Book review

Lab Girl by Hope Jaren, was one book which allured me with the title & synopsis to buy it from one of the corners in Kitab Khana, Mumbai. It kept laying on my bookshelf for months until the lockdown freed my mind to wallow in it.

This book is a memoir of a woman scientist Hope Jahren, from her days as a little girl under the lab benches to a roller coaster journey of pursuing her niche subject of environment, along with the sense of kinship with rest of the world. Every page you turn makes the plant world have conversations with you. As a reader you start looking at seeds, plants & trees as conversations with friends. We start understanding their movements as feelings with connotations in daily routines.

For me personally, Hope Jaren was a flashback to my lab girl days at National Chemical Laboratory, Pune coping up with the peculiar world of researchers & innovations. It reminded me of my admiration of the scientist I worked for as well as the aspirations to become one. Jaren’s book so precisely captures enthusiasm, passion & peculiarities of research fellows & aspiring scientists.

‘People are like plants, they grow towards light...’ as I read these words of Jaren, she made me nostalgic about my moments as a research fellow in NEERI, where the scientist I worked for  inspired me to look with a bird’s eye view to environmental science as a way to light up common man’s understanding of science.

Jaren’s struggle comes out as passion & at times over enthusiasm, to find something the way one wishes it should be & finally to accept the way it is.

‘A seed knows how to wait...Each beginning is an end of a waiting...each of us is given one chance to be...’ and many such similar words of Hope Jaren draws the reader to understand plant science & her work. This book is a story of Hope’s struggle to establish herself as a woman scientist to fight & fund this niche science. While telling her story this lab girl drops in precious secrets of passion for work & love, and how mountains can move when these two things come together.

I recommend this book to all who aspire to make competitive contributions in the fields of environmental science, naturalists & researchers, as well as those who give up hope while struggling for their passion of natural sciences. For them, as Jaren presents her story, from one scientist to another!

ECOSUPPORTER : MASCOT LIKE RK LAXMAN.

Hello,

I am Prachi Nimkar, co.found EcoSupport

Warm Greetings to you from EcoSupport’s new corporate office.

Firstly, On behalf of EcoSupport , I would like to thank all our customer & patrons, for helping us grow & accomplish this milestone. I will be revealing to you sneak peeks of what’s inside our office, but more than that this video is a warm invite & allure your visit to our new office.

As you enter our cosy reception, the first thing you spot is this curated teapoy revealing our CRZ service coastal Regulation Zones & the bldg. constructions Legalities are self explanatory while you sip your welcome drink.

While you relax at the reception, the wall across keeps your mind engaged, with the world wildlife map made out of scrap metal. Keep spot on to which biodiversity belongs to which part of the world. That’s a vision EcoSupport aspires to be : on the world map. Designed with an urban vision striking balance between ecofriendly and sustainably operating workspaces.

EcoSupport’s owned office space, reveals the challenges & solutions for the modern day workspaces. And yes, ecofriendly is minimalist & doable. So once again I extend a warm invite to our office for your ecofriendly solution.

EcoSupport believes to walk the green talk! Practice what we preach. Hence, while working in our new office have kept the context in terms of climate, terrain, socio-economic factors, etc. Which no doubt play a significant role in shaping the business of EcoSupport.

Our office, is well set in the local environs for the easy commute of our esteemed customers & valuable work force.

We have resourcefully utilized modern technology & eco-friendly materials  to add rhythm & character to build from. Some are playforus and concepts like green pod we brainstorm on a writeable table to go paperless. Our green pod is cushioned to take in the perspectives of all stakeholders from environment alists to builders & every common man.

The green pod is resourcefully cooled to huddled privacy, for the transforming nature of work & a younger workforce for altering work place.

The current Indian workforce of with 46% are millennials, prefer 3 types of workplaces to focus, relax & collaborate. The green pod is conceptualized just for that.

The Green pod encourages collaboration & brainstorming, but also counterbalances that by facilitating private meeting areas & quiet spaces, designed for privary & a distance lack of distraction, It rwits the employees looking for a space to do intense, focused work because, now every moment matters, if not now then when!

EcoSupports Workspace, celebrates sustainable living lifestyle with multiple passive design strategies to create a visually comforting lights & lowering energy bills for business operation.

Our ecofriendly work stations have user-centric approach blending in the natural surroundings. We have used s sanservia species, which serve as natural soft boards. While maintaining the IAQ .Info on sanservia.

This is in line with the ‘Design with Nature’ philosophy.

