Wonder Grass

The venture, Wonder Grass Initiatives, is proposed as ‘A Solutions and Services’ provider hub, for Building- and-structural applications with bamboo. To cater to the burgeoning housing needs of the country.

The ‘HuB’, offers a range of services from
1. Design consultancy, construction and executing on site (construction on contract basis),
2. Manufacture, supply and sales of Bamboo building components (off the shelve, franchisee outlets etc),
3. Prefabricated ready to install shelters or structures, for multi-purpose applications.
4. Project Management consultancy specific to buildings with sustainable material,
5. Applied Research, design and development projects, with bamboo as primary material of construction.
6. To provide after-care or maintenance services, this will improve the customer-reliance on the technology.

Wonder Grass, would be located in Central India region, which has a reliable and good bamboo resource base, with Nagpur as its center. Wonder Grass would have operating office at Bangalore to tap into the booming economy, coupled with its accessibility to the cities like Hyderabad, Chennai, Cochin and Trivendrum.

The Urban segment has a growing demand for the structures which are semi-permanent or temporary in nature, essentially as a ‘Value-add’ to the existing built-environment.

One can start by tapping into this segment, which has purchasing power and then move onto the housing segment as one builds and puts in place the supply chain, logistics and HR. By HR we mean bamboo artisans, who at present have traditional bamboo skills but would need to learn new tools and techniques, essential for construction using bamboo.

Ultimately we want to cater to the already existing and continuously growing needs of housing needs in rural and semi-urban areas.

As part of establishing reliable and good raw-material supply of bamboo, develop a network of plantation farmers for bamboo on waste-lands or dry-patches owned by them, on a buy-back or some such line.

1. Approach architects.
2. Set-up stalls in building material fairs, property exhibitions.
3. Approach and meet, Cooperative and apartment resident associations, with presentations and posters.
4. Set up demonstration units in important locations.

Our emphasis would be on aesthetics and the exclusivity of the built-form. We have to stress upon the ‘value addition’ aspect of the bamboo based building systems, mainly environmental, socio-economical and performance aspects.

The sector which we are entering into, the competition is from the contractors and fabricators working with the conventional building materials. We are essentially eating into the existing conventianal ‘building’ market. Our advantage is the novelty, the aesthetics and exclusivity which it brings in.

The deterring factor for client, could be the higher initial price-tag and the lack-of-faith regarding this new application. What we would be fighting against would be the mind-set of the client himself and not so much with the other competitors.

The service we are offering is virtually speaking a one-stop-shop for all, when it comes to using bamboo in building and structures. At present, there exists no such service or solution provider which is managed by professionals who have vast experience of designing and building with bamboo and commitment to bamboo.

I am trained as Interior Designer from SID, CEPT Ahmedabad, a premier design institute in India. It was followed by an Internship at IBGE Brussels, Belgium and a short term post-graduate research program in urbanism conducted at Bauhaus, Dessau Germany.

During the course of my studies and in my professional career, i took up designing, developing, construction and supervision of bamboo based buildings, from a small house to an experimental large span structure.

First major bamboo based construction experience was designing, and supervising a cluster-housing project using bamboo as primary material for construction. A cluster of 50 houses built with finance from National Bamboo Mission, Government of India. It is followed by about 6 independent projects which are designing, developing and constructing buildings with different structural systems using bamboo as primary material.

The Bamboo building services unit, would have a considerable impact on the local economy, first and foremost because this is a artisan-intensive and craft-intensive venture. A large chunk of the work is done by artisans who work in teams or in groups.

Every year, we induct more number of bamboo-artisans in our venture. As the supply and demand chain starts to function efficiently, we can even plan to develop satellite working-units of bamboo artisan, in villages. Thereby decentralizing the works.

The main raw-material used is Bamboo. To begin with we would buy bamboo from the forest department depots, but as we have mentioned earlier, we intend to initiate small-farmers from around to take up bamboo-plantation which can become our steady supply source and steady source of income for farmers.

The long term spin-off of such a venture can be only speculated on qualitative terms.

The artisan families involved in this venture would enjoy a stability of income, which has become a rarity for them over centuries. This will have cascading effect on the fellow artisans and the generation of artisans to come, there will be more dignity for what they are doing and in doing this there is more self-respect and respect for others. These are more on the lines of self-empowerment.

The farmers, who take up bamboo farming, as the supplier for bamboo-unit, would also enjoy the economic security to some extent. The income and success of the venture would also mean that artisans, farmers in general would be willing to take bamboo and its applications in more respectable manner.