Community Kitchen

Pondicherry

Pondicherry, India

Located in the dappled shade of a eucalyptus grove at the edge of the Sharanam campus, the community kitchen provides an important facility for local and visiting communities.

The simple design responds to a brief emphasizing healthy cooking, communal eating and the self-washing of plates and comprises two elegant interconnecting brick volumes, containing the main kitchen and storerooms, and two freestanding walls which unfold to reveal richly coloured courtyards for washing. A spacious plinth with a large decorative plaster mosaic provides an open servery and leads to the lightweight canopied dining space (under construction).

Community Kitchen, Pondicherry. Photograph by Jateen Lad.

Robust masonry walls to the road-facing elevation

Eucalyptus, earth block wall, hand-finished concrete plinth with brick edging and pebble infill

The kitchen buildings and spacious servery plinth under the dappled shade of the eucalyptus grove

Earth block masonry and precasting details

The high walls in cement stabilized earth blocks are built off rammed earth foundations and restrained by a single feature buttress. Thin reinforced concrete roof slabs cast onto mud-lined formwork provides a silken finish. Reclaimed kallimerdu hardwood is used for the solid doors, glazing and screens. Internally, the walls are finished in smooth hand-trowelled earth plaster and lined with spacious granite counters enabling cooking classes. The washing courtyards are detailed with hand-made precast components: raised washing plinths, pin supported pergolas and long basins which stiffen the folding walls.

Full-height door arrangement viewed from inside the storerooms

Main kitchen with polished earth plastered walls, windows in reclaimed Kallimerdu hardwood and an insitu concrete soffit cast onto a mud mould.

The tough exposed masonry walls unfold to reveal richly coloured courtyards for washing plates and vessels

Semi-shaded washing courtyards with exposed earth block walls, hand-made precast plinth, pergolas, and basins with terracotta lining, insitu concrete framing and flooring in waste granite and pebbles.

The building is equipped with multiple demonstration technologies including water-saving taps, rainwater harvesting, recharge wells and soon to be installed solar and steam cookers.

Community Kitchen, Pondicherry. Detail of plaster mosaic to servery wall. Photograph by Jateen Lad.

Project: Community Kitchen
Location: Pondicherry, India
Client: SARVAM Sri Aurobindo Society

Size: 300 sqm
Status: Completed

Architecture & Construction Management: Jateen Lad

Project Assistants: Spencer Fretwell, Megan Crouse, Chandranath Sinha