Biome Environmental Solutions

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Projects

Waghoba Ecolodge

Location:

Year: 2021-2023

Site Area:  sq.ft.

Built up Area:  sq.ft.

Waghoba Ecolodge is a 16-cottage resort situated near the Tadoba Wildlife Sanctuary. The project aimed to restore the land to its original deciduous forest state and promote responsible tourism. To enhance biodiversity, a water body was incorporated by creating a lake through desilting channels and storing rainwater and treated wastewater. The main building and its welcome area overlook this lake, offering reflected views of the forest beyond. The cottages provide a forest living experience, designed to reduce cooling loads with passive strategies. Staff housing and dormitories prioritise privacy while ensuring natural light and views. The material palette reflects the hues of the surrounding landscape - stabilised adobe blocks made from site soil, local sandstone, conical pottery tiles. The tiles are used in making vaulted roofs in collaboration with Centre for Science for Villages (CSV) Wardha.

Design Team: Biome

Contractor:

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Action for Social Advancement Office

Location: Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh)

Year: 2016-2020

Site Area:  sq.ft.

Built up Area: 10000 sq.ft.

The office for Action for Social Advancement (ASA), a nonprofit development organisation, has been designed as an inclusive and collaborative work space. Due to concerns of waterlogging, the building is raised by a floor and the site converted into a wetland. This hosts diverse aquatic and semi aquatic flora and creates a nesting space for birds. A stepwell creates a community gathering space, demonstrating the social values of ASA. The building has an RCC framed structure and exposed masonry. The adobe blocks are manufactured locally by mixing available black cotton soil at site with fly ash, cement and lime. Passive design features such as deep overhangs, balconies and courtyards also become spillover spaces, creating gathering spaces on upper floors as well. Appropriate systems of lighting and air cooling are integrated to reduce the operational energy usage.

Design Team: Chitra Vishwanath, Anurag Tamhankar, Ramya M.A.

Contractor: Vastudrishti Constructions

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Eklavya Office

Location: Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh)

Year: 2016-2020

Site Area:  sq.ft.

Built up Area: 35000 sq.ft.

Eklavya is a non-profit NGO working in the education sector. The head office building was intended to meet the organisation’s various requirements and demonstrate their ethos. The building’s orientation and zoning of functions reduce radiation gain. Deep balconies shade large openings, bringing in daylight to working areas. The western façade with discarded railway windows reduces heat gain and temperature fluctuation in the godown. Heat gain from the roof is reduced by designing a green roof for growing food, solar panels covering rooftop and deck insulation. Walls are made of composite stabilised fly ash earth bricks made from the soil available in the vicinity and are left exposed. Partition walls in the office area are made with discarded paper rolls from Eklavya’s publication wing. This, along with exposed RCC elements and IPS floor, significantly reduces material consumption and wastage. Water management systems are integrated into the design. These help make the campus attempt self sufficiency through its edible landscape.

Design Team: Chitra Vishwanath, Anurag Tamhankar, Ramya MA

Contractor: Vastudrishti Consultants

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Atelier School

Location: Bengaluru

Year: 2016-2020

Site Area: 2000 sq.ft.

Built up Area: 2000 sq.ft.

The Atelier, a Reggio Emilia based school, is designed as a temporary structure in response to site limitations. This entails that it can be dismantled and the materials and land recovered in entirety. Conforming to the education system, the spaces are designed in a permeable sense. Eight branching columns support a sloping roof which effects a gentle change in scale. The interior is visually liberating, being perceived entirely as one volume. Walls of varying heights enclose curvilinear spaces, blurring volumetric definition. The external envelope is a pattern of permeable, opaque and transparent surfaces, lighting and ventilating the space. Dotted with skylights, the roof has an insulating bamboo plywood false ceiling which contrasts with the metallic frame. Construction techniques such as chappadi stone foundation, paver block floor, paper tube partition walls and a bolted steel structure make the building transposable.

Design Team: Biome

Contractor:

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The Yellow Train School

Location: Coimbatore, TN

Year: 2011-2015

Site Area: 2 acre

Built up Area: 15000 sq.ft.

