Centre for Vernacular Architecture

The Centre for Vernacular Architecture, through innovative building design and construction techniques, seeks to reaffirm the relevance of those building technologies and materials that have been overwhelmed and universalised by modern material and capital. Having grown out of our work in the urban slum communities and originally called Shramik, a skilled and unskilled workers cooperative, now through its increasing specialisation in construction of houses using local knowledges of building and space use, CVA has established itself well in the urban and rural landscape in Bangalore as well as in other parts of the State and outside. At the core of its initiative is the recovery and promotion of a ‘non-universal’ building culture.

As mentioned earlier this centre has grown out of our work in the urban slum communities originally as Shramik, a skilled and unskilled workers cooperative. Through its involvement in the National Human Rights Campaign and its increasing specialisation in construction of houses using locally available non industrial materials and with a more vernacular use of space, it metamorphosed into the Centre for Vernacular Architecture that has established itself well in the urban and rural landscape in and around Bangalore as well as in other parts of the State and outside. The institutional form it takes is that of a construction workers cooperative.

The Issue

The Centre believes that the securing of legal and juridical rights to the homeless must be informed by an awareness of the historical, cultural and technical processes that constitute the formation of what we call “ home” and/or built environment. For instance we believe strongly that the current policies of building homes by the State for the homeless does not address the issue of deculturation. This deculturation happens by the choice of technologies and techniques  of building, the promotion of industrially processed materials and a gradual but steady erosion of local knowledges of building and space use.

To counter this a recovery and promotion of a ‘non-universal’ building culture is essential.

The Context

The building culture in India is deeply implicated with the project of development. The promotion of capital intensive, industrially processed building materials, the deep intrusion of capital into urban formations, the deskilling of a traditional workforce, the disembedding of space from livelihood and its subsequent privileging in ‘down town’ urban planning: all this constitutes the context in which a ‘ building culture’ is formed.

The work of pioneers like Laurie Baker and Hassan Fathy has created a space for intervention in this context.

The Process

Shramik is a cooperative of building craftpersons that currently employs about 40 workers on a regular basis through out the year, of which 22 members have been with the project since the date of inception. The Centre employs four Architects, five site supervisors and is fully self sufficient in finance and infrastructure.

In the last year we have embarked on an intensive training programme of re introducing and developing certain techniques of working with mud architecture. We have had traditional masons who work with mud, work in our projects and train our workers in that process. We have revived traditional roofing systems and utilised the same with the help of master carpenters well versed in that field. It is these demonstrated possibilities that makes our projects suitable to institutional building architecture located in rural areas where both the skills and housing resources that go into vernacular architecture are accessible. 

This effort has received a lot of appreciation and generated keen interest in students and architectural professionals. Building on this appreciation and interest we are also planning to organise workshops on both theoretical and practical alternatives to modern architecture.

The Practice 

The Centre sustains a vernacular architectural practice by designing and executing projects commercially. Apart from the numerous individual houses we have built within and around the city, some of our key institutional projects include a factory and office complex , two Rural Residential school, a Friary and Chapel complex, a Convent for the Sisters of St. Clare, the Women’s Shelter and conference centre for SIEDS in Kolar as also the office in Bangalore and several others.

Planned Activities

In keeping with its vision of popularising and spreading the notion of vernacular architecture we propose to continue working at different levels.

i. Continue to take up commercial projects including individual houses and institutions.

ii. Take in students of architecture and civil engineering from mainstream colleges as volunteer trainees so that they get exposed to a different architectural practice.

iii. Initiate debates and new thinking on these issues through organising public lectures, discussions and writing articles in mainstream publications and giving talks to students of architecture.

iv. Initiate exchange programmes between architecture students particularly from countries of the global south.

www.vernarch.com

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