking that must first exist in harmony with the earth and its materials might be called Eastern. This has allowed for a fluid and creative approach to meeting deadlines and expectations. “Relying on creative tension to guide the process is necessary, and in order to evoke more tension, we have to have many more leaders with different approaches in order to bring forth these feelings of tension,” Manu remarks. This tension lends itself to the important dialogue of how to develop sustainable techniques that can be used widely, not just here at Sacred Groves; it is most important to find out what is sustainable and replicable in other situations and countries. Sand-ford, a microbiologist from the United States, expresses concern that without this in mind, Sacred Groves is at risk of becoming an “artistic project.” “It would lose its relevance in solving global environmental problems. This is happening to a certain extent because Sacred Groves is very experimental in terms of its volunteer and community nature, so there is a lack of technical expertise and truly long-term management and professional skills. In a volunteer project like this, there still needs to be long-term staff in order to maintain continuity and for technical expertise to be put to use,” says Sand-ford. Small measures such as tweaking communication, making individuals accountable for tangible goals and deadlines, and careful tracking of the planning and building phase of each component are areas constantly in flux and various stages of improvement. Fortunately, it is this tension that also lends itself to the very essence of Sacred Groves as a community from the ground up, and nurtures this inherent trait. The future Sacred Groves community will naturally experience this dynamic tension, too, and accepting this challenge now means adopting better methods in the future. Manu feels that in this way people learn rules and responsibilities, and he encourages them to step up. Nicholas, who has taken a couple of turns leading days at the work site, notes: “I came with a lot of expectations, ideas, visions…well, I cannot work here the way I used to in Europe or other Western countries. It was frustrating in the beginning… But manifesting this consciousness of cohesiveness, community, openness and sharing from the start is important. Environmental consciousness is a Western consciousness and instilling this mindset in the workers is one of the most challenging aspects of the project.”

So what does Sacred Groves mean for Auroville? For the planet? Even in Auroville, a place that was founded on the principle of working together as a community, or city, to build a universal consciousness, one notices that individuals have moved away from aiding each other in the construction of homes. Sacred Groves institutes strategies for people to work together again, returning to this objective of building a communal consciousness – one that addresses the needs of individuals, society and the planet. By being situated in the developing world, the mission of Sacred Groves represents a psychological shift that has not yet been accepted in the West. Sacred Groves’ handling of its dynamic tension between Easterners and Westerners – the concept of deadlines, awareness of better building methods, harmoniousness with the planet, expectations for efficiency, simultaneous attention to the needs of individual and soul – becomes a microcosm for a global tension that still needs to happen. As we race the clock to create room for the future billions of people that will arrive on this planet before the end of the century, we must concurrently and constantly reevaluate our conception of time, which arises from the mental burden of needing and wanting. Focusing on deadlines like, “I need to finish this house by August,” and rushing ahead using unsustainable practices defeats the purpose of Eco-communities and projects such as this one. In this way, Sacred Groves becomes a mentor for Auroville, India and anyone else watching, and an indispensable example of a centered and thoughtful, but purposeful, approach to the actions we take.