ZANGLA NUNNERY SOLAR ROOM
ABOUT
Architects: Csoma's Room Foundation
Year: 2018-2019
Photographs: Dorka Szabó, Anna Ditta Fehér, Stanzin Dazang Namgail
Csoma’s Room Foundation (CsRF) is non-profit organisation registered in Hungary, committed to developing local communities in India, through heritage conservation, local development, sustainable community architecture, and education.
Explore - Understand - Cooperate, these words sum up our approach to sustainable development in all our projects and initiatives. Our projects are based on firsthand experience, research-based knowledge, and partnership with the local community.
Our sustainable development and community projects have their focus in the Zanskar Valley, in the North Indian Himalayas.
The Zangla Nunnery project started in 2018 with the aim of providing passive solar architectural solutions that enhance the quality of life of the nuns in the village while using renewable energy from the Sun.
Our aim is to facilitate cross-cultural transfer of knowledge, experiences and values by creating connections between local Ladakhi communities and international volunteers where both parties can learn from each other and find working solutions to the problems of modernisation.
One of our main principles with the solar room construction was to use ‘open source’ plans, materials and techniques easy to copy by the locals, to promote sustainability, small ecological footprint, and eco-friendly attitude.
The design process was carried out entirely on site, involving the local community of nuns.
We are using stone as a foundations, mudbricks for the walls, local barley straw for insulation. Only the glass, the structural wood and the bitumen sheets come from outside the region, but are accessible for locals too.
