Mera Gaon Mera Base

Mera Gaon Mera Base is the debuant theme for Ultratech Cement's latest rural inivitative - Innovate for India. The competiton is targeted at young architects and strucutral engineers and seeks to capture innovative design solutions for many of the problems faced by Indian villages.

Competition Brief

"Go to the people. Live with them. Learn from them. Love them. Start with what they know. Build with what they have…"  - Lao Tzu

THE VILLAGE AS THE BACKBONE OF INDIA

India has seen an unprecedented economic growth in the last few decades primarily because of urban activities. But it would be short sighted to limit the definition of ‘developed India’ to its urban centers and the term must necessarily include the development of the backbone of India- its rural strength. Scattered throughout India are more than 6, 45,000 villages. These settlements range from tiny hamlets of thatched huts to larger settlements of tile-roofed stone and brick houses. It is in these villages that India's most basic occupation-agriculture-takes place, which accomplishes the challenging task of feeding our nation. It is our firm belief that villages in India should be evolving as one of our strengths and on par with urban India, if India is to aim for sustained growth. 

THE NEED FOR ENGINEERING AND ARCHITECTURE INTERVENTION IN VILLAGES

Mahatma Gandhi said “India lives in her villages.” Today our villages are languishing due to the lack of - political will, availability of resources and most importantly abject neglect by the intellectual capital of the country. Among the many problems faced by the village, we have identified the lack of engineering and architecture initiatives to be a crucial one. From limited or no access to design talent, technology and new and improved building methods, our villages are being forced to remain as crumbling units of a derelict past. Therefore, there is a need to address the problem and bridge the need for talent and the availability of the same.

For further details, please follow the below link : http://meragaonmerabase.com/