Sunday, September 20, 2009

Building Capacity



The Fabrication Unit at Peth:
With increase in demand for the building services and solutions provided by Wonder Grass, we decided to expand our infrastructure that will build our supply-capacity.

A new building-unit of approximately 1000 Sq.ft (18 feet X 52 feet), has been built and brought in operation from last month.

A simple building taking off from the building system devised in-house. The Materials used are conventional brick-mortar construction for foundation, Bamboo for superstructure (columns, beams, trusses, purlings etc), and corrugated GI Sheets.

The Process:
Developing sketch layout and scaled-model.
The master artisan Neelam Shankar played a key role in working on the scale-model for the new fabrication-unit. He worked on models and the building type.

In this building we have experimented with a T-type of roof junction. This is a difficult roof-type to achieve, where roof-forms from two different (X and Y axic) direction are joined.

Ramesh, Shankar and Vasantha, artisan group worked together to solve the junction, and at the end they have managed to come out with a good roofing-junction.




Innovation and Design Center

The processing-node at Peth, near Nagpur is expanding its capacity for supply and erection of bamboo based building systems.

We have added a 1000 Sft fabrication-workshop, Innovation-Design center and a guest-house for the visiting professionals to stay and work at the Peth center.

The Innovatio-Design center is essentially G+1 building, which is roughly 250 Sq.ft carpet area. The ground floor is to be used as Innovation and Design center while the first-floor to be used as a guest-room for visiting professionals.



This building also becomes our Pilot-test unit for a G+1 type of building construction. The Building is coming along really well.

Independence Day celebration at Wonder Grass, Peth


The artisan group, along with the other members of Wonder Grass came together to celebrate the independence day on 15th August, 2009. The mood at the center was upbeat, everyone joined hands in cleaning and face-lifting of the place on 14th August.

The team of artisans was happy to have with them by Dr. Harish and Gangothri who recently joined Wonder Grass to look after marketing and design functions, respectively. Both Dr. Harish and Gangothri participated in the whole program and made it an enriching experience for all.

The flag hoisting was carried out under the auspices of Shri. Motiramaji, a master-potter who stays and works in village Peth. Motiram ji has been a guiding force for our center at Peth. Under his watchful eyes and affectionate care, the unit at Peth is being nurtured to evolve into a team with values.



The flag hoisting function was followed by a session of ‘Bhajan’ recitals by some of the artisans themselves. Bhajans by Tukdoji maharaj and a poem ‘Itni Shakti Hame Dena Data’ helped permeate the atmosphere with a very serene note.

The Volleyball match was organized between team from youths of the village and Wonder Grass team. Wonder Grass team lost out to the youth group from the village who was better in terms of sports-skills, but Wonder Grass team gave a good fight because of a good tea spirit.

The winning team walked away with the prize of T-Shirts from Wonder Grass.