Building Green: Environmental Architects and the Struggle for Sustainability in Mumbai

by Anne Rademacher

  practitioners, and thus required a nominal y inclusive history to which all students could stake legitimate claim. The necessary silences, however, sat uncomfortably

  with a sense of complicity, precisely with the politics of exclusion and marginality.

  Here, we might observe a contrast between the experience in Auroville and

  that shared in Govardhan. In Auroville, it was possible to embrace environmental

  reflexivity without having to undertake, at least in any explicit detail, an attendant sociopolitical critique. Here, the fal acy that a political y neutral and removed

  “environmental” stance was possible underpinned a sense of Indian-ness that

  could be accessed by every environmental architect, regardless of her background.

  Yet, as noted above, that same fal acy was undone in the disquiet of Govardhan.

  Its socio-politics were too overtly exclusive to enable the neutralizing environ-

  mental imaginary; the eco-political disconnect was never dismantled, only in brief moments suspended.

  Neither study tour reached a more theoretical y satisfying level of engagement

  with questions of history, identity, Indian-ness, or good design. That level would depend, as Sears has argued, on recognizing that “ change and hybridity are ongoing processes, and that we should embrace the multi-layered nature of . . . tradition rather than sifting through it to find the truly pure.” 33

  For Sears, one way to mitigate the silent exclusions characteristic of the study

  tours would be to simply seek and name the elements of hybridity and process. She

  writes that by embracing a multi-layered past:

  www.ebook3000.com

  Consciousness and Indian-ness 131

  scholars and architectural practitioners can provide strong resistance to the imposition of nationalist narratives onto material culture, which, in modern India, often privilege the earliest moments—the Vedic or the Mauryan—over later periods. . . .

  (By) recognizing that both Vedic India and Sultanese Janupur are part of the history of contemporary India, we acknowledge that identity is composed of multiple layers built up through human experience. 34

  Lest we leave this matter with the impression that the capacity, and indeed responsibility, to draw knowledge from notions of Indian history or Indian-ness is some-

  how unique to environmental architecture, or to the environmental anxieties of

  the present, I conclude with just one il ustration of the ways the issues explored in this chapter are continuous with, rather than a break from, the past.

  In the fall of 1987, the international publication Architectural Review published a special issue on Indian architecture.35 Its contributors attempted to survey Indian architecture in terms of more “established,” Western architectural thought that

  predominated at that time. The introduction reads:

  Throughout the world, architects are attempting to evolve a contemporary archi-

  tecture that shows the respect for history and tradition that was abandoned during the pioneering frenzy of the Modern Movement and yet is capable of fulfilling the

  demands of late-twentieth century society and reflecting its aspirations. The search has, in the west, produced much grotesque and self-conscious architecture in which historic references are used superficial y and ironical y. But in India, where there is continuity between past and present, there is the promise of a more sophisticated

  and authentic synthesis between old and new and indications that a genuine archi-

  tectural future may be found by reference to the past. 36

  Thus the conventional international gaze has long attributed “continuity between

  past and present” to India, and often ascribed to it an apolitical and deeply problematic orientalist posture. Yet one cannot ignore the resonance between the RSIEA Opening Day assurances that, “It is Western nations that should be looking to us to learn about sustainability; it is only India that can teach them inner growth.”

  The same volume of Architectural Review, includes an essay by William JR

  Curtis, who cal s Charles Correa, prevalent on the international stage at that time,

  “pivotal” not only to “Indian Modern architecture,” but also, potential y, the practitioner of an alternative form of praxis, one with the capacity to “synthesize old and new” and in doing so “address what is pressing in the present.” He writes:

  The best recent architecture in India may contain relevant hints for the develop-

  ing countries. It is becoming increasingly obvious that the uncritical adaptation of Western models is no real solution, as these are often inadequate to climate and culture: the results tend to be alien and alienating. But the answer does not lie in the superficial imitation of local traditions either, as it fails to update what is substantial about the past, and does not address what is pressing in the present. The hope is to make a relevant synthesis of old and new, regional and universal. The best recent

  132 Consciousness and Indian-ness

  Figure 12. RSIEA students exploring new construction in one of

  BCIL’s housing developments outside of Bangalore. Photo by the author.

  Indian work is so challenging because it is open to the tests of the future as well as the grandeur of the past” 37

  Curtis would go on to write a monograph about BV Doshi, in which he took great

  interest in Doshi’s work for its “ . . . search for an architecture of authenticity based on a philosophy of life. ”38 This phrase captures, perhaps, one dimension of the study tours as they charted an Indian basis for environmental architecture in the

  present.

