It’s been a month since the cohort has gone off campus for the industry exposure phase. Aparna (13) has been dabbling in different exposures to make the most of her time trying to build professional skills in her interest of ‘Natural Building’. She visited to different natural building centres, institutes to interact with people in this field. She volunteered for a local workshop happening near her house during weekends. Currently, she is interning on a farm at Krishnagiri.
Aparna (13) shares learnings from day 01 of her internship.
At Krishnagiri, we are trying to build a dome with rammed cob. I started with doing cob ball. It was some random balls not perfect. I did it for around 3 hour and didn’t realise that the time went by so fast. Then I spent some time in understanding by reading a book on arches.
Right from day 01, it was a lot of learning like seeing the alignment, the mixture for applying in-between the bricks for arches contains lime, sieved mud, clay, water. The architect also shared that we will learn about load bearing in arches.
My Learnings from day 01-
✨How to remove and place shutter.
✨For making arches If there is some 1/2 inches mistake also I will make a big difference.
✨Laying bricks and motor
✨Checking the alignment of bricks in arch
✨Deciding the thickness of mixture
✨Measuring the shutter space
✨Decide the key stone on the arch depending upon the space and bricks quantity
✨Realising that making the arch has been my favorite task so far
Next, we decided to build a cob mud oven. I was given the responsibility to design it. First I researched on how mud oven are made. They were mostly in Dome shape. Then listed the materials, discussed with my mentor. I also tried to connect with people since I had been very hesitant in the beginning. But they were so friendly and welcoming. I finished the final design for the mud oven and went about deciding the execution plan. Taking up this responsibility made me realise the life cycle of a project.
Through the working time, the team keeps having discussions which expands my vocabulary in the field of natural building. For instance, we had an intense discussion on different flooring like lime flooring, red oxide – the cost effectiveness and durability etc. I got to know a lot of factors that go into deciding the flooring type in different geographies.
All the practical hands-on work helps me in building a skillset aligned with industry requirements. The failures are a great learning experience since now I know what I should ‘not do’.
Besides my internship, I also volunteered in a workshop which is happening near by my home. Since it’s happening in my holiday time I thought I could use it wisely. It started with introduction of each one and as usual I got a lot of questions about open learning. Through the workshop, I got the chance to interact with different people and keep discussing natural building all the time, which I thoroughly enjoyed.
I also travelled to different places to observe local architecture and time-tested ancient practices. This opened up my perspectives and expanded my understanding of this field.
I thought I will be very homesick but the last 1 month has proved me wrong. I am tremendously enjoying the work I am doing and this has boosted my confidence even further.