Chartered accountants rarely choose to bring about social change by turning to building construction. R. L. Kumar, 45, who runs the Centre for Vernacular Architecture (CVA) in Banaswadi , Bangalore, formed a cooperative of construction workers to undertake building projects in 1989. Today, CVA designs and builds homes, offices and institutional buildings, and ensures that the profits of contracting go directly to the workers. In the process, Kumar is also helping sustain an alternative approach that is rooted in values common to traditional architecture.
Architecturally, Kumar’s most significant achievement is the definite sense of ‘place’ that his buildings often show. It also shows that lively and nurturing spaces do not necessarily require obsessive perfection in detailing. In fact, it suggests that they may even benefit from the lack of complete, often overpowering, aesthetic control. And the fact that he started from a political concern with employment generation and housing rights for slum dwellers, reflects in his humanist view of architecture.
“During the National Campaign for Housing Rights, I realised that housing is not about buildings alone, but also about the kind of housing,” says Kumar. CVA started out executing the designs of other architects, but Kumar soon began designing the buildings the cooperative executed. Exposure to Laurie Baker’s work and approach, combined with his own ongoing questioning of modernity, has also led him to explore many traditional technologies like cob (mixture of compressed clay and straw) walls, and thatch roofing. The unstated core of his approach is the commitment to creating engaging places.
Home-office for Trends Ad Films Pvt. Ltd
(Photos 1-4)
4.
An informal meeting space—note the ‘filler slab’ roof where discarded roof tiles replace some concrete in the lower thickness of the RCC slab
Underlying Kumar’s contingent approach to architecture is a concern with addressing the intricate needs of habitation and engaging the user’s (not another architect’s) imagination. The home-office for Trends Ad Films Pvt. Ltd, on the outer Ring Road in Bangalore, expresses the home part of the building in brick and the office in rough granite.
Method and materials
The connection with nature is established by exposed stone and brick work. The rough granite wall (built with mud mortar), has little chips inserted into broader chinks between stones, that are visible when you get close. Other elements—the Madhubani mural in a niche across the entrance courtyard, the reception desk partly suspended from the ceiling—are each elements with their own personality.
Bellary Pupil Tree Academy
(Photos 5-7)