3D Rendering of the expected outcome

Move over scale models... It's CGI time!

Thanks to the hard working folks at our Architect's office, we have a beautiful 3D render of our project.

Here it is...

Hope the actual outcome is as beautiful as this one...

Foundation Work

It has been a great learning experience so far. I truly appreciate the effort that goes into construction work. It is one thing to sit in the office and design and make decisions on something and completely the other thing to execute it on ground.

Udaybhai and team are very competent and efficient at executing the column and foundation details given to them. However, reliance on technology slows things down a bit at times.

I hear that nowadays contractors are so reliant upon TotalStation output that they do not undertake work without the surveyor coming to site at multiple occasions and giving them the markings on site. So far they have visited our site for following activities:

1. At the very beginning to survey the site
2. To give excavation points
3. To give PCC location and size points
4. To give actual column footing location (on the PPC) and size points
5. Pending: Once plinth level PCC is done, to give final column locations. After that, next levels all will be vertically above the ground level columns.

At several occasions, our work has stalled since the surveyor is not available to come on site to mark points. What happened to our good old tape measure?

Here are some pictures from the foundation work:

Rain Rain Go Away...

Come back another day :-(

We decide to start building our home in 2013 and this becomes the year with historical rains in Ahmedabad :-(

Under the normal circumstances, I would welcome so much rain... It is just beautiful all round with Green Carpet still visible everywhere. But, not this year. Our construction commencement already got delayed by two months due to heavy rains and we are not seeing much reprieve towards the end of September as well!

Foundation work has completed. Plan was to complete filling up the excavation and start working on the ground beams. We missed this  task by about 4 days... Had the filling been completed, all this rain would have been perfect to completely settle it down.

Checkout the latest satellite image from the Indian Meteorological Department. Ahmedabad is lighted up like never before and more rain is expected in the next few days..

Work has started!

It's all so exciting! Construction work has finally started this week. 

Steel binding for columns and PCC for the footing is complete... Some latest pictures here

A few thoughts on the process:

• Safety - Seems like a non-issue to the workers as well as their supervisors. I bought safety glasses for the person cutting steel (you can see in the picture that he is not wearing one) on the condition that his supervisor will have to pay for it if I caught him not using one while cutting steel. Guess what? He was not wearing it the very next day! How do you deal with these guys? They say its not practical to use these safety equipment. 
• Using Tobacco - Seems like people in construction industry can NOT do without it! Again, I have given an ultimatum to my site supervisor to stop chewing it all day or face cut in the salary. He is such a nice guy and we are very happy with his work so far, but how do you wean them off of it?
• Coordination - It's too premature, but looks like things are falling in place and we are not losing a day anymore. Goal is to finish first floor slab by Diwali this year! My masonry contractor is confident to finish the entire box by end of February 2014. 

Kids are enjoying going to the site and seeing the work in progress. There is so much learning for all of us going through this process! Rehaan is very much interested in finding out how the building stands without falling...

Design Details

Spiral Staircase:

How did I forget to mention the Spiral Staircase so far? You might have noticed that there is no support in the center. It is completely free-standing stair with supports at the floors only. It is in the most ideal location as well from the design standpoint, but width is smaller than what would be desired. However, this is the best staircase we could get considering the space constraints.

Planning to build something that looks like this:

There are several design issues with stair that yet need to be resolved. The height of the risers currently set doesn't let the stair rise to full height to be set on the beam. Hope it gets resolved by the time we get to casting the first floor slab!

Design for natural light, cross ventilation and weather protection

Let me outline some of the very important aspects of sustainable building and how they were addressed in our design:

Natural light and solar heat reduction:

It is very important to have proper orientation of your house to maximize usage of the natural light. However, with fairly hot temperatures throughout the year in Ahmedabad, you also want to make sure that you don't let much direct sunlight into your house either.

The most ideal orientation for a house in this region is to have Northern exposure for the rooms that are going to be used the most during the day. This orientation cuts down on direct sunlight entering the rooms and sufficient window openings maximizes ambient light to fill the rooms. 

In central & western India, the sun path is towards south. I found a very good app that shows sun path in your region for any time of the year: www.suncalc.net

The design we have maximizes opening towards the north preventing solar gain from the south and west. All living rooms and bedrooms have North orientation. This allows for more ambient light and cuts down direct sunlight into these areas, thus reducing cooling requirements.

Cross Ventilation:

Design allows for cross ventilation of most areas of the house. Triangular shape actually helps in this matter. It helps reduce cooling requirements.

Reducing Weathering effects on the house:

You can see recessed windows in the design. This removes requirement of separate weather shade above each window. This is one of the most basic features of contemporary architecture and our design stays true to that.

Overhang on the parapet works as additional weather shade without directly impacting the ambient light. It protects walls from the elements.

Final Designs as of September 5th 2013

So, here are our updated designs as of today... You see, most everything is cared for..

We got walk-in closet in Master Bedroom, Library nook in kids' room, Island in the kitchen, a large media room with wall for projection and what not!

Ground Floor: 

First Floor:

Second Floor:

3-D Rendering Views:

Clean lines, perfect horizontal and vertical ratios and mini-me roof design and wood-stone-glass facade characterize the elevation of Utsav Bungalow. Check out beautiful 3-D renders of this design.

Math buffs... Do you see the Golden Ratio (phi) here?