Project Vision

The guiding vision of the Mobile Mandala is informed by the tradition of Banyan trees being the sustainable classroom of India. This is our ideal form and guiding principle in that tomorrow’s classrooms will contribute to a reforestation of the world and take root in any locality. We believe that the Classroom of the Future must fundamentally revolutionize the paradigm of our built environment. It is imperative for us to adopt a Regenerative Approach to building instead of a resource-intensive and destructive material life-cycle approach.
We envision a transportable structure made from solar-cell fabric and bamboo support that incorporates systems for: water-catchment; nutrition-generation (intensive micro-gardens); waste recycling & composting (including humanure); habitat restoration; and multiple alternative energy technologies. Simultaneously, this structure will reflect and celebrate its cultural context in forms, patterns and other artistic expressions. A time dynamic will be fundamentally included in the Mobile Mandala.
Harvesting local, natural and waste materials to build more permanent aspects of the classroom, over time, the local ecology will be rehabilitated and native/useful plantings will replace invasive and non-useful landscapes. Ultimately, we see this classroom moving from pod to pod. As it is set-up in one area, it rehabilitates the area and creates a more permanent structure around it using natural and recycled materials. It then moves to the next area and cycles through the process again. Each pod will embody the core elements of the design and develop its own unique expression of these elements. In this way, classroom construction, instead of being a burden on the planet’s ecology will catalyze reforestation, overall ecological renewal and sensible resource-management.

Materials List

Nomadic Phase:
? Solar Cell Fabric & Battery Array
? Bamboo
? Hanging Black-Boards
? Recycled Steel Storage Container
? Cob (earth, straw, sand, cow manure)
? Reclaimed Timbers & Cement Culverts
? Found Local Stone
? Large Unglazed Earthenware Pots
? Khadi Fabric Rain Catchment Flaps
? Woven Vettiver Mat

Permanent Pod Phase:
? Reclaimed Local Waste Materials
? Hanging Black-Boards
? Cob, Adobe, Light Straw-Clay (earth, straw, sand, cow manure)
? Reclaimed Timbers & Cement Culverts
? Found Local Stone
? Large Unglazed Earthenware Pots
? Khadi Fabric Rain Catchment Flaps
? Woven Vettiver Mat
? Ultimately dependant upon site conditions, locally available materials, and creative community design process.

Location