The 20,000-square-foot Bellary Pupil Tree Academy is revivalist in a way because it brings back the local way of building, which, if phased out, will result in a tragic loss of heritage
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At the 20,000-square-foot Bellary Pupil Tree Academy space has been used as a playground of varied structural shapes. The round, canopied, domed and thatched buildings are inspired by rural building techniques
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Random rubble is a signature note through the campus, as are the open spaces
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The intent at the academy was to soften conventional school architecture and create a friendly, stimulating and open learning space
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Brick jaalis, local varieties of granite, old wood pillars and water bodies create the illusion of traditional Indian homes
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The interplay of materials, light and shadows, shapes and colours keeps even the conventional school corridors and outdoor spaces for congregation looking extraordinary
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A meeting room looks straight out of a family album with its lime washed walls, old furniture and cottage warmth
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Nothing except the open garage tells you that this happens to be a commercial space. The signature notes here are of random rubble and exposed brick
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The door opens to give us our first glimpse of a Madhubani mural and a lush, paved garden. The office at first glance has the unhurried and warm architecture of a private home
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The office lobby is actually a verandah with a desk suspended from a rope-wrapped cable, light pouring from everywhere and a mixed palette of materials
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The feature wall has metal etchings of celluloid masters like Satyajit Ray and Girish Kasaravalli
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The fish pond with its resident tree and a wall mural
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Almost every available surface is embellished with murals and interesting detailing. Also notice the built-in bench. Every floor has a central lobby and a breezy space where guests can congregate. Notice how the brick wall has been punctured to create light and air inlets
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The conference room is littered with beanbags and stools and is a perfect place for long sessions of brainstorming
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Stone, tile and metal create unusual bathrooms in the office
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The Centre’s laterite creation for Jayashree Suryaprakash is crafted out of pink veined laterite, exposed brick and random rubble (not visible in the picture), the house is composed of harmonious masses and interesting textures
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A glimpse of the verandah, the lawn and the random rubble wall which goes up to the first floor, is imperious to elements. The pillars are salvaged from old homes
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The most striking feature of Jayashree’s home is the flooring composed out of attangudi cement tiles of different hues. Each floor is marked by a central motif like this one
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In this glimpse of the living room, the detailing of the filler roof can be seen along with that of the random rubble wall and the flooring
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Ocean blue tiles create a sense of tranquility. Doors have been treated with unusual panache through the house
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Blue oxide on the walls creates an unusual bathing space
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Vernacular Eloquence
May 2007
Text: Reema Moudgil
Photographs: Shalini Sehgal
The Centre for Vernacular Architecture roots strongly for down-to-earth local design.
THE CENTRE FOR VERNACULAR Architecture is a cooperative of building craft persons established in 1989. A non-profit organization, the Centre has been designing and executing various vernacular architectural projects in south India. Vernacular Architecture is a little known and even less explored field concerned with architectural building traditions/practices that are cost effective, ecologically sensible and culturally relevant. Inspired by the work of practioners like Laurie Baker and Hassan Fathy, the Centre’s architectural practice promotes the use of locally available materials, traditional building techniques, and culturally and climatically relevant building design. The Centre comprises of a core team of six architects, eight engineers/supervisors and a team of about 75 dedicated building crafts-people drawn from various building-related trades. Apart from undertaking turn-key projects, they also offer consultancy, project management and training.
The Centre’s work is based on something deeper than the impulse to do something different. It is founded on the desire to create a bridge between modern needs and past traditions. ‘The Architecture of Supervised Freedom,’ a paper written by RL Kumar, the Centre’s principal architect, in the June 2003 edition of COA Journal commented on how a city is bound by the need for order in its public spaces and a village guided by the customs handed down by generations. He wrote, “While the relationship between the village and the city is too complex to be handled here, in our world it has become a matter of essential opposition. To recall Gandhi’s words, India does live in her villages, but we might add that her destiny is almost fatally tied to her cities. It is the anxieties and fears of the city that largely inform the architecture of public spaces. Who ever heard of ‘architecture of the village square’? What we hear most frequently is about regulating public parks, clearing pavements and widening bus terminals. If urban planning aims to transform custom into order, in the late 20th century, it has found solid support from the ideology of environmentalism and conservation.” It is this philosophy of sensitivity towards the environment and conservation that the Centre is applying to its work. It is committed to bringing personality to impersonal spaces and to making history relevant to cities that are hurtling heedlessly towards the future. But you don’t have to believe what we say, featured here are examples of the Centre for Vernacular Architecture’s work...
