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Sumit Singhal
Sumit Singhal loves modern architecture. He comes from a family of builders who have built more than 20 projects in the last ten years near Delhi in India. He has recently started writing about the architectural projects that catch his imagination. “HYPERIONS” AGRITECTURAL GARDEN TOWERS FOR JAYPEE GREENS SPORTS CITY in GREATER NOIDA, INDIA by VINCENT CALLEBAUT ARCHITECTURESMarch 1st, 2016 by Sumit Singhal
Article source: VINCENT CALLEBAUT ARCHITECTURES Stop the Ecocide:Onwards to the agroecological revolution My name is Amlankusum. I’m a 45-year old Hindu agroecologist. For the past five years, I’ve lived with my family in the heart of a plus-energy, vertical eco-neighborhood called “Hyperions” producing more energy than it consumes. In collaboration with architects, agricultural engineers, agronomistsand farmers,I eco-conceived this garden towersproject rooted in JaypeeGreens Sports City, with the double objective of energy decentralization and food deindustrialization. My approach is holistic, combining the best of low-tech and high-tech instead ofsystematically opposing them. Our aim is to reconcile urban renaturationand small-scale farming with environment protection and biodiversity.  Image Courtesy © VINCENT CALLEBAUT ARCHITECTURES
 Image Courtesy © VINCENT CALLEBAUT ARCHITECTURES I believe in eradicating the crime of Ecocide, by which I mean the destruction of India’s ecosystems, my country, and the world’s fourth source of food with 17.6% of the world’s population. The density, land economics and environmental challenges are immense. I want to prove to decision-makers that strategic links can be established between climate change, sustainable agriculture and urban development. Jaypee is a new city located in the Delhi NCR (National Capital Region), one of the largest metropolises in the world with 50 million inhabitants. India’s National Capital Region is the designation for the metropolitan region that includes New Dehli and the surrounding areas in the neighboring states of Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan. Located on the Yamuna Expressway between New Delhi and Agra, my city is reputedfor the Formula 1 Grand Prix on the Buddh International circuit, and for its world-classcricket stadium, hockey stadium and sports academy. Its population is made mostly of students, white and blue-collar workers. Jaypee is saturated with concrete and pollution, and my ambition is to transform it into a pioneering urban agroecology.  Image Courtesy © VINCENT CALLEBAUT ARCHITECTURES  Image Courtesy © VINCENT CALLEBAUT ARCHITECTURES I come from farming roots, and lived through the massive, post Green Revolution exodus of my fellow rural countrymen towards cities such as Chennai, Kolkata, Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore. Since my country’s independence in 1947 and the industrial revolution of the 1960s, I’ve been campaigning relentlessly for the democratization of environmentally responsible farming, and against the out-of-control productivism focused on immediate returns, in total disregard for the long, laborious processes of farmland regeneration. The Green Revolution, which promotedthe extensive use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides, may have enabled India to substantially develop its agriculture beyond the hopes of its 650 million farmers, but this came at a great cost. The green illusion was short-lived, threatening food sovereignty. Washed out by pesticides, the land has become sterile; intensive farming has depleted soils of nitrates; groundwater is polluted with nitrate fertilizers; and biodiversity is heading towards extinction. The balance of the biosphere has been durably damaged, leading to today’s climate disruption. The social fabric has been sacrificed, too, driving countless Indian farmers to suicide due to the untenable pressure of globalmarket lobbies. Life has been privatized by a few multinationals patenting seeds that also led to an epidemic of cancer, Parkinson and Alzheimer diseases.  