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Lotus temple
The Lotus Temple is located in Bahapur, New Delhi near the Kalkaji Temple. It is well connected by metro, bus, and road. The temple covers 24 acres and was constructed between 1979-1986. It has a unique design inspired by the lotus flower, with 27 petals and a central hall. Natural light and ventilation are prioritized through its architectural design.
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More from Hamzah Meraj, Faculty of Architecture, Jamia Millia Islamia, New delhi
Lotus temple
- 2. LOCATION The Lotus Temple,located in Bahapur, New Delhi, India. Near Kalkaji temple
- 4. • The siteis well connected with all the regions or areas of delhi by the means of various Transport systems like metro line, city bus services and by road etc. • Approach road - lotus temple road 8.0 m wide • nearest metro station- kalkaji metro station is at a distance of 0.5 k.M • it is very near to nehru place and kalkaji temple
- 5. TENTATIVE DISTANCES FROMPROMINENT PLACES- DISTANCE FROM DISTANCE IN K.M. Kalka ji metro 412 m Kalka ji mandir 438 m Nehru place metro 739 m Old Delhi railway Station 20 km New Delhi Railway Station 14 km Indira Gandhi International Airport 16 Km
- 6. SOME FACTS ABOUTSITE • LOCATION: NEW DELHI • TOTAL SITE AREA: 24 ACRES • CLIMATE: TROPICAL WITH GREAT VARIATIONS IN TEMPERATURE • BUILDING TYPE: WORSHIP PLACE • TIME OF CONSTRUCTION: 1979-1986 • ARCHITECT- FARIBURZ SAHBA
- 9. SITE ZONING: 1. Houseof worship 2. Public Utilities 3. Information Centre 4. Parking
- 10. CLIMATE•Site has asemi arid climate, with an extremely hot summer, average rainfall and very cold winter. • Mean monthly temperature range from 14.3 °c in january (minimum 3°c) to 34.5 °c in june (maximum 47 °c). • The annual mean temperature is 25.3 °c.
- 11. TOPOGRAPHY• The siteis sloping down naturally towards north east direction. • The level difference between n-e and s-w is about 10.0m. • There are natural contours as well as manmade contours in form of grass slope. • The temple is built on highest area of the site. SITE CONTEXTSite context of the lotus temple is visual axis and built on the highest part of the site. The visual axis has visual connection with surrounded temple like kalkaji madir and iskon temple. The main axis of the site is sloping up towards temple so the temple view from the main leading vista is very dominating and grand
- 12. NATURAL LIGHTING: The wholesuperstructure is designed to function as a skylight. The interior dome is spherical and patterned after the innermost portion of the lotus flower. Light enters the hall in the same way as it passes through the inner folds of the lotus petals. The interior dome, therefore, is like a bud consisting of 27 petals, and light filters through these inner folds and is diffused throughout the hall. The central bud is held by nine open petals, each of which functions as a skylight. The nine entrance petals complete the design
- 13. NATURAL VENTILATION: The buildinginterior is kept cool by creating a natural air circulation wherein the air travels into the building after flowing over the cool water surrounding it.
- 14. CONSTRUCTION SYSTEM • Thelotus temple is constructed on arcaded construction system. • Based on 9 radial grids. • The inner leaves enclose the interior dome in a canopy made of crisscrossing ribs and shells of intricate pattern. • When viewed from inside, each layer of ribs and shells disappears as it rises, behind the next, lower layer.
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- 16. • Some ofthe ribs converge radially and meet at a central hub. • A neoprene pad is provided between the radial beams and the top of the interior dome to allow lateral movement caused by the effects of temperature changes and wind.
- 17. ENTRANCE LEAVES ANDOUTER LEAVES: • Shell surfaces on both sides of the ridge of the entrance and outer leaves are formed out of spheres of different radii, with centres located at different points inside the building. • There is one set of spheres for the entrance leaves. • The diameters of the spheres have been fixed to satisfy the structural consideration of varying shell thickness. • For outer leaves, another set of spheres defines the inner and outer surfaces of the shells. • The shell is uniformly 133 mm thick towards the bottom, and increases to 255 mm up to the tip, beyond the glazing line. • The entrance leaf is 18.2m wide at the entrance and rises 7.8m above the podium level. • The outer leaf is 15.4m wide and rises up to 22.5m above the podium.
- 18. THE INNER LEAVES: •The inner leaf, comprising a cusp (ridge) and a re-entrant (valley). • The inner leaves rise to an elevation of 34.3m above the inner podium. • At the lowest level each shell has a maximum width of 14m. • It is uniformly 200mm thick.
- 19. THE ARCH: •All aroundthe central hall are nine splendid arches placed at angular intervals of 40 degrees. •The shape of these arches is formed by a number of plane, conical and cylindrical surfaces. •Intersection of these surfaces provides interesting contours and greatly enhances the beauty of the arches. •The nine arches bear almost the entire load of the superstructure beams were dewedged, leaving the central hub supported. •The remaining portion of the inner leaf was then taken up.
- 21. THE INTERIOR DOME: •Threeribs spring from the crown of each arch. •While the central one (the dome rib) rises radially towards the central hub, the other two (the base ribs) move away from the central rib and intersect with similar base ribs of adjacent arches, thus forming an intricate pattern. •Other radial ribs rise from each of these intersections and all meet at the centre of the dome. •Up to a certain height, the space between the ribs is covered by two layers of 6Ommthick shells.
- 23. MATERIALS: •The inner surfacesof all the shells have a uniform, bush-hammered, exposed concrete surface with architectural patterns. • For the inner leaves, these patterns were formed out of radial and vertical planes intersecting the surface of the torus. •For the outer and entrance leaves, and the interior dome, the patterns were formed out of longitudes and latitudes of spheres.
- 24. •The formwork wasdesigned in a manner that timber joists support the panels instead of the regular pattern of the structural steel supporting members of the space frame . •Full-scale mockups of the bottom surface of each of the shells were first made at ground level and the architectural patterns marked on this surface. Concrete: •All the ribs and shells up to radial beam level are in white concrete. •To avoid crazing and shrinkage cracks, a mix of M 30 grade white concrete was designed. The entire quantity of white cement was therefore imported from Korea. •Specially graded dolomite aggregates were procured from the Alwar mines near Delhi and white silica sand from Jaipur.
- 25. REINFORCEMENT: •The reinforcement usedin the white concrete shells as well as the binding wires was entirely galvanized so as to prevent the long-term effect of rusting of reinforcement on the white concrete. • Sandblasting was carried out to reduce pickling time with a view to avoiding hydrogen embrittlement. • The bottom formwork for one shell for each of the leaves was first erected and aligned. •The edge lines and surfaces of this formwork were then used as a mock-up to decide the length and shape of each bar in the shell. •To avoid the impression of cover blocks on the exposed surface of the shells, the inner layer of reinforcement was held in position by special steel spacers supported from the outer formwork
- 26. CONCLUSION Every efforthas been made to make the temple energy efficient. Natural ventilation and lighting has been used in the building. Water body present shows the leaves of lotus flower and make the building so there great of temperature inside the building as compare to outside. Parks and open spaces with appropriate species of plants, noise reduction barriers along boundary. There’s no ramp to access the temple. Structure consists of 9 radial grids based on arcade construction making it a column free.