  With the work of defining good design infused with experiential and classroom-

  derived concepts, techniques, and modes of consciousness students would need,

  and with a strong environmental affinity group made ever stronger as the two-year

  program progressed, it became ever clearer that one critical element of the ecology in practice puzzle was missing. The sociopolitical reflexivity that would allow environmental architecture students to operationalize the design approach that most

  by now so strongly embraced was not, and would not be, part of the experience of

  training. The chasm between aspiration and practice, then, remained potential y

  vast and unbridgeable.

  www.ebook3000.com

  7

  A Vocation in Waiting

  Ecology in Practice

  “General y, I would say just going for (LEED or GRIHA) certification is not a

  great idea, but for Mumbai I would say actual y, go for it, because something

  is better than nothing.”

  —Amrit, recent RSIEA graduate

  “Metrics like GRIHA and LEED are not for the masters; they are for the fol-

  lowers.”

  —Shirish Deshpande, RSIEA Faculty member

  “I am very positive. Think of how Mumbai was ten years ago or fifteen years

  ago, and what we are, where we are today, it’s good. Another fifteen years and there will be a lot of change. Maybe not a sustainable city, but we will be able to be environmental architects.”

  —Suhasini, recent RSIEA graduate

  Upon completion of their final thesis, RSIEA students resumed their professional

  lives. Some returned to the smaller Indian towns from which they’d come, and

  some moved on to jobs in other large Indian cities. The vast majority of graduates, however, stayed in Mumbai and continued working in the firms or practices with

  which they’d remained during their studies. Newly conversant in RSIEA’s version

  of good design and green expertise, they now faced the challenges of implement-

  ing their new approach in practice. This chapter addresses whether, when, and

  how graduates operationalized what they had learned. What did it take, I ask, to />
  transform good design aspirations into actualized built forms?

  This question moves beyond the observation that cities are repeatedly re-

  imagined to point to the conditions that may enable certain forms of social action, and thus beget certain material forms. If this book began by addressing the lived

  social life of environmental architecture through its concepts, techniques, and

  moral ecological framework, it now arrives at the point of action. In this chapter, 133

  134 A Vocation in Waiting

  I describe the experiences of a subset of RSIEA graduates to address how the very

  idea of the possible in good design was reconstituted, adapted, and actualized

  according to each architect’s ultimate social structural position. How, I ask, did environmental architects produce and reproduce Mumbai’s political economy in

  their efforts to promote environmental and social change? How and when did they

  make specific attempts to influence the city’s built form, and to what effect? After al , both aspiration and operationalization are bundled in the concept of ecology

  in practice.

  My aim is a better understanding of the contextualized meanings and relative

  power of RSIEA-style good design, as this was posed in relation to other active

  and powerful categories. In this chapter, important categories like “the state,” “the builder,” and “the architect” emerge in ways that contour the operational terrain

  of good design, and at times limit its capacity to “do” anything at al . Each marks a narrated concentration of power in Mumbai’s urban development; each points to

  the layered institutions, political processes, and forms of knowledge that shaped or affected RSIEA graduates’ specific suite of available choices, meaningful actions, and possible strategies.

  The tension between aspiration and practice I trace in this chapter underscores

  a durable, and yet often pliable, balance between the compelling appeal of alter-

  native, more environmental y vibrant urban imaginaries, and the deeply ambiva-

  lent relationship those who are embedded within them hold to a city’s established

  political economic trajectory. I describe architects who acted from their specific social and political positions, each with dual stories of power and vulnerability, and each embedded in both the historical moment and the prevailing political

  economic realities of urban development.

  Through many creative and conscious actions, RSIEA-trained environmental

  architects in part reproduced and in part refashioned that political economy. It is this process, animated by architects’ narrations of choices, biophysical and social structures, and the categories of actors with whom they engaged we approach an

  understanding of RSIEA’s environmental architecture as ecology in practice.

  To follow, I examine how RSIEA-trained architects described the professional

  urban context within which they worked. I highlight descriptions of the strategic

  relationships they forged, and the moments when they named social, political,

  or material forces that seemed to limit or shape their practices. I draw from an

  initial data set of quantitative, descriptive statistics, written interview responses, and interview transcripts to assemble a collection of narratives. Rather than

  separating current students, new graduates, and their senior counterparts across

  set phases, the chapter is organized in terms of questions and themes that help

  to il ustrate the challenge of transforming good design as aspiration to ecology

  in practice.

  • • •

  www.ebook3000.com

  A Vocation in Waiting 135

  Figure 13. A graduating RSIEA student presents her team’s final

  Design Studio proposal for an eco-resort at Pali. Photo by the author.