Image Courtesy © VINCENT CALLEBAUT ARCHITECTURES  Image Courtesy © VINCENT CALLEBAUT ARCHITECTURES The boomerang effect from the Green Revolution directly affected farmers, caught between excessive debt and ruin caused by increasingGMO-related production prices, and the decrease infarming revenues caused by economic deregulation. Their sterile land has been requisitioned for the creation of industrial free zones. Hoping to find a new El Dorado, most farmers migrated en-masse to the cities. This led to the explosion of social inequalities and the worsening of health conditions, as the industry was not growing fast enough to absorb the famers’ exodus. With my degree in agroecology, I’ve never been able to accept that the industrialization of my country could be at the cost of its population’s sacrifice. To reinvent a new urban and human model based on environmentally and socially respectful green development: that’s my everyday challenge. In the asphyxiated Indian environment, I search for other ways of producing sustainably in order to shelter and feed the growing population. We’ve lived through the era of carbon, steel, oil and ore, followed by the era of chemicals. I believe that the 21st Century will be the era of life and biology, or it won’t be.  Image Courtesy © VINCENT CALLEBAUT ARCHITECTURES  Image Courtesy © VINCENT CALLEBAUT ARCHITECTURES New urban farmersworking for urban agroforestry and permaculture In Jaypee, we’vestarted farming the city like a biomimetic ecosystem, by taking its density into account, and hybridizingit with nature. I imagine the city — my city as territory for social innovation –by bringing together the climate, landscape, agriculture and use flows. With my wife and urban planner Kamalesh, we both dream of turning Jaypee into wilderness; to transcend it with life,into a “nature-city” that is organically nutritive, mixed, dense, as flexible as needed, and with strong fertile potential. To this end and together with city officials, we’re leading a new dynamic of eco-responsible urban projects, built from bio-based materials and combining leading-edge renewable energies with age-old bioclimatic techniques — all blooming in the heart of a pervasive urban agriculturebased on agroforestry and permaculture, in all the streets and on all buildings’ floors. The Hyperions project in which we live is the first example, like an open-air collaborative lab. Follow me, I’ll give you a tour!  Image Courtesy © VINCENT CALLEBAUT ARCHITECTURES  Image Courtesy © VINCENT CALLEBAUT ARCHITECTURES On arable parcels all around the project, agrosystems and ecosystems merge to promote the respect of nature and the protection of the residents’ health, using a production model that requires less chemical and energy inputs but can reach an annual output of more than 20 kilos of organic fruit and vegetables per square meter (4 pounds per square foot). Through local fair trade stores, we try to progressively reconcile the economic dimension with the social and political approach of a type of agriculturethat is more integrated into society. We’re the new urban farmers (urbanists + farmers). We now farm Jaypee in a sustainable, interdependent way, “Obeying nature to better control it,” as Olivier de Serres, one of the first French agronomists, recommended back in 1600. The six main principles that we’re implementingin order to establish a local agricultural policy with low greenhouse gas output are as follows:
 Image Courtesy © VINCENT CALLEBAUT ARCHITECTURES  Image Courtesy © VINCENT CALLEBAUT ARCHITECTURES Jaypeethus becomes resilient and edible. Our quickset hedges replace barbwire and fences. Groves and tree rows reinvest our fields where millet, wheat or corn crops are rotated. In addition, our cereal crops, together with legumes such as beans and squash, reduce nitrogen inputs (responsible for green gases), while maintaining healthy protein levels. Our small farming businesses thus see their output grow through biodiversity. Diseases, weeds and insect damage become less frequent thanks to such rebalanced ecosystems. Phyto-purification ponds and lagoons merge with the garden towers, in community orchards devoted to spices such ascamphor laurels, bergamot trees and other cinnamon plants. They’re dotted with urban farms and small animal farms producing eggs and dairy. Agricultural by-products (animal waste, farming residues, milking parlor water, etc.) are turned into methane that generates energy, which isthen re-injected into our homes in real time. Tropical fruit trees such as mango, banana and Bengal fig trees abound, as well as nectar-producing plants, medicinal plants and family vegetable gardens — not only in the streets, but also on façades, balconies and rooftops. Meanwhile, earthworms re-oxygenate the soil, and beetles and bees buzz again while pollinizing flowers.  