Pupil Tree Ponderings
The 20,000-square-foot Bellary Pupil Tree Academy has been treated by Kumar to speak to the students in some way or another. “Bellary being a mining area, we used many varieties of granite. We got craft persons from northern Karnataka to work for us on this project. It was revivalist in a way because it brought back a local way of building, which, if phased out, will result in a tragic loss of heritage. This project was finished in a mere eight months, just in time for the school to open,” says Kumar.
The 14-acre campus has been divided into three areas marked for the administration, academic and arts blocks. Be it the intensely detailed, exposed brick and random rubble walls; the roofs varying from the brick dome design to thatch detailing to mangalore tiles; or the shahbad and oxide flooring, there is a multiplicity of stimuli everywhere. Round structures inspired by traditional rural homes in the vicinity, light-filled courtyards and water bodies animate the imagination of students. Kumar is not affected by the epidemic of glass facades in Bengaluru and he refuses to consider himself marginalized just because he is building with local materials. “70 per cent of India builds with mud,” he quips and adds, “I consider myself a mainstream architect for that reason. I still get clients who want mud and brick homes to live in, and Manhattan-style offices with no natural light or ventilation to work out of. But there is a certain section open to experimenting with large commercial spaces. Many believe that only glass frontage invites business, but I believe that a building can advertise itself if it is unique. Look at Charles Correa’s home in Koramangala which now houses Fabindia. It speaks for itself.’’
Concept
A stimulating learning atmosphere was to be created in a recognizable, local context and so the academy is built in local materials and the art centre is totally crafted out of random rubble and mud. The academy was segregated into three zones — Academic, Administrative and Art — and interspersed with courtyards and water bodies to optimize light, ventilation and humidity. Among its highlights are a classic Chinese circular arch opening, a brick dome 16 ft in diameter and thatch roof with bamboo framework with a 50 ft diameter without centre supports in the dance hall.
Materials
Foundation: Random rubble and sand
Flooring: Unpolished shahbad, oxide floors and mud packed floor
Ceiling: Filler slab, brick dome, mangalore tiles, thatch roof and mud-packed roofs
Finishes: Undulating plaster, mud plaster, oxides, exposed brick and random rubble
Taking Creative Control
If you discount the large garage hugging one side of the random rubble and exposed-brick facade of the office Kumar created for Trends Ad Films Pvt Ltd in Kannenhalli, Outer Ring Road, Bengaluru, there is nothing to betray that this is a commercial space. A discreet door opens to reveal a Madhubani mural on the facing wall. A lush green pocket lined with flower tubs leads to a verandah lobby with brick pillars. The Shahbad stone and clay tile paved verandah has a receptionist’s desk suspended from a rope-wrapped metal rod!
Built-in benches make visitors feel welcome and the lobby fans out in two different sections. The right side consists of the main office where ideas are formed and executed. This is a functional space with enough room thrown in for stationery storage. The left wing has a small kitchen, a feature wall with copper etchings of legends like Satyajit Ray and Girish Kasaravalli, and seating space defined by random rubble arches and dotted with wooden stools and granite tables. Here colleagues indulge in breezy banter while their eyes feast on a water body with river bed pebbles and an earthy white and terracotta mural. A garden hugs the back of the building. All windows are shielded from dust and heat by tiled canopies. Every available wall surface is either a medley of materials, swathed with flowering creepers, worked over with cow dung murals, detailed with metal relief or punctuated with brick jharokas.
The flooring has details like embedded metal footprints. The first and second floors have built-in benches and functional guest rooms with Kumar’s signature doors and their glass sandwiched patterns. On the first floor is an expansive conference room dotted with bean bags! This stimulating 7,000-square-foot ad agency is in perfect sync with people who need to be surrounded by inspiration.
Concept
The idea was to create an open, aesthetically pleasing working space with water bodies, built-in furniture with oxide finishes, embellishments like wall murals, green zones and plenty of light pouring in from brick jharokas and courtyards. The office has all this and more and is a stimulating space for a young team.
