Embracing Self-Sustainability and Minimalism
Owning a house of your own is a lifelong dream of many people in our country, right from lower to middle and upper middle class, man from all these economic stratas are longing to build a house of their own, however, more often this dreams remain unfulfilled or by the time it is fulfilled not many years are left in ones live to enjoy living in it. What contributes to this is not only the rising cost of land in urban areas, but the craze to build new fashion houses, using modern & industrial materials such as steel, concrete and cement. An overwhelming majority of houses built in urban areas today completely disregard regional architectural, climate conditions or local materials. A recent estimates by online organization states that “20 million people as being homeless in Pakistan”. Pakistan’s prime minister Imran Khan in his electoral vision had promised to build 50 million for the poorest of the country, living without a house of their own. It appears that using locally available materials such mud, lime, bamboo etc while using local construction methodologies could prove extremely cost efficient.
While doing research to find architects whose body of work was dedicated to building houses with local materials with a regard to environment, while also keeping it within the budget of the most lower or middle class Pakistan, We come across two names, Yasmeen Lari from Pakistan and Lauri Baker from India. In this blog, I will be scratching the surface of the history, educational background and philosophy of works of these two eminent artists from our region whose methodology, working style and region were different, yet they have a common thread that connects their concern for usage of local material, technique, style and above all their concern for the less privileged. Towards the end of the blog, I will briefly share the recent urban building being built in Pakistan using mud, while sharing an interesting research of a semi urban settlement made purely of compressed Earth Bricks built around 1970.
It is always baffling why we had abandoned mud entirely, a material that we had been using for centuries. Through local interactions and village visits, we come to know that mud houses have been inexpensive & fast to build, have a low cost to maintain, have better heat insulation and are environmentally friendly, yet a steady decline in it’s usage is evident. Yasmeen Lari has recently seen national fame and recognition owing to her incredible work for low cost housing methodology in rural sindh. Her recent houses built in remote sindh villages with locally available sand, mud, lime and bamboo have caught the eyes of many. Not only the cost of construction is incredibly low, merely 50,000 for a small adobe, the beautiful aesthetics of design has been applouded both nationally and internationally.However, Lari has not always been building with mud, much of Lari’s past work has been about building high rise buildings for big corporations using state of the art technology and materials.
In Yasmeen Lari’s own words “At the time I enjoyed using expensive building materials such as large glass panels, polished granite and steel trusses’, Lari reflects, ‘and perhaps with my present work I am atoning for the damage I caused with my earlier projects”
Lari is a graduate of Oxford Brookes School of Architecture. Very early in her career upon her return to Pakistan, she was deeply inspired by the local architecture and constructions.
When I visited Thatta, once the glorious capital of Sindh, in 1958, one could still find a good number of beautiful old houses, usually three storied, with the wind catchers that are typical of Sindh, and with fine stucco decorations. Thirty years later, many of those were replaced by nondescript modern concrete houses in what Yasmeen Lari calls “instant vernacular” style.
During the last one decade Lari has been experimenting primarily with local materials, most significantly mud. Though mud has been in use for centuries in our region, much has not been written or documented about its nature, usage, and technique. Furthermore, more advanced interventions needed to be made to address the known problems associated with mud. This has been an area where Lari’s work shines, since not only she has been able to use the mud in a suitable way to address the contemporary’s needs but she has also set up a training program that is disseminating knowledge about her methodology through Heritage Foundation, the organization she founded. While Lari was working in Pakistan, another of her contemporaries, though originally a British national, who later embraced Indian citizenship was experimenting with something similar.
Lauri Baker is an Award Winning Architect from India, who is relatively lesser known in Pakistan. What makes Lauri Baker unique among modern architects in our region is that a large body of his work consists of building architecture for the poor of his country, using locally sourced materials and techniques which saves on labor costs. His buildings utilize indigenous architecture, are suited for the climate of the region, and make very little to no use of industrialized materials like concrete and cement. His buildings are built in a way that minimizes the use of expensive materials used in modern construction.