The Yellow Train school is based on Waldorf principles wherein children are encouraged to cultivate individual thinking. The kindergarten and primary school is formed like an embryo - very sheltered. An open air theatre becomes an internal courtyard. Due to the guideline-mandated tall classrooms, arches are introduced to achieve a relatable scale. As they spring from the floor, they allow adults to pass only through the middle height while children can run around almost through the entire breadth. The roof and floors are also arched, making the whole space extremely gentle and playful. The levels are designed to create a sheltered playspace along the compound wall, so that children are not at the same level as the road. The design is kept playful by integrating a slide, a large net hammock under a sky-lit space. The broad passages encourage many other activities with their flooring design and create a space to run with abandon. Caves for quiet introspection are tucked under the ramp. Ground floor classrooms open onto the playground while the first floor opens onto a terrace, envisaged for growing vegetables and flowers. A separate garden with water features and pergolas, becomes a quieter, meditative space for teachers.

Design Team: Chitra Vishwanath, Aunrag Tamhankar and Devyani Dayal

Contractor: Ranganath

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Bodhi

Location: Bengaluru

Year: 2016-2020

Site Area: 21000 sq.ft.

Built up Area: 12000 sq.ft.

Bodhi is a sprawling house for a large family with two dogs. The slope of the site is utilised to create a large basement for parking  three antique cars besides three cars in use. Spaces for an office and an entertainment room are also provided in the basement, leaving ample space for a large garden above. The garden is raised to make it easily accessible from the dining space. The double roof system, consisting of the vault and sloping roof, give high thermal insulation. Radiant cooling system, running in the floors of bedrooms, conditions the space with less than half the energy required compared to conventional air conditioners. The home recycles all its waste water within the site and uses it for landscape and flushing. The home also harvests about 10 lakh litres of rainwater annually. 

Design Team: Chitra Vishwanath, Monalika Nanda, Sharath Nayak, Sneha Gokhale, Surabhi Pandurangi

Contractor: Narayan M. C.

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Oland Estate

Location:

Year: 2006-2010

Site Area:  sq.ft.

Built up Area:  sq.ft.

Design Team: Biome

Contractor:

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Residence for Rekha & Sanjay

Location: Bengaluru

Year: 2011-2015

Site Area:  sq.ft.

Built up Area:  sq.ft.

   

Design Team: Biome

Contractor:

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Biome Office #15

Location: Bengaluru (Karnataka)

Year: 2016-2020

Site Area: 2000 sq.ft.

Built up Area: 3800 sq.ft.

The office for Biome is built over an older building - a residence. Through the design, innovations in space, technique and materials are applied and tested. Structural constraints of the existing load bearing building necessitate the use of a light weight steel support and metal roof. This is capitalised further to achieve visual connection across various levels. The main studio space also overlooks foliage of the neighbouring site. Precast panels of terracotta jaali blocks over the metal roof provide shade and break the noise of the falling rain to a considerable extent. The project thus extends Biome's efforts to build on a need rather than a growth-based paradigm, reduce material throughput through reuse of material considered as waste, and create spaces that are sustainable while being people-centric.

Design Team: Sharath Nayak, Chitra Vishwanath, Surabhi Pandurangi, Riddhi Panchal

Contractor: Sri Vidya Constructions

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Residence for Sunith & Shruti

Location: Hyderabad

Year: 2021-2023

Site Area: 7940 sq.ft.

Built up Area: 4550 sq.ft.

The brief was to build a home, a small production space and staff quarters in a site with an existing building. The design approach was for renovation and extension, as the original buildings was in good condition, and could be reused to reduce material footprint and demolition waste.  On the lower floors, the existing functional arrangement was broadly retained. The dismantling of a slab and staircase created double and triple height volumes, providing connection across floors.  Older components and debris were reused to make walls, pergolas and tiled surfaces. New walls were built in compressed stabilised earth blocks, with external walls constructed in alternating courses of 9” and 6” masonry, to address material shortages encountered during the Covid-19 pandemic. The resulting striated pattern is thermally beneficial, self-shading the facade from solar radiation. The renovated structures were also made more water secure with rainwater harvesting and greywater treatment systems.  