For safety & orientation lots of filtered daylight was brought in from all directions.

To keep the direct sunlight out, preventing heat gain & glare on screen or eyes of our valuable work force, we kept the work station perpendicular to the source of direct sunlight.

For the interior structure a deep dark green structure was used which goes well with exposed pine wood timbers planks of the work stations.

These pine wood planks collected close by our office from local vendors & got them cleaned.

During, seasonal variations the dark green wall of the pod, captures the diffused daylight, while keeping the harsh differ sunlight out.

For all work stations, the pine wood planks are clasped & scaffolded with metal frames az legs of tables.

Overall, the workstable  form an evocative open cubicle in nature & are placed in families of the services/ departments of EcoSupport.

The sanseveria species are subtle panel shaped partitions, casting silhouette hide and seek while privacy to focus on work, creating an internal spatial elegance for every ecosupporter in office. And with this workstations got a new life.

6 TAKEAWAY POINTS FOR THE VISITOR, TO INSPIRE THEM TO BUILD BACK BETTER

1)PASSIVE SOLAR ENERGY

Maximizes south facing sunlight gain allowing the distribution of solar energy in form of heat & nature daylight through the windows. The roof angle (floor height choice) is reduced towards the south to allow for maximum sunlight entry into the workspace.

2)UPCYCLED PINEWOOD PLANKS

Once dented or damaged, pinewood can be used to make hexagons for bookshelves for bookshelves as wall mount planks.

3)LIGHT UPPER SURFACES

Pinewood planks are like light tinber which does not add extra weight with would in the event of an earthquake disaster or exert force an the resources.

4)METAL FRAMED LEG

The lower metal frames are designed to be strong enough to bear heavy loads of indoor plants & desktops. The reinforcement with mental scaffolds beams to the pinewood prevent the planks from collapsing.

• With a maximum of local materials, local crafts, local labour & a minimum amount of acrylic we could use several of our accumulated experience in green building certification.

• Passive solar energy & passive space heating concepts had been of urban use since the mid 2000s.

• At EcoSupport’s operation in workspace we stubbornly looked for a more robust, yet more frugal solutions, so that our patrons & work force finds it doable in their sustainable project & life.

• Team EcoSupport believes we should elicit “eco” environmental support to our patrons & customers in the true sense by practicing what we preach.

Nature perseverance & ecofriendly innovations are other key elements we believe

In.

For this, We need to walk the green talk & handhold our customers from approva  to operations of any urban development project.

• We need to create evidence, that environment consultants can make a positive difference.

• We try to draw lessons, from the obstacles of common man to choose ecofriendly over usual & from that have built ecofriendly, user friendly & doable.

• We have tried to design the reception, work stations, pols & hustle hives as transitional spaces between outside & inside.

• As green building const professionals, we took the responsibility to bridge the gap between theory of environmental science & the building construction. We invested time & energy in building capacity & exchanging practical knowledge of builders & perceived ideas of future users.

We explained the novice interior contractors, how we intended to reuse, upcycled material & refurbish smallest spaces, nooks.

• We calculated how green interior could be made with the least amount of cutting loss.

• While liner development is leading to more use of acrylic, MDF, plastic & concrete, we proved it was possible to actually use very little of it, keeping material costs low & living comfort high.

• At our owned space, we could demonstrate it is possible to stick to the principles of reducing, recovering and up-cycling.

• The most important lesson for us in making our own space sustainable was, take deliberate risks with new designers or contractors but be loyal to sustainability environment. We have tried to design the welcome reception and the workstations as transitional space between outside & inside, they both function as therehold

• The administration and storage space are kept to the minimum. On the publicly accessed leuels to maximize the open & accessible nature of our company.

• Detailed analysis of the faced performance has informed the environmental solutions & has allowed the team to minimize the requirement for mechanical environment control system, with facilitates the highly flexible architecture solution.

• BIM (Building Information Modelling) was used in both design & execution, as well as checking the compatability of designs. Building information model will also be utilized for maintainence.

• The color pallette has been picked as to avoid gloss, & to emphasize natural materiality.

• A FLEXIBLE WORKPLACE                                                                                                                                                  All corners & nooks have been activated in spatial re-design process that turned the space into a sustainable, flexible workspace of the future.                                                                                          Our aim was to re- radicaling by creating a fresh, open & dynamic uses experience, not forgetting the company’s vision.

• The design of our office is aimed to celebrate sustainable living lifestyle & to be self-sufficient.