Vishwakarma Awards

Samskruti Hoysala wins the medal of honor and the certification a Scroll of Green certification along with a letter of appreciation. @ the 7th Viswakarma Awards for the best Residential construction category by the CIDC.

CIDC is a Government initiative for encouraging good practices and for recognizing the best in the industry and at Samskruti Builders, we are honored and humbled to win the award.

‪#‎TheSamskrutiWay‬ ‪#‎Thefuturebeginsnow‬ ‪#‎SmartHomes‬

Samskruti Hoysala wins the scroll of commendation at the CIDC Vishwakarma Awards 2015 under the Best construction project Samskruti Builders by Construction Industry Development Council (CIDC)

Welcome!

The first thing people will look at when they come home is the front door. One of the most used, yet ignored item in a house is door. Doors should be selected with extra care. 

Usually doors are selected with looks, appeal, color and other such aesthetic values. The first and foremost concern should be about the quality of wood. If the wood is treated and processed properly, it would ensure the door performs its basic duty without glitches. A well treated wooden door wouldn't shrink in summer and expand in winter and definitely wouldn't get stuck.

Lock selection forms the next level. Selecting a good lock ensuring ease of operation and of course visual appeal is a must to give a good impression to your door.

Samskruti Builders #TheSamskrutiWay 

Safety in common areas

Home is expected to be safe. What about common areas? How do we design public spaces and common areas to ensure there is enough public view yet not being too intrusive?

We should try to bring in the elements of public + semi public spaces to ensure there is enough public space for preventing too much of privacy in common areas.

Samskruti Builders #SafeHomes

Fruggiescaping in your home

Our team was a part of experts handling live questions and discussing about sustainable living, growing your own food on your terraces and making life easier. We are really excited about the way our passion and love for terrace gardening is growing up in Bangalore.

Fruggiescaping @ Samskruti Hoysala

Samskruti Hoysala is fast moving towards being one of the sustainable residential projects in Bangalore. As the fruggiescaping works begin at Hoysala, we are very excited.

Samskruti Hoysala will house some of the most appreciated fruit bearing plants that would provide fresh, non-pesticide fed luscious fruits and vegetables. Will keep sharing the pictures here.

Park benches @ Community building

When you design community spaces to allow more interaction and provide spaces to rest, hang around and talk, conversations start. Add some plants, walking tracks and you have a community space with actual use 

Samskruti Builders #buildingsmartcommunities

Are we causing natural disasters with our actions?

Are we causing natural disasters with our actions? It seems so.
While we don't bother to save what nature provides us in its time, we rush to exploit the resources and choose to make the world a sad place for our kids. Do we have that right?

Some of the world's largest and most deadly recent earthquakes were not natural disasters at all but were caused by human activities such as mining, reservoir construction and oil and gas extraction, scientists say.

A global study of hundreds of quakes by Christian Klose, a consultant geophysicist, identified 92 large earthquakes likely to have been caused by humans.

Klose said that the Earth's crust is littered with geological faults under enormous tensions similar to those in a coiled spring.

When humans pile up vast masses of water or minerals on the surface, or extract them from beneath, the change in the weight of the overlying land can be enough to release that geological tension, causing an earthquake.

"The data specifically shows that human-made mass changes can advance the clock of natural seismic cycles and induce or trigger new earthquakes," said Klose.

According to the research, the 2008 earthquake in Sichuan, China, which had a magnitude of 7.9 and killed 80,000 people, was triggered by the construction of the Zipingu reservoir.

In Britain, the 2007 Folkestone earthquake, which rocked southeast England and measured 4.3, was triggered by the millions of tonnes of shingle piled up to protect Folkestone harbour, 'The Times' reported.

The study said the 2011 earthquake in Lorca, southeast Spain was apparently triggered by water being extracted from underground reservoirs.

Another, with a magnitude of 5.6, hit Newcastle, Australia, in 1989; 13 people died and hundreds were injured. Klose linked this with the amount of coal extracted from nearby mines.

