BEING HUMAN

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“Empowerment is not about doing the same thing the same way in the same environment. It's about building the man and the woman and doing so with a view to creating better citizens and, by extension, better patriots in this society of ours.” - Anthony Carmona

Humans all over the world have been building their own homes for hundreds of thousands of years. I was reminded of this recently during our second community engagement session at the Bondalawada village. We were conducting follow-up consultations with the teacher of the anganwadi school.

We presented three basic forms for discussion about roof and aesthetic preference alongside zonal diagrams. Presenting in this way works well in that it breaks down hierarchy and language barriers (see images below).  When we presented these forms through our translator she didn’t have to explain much, almost immediately Lakshmi was asking about whether one option would require a gutter or need more shade to the sides.  She was immediately aware of the issues with each design. I was impressed and a bit surprised, but I shouldn’t have been.  Her questions were so detailed and thoughtful, the same as any architecture colleague would ask.  

Why did I take notice of this?  Because most clients we sit down with cannot and do not come to this level of questioning during a entire project and it got me thinking as to why this is the case… 

Later, we were walking around the village to new anganwadi site, while trying to soak up everything, observe everything, I had the light bulb moment!  Everyone in this village builds their own home.  They all use their hands and minds to design their home and then build their home.  The typologies are a result of years of working through all of the things we consider when we are designing for a client: site, form, orientation, materiality, budget, and aspirational aesthetics. These thought processes are intrinsic to their way of life and day to day considerations.

The majority of western society has completely lost this ability; housing is designed and built for us.  We accept this, and in the process, have lost our understanding and direct connection with our built environment.  Obviously, some still have it but not the majority and thus comes with it a lack of ability to empathise or understand why architects and designers bring up these important aspects.  Technological advancement also has a role to play because we can also alter our environment with the push of a button, or sliding bar of an app on our phone.  These actions further distance us from our hands and our homes and our environment.

As we all know, we are seeing lots of people re-assess the world's trajectory and realise that significant adjustments are required.  The thoughts on how to do so are extremely polarizing as well. While I do not believe we should go backwards to move forward, we do need to realise how the last couple centuries of moving “forward” at light-speed has made us loose some very important evolutionary skills that are a part of being human.

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