Materials
Foundation: Random rubble and sand
Flooring: Unpolished shahbad and clay tiles
Ceiling: Filler slab and tiled roof using coconut timber
Finishes: Undulating plaster, exposed stone and brick work, mud and cow dung mural
On Home Turf
The biggest compliment that can be paid to an architect is by a client who does not know him personally and yet responds to his work in a personal way. When an architect stamps the milieu he designs for with a distinctive design sensibility, he becomes more than just an address, he becomes a presence. Ask Jayashree Suryaprakash, who wanted to bring down an old home near Bengaluru’s Ulsoor Lake, and build something new and capacious for herself and her three children. She did not know any architects but as the director of a travel company, she was not averse to going the long mile to find someone who would give her a low-cost, light-washed, eco-friendly, well-ventilated home. So every weekend, she would pile up her children in a car and drive through Bengaluru, looking for homes that spoke to her.
One afternoon, they strayed into a dusty bylane off Banaswadi Road, saw a bougainvillea spangled brick structure and knew their search had ended. Call it serendipity or chance, the building turned out to be the Centre for Vernacular Architecture. Today when you walk into Jayashree’s neighbourhood, just one glance is enough to locate the laterite and stone marvel, she calls home. A home that RL Kumar and his team at the Centre for Vernacular Architecture designed for her.
In Jayashree’s four bedroom home, his staunch belief in the validity of rooted architecture is visible in each square inch. The facade crafted out of a gloriously textured laterite stone looks away from the main street and it is only when you walk past the garage that you actually discover an old, brass knuckled door, a fish pond, a small but fecund garden and a verandah with old pillars salvaged from decimated history.
Jayashree’s young and articulate daughter Shruta ushers us in. The excitement the interiors generate is similar to that of a classic, intricately detailed film, which makes one want to not to blink for the fear of missing some detail. Thick, random rubble is the main protagonist in this space and we cannot see even a trace of cement mortar between the stone pieces that fit together like pieces of an elaborate jigsaw puzzle. This wall runs up to the first floor and is impervious to the elements. No less important roles are played by the glossy attangudi tiles (cement tiles which acquire their sheen from glass moulds) on the floor; the filler roof overhead; the yellow tiled, open kitchen; and what we will come to recognize as a signature note — doors with glass insets sandwiching rich tapestries and chataais. There is a bedroom on this floor. Next to it are a series of doors open to the verandah and the garden.
In the living area, Jayashree’s antique furniture, brass urlis, deepams and ornate lamps, gathered by her over years, fit in perfectly. A wooden staircase polished to perfection by cashewnut oil leads us to the family room and the two bedrooms on the first floor. Every room, including the last bedroom on the second floor celebrates a new shade of the attangudi flooring, ranging from pale green to ocean blue. All bathrooms have rough granite for flooring and oxide walls. Exposed brick, laterite and stone make up for wall surfaces. Most of the wood in the house is recycled and CFL lighting is used wherever possible.
Kumar’s clients are more or less like Jayashree. They come to him because at some level, they relate to his passion for region and culture specific architecture, for materials that are least industrially processed. “We conceive spaces which speak the local, traditional language and are climatically relevant. Yes, there are times when we have to convince clients about certain details, but they come to us only because they are looking for what we do. They know we approach architecture as a craft, not just as an engineering science. They know we don’t blindly borrow materials or ideas,” Kumar tells us. Vernacular architecture is not just a methodology, it is a belief system based on Kumar’s favourite Gandhian quote that there is enough for everyone’s need but not for everyone’s greed.
Concept
The client needed a low-cost, airy, well-ventilated, eco-friendly home. The home that the design team gave her had a garden and breezy, energy-efficient interiors which required no artificial light during day and no air-conditioning. Recycled timbre was used for doors and window frames. Salvaged old doors and columns were also used.
Materials
Foundation: Random rubble and sand
Flooring: Attangudi tile
Ceiling: Filler slab roof and tiled roof with coconut timber
Finishes: Plastered finishes, exposed stone finishes
Highlights: Recycled timber for door and window frames, recycled columns and carved doors
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The Centre’s laterite creation for Jayashree Suryaprakash is crafted out of pink veined laterite, exposed brick and random rubble (not visible in the picture), the house is composed of harmonious masses and interesting textures
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| Fact File | Details
Project: Bellary Pupil Tree Academy
Location: Dalur Road, Bellary
Area: 20,000 sq ft
Principal architect: RL Kumar
Architectural and construction team: RL Kumar, Ami Mehta, Naveen Reddy and Kuppan
Budget: 75 lakh
Duration: Eight months |
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