Design Team: Sharath Nayak, Siddharth Achaya

Contractor: Sudhir Ganesh

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WRI Office, Interior

Location:

Year: NA

Site Area:  sq.ft.

Built up Area: 3500 sq.ft.

WRI India, an organisation working for environmental and socially equitable development, required an office space following principles of environmental sustainability. Nature is brought in with each desk designed to have its own set of air-purifying plants as dividers, preventing sick-building syndrome. As a break from long hours of sitting, few workstations are designed for standing use. All areas were designed to have universal access to create equality, accessibility going beyond apparent physical disability. Platforms in dining were placed at different heights to enable people with different heights an easy usage. Existing furniture was modified to avoid use of virgin materials and for excess furniture requirement fast growing plantation pinewood was used. Handcrafted durable, plantain fibre curtains made from waste generated by the food industry were used. Open seating arrangement was worked out to ensure sufficient daylight and ventilation in all areas. LED lights, brush less DC motor fans and 5 star rated ACs are used to reduce the energy consumption. Water-efficient pedal taps and low-flow showers are used to reduce water consumption. A treatment system has been designed to recycle kitchen water which can then be used to water the indoor plants.

Design Team: Biome

Contractor:

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Govardhan Eco Village

Location: Wada, Palghar (Maharashtra)

Year: 2006-2010

Site Area:  sq.ft.

Built up Area: 200000 sq.ft.

Govardhan Eco Village, located at the foothills of the Sahyadris, is a retreat for ISKCON devotees near Mumbai. Groundwater management was crucial for the project's sustainability, leading to a hydrogeological study that guided land-use planning. The site has been divided into recharge and discharge zones, preserving water flow and agricultural areas. Wastewater is treated using Soil Biotechnology, and the treated water is utilised for agriculture.The architectural brief was to provide facilities for accommodation, seminar, prayer, wellness, dining and a Gaushala for 100 cows. Buildings have been positioned strategically on high ground for natural ventilation, with spacious semi-covered areas for daytime use. Conscious choice of material and construction techniques, in addition to standardised building elements like arches and windows allowed for faster construction in the window of eight dry months on site.

Design Team: Chitra Vishwanath, Sharath Nayak, Anshu Ahuja, Surabhi Pandurangi

Contractor:

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Mathru Centre for Developmental Disabilities

Location: Bengaluru

Year: 2021-2023

Site Area:  sq.ft.

Built up Area:  sq.ft.

Mathru Centre for Developmental Disabilities is a school for Mathru trust. The site, being a small plot on an important road, required the design to capitalize on the visibility of the school. Two large mango trees to the front, presented both a challenge and an opportunity. They have been retained to provide a shaded space for play and a green view from the front classrooms. Nevertheless, visibility and attention from the road were captured by an entire façade made from reclaimed windows, highlighted through the foliage by a bright yellow paint. The planning of this school has open class rooms and wide passages as wide as the classrooms to allow them to double up as spaces to host other activities. A framed structure was chosen, given the site constraints of space and access. Building materials like windows and doors, sanitary ware and tiles were sourced from leftovers at ongoing construction projects or known vendors or as carefully dismantled parts of structures to be demolished.

Design Team: Chitra Vishwanath, Sharath Nayak, Abhinav

Contractor:

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Residence for Deepthi & Hemanth

Location: Bengaluru

Year: 2016-2020

Site Area:  sq.ft.

Built up Area:  sq.ft.

Design Team: Biome

Contractor:

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Reynold’s Sound and Lighting Office

Location: Bengaluru (Karnataka)

Year: 2021-2023

Site Area:  sq.ft.

Built up Area: 35700 sq.ft.

