Following Baker

In the last of this series on masters of Indian architecture, Himanshu Burte talks to three contemporary practitioners of the Baker tradition, who stay true to his basic principles yet have their own identities.

Laurie Baker left behind a legacy that is simultaneously empowering and challenging for Indian architects. Empowering because he showed that it is possible to be creative and practical while being socially responsible at the same time. Social responsibility in his case involved building in a way that the poor or lower middle class could afford houses. It also meant building in a way that reduced the harm that construction causes to the environment and the energy security of the country. He showed that the construction technique has many possibilities beyond what is recorded in text books and tender documents. His legacy is challenging because his example asks architects to step out of the comfort of practice-as-usual if they are to work for the poor or to save the planet. As it happens many architects and organisations across the country have taken on this challenge.

We take a quick look at three such players. COSTFORD has sustained the social vision Baker set out for building professionals. The Kochi-based firm Inspiration has developed a new eco-friendly technology for building using renewable bamboo- an important contribution considering the shortage of good bricks and sand. Finally, Bangalore-based firm Good Earth has developed a green business model aimed at the upper class homeowners using lessons learnt working with Baker.

Not for profit
The Centre of Science and Technology for Rural Development (COSTFORD) is an NGO formed in 1986 by Achutha Menon, a progressive ex-Chief Minister of Kerala to disseminate Baker’s approach widely so as to provide shelter for the needy in Kerala. Baker was closely associated with it from the beginning and designed thousands of small and medium sized buildings that were executed by COSTFORD. The organisation is run in a spirit of voluntarism (its director from inception, Chandra Dutt, is a full-time volunteer) and of social responsibility. It charges a relatively low fee for design and construction services and has built largely for the poor population as well as for government organisations. It has successfully used Baker’s low-energy construction techniques in the many thousands of buildings it has built in Kerala. The total saving of fossil fuel energy that this organisation has achieved by doing so is very significant. However, COSTFORD has largely focused on implementing Baker’s technical vision and has not done much innovation so far. The exception is the successful implementation of biogas plants in a few residential projects in Thiruvananthapuram. But COSTFORD has succeeded in remaining very close to Baker’s social mission for the building profession building affordably and sustainably for marginalised communities and government.

Innovating tradition
Inspiration is an award winning practice run by an architect couple, Jaigopal Rao and Latha Raman. In the early 1990s Jaigopal worked closely with Baker on a number of COSTFORD projects in North Kerala. Later he started independent practice with Latha, following Baker’s design principles and techniques and built extensively in Kerala. Inspiration built middle and upper class homes, resorts and other building types in the Baker method. They also developed expertise in eco-friendly sanitation and water management systems. After 2000 the firm developed a wood-concrete technology invented by the late K R Datye of Mumbai. Inspiration’s office was built by adapting this technology in collaboration with Datye’s team, to incorporate bamboo. The office building in Kochi has won international awards and this prefabricated technology, the firm is now an using this low-energy technology widely. It has thus taken Baker’s technical legacy and taken it forward through its own innovations.

Sustainable living
This group of architects and engineers gained experience collaborating with COSTFORD and Baker on specific projects. They then went on to found a for-profit developer firm with a difference, active in Bangalore and Kerala. Good Earth began with design and construction techniques learnt from Baker, and has now added others to their repertoire depending upon the context of projects. It prefers to work closely with clients to develop group housing projects where the sense of community is fostered through design. It has developed an aesthetic that is connected to Baker’s but also has a distinct personality. Though its technologies are cost effective, the projects are targeted at the upper middle class upwards. They believe that this is the class that consumes the most amount of resources and sets trends. So if it can be convinced to adopt a more sustainable lifestyle, in this case in its architecture, others would follow. In the past the firm has also offered design consultancy to other organisations and causes. Among such projects is Sambhavana, a hospital for victims of the 1984 gas leak in Bhopal.

AN ARCHITECT AND A VISIONARY

By the time Padmashri Laurie Baker passed away in Thiruvananthapuram in 2007 at the age of 90, he had lived a remarkable life. Born and trained as an architect in Britain (at the Birmingham School of Art, 1937), he had become the pioneer and guru of affordable and eco-friendly architecture in India, overturning dominant Western values in architecture and development. But most of the buildings we know him for were built after he crossed the age of 50, after he settled in Thiruvananthapuram in the late 1960s.

Before that he had already lived a big life, but quietly. He had driven an ambulance in China in 1942 during World War II and later run a small leprosy home there. He made India his home on the urging of Mahatma Gandhi whom he happened to meet in 1945. He married a Malayali doctor, Elizabeth Chandy, and for 16 years they ran a rural hospital in the hills of Uttaranchal, miles from a motorable road.

Once in Thiruvananthapuram, Baker finally got down to architectural practice full time, which he conducted very differently from the norm. He would build for a range of clients including the poor and lower-middle class aspirant to a home, as well as institutions like the Centre for Development Studies. He drew little, compared to other architects; designed on site; learnt from traditional architecture; used simple, near-natural materials; minimised the use of cement and steel; and built well but inexpensively. His technical innovations were a significant addition to the repertoire of Indian architecture. “Rat trap bond” is a technique of building a normal 9 inch (one brick) thick wall with a network of insulating air gaps or voids within. “Filler slab” replaced structurally irrelevant concrete in a roof slab with waste roofing tiles, and also reduced steel consumption. He also created new and beautiful patterns out of waste — gravel from concrete in paving, colourful old bottles that glowed in walls, steel waste decoration in grills, and more.