Building sensibly

The idea of achieving novelty through frugality in design and planning does not seem to be guiding recent architectural designs of significant public and civic buildings in India. In recent years, unlike in early independent India, the architectural designs of some new public and civic buildings reported in the news media, such as Secretariats or High courts undertaken by State governments, airport terminals, or railway stations, seem lavish and luxurious, reportedly involving substantial, and sometimes astronomical, sums of public money. It is pertinent, therefore, to enquire if the designs of such public buildings are apt, responsible and frugal in consumption of monetary, land and environmental resources. This question also applies to planning new cities.

It is also pertinent to examine some aspects of the current framework governing the production of architectural designs for public buildings and projects. While various State governments ~ for constructing public structures ~ may conduct the contract award processes in accordance with stipulated government rates through competitive bidding and audit compliance procedures, there is often little or no debate about the need to use up a given extent of land or large expanses of building space or areas in sprawling concrete structures beyond what is needed. There is also much less debate about the cost of the often-expensive materials used, or about energy and maintenance costs borne throughout the life cycle of buildings.

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Further, present audit procedures often examine whether public structures are built at the estimated price. However, the standard government annual rates for building the structures which guide these estimates, usually fixed by government committees or boards of chief engineers, also remain an internal matter and are not widely known, critically reviewed, or debated in the public realm. While value engineering of structures can optimise the cost of public structures, there are no audits or other mechanisms to rigorously assess the appropriateness, qualitative aspects, and resource footprint of architectural designs. Further, the decision-making process involved in planning and designing public buildings, which is reportedly often vetoed by leaders, bureaucrats, or dignitaries, needs to be replaced by experts.

Suitable corrective mechanisms to this effect must be implemented in all significant public building projects undertaken by various state government agencies. Also, benign intentions of State governments notwithstanding, the zeal to catch up with the plans and designs of buildings and places seen in developed nations and to imitate them often results in expensive plans and designs that are not entirely suitable for use or local climate and energy conservation requirements. Further, large, unwieldy public projects are usually engulfed in a dynamic of ambitiously conceived, visually appealing, expensive designs and plans, raising loans from national and international sources, incurring debt to the State exchequer, exploring viability gap funding, creating special purpose vehicles to obtain easy, liberal funding, and other mechanisms.

Public building projects then apparently become more about procuring large sums of money and managing them. Architectural designs of public buildings are shaped by and result from this process, hinged on large, concentrated sums of public funds, resource consumption, and their management. Against such a backdrop of less or no restraints and the reported mood of buoyancy, growth and modernisation, outlandish plans and designs of public buildings and spaces estranged from need, culture of places, with diminished responsibility towards their fundamental purpose, public money, and other resources are most likely to get built in a rush to meet timelines set by elected governments. What could result, then, in most cases, in the designs of public buildings is a mere arrangement of spaces and assembly of expensive materials around them with no deeper architectural value.

Cumulatively, such public buildings, often guided by frivolous designs, will diminish the value of public resources and, in due course, also the prospect of shaping meaningful and responsible built environments and cities. In this context, among many good examples, the architecture of Sabarmati Ashram and that of Bharath Bhavan by architect Charles Correa continue to serve as references. In early independent India, among many eminent architects, works by pioneers like BV Doshi, Achyuth Kanvinde, Joseph Allen Stein, and Hasmukh Patel sought to reflect modernity in their designs through the conceptual strength of their planning, measured, and restrained craft. Laurie Baker took the art of public architecture to a new level of ethical responsibility.

The architectural works of recent Pritzker laureates ~ Francis Kéré, BV Doshi, Anne Lacaton and Jean-Philippe Vassal, Wang Shu, and Liu Jiakun – are beacons of excellence of a high order in the discourse of architecture. Among many other aspects, they also offer relevant lessons in sustainable planning and design of buildings using optimum resources. If anything, the State should draw inspiration from such novel and meaningful works of architecture in the construction of significant public buildings that add to the identity of places and the nation at large. Examples of excellent works in architecture also show that novelty, innovation, and modernity are not tied to lavishness, luxuriousness, or superficial styling in the planning of buildings.

In fact, the latter could be counterproductive to the production of efficient and meaningful architectural works. In democracies, the architecture of public buildings should also be guided by an attitude of inclusion rather than by pomp, flamboyance, and control. If anything, the architecture of the India Habitat Centre in New Delhi offers lessons for such an approach to the design of public buildings and continues to be a matchless example. Elsewhere, the design of Hauptbahnhof, the central railway station in Berlin, is another good example of architectural design that fuses functional efficiency, engineering novelty, and public space-making. In India, with its economic and social diversity and challenges, the reference to and debate about frugality in the use of public monies and resources for planning public buildings and infrastructure works should occupy a significant place in public discourse. The prevailing liberal frameworks for producing expensive designs and plans for new public buildings, even new cities, need to be corrected. It should be guided and grounded in social needs, the frugal use of public monies and natural resources, and the commons. The selection of plans should be through competitions with inclusive pre-qualification requirements, and evaluated against objectives related to frugality in their planning, built into procurement procedures. Standard expenditure caps or flexible budget guidelines can be set by government agencies responsible for the construction of significant public and civic buildings. A reference guide with statements of required land and building areas, sample plans, and design guidelines for planning salient public and civic buildings can also be developed by the concerned government agencies. Reforms in the present framework surrounding the procurement of architectural services, costing procedures for public buildings, their phasing and continuity are, of course, most warranted. It is only then that architecture of restraint and ethical responsibility, grounded in the frugal use of public funds and resources, can guide the creation of novel and meaningful public buildings in Indian cities.

(The writer is a practising architect based in Hyderabad)