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Building Visions - India

India's megacities are bursting at the seams. The country has 1.4 billion inhabitants and more are added every year. The cranes and excavators on the construction sites never stand still. In order to create new living space, the construction industry blows gigantic amounts of CO2 into the already polluted air every day. The population can hardly breathe.

Auroville is located in the south of the country. A true oasis compared to cities like Mumbai or New Delhi. Auroville sees itself as a test laboratory and magically attracts architects from all over the world. Anupama Kundoo is one of them and has been researching alternative building materials for many years. The architect from Mumbai works with bricks made by local potters. And not with energy-guzzling machines, but in furnaces made of the material they are designed to burn. The regional bricks may not be as hard as industrially manufactured pieces, but they are thinner and lighter. Used wisely, they also carry heavy loads. She is also experimenting with ferrocement: how can it be used sparingly and with the least possible use of steel?

Auroville was designed on the drawing board in 1968 and sees itself as a field for experimentation, and not just in terms of architecture. There is no private property, the individual is part of the community. And the community owns everything here. Anupama Kundoo feels inspired by the creativity and spirituality of the place. "The city is a laboratory in which we face the questions of the future without fear of failure." BUILDING VISIONS captures this spirit.

Filmed in Austria, India, Peru and the Netherlands, "Building Visions" presents architects who seek answers to the big questions facing our civilization today: climate change, rapidly growing cities, the involvement of local communities, education and migration. They are pioneers in decent housing and sustainable building, turning creativity and humanitarian ideas into plans and implementing them together with residents. We accompany architects who go where money is lacking, social grievances prevail and climate change threatens the environment.

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