The research is published in the Journal of Seismology.

http://www.indianexpress.com/news/humans-may-have-caused-worlds-worst-earthquakes/1207945/

Samskruti Builders

How to reduce dust and noise in your apartments

I agree that mopping, cleaning regularly is a solution, but what else can you do to control noise and dust?

Dust, especially fine dust, causes allergies, breathing problems and other skin related discomforts. It is important to have systems to clean up the dust and prevent it from entering to your homes. The best way is to provide a plant cover and reduce the allergens in the air due to fine dust.

Green enveloping the building also would ensure noise mitigation, protection against the wind. Another great advantage is to control the radiation(either increase or decrease by choice and design).

Moreover it is common knowledge that most of the plants/trees take in Carbondioxide and release Oxygen. 

Write to us to share your views and ideas or to know more.

Speak to us to know more: 

     Call 99162 17777 

     Visit: www.samskruti.in
     Follow us on facebook for updates!

The working triangle in a kitchen?

While most of the designs in the kitchen should be done to accommodate the tastes and work-style of the lady of the house, the working triangle remains the same. 

There should be easy access to the stove, refrigerator and the sink. It would be an added advantage if you have a counter away from the stove, near the refrigerator. 

 At Samskruti Builders, we also have a small planter for growing fresh vegetables too.

Write to us to share your views and ideas or to know more.

Speak to us to know more: 

     Call 99162 17777 

     Visit: www.samskruti.in 
     Follow us on facebook for updates!

Love your family

The most important contribution you can do to your family is being there. Find a home closer to your workplace/school and skip time wasted in travelling. Found this wonderful image from Alison Astair.

At Samskruti Builders, we make sure our locations have good access to transport, schools, hospitals and places of work.

Community Kitchen Caldas - eating inexpensive and healthy meals together!

At Samskruti Builders we believe in community kitchen and community gardening as a source to build, nurture and strengthen the community. Here is the concept explained!

Community Kitchen Caldas - eating inexpensive and healthy meals together!

Inspired by the community food bank concept, Community Kitchen Caldas (CKC) is an extension of the idea but focused around the activity of cooking through a community farm, community kitchen and community canteen, with the benefit of bulk-purchasing and bulk-consumption. The menu and recipe is derived from locals and experts collaboratively to create a healthy menu with local tastes, targeting malnutrition for women and children. The result is a pool of CKC members enjoying inexpensive and healthy meals.

Community Cooperative

CKC operates like a cooperative, with joining members putting in hours for the work involved (farming, cooking, maintenance) in exchange for close to cost price of food that is bought in bulk, farmed on the community garden, and cooked by members on rotating basis. It is a center of community building around the act of cooking.

Health and Malnutrition

The extra component of the CKC is the input of recipes from local residents and health experts, especially for the target of women and children malnutrition. The health or nutrition experts would spend time at first on the field understanding the issues of malnutrition, working with local residents to create recipes and eating habits that could remedy the condition. Such recipes are then shared in an open-source format and cooked in bulk (reduce cost) in the community kitchen. The health or nutrition experts can be on ground initially, but over time the can operate more remotely from Bogota (7-8hrs drive), Medellin (5-6hrs drive) or even overseas with investment of communication equipments.

Growing your own crops + bulk-buying

Urban agriculture in Havana Cuba has tremendous success, the lack of foreign imports becomes an opportunity for local farmers to adopt organic methods of fertilizing soil and using compost. The idea is that with more and more member support, the community garden scale can grow to cushion fluctuating food price and reduce cost, but more importantly, tailor the need for the problem of malnutrition with the right crops together with bulk-buying of food (enabled by food bank).

Entrepreneurship

This could become a scalable model to affect more people, and the local management opportunity becomes a channel to build entrepreneurship through the management of this local cooperative. Logistics, finance, marketing are all essential part of this cooperative to ensure success as a social business.

