Discussion Series starts off with the Joy of Creativity

For our first of many discussion series we had Architect Milind Gujarkar from his office in Nagpur visit our Peth site and share some of his completed projects over the years, as well as share his knowledge of intelligent design. Ar. Gujarkar holds a B.ARCH in visual perception in aesthetics and its application as well as M.ARCH in industrial design. Mr. Gujarkar's projects included a courtyard housing project, restoring 400 year old Teak columns, and several other amazing examples of meaningful design work. We were really fortunate to have Mr. Gujarkar's work as part of our first of many talk series. It sets a high standard for the kind of knowledge and experience that we should have at each of our discussion series.
Our aim is provide and foster an environment where craftsman's, artist, and professionals can meet, share knowledge, and discuss creativity for today's industrial world. The long term goal of the Wondergrass work site is to harvest a learning center for designers of many backgrounds to come and share their ideas with a larger audience. Not only bamboo technology, but many other sustainable practices that can improve the environment as well as the living standards for the millions of rural Indian citizens and the rest of the world.

We had the pleasure of seeing several of the artisans and craftsman from the village attend our discussion series as well. We were happy to see them and hope they return for upcoming events. We were also fortunate enough to have our guesthouse completed and available for walkthrough's and seeing it close up. For the days following our workshop, we had several villagers curious about our work, and very impressed with the models that our artisans had made. The day before we held our artisan workshop, and let team wondergrass come together as small teams to construct 1/2" models of bamboo homes. Their work experience was expressed through the well designed models, and we feel that as a way for our creativity discussions to be more interactive we are going to incorporate the use of model making, drawing, etc. to motivate more discussion. Because we have a mixed audience that speaks, English, Hindi, and Maharati, we were battling a communication gap that will be ratified in upcoming events. We had roughly twenty-five people from ages 10 to 65 and we were happy that younger generations will have the chance to learn from the elders, as well as proffessionals who are bringing back traditional practices that have wisdom in their practive then any advance in modern technology in the past 100 years.
As we learn more about the properties of bamboo we constantly looking towards nature as a source of inspiration and practical knowledge. We have started to work with A.M. Shingarey of Geotech Industries, to test our structural elements such as beam, column, purlin etc. It is a great pleasure and honor to work such a respectable materials testing lab such as GeoTech Industries. They have been testing and completing excellent R&D for the uses of cement, wood, and composite materials that can be used for modern building practices. We will publish those results as soon as they are completed, and we are indebted to work that will follow because of GeoTech Industries. The sharing of knowledge and collaboration that has a higher goal for all parties, including the future occupants of our housing is truly an admirable goal to have. And we cannot but be grateful for the outcome of this collaboration.

We are also sad to report that one our architects for Wondergrass has completed her three month span and has returned to Pune, India to go back to school. Ms. Andhare contributed an amazing background that included projects of museums, housing, and many more sustainable designs. Her bilingual talents will be missed by our US intern who has many more days to improve his linguistic accuracy in speaking the local dialect of Maharati. Her hard work, and knowledge will be missed, but hopefully she will come back to share her new knowledge of ecology.