YASK KULSHRESHTHA
Visiting researcher – Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering, Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands
PhD candidate -the Faculty of Civil Engineering & Geosciences, Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands
SupervisorS
Yask Kulshreshtha is a visiting researcher at the Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering and a PhD candidate at the Faculty of Civil Engineering & Geosciences. He is conducting research on building affordable, durable, and desirable homes using locally available mud and biological resources.
After finishing his bachelors in Engineering from BVM Engineering college in India, he moved to Delft and started an MSc program in Civil Engineering. In his master thesis, he developed a corn starch based material (named CoRncrete) and continued researching on it after graduating (with honours) in 2015. Yask moved back to Inda in 2016 to embark on a nine months-long backpacking trip in India. On this trip, he spent time learning the traditional building construction methods and used this knowledge to write a PhD proposal that took him back to Delft in 2017. Since then, Yask is carrying out multidisciplinary research at the intersection of materials sciences, civil engineering, geosciences, architecture, and design. He is fascinated by cow-dung and investigating the science behind its well-known water-resistant properties. He was recently awarded a grant from the Dutch science foundation (NWO) to extend his work on cow-dung and explore its application as an ecological brick that can regulate the indoor climate of buildings. Within this project, he is actively involved in research with the materials experience lab.
Current Project
COW-DUNG MUD BRICK INSTALLATION
The project aims at creating an installation that transforms from one form to another by gradually disintegrating under the influence of rain and wind. This installation would be built on a biological cow farm in Delft. The installation aims to invoke people to re-think natural building material as an eco-friendly alternative to concrete and fired brick construction.
PUBLICATIONS
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Marsh, A. T. M., & Kulshreshtha, Y. (2021). The state of earthen housing worldwide: how development affects attitudes and adoption. (Aceepted in Building Research & Information)
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Kulshreshtha, Y., Mota, N. J. A., Jagadish, K. S., Bredenoord, J., Vardon, P. J., van Loosdrecht, M. C. M., & Jonkers, H. M. (2020). The potential and current status of earthen material for low-cost housing in rural India. Construction and Building Materials, 247, 118615. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.conbuildmat.2020.118615
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Kulshreshtha, Y., Schlangen, E., Jonkers, H. M., Vardon, P. J., & van Paassen, L. A. (2017). CoRncrete: A corn starch based building material. Construction and Building Materials, 154, 411–423. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.conbuildmat.2017.07.184
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Paassen, L. van, & Kulshreshtha, Y. (2017). Biopolymers: Cement Replacement. In Cultivated Building Materials. Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783035608922-013