  A basic assumption one might make when exploring the question of why a con-

  ventional architect might seek RSIEA training is that there is some kind of per-

  ceived scope for the future of environmental architecture in Mumbai. This, then,

  was one of the basic questions I posed to current and past students, usual y to

  an enthusiastic and optimistic response. The following conveys one example; this

  offered by a student who was just completing her RSIEA training:

  There is excellent scope for green design, not only in India but also abroad. The issues of sustainability have touched the lives of poor and rich, young and old, everybody.

  So slowly but steadily everybody today is talking about being environmental y sensitive. Buildings coming up today want to get credited with LEED recognition, which

  is not enough but nevertheless represents a first step towards becoming environmental y positive. At the same time nature itself is ringing all the alarm bel s. The 2005

  Mumbai floods, and the global warming that has taken place have alerted everyone

  towards the wrath of nature. 1

  This particular assertion of certainty about an inevitable environmental shift, with an accounting of multiple signs that it was well underway, was offered in conversation with four RSIEA students facing immediate graduation. Of the three women

  and one man, all intended to maintain an architectural practice in Mumbai after

  136 A Vocation in Waiting

  graduation. Of those who speak in the following exchange, Palavi works in a firm

  of roughly fifty architects, which she described as busy with contracts for LEED

  and GRIHA certified designs, while Kalpana maintains her own private firm with

  one partner. Arash worked in a large, well known development firm prior to, and

  during his two years at RSIEA, but upon graduation had plans to start working for a smaller developer which he described as, “more sensitive toward the environment.”

  I spoke with this group immediately after the final event of the Design Studio

  course. The four had worked as a team in the course, and their collective pro-

  posal for the Pali eco-resort complex had just received a rather scathing critique by a small jury drawn from outside the Institute’s faculty. Following a lengthy discussion of the points of that critique, I asked about their professional plans, now that training at RSIEA was largely behind them. Having established that all four

  intended to stay in Mumbai, with three remaining in their current firms, the con-

  versation shifted to the development climate in Mumbai, and whether or not there

  is a scope for them to practice environmental architecture in a meaningful way

  there. As they discussed this question, a debate unfolded. The conversation turned to whether an environmental shift was eventual and inevitable in Mumbai, and the

  role of the architect in bringing such a shift about:

  Palavi: I don’t think immediately it’s going to change. Unless and until you get the client who wants green. Even if one developer is willing to do

  it, and if I start an initiative with them, . . . this is a chance. . . . The

  benefit to this builder is that he can market his work as “eco” and get a

  premium. He gets the money back that he put into it.

  Kalpana: Environmental awareness will take at least five or ten years to grow in India at the scale we are envisaging. But what I am targeting, personal y, is there will be policies made by the government—they have to,

  and they will make them—policies that are nature-friendly, even for

  Bombay. In every industry, in everything. That will be the time when

  we, the people who have done a master’s in environmental architec-

  ture, can step in and propose and work as environmentalists with

  those principles. Then the developers will choose us.

  Palavi:
See, it’s like studying computers. Ten years ago no one wanted to spend a lot of money to study computers. Now look. Nothing works

  without a computer, and those who studied computers are the

  economic leaders. Environmental architecture is going to make that

  impact. Everything goes through a phase, and this phase is going to

  lead to the next one.

  Kalpana: It has to. It is bound to. How much of land can you use up? How much can you cut down?

  Arash: By then it’s too late, unfortunately.

  www.ebook3000.com

  A Vocation in Waiting 137

  AR: But can you change this, as architects?

  Arash: We can change it, but we have to get into government. We have to be in policymaking.

  Kalpana: I think every choice that you make, and I was telling Arash this a few months back, that we had been offered a project to do a housing

  colony in Panvel. They said we want to consume an FSI of 4 because

  that was a special regulation zone and they said we want this. And

  I said but why? That’s Panvel! Why in that kind of landscape do you

  want to consume this kind of an FSI.

  Palavi: I think you should have done it. At least you could have done it environmental y sensitive. If you say no, some other firm will do it and it

  will still be an FSI of 4, but with no environment concern.

  Arash: They’ll do it worse than you!

  Kalpana: But for me it is about the impact that I make, not about the impact that I can reduce. It has to agree with my principles.

  Palavi: The little interventions are what we can make.

  Kalpana: But that’s where we cannot make a difference. The moment we just pander to whatever is put in our way, then we are not doing it for the

  environment. We are just doing it for the fee that it’s going to bring

  us. . . . So you have to make a call as to what it is that you will do and

  what you won’t. The more people start making the right choices the

  better the impact will be.

  Arash: That won’t happen. Ever. Because people need money. They cannot

  survive and survival is the fees. Without that, nobody will survive. So?

  Why would you want to see the same site built in a pathetic way? You