In the advent of this holistic community, they envision building with natural materials such as bamboo and earth. The community building workshops that create these natural earth buildings are the first step in this holistic communitarian approach.
Gia Mantra Global Village is an initiative started by an Architect Donald Seugvera from Mumbai where he envisions in creating and building a community overlooking the Arunachala Mountain in Tiruvannamalai. The global village aims to break barriers and create a community that is not differentiated by tags of class, caste, race, creed, religion or nationality. The way of life, spirituality and sustainable living determines the main objectives of the global village.
The Natural Building Workshop was to get hands on training with the construction with earth and bamboo. Single dwelling spaces that were designed were executed in different sites. The students worked on five sites in total where they got a holistic understanding of the building a built form. They got a hands on training in Pit foundation, random rubble foundation, knotting of bamboo, bamboo and thatch roofing, building walls with CSEB and rammed earth, pointing and finishing a CSEB wall, cement and oxide flooring and experimented with alternate building material ferrocement.
PROJECT LEAD
Ar. Donald Seugvera
He is an architect who graduated from JJ School of Architecture. He has many years of experience of working in high rise projects from Mumbai and New York. He has travelled the world and was part of creating documentaries for BBC.
Ar. Naveen, Ar. Abhishek and Ar. Apoorva
As alumni of RVS Padmavathy School of Architecture and lead architects for the project, this trio are fresh graduates with raw talent and a fire to make a change.
STUDENTS
BUILDINGS
MATERIALS and CONSTRUCTION