The office for Reynolds Sound & Lighting is a commercial space designed as two independent blocks to be built in phases. The central atrium, proposed as a space for hosting events, also becomes a source for diffused daylight  across the entire floor plate. The building blocks are designed with a width to achieve an uninterrupted, column-free space and ensure natural light and ventilation in every corner. Parametric terracotta jaali screens are modelled based on the daylight analysis, providing glare-free filtered light inside. Debris generated during construction is used in making the ramp, compound wall and the security cabin. Integrated water management practices ensure 100% harvesting and recharge of rainwater and zero discharge of wastewater from the campus.

Design Team: Chitra Vishwanath, Anurag Tamhankar, Maitri Shah

Contractor: Sri Vidya Constructions

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VAY Retreats

Location:

Year: 2021-2023

Site Area:  sq.ft.

Built up Area:  sq.ft.

Vedanta, Ayurveda and Yoga Retreats, is a 39 room retreat in the Nilgiris, on a steeply sloping land. Each building’s footprint on the ground is minimised to reduce tall stilts on the steep site, and points for drilling into rock. To achieve this, the rear of the villas is designed in RCC, providing a counterweight, and retaining the soil uphill behind each structure. The glass front reduces the load on the cantilevered portion, and opens up to the scenic views to the north. The rainwater from the sloping roofs is harvested through a stainless steel pipe that also supports the staircase, and is collected in a sump that is part of the cantilevered structure, rather than located underground. The site landscape by Vagish Naganur, weaves the natural streams and local flora with the amphitheatres, stone steps and pathways to create a delicate balance between natural and man-made.

Design Team: Biome

Contractor:

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Buddhi School

Location: Bengaluru (Karnataka)

Year: NA

Site Area: 2.7 acre

Built up Area: 18730 sq.ft.

Buddhi School follows Edexcel based education, and inclusive education is a core belief. Therefore, the school is designed to be completely accessible. The building is constructed over the existing rock on site, keeping the foundation cost low, and leaving the soft earth as a play area. The open north-eastern side of the building lets in the morning sun into the classrooms. The longer south and west facades create a shaded courtyard to facilitate outdoor activities. The design creates various spaces to enable learning through playscapes. Various types of harvesting and waste water treatment structures are incorporated, connecting with the land features. One underground tank harvests rooftop rainwater for cooking and drinking purposes while another collects filtered stormwater, used for irrigating the native landscape. The largest water demand - toilet flushing, is met with treated black water, making the school largely water self-sufficient.

Design Team: Chitra Vishwanath, Monalika Nanda, Sneha Gokhale

Contractor: Muralidhar Reddy

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Caramel Residence

Location: Bengaluru

Year: 2016-2020

Site Area:  sq.ft.

Built up Area:  sq.ft.

Design Team: Biome

Contractor:

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Classroom for Spastic Society of Karnataka

Location:

Year: 2001-2005

Site Area:  sq.ft.

Built up Area:  sq.ft.

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Design Team: Biome

Contractor:

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Densewoods

Location: Bengaluru

Year: ongoing

Site Area: 200 acre

Built up Area: 0 sq.ft.

Densewoods is a community proposed by the Greewatersky developers. Ethos of this community is to have a carbon neutral development. Master plan responds to the surface waterflows, developing blue and green corridors along valleys and ridges of the micro watersheds. Large common areas and riparian buffers allow for the conservation of the biodiversity. Each of the plot in this development has more than 300 varieties of native trees, plans and shrubs curated keeping ecology in mind. Houses and clubhouses will be built using responsibly sourced timber.

Design Team: Biome

Contractor:

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Eco House

Location: Bengaluru

Year: 2011-2015

Site Area: 2400 sq.ft.

Built up Area: 3035 sq.ft.

Ecohouse is an attempt to meet basic human needs within the home, relying minimally on external resources. The house constitutes three parts – a basement home-office, the main house and a rental penthouse. Further, the house is composed of a summer bedroom at basement level, living, dining and kitchen on the ground floor, and winter bedroom in the mezzanine. Each basement space has an attached garden court for light. The penthouse is an added income source. Water is supplied from rain, ground water and reclaimed waste water. Nutrient-rich water from kitchen sinks, black water and urine is treated separately and used as soil fertiliser, reducing the quantum of waste. A substantial terrace is dedicated to growing food, exemplified as an urban farm.

