Projects Won’t Trickle Down

Urgent need to address alternative modes of architectural practices for Goa

Architect Arijeet Raikar, one of the resource persons for the workshop organised by the Indian Institute of Architects - Goa (IIA), impressed upon the audience that it was possible to build a first-rate residence for a family within rupees seven lakhs. The problem though is that it is financially unviable to run this kind of an architectural practice within the existing ideology of practice, where the norm is that the architect’s fees is a small percentage of the total project cost. Enabling such alternative practices, with commitment from architects as much as from the State, would go a long way to satisfy the housing needs of the locals as well as the design challenges enjoyed by architects. Ensuring employment opportunities to young architects while continuing to address the specific needs of development in Goa will require the change in the architecture of practice itself. 

Architects have a major role in shaping the development process in Goa. We often act helpless and complain in private realms about the situation of crazy real estate development, while continuing to ruin the very environment we love, professionally. The question is what can young architects do in scenarios where elites from Indian metros, ably aided by the local real-estate industry, have taken up the reins of development here. While this development continues to deprive locals of affordable housing due to escalating costs, the local architects, contrary to the belief, do not benefit from these projects as the designers of these luxury second-homes also often happen to come from Indian metros.  Therefore keeping both Goan environment and employment of local architects in mind, there is a need to change the ideology of architectural practice itself. In the film, The Pervert’s Guide to Ideology, philosopher Slavoj Zizek states that it takes a lot of effort to recognise the current capitalist ideology. The predominant ideology in architectural practice means being slaves to glamour buildings as consumerist objects (even so-called sustainable second-homes), emphasizing form at the cost of everything else, catering to clients’ needs whatever they are, making big-bigger-biggest projects, turning a blind eye to corruption and over-pricing in budgeting, and so on.

  Goa is undergoing rapid and uncontrolled urbanizations, which are largely guided by the aspirations of elites from Indian metropoli. The Indian elites who buy second-homes in Goa are not here to settle. They are here to consume Goa and move on to greener pastures when the going is not good and the green is gone. In the 1980s and ‘90s, it were the super-rich who started the trend of buying second homes here. Since the turn of the century, with the liberalisation of the Indian economy and the boom in the Indian middle-class, this trend has changed and many more are acquiring second-homes here, making Goa their weekend getaway.  Clearly, the focus has moved from merely enjoying Goa for its sights to the ownership of sites, in the form of real-estate properties.

Most professionals assume that faster development will lead to bigger employment opportunities, seldom realising how the capitalist economy works. In his article, “Trickle-Down Economics -- The Most Destructive Phrase Of All Time?” (Forbes, 6 Dec. 2013), George Leef, writes that “[i]n a free society, wealth doesn’t trickle down, or up, or sideways. It is earned. What people … don’t understand or won’t admit, is that people of all economic strata, and no matter their race, religion, sex, or anything else, have far more opportunities to earn in a society with a small, efficient, frugal government than they do in a society with a huge, wasteful one.” This line of thinking is critical to Goa and especially for practicing architects. The impetus given to large-scale development projects in Goa is usually in the hope that there will be a trickle-down effect.  Local Goan architects for instance are under the illusion that the trickle down economy is going to cater to their needs, and deliver to them some projects. We passively allow economic policies to be thrust on us, hoping against hope that some of the project opportunities will trickle down to us. The grim truth is, they seldom do, except maybe to a few cronies of those at the helm.

At another level, architect Rahul Mehrotra, the keynote speaker at the recent Z-axis conference in Panjim, highlighted that, today, the State’s contribution to the neoliberal economy has been restricted to the development of infrastructure, such as highways, flyovers, expensive bridges, and so on, which are meant to benefit corporate projects, while the important “mainstream” projects like housing have been left to the mercy of private developers. Architects, he rued, are either co-opted by these developers, or contend with boutique practices like designing luxury second homes. While the developers’ practice is that of crunching numbers to maximise the saleable spaces of apartments, the boutique practice has become the practice of indulgence, both on behalf of the elite client as well as the architect. Mehrotra also identified the media as being guilty for encouraging glamourized boutique practices by creating signature ‘hero’ architects.  Usually architecture practices as represented in popular lifestyle magazines largely represent the projects commissioned by the rich. Today, it is important to break this hegemony of the popularly accepted ideal architectural project like luxury second-homes, so that new categories of practice emerge, categories which address the unique development model that Goa requires.