Image Courtesy © VINCENT CALLEBAUT ARCHITECTURES  Image Courtesy © VINCENT CALLEBAUT ARCHITECTURES Bio-sourced garden towers built with cross-laminated timber The Hyperions project — where our family settled with our daughter Sarasvati and son Rashmika — is made of six garden towers, each 36-story high and comprised of housing and offices. The towers are built with cross-laminated timber (CLT) and are covered with orchard gardens. Their name comes from the tallest tree in the world, the Hyperion, a Sequoia Sempervirens found in Northern California, whose size can reach 115.55 meters (close to 380 feet). All the wood required to build thegarden towers comes from a Delhi forest, which is also managed sustainably, and in which we make sure to renew what we collect with respect for the appropriate cutting cycle and regenerating capacity. I like to remind people that, with its 68 million hectares of forest covering 23% of its territory, India is one of the ten most wooded countries on Earth, and the world’s second producer of fruit and vegetables. Trapped as we are in the New Delhi smog, it is our duty to preserve those carbon-sequestrating forests now more than ever. Indeed, one cubic meter (c. 35 cubic feet) of wood can stock up to 0.9 ton of CO2 while a tree grows.  Image Courtesy © VINCENT CALLEBAUT ARCHITECTURES  Image Courtesy © VINCENT CALLEBAUT ARCHITECTURES That’s why I wanted our architects to celebrate this green treasure by building tall structures with wood, because it’s the material that provides the best environmental footprint during its lifecycle — from harvesting to recycling, through transportation, processing, implementation, maintenance and reuse. Wood’s manufacturing processes require less energy and are less polluting than those of standard materials such as steel or concrete, which negatively impact the environment. By substituting these materials with wood, we can avoid the emission of up to 1.1 tons of CO2 per cubic meter (c. 35 cubic feet). Between its CO2-sequestrating capacity during its growth phase and its low-emission manufacturing processes, one cubic meter (c. 35 cubic feet) of wood therefore saves two tons of CO2. In order to optimize the residential buildings, our engineers opted for a mixed structure, witha steel and concrete substructure for the earthquake-resistant foundations, parking areas and vertical core bases; and a superstructure made of solid wood columns, beams and walls, reinforced with steel blades where columns and beams meet. Each wood-based structural component is made of multiple panels laid perpendicularly to each other, and bound together with pintles and gudgeonsor organic structural adhesives. The Hyperions’ skeleton is made of 25% inert materials and 75% bio-sourced materials. This mixed structure is reputed for its strong mechanical resistance (including in the event of earthquakes); for its high resistance to fire; and for its high acoustic and thermal performance.  Image Courtesy © VINCENT CALLEBAUT ARCHITECTURES  Image Courtesy © VINCENT CALLEBAUT ARCHITECTURES Aplus-energyproject that optimizes its environmental footprint Wood, by definition a natural and renewal material, allowed us to minimize the “inherent energy” of the materials used to build the six garden towers. Seeking a neutral environmental footprint, we wanted to go even further, by producing the “operational energy” (for lighting, climate control, hot water, etc.) on-site, while recycling our liquid and solid organic waste into natural resources, recycled and recyclable in a closed loop, also on-site. That’s howmy wife Kamalesh came up with the idea of wind lamppoststhat rhythm the greenbelt along the site. They produce their own electricity thanks to magnetic-levitation, vertical-axiswind turbines (VAWTs)integrated on their pole. For the towers, she imagined blue-colored, photovoltaic and thermal scales that wrap around the façades, following the course of the sun from East to West. These solar sensors also highlight the main balconies’ infill panels, and pixelate the glass domes of the bioclimatic greenhouses — thus securing the production of sanitary hot water and artificial lighting. Even our electric cars are recharged in real time by those solar façades.  