Sikh place of worship: The gurus of Gravesend

A cash-strapped project to build a Sikh place of worship in Gravesend procured the large marble domes, arched windows and highly ornate stonework from India - and saved more than £2m along the way

Even putting its striking appearance to one side, you still couldn’t describe the gurdwara in Gravesend as a conventional build. As a place of worship for the UK’s third-largest Sikh population, the project has been on site for the best part of eight years. When it started there was only enough money to complete the foundations; the rest of the cash still had to be raised, most of it from donations. And to get the best value for money, and keep control of the complex project, the local community set up its own construction company.

Added to all this was the intricately detailed stone cladding.

Teja Biring, a partner in Calford Seaden, the architects behind the gurdwara (door to the guru), says: “The community wanted a very traditional-looking building.” As a result, it incorporates plenty of the design cues of a traditional gurdwara such as the five large marble domes, the arched windows and the Indian motifs which embellish the stonework. Procuring such an ornate design was always going to be tricky given the tight budget, and it quickly transpired that the best way to achieve the traditional detail at a realistic price was to obtain the stone, already carved, directly from India.

Teja Biring, partner in charge at Calford Seaden, spent two weeks touring India until he found a company capable of handling the project. Trivedi Tectonics based in Ahmedabad in western India had expertise in hand carving and also the CNC machine tools to cut and carve large quantities of stone, which was a must if the project was going to complete in the next decade.

It also had its own marble quarry. However, Biring had concerns about using marble because of the UK climate and the porosity of the stone. “I was looking for a life expectancy of 100 years plus, like a church or cathedral,” he says. For this reason a mix of pink and grey granite has been used for a large proportion of the building, particularly where weathering might be an issue, such as ledges. Marble, easier to work with, has been used where there is intricate detailing and to create the traditional covering for the domes.

The entrance porch

The structure of the Gravesend Gurdwara has been kept simple to make it cheap and easy to build. It uses conventional insitu reinforced concrete clad with ready carved granite and marble panels. The entrance porch is one of the most detailed sections of the building, bringing together intricately carved columns, marble Jali windows, traditional Indian motifs and a marble clad dome.

1 Gold finial

2 Screen created from marble

3 Solid marble petals

4 White marble sections

5 Insitu concrete structure

6 Concrete soffit clad with ceramic mosaic tiles

7 Pink granite

8 White marble

with thanks : Buildings.co.uk : link in headline above for more details.

SikhsIndia