Life in Architecture: Nisha Mathew & Soumitro Ghosh
The award-winning architect duo discuss climate-responsive architecture and the polity's abandonment of responsibility for urban spaces
Soumitro Ghosh and Nisha Mathew formed Mathew & Ghosh Architects in 1995. The firm has been the recipient of numerous Indian as well as international awards, such as the World Architecture Community Award, A+D & CERA Architecture Award, TRENDS Award for Architecture & Design and EDIDA. Their celebrated works include the Cinnamon store, National Martyrs Memorial, Freedom Park and Big Brewski (Asia’s largest microbrewery), among many other commercial and residential projects. Mathew and Ghosh are proponents of a progressive type of contemporary architecture that juxtaposes context and history with sometimes industrial, sometimes vernacular materials. Lightness of design and the freedom for light to shape spaces remains a key characteristic in all their works.
Light design by Soumitro Ghosh Photo by: Shamanth Patil
We are dealing with issues like heat, pollution and water shortage. How do you see the built environment responding to that in the near future?
Mathew: In a way these issues have inadequate existing paradigms. If one can look at every one of these as a point of crisis currently, architecture will then have to address these issues headlong and maybe the morphology of buildings will not be as we recognise them now.
Maybe your roof will grow your vegetables, maybe the shape of the house will have to be conducive to collecting water. There will be a lot of bio-remedial situations that will have to become a part of home architecture where the close relationship between physics, chemistry and biology comes into play. Like what happens with water, and how to treat the home as an organism? All of this would have to come together, and I don’t yet know what this architecture is. I think it’s going to be something new. There are some conscientious architects looking at this but it would need radical shift.
Could you elaborate on this radical shift that is needed?
Ghosh: There has to be policy change for this. I’ll give you an example. Let’s say Germany decides that by year 2025, they will move completely off fossil fuel and use only natural resources. That means, they are making themselves ready over a period of time and are signalling to other companies to figure a way to adapt too. That means the society has decided to pay the price for being responsible. This is where policy change is key. It readies communities and countries.
Mathew: Take this whole thing about using solar energy. At the time when the Indian government gave it a subsidy, there were some people who were willing to try it. But right now even that has been pulled back. Which means it requires a huge amount of investment from an individual who may not have the bandwidth to do so; there needs to be a trade-off system of benefits to the user.
Ghosh: Somebody has to pay the price. The problem is the disconnect. It is also partially led by the fact that most businesses today are very uncertain. Post independence, most of the economic activities were with business houses that had to do with natural resources, their processing or manufacturing. But then comes this service industry, which is a virtual, backend ecosystem, dependent on the world economy. It is unpredictable. This uncertainty brings them to a point where very few of them want to invest in property. Infosys might, but I am sure 90 per cent or more is driven by builders who build, and people rent and they move.
Houzz Forum: State of Indian Architecture Today and Tomorrow
We are dealing with issues like heat, pollution and water shortage. How do you see the built environment responding to that in the near future?
Mathew: In a way these issues have inadequate existing paradigms. If one can look at every one of these as a point of crisis currently, architecture will then have to address these issues headlong and maybe the morphology of buildings will not be as we recognise them now.
Maybe your roof will grow your vegetables, maybe the shape of the house will have to be conducive to collecting water. There will be a lot of bio-remedial situations that will have to become a part of home architecture where the close relationship between physics, chemistry and biology comes into play. Like what happens with water, and how to treat the home as an organism? All of this would have to come together, and I don’t yet know what this architecture is. I think it’s going to be something new. There are some conscientious architects looking at this but it would need radical shift.
Could you elaborate on this radical shift that is needed?
Ghosh: There has to be policy change for this. I’ll give you an example. Let’s say Germany decides that by year 2025, they will move completely off fossil fuel and use only natural resources. That means, they are making themselves ready over a period of time and are signalling to other companies to figure a way to adapt too. That means the society has decided to pay the price for being responsible. This is where policy change is key. It readies communities and countries.
Mathew: Take this whole thing about using solar energy. At the time when the Indian government gave it a subsidy, there were some people who were willing to try it. But right now even that has been pulled back. Which means it requires a huge amount of investment from an individual who may not have the bandwidth to do so; there needs to be a trade-off system of benefits to the user.
Ghosh: Somebody has to pay the price. The problem is the disconnect. It is also partially led by the fact that most businesses today are very uncertain. Post independence, most of the economic activities were with business houses that had to do with natural resources, their processing or manufacturing. But then comes this service industry, which is a virtual, backend ecosystem, dependent on the world economy. It is unpredictable. This uncertainty brings them to a point where very few of them want to invest in property. Infosys might, but I am sure 90 per cent or more is driven by builders who build, and people rent and they move.
Houzz Forum: State of Indian Architecture Today and Tomorrow
The debut project of Mathew & Ghosh Architects
Photo by: Mallikarjun Katakol
But isn’t it only common sense and a needed public policy to want to create certain rules by which all the spaces should be built?
