BY: DUSYANTA DASA
The Goshalla at Bhaktivedanta Manor has been put up for an award from
the local council. The buildings themselves have been described as
innovative and inline with the sustainable lifestyle that the
Bhaktivedanta Manor preaches. There are pictures of the Goshalla on the
Bhaktivedanta Manor site to view. I believe the site was a green belt
site originally and the Goshalla was funded by donations. The design was
by Malcolm Pawley Architects, presumably in connection with devotees,
and a variety of building materials were used.
But from a sustainable ecological point of view there is nothing to
focus on. There was a huge amount of concrete used, possibly the worst
sustainable product in construction today, and of course there is
absolutely no reason to use this material in a sustainable ethical
environment.
There were huge amounts of metal tubing used, which gives the effect
of a modernistic commercial farming picture that can be found anywhere
around the UK and USA, being produced from ugly industrialised
factories. The milking point for the Cows appears to be a metal tubular
prison for the docile Cows to stand in whilst being hand-milked.
The most notable omission is the total lack of anaerobic
decomposition and methane generation plant that could be exploited to
yield another type of fuel from biomass, which must be considered to be a
massive blunder by the architects and devotees running the project.
Considering the obvious quantity of biomass readily available in a
Cow Protection project, this should have been one of the first
considerations in the design, that would have produced free energy and
fertiliser from manure.
Otherwise what happens to all the urea and ammonia contained in the
manure mixed with urine and carbon-based straw? It just evaporates into
the air and adds to the already high levels of “greenhouse gas”, so how
does Bhaktivedanta Manor Goshalla illustrate an ecologically sustainable
example?
The next part in this scenario of extracting useable energy for
humans from biomass Cow manure is the obvious economic benefits. At
Bhaktivedanta Manor the kitchen is a net consumer of gas for cooking
requirements, so any additions to this consumption are beneficial for
the bill payers.
The amount of cubic useable methane gas produced from one cow to
another does vary, and each breed of cow and in each climatic influence
there are variations of methane production, that is a given principle.
But based on a biogas digester system that is operated near Doncaster in
the north of the UK on a Mr. F. Howarth’s dairy farm, the average mean
production of useable methane gas worked out at a hefty 0.51-0.62 cubic
metres of methane to every 1Kg of dry matter. Of course water is added
to the process for digestion.
Working that out into everyday £/$ means that per Cow production per
day of methane gas into today’s prices charged at delivery point for
consumers would mean astronomical savings. And therefore would
precipitate either reduced milk production retail prices thereby
increasing the market share of consumable Cow Protection Milk, and/or a
healthy surplus profit that could be ploughed (no pun intended) back
into the Cow Protection project.
The sale of Methane gas could also benefit from the bottling process
of 5-47 kg bottles for domestic use by local devotees, thereby creating
job opportunities and devotees using a more readily available
sustainable gas product. In fact, when you think about all the
implicated applications of Bio Gas production from Cow manure, the
opportunities are endless.
Maybe it could be used in a devotee run forge or smithy for the
smelting of metal, or the kiln of a pottery in a ceramic product
business, or more obviously in a Dairy producing all types of milk
products, which could have been branded with the ISKCON logo, and so on.
The missed opportunities in the ISKCON run Cow Protection projects are
massive.
Apart from the buildings taking on the quality of a public building
and appearing to resemble a commercial warehouse rather than an
ecologically considered building naturally sitting in its environment,
one is left to wonder what happened to the integrity of the building?
It looks as if it was purposely built for visitors rather than Cow
Protection, as if there were to be some benefit extracted from the
visitor rather than the Cow. The strategic use of design and materials
appears to favour the visitor for the purpose of financial gain because
the design does not enhance the Cow Protection principles of Community
and the symbiotic dependency therein. The design favours the visitor.
When we build and construct, the concept in mind for the building’s
application is considered. To build a community based Cow Protection
building, certain principles would necessarily be included in that
design. But for visitors to a Goshalla for the principle of viewing
Cows, then another design would be forthcoming.
The ability to include both sets of principles would mean to
compromise one another, which is exactly what has happened to the design
at Bhaktivedanta Manor Goshalla. If you study the Goshalla carefully
bearing these points in mind, then it becomes obvious to the trained eye
that this is the case. The Goshalla at Bhaktivedanta Manor was not
designed with Community in mind.
What happened to the infrastructure of Cow protection in ISKCON?
Where are the infrastructural buildings that support the community in a
symbiotic dependency on land and Cows for an economical basis? The
Bhaktivedanta Manor Goshalla does not manifest those qualities. It does
not take a genius to see that the whole design is aimed at one thing
only, and that the materials that were used did not support the
community principles of ecological sustainability.
If you take a look around the area of Hertfordshire where
Bhaktivedanta Manor is situated, the design of farm buildings that have
been there for centuries were built from locally sourced materials based
on community, using local design and materials, using local skills and
labour, using community principles of dependency for the future, and
lastly using real integrity of purpose. These all appear to be missing
at Bhaktivedanta Manor Goshalla.
The buildings are a disappointment from the viewpoint of cultural
ISKCON development and in no way represent a green sustainable way of
construction. The buildings could have been so much better, so much more
community orientated, so much more inspiring to be ready for future
community and present community ideals.
Sadly, the fact of the matter is that the Goshalla has as much
character as a bus stop, as much soul as a thrown away banana skin, and
as much attractive design as a public library. What on earth happened to
conscious input based on Community, Love, and Design for a living
lifestyle?
Far from going around patting ourselves on the back for being up for
an award from dubious non-devotees, we need to take serious stock of
what our conceptions in terms of sustainability, construction for the
future, and principles of Community actually are. How have we defined
our Gaudiya Vaisnava culture in terms of design, application and
activity for our buildings that we have commissioned from the foundation
upwards? Within the legal parameters of each country around the world,
surely we can come up with buildings far more superior than this.
Here in Wales there are even school buildings built by the Rudolf
Steiner Community that are so attractive, without a straight line in
them, well nearly. They are beautifully crafted buildings that just lift
the spirit by being in them. Isn’t this our remit too? Why do we follow
the modernistic culture of “warehouse” design buildings? Are not the
Cow and Bull more important to ISKCON than just some kind of prosaic
configuration of concrete, metal, plastic and imported wood
construction?
