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

by Anne Rademacher

  they could do, and we exploited that.

  Again, the agent of change was not the architect; it was the new municipal commis-

  sioner, a state actor who was reforming the structural choreography. The dynamics

  of agency and power had not changed; architects may be able to do things differ-

  ently, but they were still constrained to Darius’ “system.” He continued:

  But these days (with the new commissioner), those very same things are not allowed (and so they are causing work stoppages). . . . Just another example: earlier, balconies were all free of FSI. The commissioner changed that too. We were designing two

  thousand square foot balconies, one thousand square foot balconies. . . . I mean you don’t have flats that size. And those were all free of FSI. So in a, say, four thousand square foot flat, we were giving you a two thousand square foot balcony. This was

  completely free; that space wasn’t counted in FSI. The builder gets one hundred percent on that because it’s not taxed. So the development people see it as a win win-win, but of course the BMC that was losing out on this money, and the city was not able to control the environmental damage or other costs. So what the new commissioner

  has done is to simply say that if you make a balcony, it’s considered in FSI. Everything that was free earlier, you’ll have to pay for now. It’s amazing what a complete change this simple thing has made.

  Despite the overwhelming experiential evidence that an established political econ-

  omy of development—however it may change in terms of specific regulations—

  deeply constrained environmental architects’ attempts to practice good design, I

  nevertheless heard repeated assurances that eventual y the scope for practicing

  good design in Mumbai would change. Amrit, for example, was unapologetic in

  his optimism, and always quick to return our conversation to the possibility of

  agentive, collective action through architecture itself. Despite what seemed to be an endless set of stories of architects’ powerlessness in practice, the source of this optimism derived from an aspirational capacity to act. To one of my more skeptical questions about what appeared to be the impossibility of environmental archi-

  tecture, Amrit simply said:

  Look, I’m very optimistic! But I’m realistic, too. I do think architects will need to come as a force if we want to change things. We should enforce certain things on the

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  A Vocation in Waiting 155

  builders . . . not builders enforcing certain things on the architects. Of course it is possible, and in fact I think it is inevitable. It’s a matter of time, and those of us who are willing, we need to keep fighting for this.

  Such comments resonated with the almost unshakable faith in the inevitability

  of significant transformation—and thus significant new opportunities to practice

  good design—that opened the discussion in this chapter.

  Suhasini told me that her optimism came from a diehard idealism, a personal

  characteristic in which she took great pride. “It’s always a struggle,” she said, “but change is constantly happening, all around the world.”

  Everyone in my office is highly idealistic. We believe change can happen because we know it is happening. Look, even these little things in Mumbai. In my office, we all come on foot or cycle; no one comes by car . . . and I’m happy that (I work with) a class of people who don’t see the cycle as a poor man’s vehicle. It’s a smal , small thing but it is uplifting. So I know the bigger picture will change, but it will take time. We need a whole paradigm shift. It will take time. I know from my Rachana Sansad class there are many people who want this! I know people of my generation who want to

  cycle. See, you have to start to make a trend and soon it is happening.

  Prisha nodded, adding, “I still think there’s a lot of scope in Bombay. There are

  people who are actual y practicing environmental architecture, and they are try-

  ing to push the limits. Sometimes they are even doing it. It’s a slow process. But we feel it.”

  When I asked Suhasini if she believed that change would depend on idealists,

  she was quick to say, “No. In fact it’s the common person who has to make this

  happen.” She explained:

  Many people travel abroad these days, you know, the first-timers who go abroad.

  They come back saying it’s so clean—the air is fresh and they have parks and good

  transport—in other countries. So I say, then let’s do it here! But there are always those people who say no, it’s not possible in India. Why is it not possible in India?

  The main thing is cultural: you have to believe it’s possible. I think part of why there is no wil power is because there’s corruption everywhere. You can just go to any

  MCGM office and show them a very good design, and they are still just dismissing

  you, talking about idealism, come to real life, it’s not possible. But that’s generational and it is moving out. I think eventual y—hopefully it will move out. 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.

  I persisted, asking if inevitably environmental change would have to be catalyzed

  in the realm of politics. Perhaps it’s true, I suggested, following the exchange at the start of this chapter, that policy changes, combined with enforcement, are the only ways to solidify a new direction for the urban development future of Mumbai.

