Strawcture Eco: Building hospitals using biomaterials that can last 100 years

By Sandhya Mishra

Shriti Pandey talks about her venture Strawcture Eco and how it is successfully providing sustain-able building product solutions, carving niche in healthcare segment.

As India was struggling to breathe during the second wave of COVID-19, parallely a new wave of innovation was emerging from individuals, startups to giant tech industries, to fight the devastating impact of pandemic.

One such innovator is Strawcture Eco, a three-year-old startup that made buzz by building a 100 bedded hospital in Patna in just 80 days using a biomaterial during the lockdown. One of many special features of such buildings is that it can be dismantled and put back together again anytime.

Shriti Pandey, Founder, Strawture Eco

Shriti Pandey, Founder CEO, Strawcture Eco having master’s degree in construction management from New York University, replaces both concrete and brick in her very innovative and sustainable way of constructing buildings. She is killing both concrete as well as stubble burning issue in India by using Agribiopanels made totally out of crop waste to construct buildings as well as hospitals.

Strawcture Eco is nailing the trend of ‘Green Hospital’ by not only reducing carbon footprint (that is otherwise generated at all stages of concrete manufacturing to building) but also soaks almost 30 kg of carbon dioxide per m2 of the panels.

After water, concrete is the single most widely used material in the world. In the time it takes you to finish reading the article, the global building industry will have poured more than 30 crores of liters of concrete.

Concrete is beautiful and versatile but, unfortunately, it ticks all the boxes in terms of environmental degradation. Concrete is said to be responsible for 4-8% of the world’s annual anthropogenic CO2 production along with sucking up almost a 10th of the world’s industrial water use. It is also known for adding to the heat-island effect and worsening the problem of silicosis and other respiratory diseases.

On the other hand, stubble burning is known to contribute to more than 44% of Delhi’s poor air quality which is not only making people sick but a dark cesspool of poisonous gasses reduces the visibility on road, causing accidents.

In an insightful conversation with Shriti Pandey, awarded 30 under 30 achievers Forbes Asia 2021, we learn about the groundbreaking work that happens when you are passionate about your doing and the community you live in.

AgriBioPanels

Strawcture is the first indigenous company to use agriculture fiber to build a hospital, how is the industry welcoming the change?

We are happy to inform that the Industry is actually quite supportive including the government for this new technology. The current trend is to look for a modular, less carbon intensive building materials and technologies to build affordably and faster.  We have been approached by a lot of architects, builders and Government bodies to evaluate our technology. 

Strawcture builds using Agribiopanels which are a replacement of fiber cement board, plaster board and clay burnt brick to make walls, ceiling, doors and engineered flooring. The panels store carbon instead of emitting it, has very low toxicity index, E1 certified and when used in a building envelope leads to a more thermally & acoustically comfortable environment.

What we are offering is a durable, more comfortable and sustainable environment to live in which has so far received lot of positive feedback and support in the healthcare sector. We have built hospital for a private client, government currently and a NGO/ Foundation last year.

Batra Hospital, Jalandhar Anganwadi Centre for Women Welfare

What is your take on the durability and ease of maintenance of these structures that impact sustainability and operational costs of the facility?

When we started Strawcture Eco we had the insight that the product has to be foremost accepted by the people who will be using it or working with it for other finishes on ground level that is carpenters, painters, plumbers and dry wall contractors.

We build the product from that mindset and I am happy to share that there is no upskilling required of a carpenter or a drywall contractor to use AgriBioPanels for dry-wall, ceiling, interior application. 

The maintenance is the same process as its for plasterboard, fiber cement board & engineered wood products such as plywood, MDF.

In last 3 years we have gotten all the required tests done on the products by NABL certified labs and have required certificates for thermal conductivity, fire resistance, moisture resistance, toxicity, screw holding capacity, tensile strength & breaking load. We meet all the required government standards and in certain aspect such as breaking load even exceeded Gypsum Board value by 3 times.

Each m2 of the panels store 30 kg of carbon dioxide. The product is a way to offset your carbon footprint. We are in the process of getting required GRIHA, LEED Certifications as well.

The panels have a thermal conductivity of 0.09w/m-k, for reference brick wall thermal conductivity is 1.0 W/m-K, which makes the building envelope 25% more thermally comfortable then a brick-wall envelope and reduce energy bills proportionately. 

Lastly, we manufacture these panels in sixes of 13'x6' which is arguably one of the biggest panels in the world.  The width of 6’ instead of 4’ reduces 15% framing cost for walling & ceiling application and leads to no joints in walling application up to a clear height of 12-13’ in a building which is the main point of maintenance of using dry-wall materials due to chances of leakage, cracks though the butt joint.

Overall we have built a product that is built upon customer insight, making sure we make dry-wall materials more acceptable in a country like India that values safety, durability more than western countries and is at the same time competitive in pricing without compromising on the sustainability quotient.

Vistex Hospital, Bihar

What are your plans on staying and expanding in the healthcare sector? Please mention projects in the pipeline, if any.

We plan to offer product & system solutions for the healthcare segment that focuses on better thermal comfort, acoustic comfort and fire safety using AgriBioPanels. 

We are in talks with a hospital in Hyderabad to use our fire-proof doors in the quantity of 250-300, A COVID Hospital for the center government in North East and dry-wall solution for a hospital in Bangalore for their regular patient’s rooms and ICU as well.

We also plan to build a primary Healthcare center unit using our AgriBioPanels and as minimum steel required to offer in the far-to-reach places in the country to better the healthcare infrastructure. The structure will also be built with the insight that it should be able to run on solar or off-grid sources.

Architecture and choice of building materials not only affect our budget but have a much bigger impact on the carbon footprint in form of embodied carbon footprint which once get locked at the stage of building can never be compensated for unlike operational carbon footprint due to energy and other building usage. So it’s imperative to build healthcare in India in a way that its healthy for the healthcare workers, patients and the climate all together.