Lauri Baker
Title/Construction Year: Dr. K.N Raj House, 1971
Medium: Bamboo Reinforcement of Slabs, unpastered walls
Size: Varying Dimension
Source:https://www.architectural-review.com/buildings/retrospective-yasmeen-lari
Educated as a modernist architect at Birmingham School of Art Lauri has his initial schooling at Aston’s King Edward Grammar School. At the time when Laurie graduated from college, the foundation for modern architecture was already laid in Europe, and new beautiful buildings had already been made such as the Crystal Palace in London & the Eiffel Tower in Paris. Soon after his graduation, the world was engulfed in World War I. Being a Quaker, he enlisted for the Friends Ambulance unit and traveled to China during the World War, spending 3 years in China. His health deteriorated during this selfless work and was asked to come back to England to recuperate. As luck would have it, his steamer was due to stop for 3 months at Bombay Port, which allowed him the opportunity to meet Mr.Mahatma Gandhi, who had huge respect for Quakers and their work. This meeting came to be a turning point in a young British Architect, whose ideals & usage of indigenous technology matched perfectly with Gandhi’s philosophy of self-reliance. Mr.Gandhi requested Baker to come to India as the nation required homes for a majority of its poor and homeless population.
Baker invested his early years in unlearning the ways of construction he had been taught. Rather, through dedicated research and profound seriousness he learned about the indigenous architecture of India, its materials, and their usage. According to Mr. Baker’s account
“There is nothing new in Baker Architecture. Columbus is reputed to have discovered America, but a large number of people were already living there without the publicity of his discovery for a long time. Similarly, when I made my own little personal discoveries, I realized that I had merely chanced to find an extensive set of building systems that were in no way “discoveries” to more than 500 million people! ”
Much like Lari’s Heritage Foundation, Baker’s achievement towards documentation and proliferation of the work and its technique has come with the establishment of the Centre of Science and Technology for Rural Development called COSTFORD. Since its inception in 1985, according to the COSTFORD Website, it has “heavily improved housing and made significant gains in providing alternative philosophy and technologies for providing cost-effective, energy efficient, and more appropriate housing for culture and climate for all income groups”.
It may come as a surprise for many but as early as the 1970s, Pakistan was already on its way to building low-cost houses using modern interventions in mud, such as the usage of compressed earth bricks, which offer a significant improvement over ordinary mud brick or rammed earth constructions. One such settlement is located in Pakpattan where a settlement of about 100, self-built through technology transfer was made in the wake of 1977. The houses not only survive in good shape but are in usage, especially the dispensary that was built for the community which speaks volumes about the durability & strength of mud if used appropriately. It is high time that our government, town planners, economists, and architects also consider the works of these incredible architects of our region and build upon their work for a better, more environmentally friendly, and inclusive model of house building that offers a promise of a roof over everyone.
Bibliography
Burte, Himanshu. “The Gandhi of Spatial Delight.” Economic and Political Weekly 42, no. 18 (May, 2007): 1606-609. Accessed August 30, 2021. http://www.jstor.org/stable/4419542.
“COSTFORD’s History.” Costford. costford. Accessed September 1, 2021. http://costford.org/history.php.
Deulgaonkar, Atul. Essay. In Laurie Baker: Truth in Architecture. Pune: Jyotsna Prakashan, 2014.
Lari, Yaseem. “Traditional Architecture of Thatta.” Journal of the American Oriental Society 111, no. 1 (Mar, 1991): 194. Accessed September 1, 2021. doi:10.2307/603812.
Ramzi, Shanaz. “Retrospective: Yasmeen Lari.” Architectural Review. July 26, 2020. https://www.architectural-review.com/buildings/retrospective-yasmeen-lari.
Thelwell, Kim. “7 Realities of Homelessness in Pakistan.” The Borgen Project. Kim Thelwell https://borgenproject.org/wp-content/uploads/The_Borgen_Project_Logo_small.jpg, August 3, 2020. https://borgenproject.org/7-realities-of-homelessness-in-pakistan/.
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