Sustainable Community Living 

Mahindra Life Spaces brings affordable housing scheme to serve urban households with environmentally secure and healthy shelter.  Innovative construction with an adaptable “kit of parts” in low rise high density formats and  provisions for shared assets provide a high quality of community life at reasonable costs. The experience of urban living with sufficiency and vibrancy that comes with the integration of homes into a community living with environmental consciousness of conserving land water, energy and turning waste to a resource for nutrition and health is the mantra that inspires this project.

The compact low carbon  affordable city is achieved in a low rise high density solution. A humane scale of streets and gardens continues the grain of the city. Flat roofs, unencumbered by services and tanks, are the newfound shared ground – a community resource for community services such as solar laundry, yoga class, games, supported by temporary arrangements. An integral system of recycling organic waste

enables self sustaining organic farming and gardening on balconies and roofs. The row house pattern with streets on all floors, shapes open spaces of distinct identities. The chassis and infill system anticipates home improvements and self expression, making households ‘visible’, and allows for expansion and exchange amongst neighboring units.  “WE CAN!”  Community Support Service will facilitate community initiatives like newcomers’ orientation, shared transport, rooftop solar kitchens and laundry, organic gardening and waste management through design.

The ‘industrial’ principle is applied with a difference. A supporting chassis of standard wall elements carrying standard spans, cast with formwork for a hundred repetitions, can be flexibly arranged for varied sizes and types of home and strung into different configurations. The kit of parts gives economies of scale as it moves from project to project. The variable infill and sub components can respond to climate, availability of local materials and fabricators and the evolving aesthetic culture.

Compact layout, minimum vehicular roads, parking under pilotis, maximizing soft ground with shade trees makes for a habitable outdoors. Thermal mass, enclosed by insulating walls and roof, stores night coolth by cross ventilation. Row house pattern minimizes floor to wall ratio, and shares service stacks. The structural support elements can be modulated to make many unit types. Low carbon construction is ensured with 2.3 Kg steel per square meter of built area for five storey earthquake safe construction. Because the design manifests low-carbon emission, rebate on financing is available to the people.