OpenIdeo Collaboration

During the week of consultation we have updated our base scheme with the following:

Cookbook

Using the combined efforts of health experts and local recipes, the result can be combined into a physical or online cookbook that would be sold to support the operations of the Community Kitchen

Cooking Fuel and Cooking Equipments

Using a centralized setting, the efficiency of better stove and better fuel can be utilized fully to reduce the cost per meal. Biogas is an option where bio-waste from either community toilet or community kitchen itself can be converted into cooking fuel in an anaerobic tank. Low tech and inexpensive improvements such as Rocket Stove could also be used to reduce fuel consumption by maximizing stove efficiency.

Community Chefs

An ideal training ground for community chefs that would have potential national exposure and repeated training with local community and health experts, these could either be family members that are already cooking for their families everyday, or they could be young aspiring chefs from the local regions.

Individual Farming Plots

Small plots could be assigned to families to have ownership of the plots, cultivating a collective culture of farming using shared resources of both tools and knowledge, and also can tailor the crops produced based on needs and preferences and monetary value.  

Community Kitchen Vendors

Vendors could rent stores next to the community kitchen to produce processed healthy food such as fruit juices, yogurt, etc. They could reap the benefit of bulk-buying from the Community Kitchen operation, and also getting all the traffic from CKC members.

Ecosystem of Materials

Bio-wastes from the Community Kitchen and Community Gardens operations could be transformed back into compost / fertilizers / biogas. The centralized grouping of waste allows for efficient upcycling. 

Harnessing solar power

One of the most underutilized and underrated solutions to the power crisis is depending on solar power.

At Samskruti, we have solar panels which are used to generate power to:

1. Provide hot water to all taps
2. To purify water

We also anticipate enough solar radiation to accommodate time-sharing of solar power.

Do you utilize solar power in your home?

How do you help create better Indoor Air Quality?

In Indian conditions, at our homes, primary source of pollutants that cause IAQ problem -

1)       Smoking

2)       VOCs from paints

3)       Vehicular pollution that gets trapped in our house

4)       Hair from pets

5)       Dust accumulated on the curtains, furniture, bed

6)       Fungus formation/growth in utility room and bathrooms

7)       Pesticides used for mosquitos, cockroaches

8)       CO from cooking is also a bit of concern

9)       VOCs from aerosols such as air-fresheners and body deodorants

10)   VOCs from household cleaners

At Samskruti Hoysala, we ensure better indoor air quality by the following steps:

1)       Naturally lit, integrated landscaped areas with well ventilated design 

2)       Lower exposure to aerosols, disease causing elements

3)       Lower temperature inside the house due to better ventilation and free flow of air

4)       Reduced exposure to emissions from materials like furniture, walls, paints, flooring, etc. as we choose them carefully

#indoorairquality #buildingsmartcommunities #samskrutibuilders

Write to us to learn more.
info@samskruti.in
+91 99162 17777

https://www.facebook.com/Samskruti.in

Smart solutions: Power strip

Ever wished you could avoid the tedious task of pulling out the plug and putting in the new one when changing devices in the kitchen?

At Samskruti Builders you can now use multiple appliances at the same time thanks to the smart power strip. The power strip not just provides an easy way to plug and unplug but also allows you to cut off power easily. How about having one for your living room too?

#samskrutihoysala
#buildingsmartcommunities
#samskrutibuilders

Write to us to learn more.
info@samskruti.in
+91 99162 17777

https://www.facebook.com/Samskruti.in

Let the light in

Do you have enough sunlight coming in to your home? Without proper sunlight, you could end up unhealthy and depending on artificial power.

At Samskruti, we plan, design and build homes that let natural light and air in while avoiding dust and noise.

Write to us to learn more.
info@samskruti.in
+91 99162 17777

The joy of communication!

One of the most important things you need to grow old happily is to have the joy of being heard. Story telling, teaching and most of the social events are based on this part of being involved in a healthy conversation. 