  156 A Vocation in Waiting

  Suhasini agreed, but added that it will also depend on architects. “I don’t have to be a minister to make lasting change,” she said, continuing:

  All over the world, people are changing things. It is environment, but it is also political. Look at the climate change, look at urbanization, look at all the political demonstrations. Things are changing. But if you look at (Mumbai) right now, in 2012, you wonder, what did we learn from our Mumbai floods? . . . Nobody is real y trying out new ideas (at large) scales yet . . . so it’s like if you have a tumor and you’re just eating medicine, but not removing the tumor. In Mumbai we reclaimed (urban land) in the

  wrong places and everything is flat, so all the river drainage is gone. So (the floods are) just how nature acts. But see, it cannot continue like this. People will demand change, and nature will force it. The politics are just reflecting this.

  I continued my line of logic, asking, “So architects are also powerful in this?”

  Yes. Doing environmental architecture is a political step. And it’s also right now a huge risk. But if you do take the risk, then ten years down the line when the rains come like that again, you have (a different outcome). My father is of that older generation, and so of course he (is skeptical), saying that already Bombay is too small and land value is so high, so you can never take land away by changing the (reclamation patterns). I’m not saying make Mumbai seven islands again . . . it’s not possible.

  But you know, by thinking this way you actual y see that in Bombay, if you organize it correctly—environmental y—there is a lot of space. You will even have open spaces!

  So if you organize it wel , and you have smart design, it will happen. We have to think differently than my father, than the officials in the MCGM. We have to, you know Ian McHarg? Like, design with nature.

  Suhasini’s dual faith in a generational shift and the capacity of that generation

  to both imagine and organize urban space differently was pervasive across many

  interviews—often to an extent that defied easy analysis, particularly in light of

  equal y adamant descriptions of an existing system that not only constrained

  architects’ choices and paramete
rs for action, but was also riddled with risks, dangerous facets, and unscrupulous practitioners.

  Environmental architects often framed the factors that enabled or constrained

  good design practice in very personal terms, through one’s material capacity, con-

  sciousness of scale, or beliefs about the impact of individual consumption patterns.

  Consider the contrast between Aditya’s discussion of the financial circumstances

  that constrain the kinds of architecture he can practice, for instance, and Kalpana’s relative freedom to make choices about the firm that she runs. In the latter case, the constraints had more to do with the scale at which one assessed a design’s

  impact; in the former, constraints began with the essential need to earn a specific salary. Aditya explained:

  After graduation, after three years, I have not found any firm where I can practice what I learned (at RSIEA). Yes, there are firms in environmental architecture, but they cannot pay that much, and I have to keep in mind financial stability. I get a

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  A Vocation in Waiting 157

  certain amount in my current office. Here I can do smal , small things. But pure

  environmental architecture, if I go there they would pay me half as much. It’s not sustainable financial y for me . . . so, I simply cannot work full time in the environment field. I would love to, but it’s not viable. I just bought my flat. I have my dues to pay for that, and if that is not feasible, then I am an architect without shelter! . . . How can I work for half the pay? 20

  In contrast, Kalpana offered:

  I have my own firm; there are two of us. As and when we need people we hire on

  a contract basis. What I’m doing right now is essential y more interior work and

  small homes outside of Bombay. A couple of commercial complexes also. I am able

  to implement most of what I learned (at RSIEA), in terms of (using green) materials, energy systems, and general design principles, because I share that kind of a rapport with my clients. I sit down and I talk to them about what they want, and I can say,

  “You know, why not build it this way? Even if it costs you a little bit more . . . And they are willing to listen. We got an offer to design a school, for example, and they came with these pictures saying, “This is what we want, this is what we want, this is what we want.” And I said, “You know, okay. But why don’t you look at it in another way?

  So I showed them some pictures of the school in Auroville, and I said, “You know,

  this is as good, if not better, (than the pictures you have). And they realized, like, “Oh yeah, this is much better.” 21

  In the contrast between these two responses, the constraints of individual archi-

  tects’ own positionality within the political economic system—not just as profes-

  sionals, but also as individuals, were made very clear.

  Yet beyond the question of one’s own class position and position within one’s

  firm, several issues also emerged in architects’ discussions of the factors that enabled or constrained good design practice. For many, RSIEA’s emphasis on good design’s

  conceptual dimensions came at the expense of what they called more “practical,”

  skill building classes. This left environmental architects relatively underprepared to implement what they had learned. On one example, for instance, Kalpana, Palavi,

  and Arash, characterized this issue in terms of ideology and strategy:

  Students discussed at length the ways that the (RSIEA curriculum) is “all ideology,”

  teaching very few skil s that they called “technical” and “practical.” Arash asked why the curriculum doesn’t split into two parts, in which the first year is “ideology” and the second is devoted to “practical” concerns. He argued that as he was on the verge of graduation, he felt he should be able to design a green building. He suggested that the Design Studio final project—the resort at Pali—could have included the stipulation that it be a platinum rated building, for instance. Arash emphasized a need for more classes or projects that focus on hands-on calculations and “thumb rules.” Otherwise, he said, environmental architecture remains intuitive, even as they are graduating. 22

  At the same time, architects emphasized how central that same “ideological”

  dimension was to their sense of professional identity as an environmental architect.

