Majority of Indians were and still are used to having a space in the house where they could be eating atnoon, children playing in the evening and cousins staying as guests sleeping there at night. The space we enter into on the first floor, often called as family hall, is even now considered for such varied roles.
Termed as ‘multi-functional spaces’ in architectural language, they have been among the basic principles of saving resources by minimising the need for multiple rooms for multiple requirements. While this has been commonly known and is continuing, what is forgotten is the idea of materials being multifunctional.
Buildings had to depend upon the few local resources for all construction needs, so people learnt how to use them with minor modifications. This also led to high theories like ‘single material approach’ much advocated by thinking architects such as Shankar Kanade and his brother Navanath. We may connect the visual powers of Taj Mahal, White House or Red Fort for their single material.
When Govindarajan, retired from IFFCO, desired to have a small farmhouse in his land, he could not but notice how people around the village built. He chanced to see a wall built with Mangalore tiles and wondered what’s the roof tile doing in the wall.
Discarded low quality pieces and tiles from demolished houses not good for re-use get the common preferences here. Besides, one could see them on compound walls, edging a pathway in the garden, topping a parapet wall or even as pavers in broken condition. These tile are very good in compression, hence we can load lots of weight on them!
Easy to build
A wall with Mangalore tiles is easy, cheap and fast to build with. With the rock hard tile transferring most of the load, the role of mortar joint is reduced to a levelling course. Cement mortar does not stick well to the surface, hence stabilised mud mortar is both appropriate and economical.
Routinely, these walls were inside and outside plastered. If built with stabilised mud and left exposed to sun and rain, they can perform very well on multiple fronts. They keep the house much cooler, thanks to an undulating and micro-shading surface which does not absorb much of solar heat. With a coat of lime, the walls come alive with a rare texture.
Local practises of today are being ignored in the face of regional or global ideas, but let us remember when these ideas were attempted in the past, they were not called as local practices.
They were the mainstream practices of the day, with no exposure to the global of the day. Apparently, these neglected and seemingly insignificant ideas were sustainable, while much of our celebrated newer and engineered construction ideas do not seem to provide a trouble-free stay for even two decades.
Without localisation and without realising the multifunctional potentials of each material and each technique, we cannot achieve a sustainable future.
(The writer is an architect working for eco-friendly designs and can be contacted at varanashi@gmail.com)