Ghosh: Unfortunately, in India there are no bye-laws which define how buildings should be built. This is the biggest culprit. Let’s say you need to make a five-storey building and each storey is 5000 square feet. If there were generic models, which could be created about how we can deal with these large floor plates, and in it mandatory provisions were built in to cut down energy consumption by a certain amount, then everybody would do it. But our present bye-laws have not changed since 1947.
But to get this knowledge, two issues need to be solved:
1. Who will do that research? Our educational institutes have not seen themselves as generators of knowledge or new knowledge.
2. If this is to be experimented, then who else can fund it? I don’t think, other than the Tatas, there is any investment coming from the private business houses. It’s very evident in public space; the socialist model is getting demolished. This cannot be serviced any longer from government money; that means it has to come from private enterprise and through an arrangement that is mutually beneficial for all.
Why has there been a policy paralysis?
Ghosh: Conflict arises the moment you change policy. It’s because it interferes with the aspirations of a bunch of people who have been making their money in a certain way, and a change would take away their cheese. So don’t take away their cheese, but tell them to pick it up from somewhere else.
Mathew: That’s why there have been lost opportunities. The masterplan of Bangalore has been redone twice since we started practising. Both times were lost opportunities to propose urban forms that could address some of these issues. It didn’t address the crux of the issue, which is urban forms and building space. Urban spaces are not even talked about.
Ghosh: Yes, urban spaces have become nobody’s baby.
Read more:
Life in Architecture: Sameep Padora
Life in Architecture: Abin Chaudhuri
Why the Fly Ash Brick Is Today’s Go-To Material
Tell us:
What are your thoughts about the way our urban spaces are being planned and built? What changes would you like to see? Share in Comments below.
Photo by: Mallikarjun Katakol
But isn’t it only common sense and a needed public policy to want to create certain rules by which all the spaces should be built?
Ghosh: Unfortunately, in India there are no bye-laws which define how buildings should be built. This is the biggest culprit. Let’s say you need to make a five-storey building and each storey is 5000 square feet. If there were generic models, which could be created about how we can deal with these large floor plates, and in it mandatory provisions were built in to cut down energy consumption by a certain amount, then everybody would do it. But our present bye-laws have not changed since 1947.
But to get this knowledge, two issues need to be solved:
1. Who will do that research? Our educational institutes have not seen themselves as generators of knowledge or new knowledge.
2. If this is to be experimented, then who else can fund it? I don’t think, other than the Tatas, there is any investment coming from the private business houses. It’s very evident in public space; the socialist model is getting demolished. This cannot be serviced any longer from government money; that means it has to come from private enterprise and through an arrangement that is mutually beneficial for all.
Why has there been a policy paralysis?
Ghosh: Conflict arises the moment you change policy. It’s because it interferes with the aspirations of a bunch of people who have been making their money in a certain way, and a change would take away their cheese. So don’t take away their cheese, but tell them to pick it up from somewhere else.
Mathew: That’s why there have been lost opportunities. The masterplan of Bangalore has been redone twice since we started practising. Both times were lost opportunities to propose urban forms that could address some of these issues. It didn’t address the crux of the issue, which is urban forms and building space. Urban spaces are not even talked about.
Ghosh: Yes, urban spaces have become nobody’s baby.
Read more:
Life in Architecture: Sameep Padora
Life in Architecture: Abin Chaudhuri
Why the Fly Ash Brick Is Today’s Go-To Material
Tell us:
What are your thoughts about the way our urban spaces are being planned and built? What changes would you like to see? Share in Comments below.
Currently, what’s the biggest challenge you face while designing or building a house?
Mathew: One has to really take the bull by its horns. For me, it’s about how can we talk about new formats, how can we use them? How can we reuse discarded, found materials? How can we make something that models a sustainable possibility that someone can look to as a benchmark? And how do we use it to make a work of architecture that can enable readings of the context, clime and its poetry.
Ghosh: An interesting challenge for me these days is how to articulate and find a cohesive design language within a project. There is a lot of flux … the way people live … it is constantly changing. As do their expectations and notions of what they like. This is because the levels of independence within a family have changed. That affects the notion of a traditionally built home.
I want to ask you about eco materials. What are your thoughts on the use of brick, for example, as a building material?
Mathew: While bricks are flexible and easy to use, they are not as energy efficient as mud technologies. To me, mud has potential because the heating and firing component is not there. Also, given the fact that we have an amount of credible research in the use of mud and how to really use it – whether it is in adobe walls or just piling on mud or compressing it into blocks. It is about taking risks, even for slightly higher-storey buildings where you can bring mud in-fill walls with steel.
Ghosh: That’s an interesting point because that develops a different kind of language. I think that is where conflict comes, between architects who are imagining something that is extremely modern and then trying to balance it. Coming back to bricks, they also use fertile soil which could otherwise be used for cultivation. I think just putting material to material is not healthy. Where and to what purpose is a big question. In urban areas, whether it is stabilised soil-cement mix or it is rammed earth, it is extremely exotic and has caught the fancy of people who do not care how much it costs.
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