Design Team: Biome

Contractor: Prashanth

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Forsyth Lodge

Location: Bengaluru

Year: 2006-2010

Site Area:  sq.ft.

Built up Area:  sq.ft.

Design Team: Biome

Contractor:

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Mathru School for the Blind

Location: Bengaluru

Year: 2006-2010

Site Area:  sq.ft.

Built up Area:  sq.ft.

Mathru School for the Blind is an NGO working to provide education and life skills to visually challenged children from rural poor families. With an extremely tight schedule and budget, the construction also had to be mindful to minimise disturbance to the surrounding residential neighbourhood. The computer lab is housed in the basement, a quieter and cooler part of the school. For ventilation of common areas, jaali blockwork is used, which creates a perceptible draft for the visually impaired students to orient themselves better. Working with the cost constraints, windows are minimised and sourced collaboratively - donated by a client, whose home was being remodelled by Biome. The office has subsequently collaborated with an NGO to design a Braille Mural and other play/learning puzzles to enable learning through sensorial designs in the passages.

Design Team: Biome

Contractor:

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My First School

Location:

Year: 2016-2020

Site Area: 3.5 acre

Built up Area: 33400 sq.ft.

My First School’s brief was to develop a campus for children from kindergarten to 12th standard. A phased master plan allows the construction and school to expand as the current batch of students grow. The First phase is upto grade 8, including laboratories, library, dining area and administration office space. The axis of the administrative section of the building is broken from the academic section, blocking direct visibility and creating a surprise element. The kitchen and dining are in a separate block due to their functionality. This is a tall space which is also used as a badminton court. The classrooms access a semi open space with angled vertical louvers to minimise glare but allow breeze. Each classroom has a unique design, imparting a new experience to students as they graduate to the next grade. The basement provides a calm and quiet space for the library and meditation room.

Design Team: Biome

Contractor:

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Promise Centre

Location:

Year: NA

Site Area:  sq.ft.

Built up Area:  sq.ft.

Design Team: Biome

Contractor:

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Residence for Ann & Rebecca

Location: Bengaluru

Year: 2011-2015

Site Area:  sq.ft.

Built up Area:  sq.ft.

   

Design Team: Biome

Contractor:

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Residence for Ashish & Shanti

Location: Bengaluru

Year: 2011-2015

Site Area:  sq.ft.

Built up Area:  sq.ft.

   

Design Team: Biome

Contractor:

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Residence for Dinesh & Sarita

Location: Bengaluru

Year: 2001-2005

Site Area:  sq.ft.

Built up Area:  sq.ft.

   

Design Team: Biome

Contractor:

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Residence for Hamsa

Location: Bengaluru

Year: 2011-2015

Site Area:  sq.ft.

Built up Area:  sq.ft.

   

Design Team: Biome

Contractor:

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Residence for Mohan & Anuradha

Location: Bengaluru

Year: 2016-2020

Site Area: 5590 sq.ft.

Built up Area: 3600 sq.ft.

The site for the residence was in an erstwhile mango orchard. The design is shaped around the canopies of the existing mango trees, with a careful understanding of their root buffers and growth patterns. The house fragments into smaller parts, clustering around the trees. The semi-open passage leading up to the entrance foyer runs between the two mango trees. The belvedere creates multiple vistas to experience the trees through all parts of the house. On the first floor, landscaped courts allow each room to open out to the trees at canopy level and connect to the court below. A hanging bridge at first floor cuts across this larger court.  Its form is a structural abstraction of the surrounding tree branches. As the family settles into the house, the trees have already taken over, giving fleeting glimpses of the red bridge.

Design Team: Anurag Tamhankar, Chitra Vishwanath, Ramya MA

Contractor: Ranganath L

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Residence for Radhika & Manoj

Location: Bengaluru

Year: 2021-2023

Site Area:  sq.ft.

Built up Area:  sq.ft.

