LAURIE BAKER – FISHERMEN’S VILLAGE

LIFE HISTORY:

(March 2, 1917 – April 1, 2007) British-born Indian architect

• He went to India in 1945 in part as a missionary and since then lived and worked in India for over 50 years
• He obtained Indian citizenship in 1989 and resided in Thiruvananthapuram (Trivandrum), Kerala.
• In 1990, the Government of India awarded him with the Padma Shri in recognition of his meritorious service in the field of architecture.
• Baker studied architecture in Birmingham and graduated in 1937, aged 20, in a period of political unrest for Europe.
• During the Second World War, he served in the Friends Ambulance Unit in China and Burma.

CONTRIBUTION TO INDIA

• Worked as an architect for an international and interdenominational Mission dedicated to the care of those suffering from leprosy.
• Focused on converting or replacing asylums once used to house the ostracized sufferers of the disease – “lepers”.
• Used  indigenous architecture and methods of these places as  means to deal with his once daunting problems.

Initial work

• Baker lived in Kerala with Doctor P.J. Chandy,
• He received great encouragement and later married his sister
• while Laurie continued his architectural work and research accommodating the medical needs of the community through his constructions of various hospitals and clinics.
• Baker sought to enrich the culture in which he participated by promoting simplicity and home-grown quality in his buildings.
• His emphasis on cost-conscious construction,
• An ideal that the Mahatma expressed as the only means to revitalize and liberate an impoverished India

Architectural style:

• Designing and building low cost, high quality, beautiful homes
• Suited to or built for lower-middle to lower class clients.
• Irregular, pyramid-like structures on roofs, with one side left open and tilting into the wind.
• Brick jali walls, a perforated brick screen which utilises natural air movement to cool the home’s interior and create intricate patterns of light and shadow
• Baker’s designs invariably have traditional Indian sloping roofs and terracotta Mangalore tile shingling with gables and vents allowing rising hot air to escape.
• Curved walls to enclose more volume at lower material cost than straight walls,
• Baker was often seen rummaging through salvage heaps looking for suitable building materials, door and window frames.
• Baker’s architectural method is of improvisation.
• Initial drawings have only an idealistic link to the final construction, with most of the accommodations and design choices being made on-site by the architect himself
• His respect for nature led him to let the idiosyncrasies of a site inform his architectural improvisations, rarely is a topography line marred or a tree uprooted.
• This saves construction cost as well, since working around difficult site conditions is much more cost-effective than clear-cutting
• Baker created a cooling system by placing a high, latticed, brick wall near a pond that uses air pressure differences to draw cool air through the building
• His responsiveness to never-identical site conditions quite obviously allowed for the variegation that permeates his work.

LOW COST CONSTRUCTION

• Filler slab : Advantages:
  • 20-35% Less materials
  • Decorative, Economical & Reduced self-load
  • Almost maintenance free
  • 25-30% Cost Reduction
• Jack Arch:Advantages :
  • Energy saving & Eco-Friendly compressive roofing.
  • Decorative & Highly Economical
  • Maintenance free
• Masonry Dome, Advantages:
  • Energy saving eco-friendly compressive roof.
  • Decorative & Highly Economical for larges spans.
  • Maintenance free
• Funnicular shell, Advantages:
  • Energy saving eco-friendly compressive roof.
  • Decorative & Economical
  • Maintenance free
• Masonry Arches,Advantages:
  • Traditional spanning sytem.
  • Highly decorative & economical
  • Less energy requirement.

Awards:

• 1981: D.Litt conferred by the Royal University of Netherlands for outstanding work in the Third World
• 1983: Order of the British Empire, MBE
• 1987: Received the first Indian National Habitat Award
• 1988: Received Indian Citizenship
• 1989: Indian Institute of Architects Outstanding Architect of the Year
• 1990: Received the Padma Sri
• 1990: Great Master Architect of the Year
• 1992: UNO Habitat Award & UN Roll of Honour
• 1993: International Union of Architects (IUA) Award
• 1993: Sir Robert Matthew Prize for Improvement of Human Settlements
• 1994: People of the Year Award
• 1995: Awarded Doctorate from the University of Central England
• 1998: Awarded Doctorate from Sri Venkateshwara University
• 2001: Coinpar MR Kurup Endowment Award
• 2003: Basheer Puraskaram
• 2003: D.Litt from the Kerala University
• 2005: Kerala Government Certificate of Appreciation
• 2006: L-Ramp Award of Excellence
• 2006: Nominated from the Pritzker Prize

FISHERMEN’S  VILLAGE, Poonthura ,Trivandrum(1974-75):

CHALLENGES:

• Severity of environment in which the tribal’s live.
• Limitation of resources
• Conventional architects stayed away from these projects
• Dealing with large insular groups, with set ideas and traditions.
• Dealing with cyclones

Area of each unit : 25 sqm

Design strategies:

• Construction:
  • Exposed brickwork and structure
  • Sloped concrete roof
  • Openness in design and individual units offset each other
  • Continuous latticework
  • in the exposed walls
• Dealing With Cyclones:
  • Low sloped roofs and courts serve as wind catchers
  • Open walls function to dispel it
  • Long row of housing replaced by even staggering
  • Fronting courts catch the breeze and also get view of sea
• Open Spaces
  • Little private rectangle of land in between houses for drying nets , kids play,
  • Provides sleeping lofts within and adequate space outside for mending nets and cleaning and drying fish

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