Image Courtesy © VINCENT CALLEBAUT ARCHITECTURES  Image Courtesy © VINCENT CALLEBAUT ARCHITECTURES As for me, as an agroecologist, I suggested that the project be covered with a genuine, virtuous feeding ecosystem based on organicaquaponics. Thus, carrots, tomatoes, spinach, saffron and coriander grow in light substrates made of clay balls on each apartment’s balcony and in hydroponic greenhouses. They are irrigated with water from ponds breeding several species of fish, whose excrementisnaturally rich in nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium. In these organic fish farms promoting mixed farming, we also find mollusks and crustaceans filtering and grazing the organic micro-waste. This vertical farming gives residents some food autonomy while saving on the land. Our food is produced mostly on-site or in neighboring agroforestry fields. We also manage to save up to 90% of our water needs, since it circulates in a closed loop via smallpumped hydroelectric energy storage (PHES)plants. The six garden towers are like a vertical village with a high social, cultural and use mix. The flexible, evolutionary spaces dedicated to business incubators, living labs, coworking spaces, multi-purpose rooms and concierge services are located behind the solar facades. All apartments big or small, as well as student housing, open onto cascading hydroponic balconies. Indoor furniture is made of natural materials such as tamarind and sandalwood, and comes from local cabinetmakers, fab labs and recycling shops.  Image Courtesy © VINCENT CALLEBAUT ARCHITECTURES  Image Courtesy © VINCENT CALLEBAUT ARCHITECTURES The various spatial uses are linked together with footbridges, and converge under a large orchard roof that serves as a meeting place for our small urban farmer community. Whether it’s summer, monsoon or winter, our families can meet there, pick fruit, go for a run, get some exercise in the sports hall’s kabaddi field, swim in the organic pool, or watch over their kids playing kho in the playgrounds. These communal footbridges are irrigated by collecting rainwater and residents’ greywater, and the filtered water’s organic nutriments are absorbed by the plants’ roots. This network ofsky-high suspended walkways allows residents to move from one tower to the other, from one use to the other, and to forge social and interdependent relationships among neighbors. From Rajasthan, Jaypee inherits high temperatures and droughts, while freezing currents from the Himalaya can sometimes bring harsh winters. In order to secure the natural ventilation of our living spaces in this mostly hot and humid subtropical climate, we put together a natural climate control system, articulated along the vertical circulation cores of the wind chimneys. This system takes advantage of the earth’s thermal inertia (under the foundations), which remains stable at 18 degrees Celsius (c. 64 degrees Fahrenheit)all year round. Through natural airflow, the external air — which can reach 45 degrees Celsius (113 degrees Fahrenheit)and fall to 3 degrees Celsius (c. 37 degrees Fahrenheit)in the winter — is therefore naturally cooled or heated in contact with the earth, and so without using a single kilowatt of electricity. As you may have guessed, our village basically imitates the climate control of a termite mound.  Image Courtesy © VINCENT CALLEBAUT ARCHITECTURES  Image Courtesy © VINCENT CALLEBAUT ARCHITECTURES Top down and bottom up: When collaborative city rhymes with local resources and supply chains The fusion “forest + agriculture + urban fabric”is a humanistic alternative that brings together the best of both the city and the countryside. From agroforestry to wood-based construction to permaculture and aquaponics, the Hyperions project is the symbol of a short supply chain economy based on harvesting local resources. This virtuous circle generates links between local producers and “prosumers”. Residents, organic farmers, garden producers, agroecologists, loggers, agronomists, architects and designers: all participate in a sustainable production, distribution, consumption and recycling process. Using this circular, collaborative economic model, we’ve been able to not only reinforce the economic fabric by creating local jobs, but to also turn the project into a formidable sharing economy and co-construction playing field. Between the democratized technological innovations and the bottom-up social innovations, we’ve regained control of energy, resources and space. We’ve become the true actors of our city, as opposed to mere consumers.  Image Courtesy © VINCENT CALLEBAUT ARCHITECTURES We the “Urban Farmers” claim that converting worldwide agriculture into organic techniques and bio-sourced construction could reduce worldwide CO2 emissions by about 40% by 2030. Hyperions is a sustainable agro-ecosystem project capable of resisting climate change thanks to its healthy economic and environmental ecosystems. Solidarity, fairness, and the right symbiosis of human actions on nature: those are our founding ethical values.
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