Unlike modern times when you are locked in cardboard cabins, bound by glass doors and designations, enslaved by the modern mistaken identity of solitude and privacy where community interaction, sometimes even in a family(sad but true) becomes elusive, Samskruti offers you a way out.

Samskruti Builders we believe that communication is a multi-way process and should be the loved and shared. After all don't we teach a child to speak and talk and enjoy the chatter. What if we provide a place, chance and create situations to ensure you encounter your neighbors, kids, elders and friends on a daily basis in your community without disturbing your privacy?

Viola come to any of our projects and you would find this is a daily routine. Community living is rejuvenated to allow your sense of belonging and rediscover your joy of sharing.

‪#‎SamskrutiHoysala‬ ‪#‎SamskrutiMaurya‬‪ #‎buildingsmartcommunities‬

Speak to us to know more: Call 99162 17777 

Visit: www.samskruti.in 

Follow us on facebook for updates!

Community garden

Bangalore is receiving so much rain and we are still waiting to take steps for rain water harvesting. So much water and so little measures to save.

At ‪#‎SamskrutiHoysala‬ we try to conserve all the water and after purification use it for drinking, farming(yes, literally) and a lot more!

Do you have a community garden, farming space in your house? What do you grow?

Speak to us to know more: 

Call +91 99162 17777 

Visit: www.samskruti.in 

Follow us on facebook for updates!

Water problems!

DNA: Healthy pre-monsoon trends have indicated that Bangalore will have a good monsoon.

The city is expected to get more rain in the days to come, as part of the pre-monsoon showers before monsoon hits the city. Strong winds, an upper-air cyclonic circulation coupled with a low pressure area in the Arabian Sea, has set the perfect tempo for the monsoon to arrive in the city.

Speaking to dna, an official from the Bangalore meteorological centre said the city has had 89mm of rain so far in the pre-monsoon season and that another 29mm of rain is expected in the coming days.

“Bangalore’s normal pre-monsoon rainfall is expected at 118mm. We have had healthy pre-monsoon season and it has cooled the city sufficiently,” the official said.

The city is expected to receive 110mm of rainfall in May alone.

“This is because, as we approach monsoons, the pre-monsoon activity goes up and then dips. This is a regular phenomenon,” he said.

The Southwest monsoon is expected to be about three days late this year.

“Usually, monsoon hits the Kerala coast on June 1, but this year, the meteorology department has declared that it will arrive on June 3. All climatic conditions are healthy and monsoon should hit the city by June 7,” he said.

The temperature is also expected to go up by two degrees according to the department officials. “By the end of the month, we are expecting the temperatures to go up to 36° C,” he said.

Things are looking better on the water front, as the scenario  might improve in the coming days. Rain is expected to be normal in the catchment areas of the Cauvery, which supplies water to the city.

Normally, from March 1 to May 15, Mandya, where Krishnaraja Sagar is located, is expected to receive 99mm of rain, but it has already received 101mm.

In Kodagu, which is the upstream area for Cauvery river, there has been near-normal rainfall, and although the average pre-monsoon rain in this catchment area is 171mm and has received just 141mm so far, the met officials are confident of more rain in the coming days.

Top five plants everyone must have at home

The 5 plants That will improve your home air.

1. Areca palm: Removes CO2 and converts it into oxygen during the day
2. Lucky Bamboo: To attract health, happiness, love and abundance
3. Christmas Cactus: Gives off oxygen at night while most plants produce oxygen during the day, it is perfect for your bedroom, family room, or other spots that get a lot of evening action
4. Golden pothos or Devil's ivy: Removes formaldehyde & other chemicals from air
5. Snake plant or mother-in-law's tongue: Converts CO2 into oxygen at night

Using these plants has shown significant oxygen level improvements in real world situations. Having these plants in your home can increase blood oxygen levels by 1% in 10 hours. They can reduce headaches, eye irritation, asthma and other respiratory problems.

Diary of a Samskrutian!