About SankalpBhoomi the farm resort at Belgaum.: Green architecture is invariably associated with local and natural materials, right orientation to facilitate abundant natural light and ventilation, and design-tuned to address local climatic conditions. But how about a resort built totally from discarded materials and salvaged waste? Sounds improbable? Perhaps not. For, the resort in the city of Belgaum has not only been built totally out of salvaged waste materials but has also come up in an abandoned stone quarry, the deep abyss left after mining of the black stone filled by hundreds of truckloads of construction debris. The eight-room resort resembles an enchanting oasis, with a thick set of trees, sprawling lawns, and a large lagoon surrounded by picturesque rocks. Says Sanjay Kulkarni, the man behind this oasis, “The eight acres of wasteland seemed a perfect place to create a resort with the expansive rock walls as backdrop. It seemed fit to use only salvaged materials.” Thus emerged eight rooms built from tiles, some of which were even broken, old discarded windows, doors, wooden planks, stones, bricks and whatever else that could be salvaged from demolition sites. Not only the rooms, even the cafeteria and conference halls were built from waste, each designed to be in tune with nature. Interestingly, with the buildings being carved out of waste, each reflects a different design and style based on what waste materials were used, the only common strain being their totally green structure. Thus, the room on the banks of the lagoon reflects a step back in time, the design emulating Kashmiri boat houses, with quaint windows, inclined wooden walls, tiled roofs and rugged wooden staircases. Chatter of birds Yet another, built to access a 20-ft. surface water well that emerged from the water seeping from rocks on the site, reflects a totally different design. Again, housing waste materials in its structure, the picturesque room with its stunning patio overlooking the well has tailor birds incessantly building nests over the water body on the trees grown out of the flanking boulders. An antique set of seating built from discarded doors and windows adds to this picturesque charm, the serenity broken only by the endless chatter of birds. While other rooms display similar unpolished rustic charm and salvaged materials, some displaying tiled roofs, others grass roofs, the cafeteria is yet another stunning piece of innovative use of waste materials. While cement floors and bamboo thatched roof mark the interiors, the open kitchen has an old world chula and chimney made from discarded bricks. The seating reveals the use of chipped tiles while the tables have been fashioned out of discarded wooden logs, planks, doors and door frames. Crowning all this is a quaint tree house again fashioned from discarded planks of wood, overlooking the serene teakwood tree-clustered meditation centre as well as the water body meandering its way through the resort. While the buildings were built sans an architect, “with merely creativity, innovation resulting in the end product” as Kulkarni would like to state, even the enchanting lagoon created in its midst is salvaged from the water seeping constantly from the rocks. “The continuous seepage of water from the rocks around the site was channelled and made into a stream, with the natural swimming pool too filled with the filtered and treated water from the same source,” adds Kulkarni. The resort not only appears totally in sync with nature in its rustic uncorrupted state, it also stands as an epitome of how waste can be salvaged and utilised in an arresting manner in tune with the aesthetics of the surroundings.
Posted on: Tue, 19 Aug 2014 08:31:23 +0000