(This article is based on the keynote address I gave on ‘Refiguring the Architecture of Practice’ at a workshop organised by IIA Goa on the occasion of World Architecture Day.)

[This article was published on The Goan on 23/10/2016.]

Buildings as (Bad) Ideas

South African architect Ilze Wolff suggests that we work towards an architectural practice of radical openness.

As a tribute to its namesake, a three-day international architecture conference was organised by the Charles Correa Foundation at Kala Academy in the first week of September. With the theme “Buildings as Ideas”, the intention of the organisers, as written on the conference programme booklet, was to “explore further what Correa believed – that buildings are ideas that manifest and take form.” However, as one of the presenters, Ilze Wolff from Cape Town, South Africa, reminded the audience, if buildings are ideas, they could also be bad ideas. It is this precise notion that is scary, because most times energy is only invested in making a building aesthetically and functionally ‘good’. In an environmentally sensitive place like Goa, for instance, no building or less building is also a good idea. But let us assume that buildings have to be constructed, in which case it is imperative to ask what constitutes bad ideas in architecture?

Wolff stood out amongst all the other guests because she seemed to be most sensitive to the context of her practice. She argued that buildings that were designed by architects in the apartheid period endorsed discrimination based on class, race, and gender. Apartheid was the official policy of racial segregation formerly practiced in the Republic of South Africa, involving political, legal, and economic discrimination against non-whites. In this regard, Wolff referred to the case of the garment-manufacturing factory, Rex Trueform, a modernist building designed in 1938 in Salt River, Cape Town. Segregation based on gender and racial stereotyping was manifest in the zoning of activities in the building, where areas were earmarked based on race, gender and class. Discrimination was also made apparent in the factory by having separate entrances and staircases for different people. There also was a difference in the amount of area given to people, based on race and class. The most privileged were the white male employees from the management, whereas the black female factory workers were the worst off. Wolff was sensitive to reading the (bad) ideas inscribed in the buildings in order to “unstitch” them by dismantling the biases in her own design projects. Most importantly, her building philosophy makes a point to not differentiate between people based on race, gender, or ability.

Ilze Wolff

Another problem with architects is their limited understanding of the ‘context’ for their design. Common responses of many architects presenting at the conference to ‘context’ were superficial interventions at the level of the physical forms, like mixing the local soil with cement in order to transform the colour of concrete. This allows architects to play at being modern - by using concrete, the archetypal modernist building material, while appearing ‘sensitive’ to local context - by matching the colour of buildings to the surrounding landscape. Similarly, in Goa, while I love the overall design of Kala Academy, a Correa project, I harbour deep reservations about its use of laterite pebbles on the walls to imitate laterite stone masonry, probably in an attempt to merge the building with the surrounding context. Such form-based ideas are a limited way of addressing local issues of context. As Wolff advocated, ‘context’ in architecture must not be reserved solely for understanding the physical surroundings of the building, but must include broader references such as ‘context of freedom’, ‘context of race’ or ‘context of ideology’ to name but a few. Only when design starts responding to these contexts can architects aspire for a practice of radical openness.

As suggested above, Wolff was the only architect present at the conference who seems to be “working towards an architectural practice of radical openness”, as quoted by her. An Indian architect, Sameep Padora, in contrast, was proud to present the design for a temple project. Given that projects like temples promote segregation, both on religious grounds as much as on the basis of caste, it seems like a bad idea to have included the temple project in the conference. The Jetavana Centre built for Buddhist Ambedkar Dalit Communities, and designed by Padora, also embodies bad ideas in its architecture. For this structure, Padora prescribed cow dung coating as a finish for all the floors. This is despite “most vocal members of the [Dalit] group wanting to use tile and concrete” (quoted from Padora’s admission, as written in an Architectural Review article by Mustansir Dalvi, 16 May, 2016). In India, it is always women of the marginalised communities, who happen do the job of applying cow dung. Imagine the suffering of Dalit women having to apply cow dung to the floor of the entire project every fifteen days. Architects promote such terrible ideas usually under the garb of protecting “Indian values” to achieve sustainability. Such bad ideas for buildings continue to discriminate against people based on caste and gender.

