Inside India’s upcoming sustainable PCB factory designed by Studio Saar

There is a lot that can change in our cities, especially in India, if people and organisations take ownership of their public spaces. And Studio Saar — an Udaipur-based architecture practice with a presence in the UK — has several examples of enriched public spaces in Udaipur courtesy of community-led design. Key projects of the practice helmed by Ananya Singhal include: Udaan Park (located on the west bank of the Swaroop Sagar lake) that has been redeveloped by interactive landscapes, a canopy of bird replicas, repurposed tyres, and medicinal plants; and The Third Space, a vibrant community centre with interactive educational games, a toddler day care centre, science experiment zones, and more.  

Now, the team is busy working on one of their most ambitious projects till date. This is designing the ‘world’s most sustainable printed circuit board (PCB) factories’ at Sehore, Madhya Pradesh, for Studio Saar’s parent company Secure Meters, an Indian multi-national metering and energy business. To be completed in October 2026, Secure Sehore is projected to supply 30% of the country’s PCB demand, and boost India’s high-tech manufacturing sector that currently sources only 10% of PCBs domestically. 

Ananya Singhal, managing partner, Studio Saar explains how, in the case of PCB manufacturing, present practices are not customer service-centric. “They use a lot of clean water, and are responsible for a vast amount of carbon generation and physical waste,” he says, adding how the manufacturing of PCBs requires water, skilled labour, land, low carbon and low-cost energy, and central India was an apt choice to locate the factory in. Secure Sehore, Ananya explains, is a part of a major cohort of new industrial development that will boost India’s ability to manufacture high value electronics domestically. “PCBs are low value, but critical to create quality components in all electronics. This is a major opportunity to de-risk a key industry from the uncertainties and the current volatility of global markets and politics.”

Landscape-derived design 

Designed according to the principles of passive, circular, and regenerative design, the facility is slated to employ 1,000 people, with 500 working on-site at peak capacity. “The form of the building is very much derived from the landscape,” says Ananya. Traditional stone architecture is spread through the building, with cantilevered staircases that are inspired by the havelis of Bhopal, and corbelled roof structures that highlight the region’s local stone masonry culture. He adds, “We have endeavoured to ensure the building and the manufacturing process balance between cost, energy, water and quality. From the moment people will be picked up from their homes by a bio-diesel powered bus, to the fact that we are designing the whole structure to be reusable with virtually no processing.” 

Ananya says a combination of heat, dust, and humidity, is a major cause of quality failures in PCB manufacturing. Hence, the design includes shaded openings, highly insulated roofs with solar panels, facades that absorb radiative heat, and vegetation around the site. Over 80% of rainwater that will fall on the site will be conserved to aid an eight-acre native forest and shrub-land rewilding scheme, and production in the factory. “We are targeting 95% water re-use in the factory and ensuring we can retrieve usable minerals and metals from the waste water,” he says.

Green strategies

Elaborating on the site’s rewilding programme, Ananya says it was initially a wasteland “due to overgrazing and poor management of the scrubland”. Along with Secure’s community-driven environmental initiative 10 Lakh Vriksh and experts in rewilding and traditional forestry, a rewilding campaign has been initiated. “There are stages of planting that begin with soil stabilisation and end with a drought resistant, native, self-sustaining biodiverse ecosystem. This will include bioswales that will prevent surface runoff and purify the water entering the soil and our rainwater harvesting tanks,” he says, adding, “This is a zero-discharge site with 95% water reuse, along with this, the use of reusable and recyclable materials with passive cooling is also key.” 

I ask Ananya if there is a particular part of the project he is most excited to see when it is completed next year. For him, a project with regenerative practices at its core must have all its elements come together “to make the scheme sing”. “I am genuinely looking forward to seeing how the staff and workers experience the joyfully designed indoors, the rewilded and biodiverse green spaces, and the experience customers will have that will completely alter the paradigm of what PCB plants can be,” he concludes.