  158 A Vocation in Waiting

  Even for Siddharth, who, the reader will recall claimed to have no particular interest in environmental architecture, told me:

  I was never interested in environmental architecture, frankly . . . but the course helped me a lot. It completely changed the way I think about architecture. When I used to plan buildings before, a building was a footprint on the ground. But when I learned environmental architecture, and that you should design a minimalistic footprint that is integrated with the ground . . . it forced me to always think in a creative, different way. You think in a way that doesn’t endanger nature. And it makes the

  overall design so much more interesting. I would never want to go back to the way

  I used to practice. 23

  Architects also described the ways that the philosophical dimensions of RSIEA

  training left an imprint that reached beyond their professional practice. Suhasini, for instance, told me that the moral ecological aspects of learning and embracing

  good design had transformed her very sense of self:

  I needed RSIEA to show me a path. Maybe if I had (just learned the technical aspects of environmental architecture) on my own, I wouldn’t know what is right or wrong, I would just go whatever way. Definitely I could have done without it from the point of view of technical skil s, but yes, it did help. It changed me as a person! 24

  Similarly, Palavi identified critical engagement with environmental design as a

  lasting, if not directly “practical,” or even enabling, skill:

  The course makes you think and question things. It makes you question the current

  practices, the current materials, but then even everything that you do. . . . You question and you also think about what is the right process to assess things. What is the right process to know what is correct, environmental y? The program guides you to

  develop that thinking and to feel you have grounding for your ideas. And you know

  you are doing something good.25

  Even Aditya, whose personal financial constraints so restricted his capacity to

  practice environmental architecture after graduation, was enthusiastic about the

  positive impact of the RSIEA experience on his life and his work. During one of

  our conversations, we spent most of an hour discussing the ways that he actively

  promoted RSIEA to his colleagues and friends. True to his own economic situ-

  ation, he described the benefits of his training through a cost and benefit equa-

  tion, settling on the unquantifiable dimension of an experience that “guides your

  conscience”:

  The course is two lakhs for two years; IRs 40,000 per semester, plus college entry fees of IRs 10,000 or something like that for six months, so for two years it comes to two lakhs plus the study tours. This is not easy to afford. I went to all the study tours and they are also an expense. And now, many of my friends are asking, “Aditya is it real y worth it? Should I join?” I say, “Yes!” Because this degree is only two years, and yes, you are paying, but you are also earning at the same time. You can keep your job,

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  A Vocation in Waiting 159

  and be in your office during the week, so you keep earning. . . . But this course has its own importance. It guides your conscience. I would do it over again and again.

  If you’re real y interested you can learn anywhere, and with RSIEA I learned the big picture of green.

  Our conversation
ended in laughter, as Aditya assured me that, having studied at

  RSIEA, “I know what environmental architecture is, so I am also very good to tell

  you what it is not in Mumbai.” 26

  THE ENVIRONMENTAL ARCHITECT AS INTEGRATED

  SUBJECT

  Newly conversant in the techniques of good design, RSIEA architects faced the

  challenge of ecology in practice. Through their accounts, we glean a sense of urban material and economic development in Mumbai, and how practitioners discerned,

  experienced, and engaged its organizing systems and power structures. Social cat-

  egories like the state, the builder, and the architect in its many guises organized narratives of purposeful and dynamic actors operating in an otherwise “chaotic”

  process called urban development. Each architect described his own position

  within that process, placing the self, and the category of the “environmental architect,” in strategic relationship to the figures and forces understood to limit or shape good design.

  Graduates’ narratives also conveyed individual and collective logics of when,

  and how best, to challenge existing structures with an eye toward transformation.

  Their retellings of ecology in practice trace the simultaneous scales and forms of transformations already underway—from new officers in specific municipal positions to global protest actions—and patterns of power, economic incentive, and

  established processes that limit, if not ful y foreclose, any chance to enact good design. In conversations across a wide range of RSIEA graduates, from the newly

  finished to the seasoned practitioner, the tension between finding an eviden-

  tiary basis for good design aspirations and describing, as Darius called it, “the

  system,” were always present. If that tension was to break, it seemed, it would be the environment itself, rather than environmental architects, who would force it:

  ever-more untenable conditions of resource scarcity, pol ution, human deprava-

  tion, and suffering seemed poised to open the future to good design. As Suhasini