   

Design Team: Biome

Contractor:

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Residence for Sushma

Location: Bengaluru

Year: 2001-2005

Site Area:  sq.ft.

Built up Area:  sq.ft.

   

Design Team: Biome

Contractor:

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Swastika Dance School

Location:

Year: 2016-2020

Site Area:  sq.ft.

Built up Area:  sq.ft.

Swastika Dance School is a dance and music studio with an intimate platform for performing arts and workshops. The challenges of a tight site led to a design where many spaces play more than one role. The dance studio is a half-basement, with a double height volume, allowing for adequate light and ventilation, and proper acoustics. On the first floor, a music studio and platform open up to become a larger performance space. A gallery on the second floor overlooks this performance area and serves as a passage to suites for visiting trainers. A common front court connects all three levels, enabling interaction among students in a stimulating open environment. The school is a zero-waste building - debris generated during construction is used in a two-storeyed box-like wall along the staircase. The sloping roof is of corrugated sheets made from recycled tetra-packs. Utilising the building both as a quarry, and a sink for debris and waste, enables the school to pay back its eco-debt even before occupation.

Design Team: Biome

Contractor:

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Housing in Hot & Humid Climate

Location:

Year: NA

Site Area:  sq.ft.

Built up Area:  sq.ft.

Design Team: Biome

Contractor:

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Masalewale village

Location: Maharashtra

Year: ongoing

Site Area: 54 acre

Built up Area:  sq.ft.

Masalewale village is a ecology centric agriculture centric development. Master planning of the project was done based on the surface waterflows of micro watersheds. Inputs from various studies such as satellite imagery, hydro geological study, soil moisture studies throughout a year, bio-diversity survey became starting points here. Conservation of water and soil using strategies such as riparian buffers along valleys, introducing retention and detention ponds at strategic locations, contour bunding and halfmoon terraces to slow down water flows. Buildings were introduced in the areas based on elimination strategy.

Design Team: Biome

Contractor:

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University campus master plan

Location:

Year: NA

Site Area: 65 acre

Built up Area:  sq.ft.

The word university is derived from the Latin universitas magistrorum et scholarium which means "community of teachers and scholars". A university with community as its core idea will inculcate the values that Sai Baba preached "follow your own beliefs and traditions and respect other's". The learning space is therefore not a rigorous one but one which is malleable - a place open to questioning beliefs and soak in ideas of various hues. The learning space intends to create a fraternity of students breaking age, gender and subject choice barrier-moving beyond classroom teacher and taught silo to simultaneous learning garden. A settlement starts with water, then comes in the ecology which is followed by the human habitats. The focus of the master plan is not in the built spaces but in the nature that engulfs the buildings. The fingers of green get enmeshed with the built and thereby space is now an ecosystem and not an Anthropocene insert alone. The green fingers are biodiversity inserts which enmesh with the built-in providing for ecosystem services of waste recycling, water harvesting, better air quality, and shade. Nutrient corridor which will take in all the wastewater after passing it through constructed wetland becomes a biodiversity hotspot harboring various species of invertebrates, waterfowls and aquatic species as well. Riparian buffer around the corridor eliminates soil erosion and pollutants from entering the water streams. Almost half of the site will be developed as forest to become the lungs of university. It will harbor bio-diversity, provide food and timber for construction

Design Team: Biome

Contractor:

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Wayside Station

Location:

Year: NA

Site Area:  sq.ft.

Built up Area:  sq.ft.

Wayside amenities as envisioned by the NHAI are to provide ample opportunities for refreshment and relaxation along the highway. We propose to address the concept of a ‘highway mall’ by enhancing the ecological design, visibility of amenities provided, and variety of experiences. The building footprint has been minimised by building vertically, to allow more spaces for greenery and percolation of surface water. To address the increased surface area exposed to the east and west, the building is stepped out on the upper level, and capped with a soaring roof, which will provide shade and breakout spaces for diners/ crafts exhibitions etc. Increasing the number of floors also greatly increases visibility of the F&B and retail spaces, which, coupled with its unique massing, would create a draw for customers.

Design Team: Biome

Contractor:

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