Unlike their South African counterpart who seems to have accepted the problems of race and tried to address the issues of discrimination in her design, Indian architects have not even accepted that casteism is a problem, let alone one that is reflected in the designing of buildings. This is probably because most practitioners of architecture in South Asia are themselves beneficiaries of caste privileges and, accordingly, perpetuate such discrimination in their own design practices. Conferences like Z-axis are thus important to critically evaluate architecture for good ideas as well as bad.

[This article was first published on The Goan on 25/09/2016]

Indian Nationalism as Modern Art

Visiting the National Gallery of Modern Art (NGMA) at Bangalore has always been a happy experience, especially because I get to see the works of Goan artists like F. N. Souza and V. S. Gaitonde. The NGMA’s most recent exhibition, however, focused on an artist whose legacy is far more nationally known, and not least for nationalistic reasons. On display were a rare collection of lithographic prints by Ravi Varma (1848-1906), whose fame is largely attributed to the popularity of his depiction of gods and goddesses from the brahmanical canon. The images of the goddesses Saraswati and Laxmi, popular on calendars in many households today, are largely the result of Varma’s representation of them. Places like NGMA should ideally be hosting cutting-edge modern art, so one wonders why the administrators are happy to fall back on century-old work by Varma. The NGMA seemed to be trying to justify Varma’s presence by claiming him as ‘modern’ artist, which he is clearly not. At best, Varma’s work can be classified as neo-classical; painting ‘Indian’ themes in a European style, which was in fashion at that time.

Painting by Ravi Varma

Varma’s paintings continued to influence contemporary visual culture in India, as they formed the basis on which many artists and television serial-makers, like B.R. Chopra of Ramayana and Mahabharata fame in the 80s and 90s, imagined the characters of gods and goddesses for their projects. Apparently, even Anant Pai, the creator of Amar Chitra Katha comics (which retold brahmanical Indian stories and mythological tales), asked the comic book artists to look at Ravi Varma’s paintings and draw their images in a similar vein (Pathak, July 2, 2016).

In discussing the legacy of Varma, art historian Niharika Dinkar in her article “The Enduring Myth of Ravi Varma” (2010) , writes that he “was by no means an exceptional painter, but his aristocratic background and proximity to royal patrons granted him a profile quite unlike those of artists from more modest backgrounds”. It was Ravi Varma’s upper caste and class location that led to his popularity in India. Dinkar further argues that “the heroic narrative that has canonised him in the popular imagination as the ‘painter prince’ seized upon precisely these elements, establishing him as a worthy native who could equal the colonial master.” Varma’s work was part of the nationalistic project of framing Indian modernity in the early twentieth century, as it was used as a medium through which a ‘glorious’ Indian past could be imagined. The advancement of upper-caste Hindutva ideology in his art is also the reason why Varma continues to be popular today.

A typical reaction to Varma’ art is epitomised by Krishna Iyer to the news of the exhibition at NGMA. Regarding Varma’s work he writes, “Great Artist. I recall my mother, when asked to describe the qualities of a beautiful girl, said she must have all the characteristics of a Ravi Varma painting. Such was his reputation as a painter” (The Hindu, April 24, 2016). Such reactions lead us to question the intentions of NGMA, given the values explicit in the artist’s work. Varma’s stereotypical imagining of Indian women, in the early twentieth century, wrapped in expensive silk sarees (which are still out of the reach of most), has been embedded deeply in the psyche of the average Indian, as is seen in the opinion of Iyer’s mother. It is interesting that Iyer did not profess his own independent opinion but, rather, chose to abide by his mother’s. So much of such ‘saree-beauty-Indianness’ is embedded in saas-bahu relationships that it has perpetually been the fodder for soap-operas across all TV channels in India - stories which usually revolve around ‘traditional’ mothers-in-law domesticating the ‘western’ attired (and therefore ‘modern’) daughters-in-law.

The problem with nationalistic Indian modernity is the singularity of imagination that marginalises other cultures in India, including that of Goan Christians, and thereby marks them as anti-national. Often in a bid to ‘appear’ Indian, marginalised populations have to perform their allegiance to the nation by dressing in sarees and other similar traditional forms of attire. In fact, T. B. Cunha offers advice of this nature in his book Denationalization of Goan (1944) when advising his readers on how to demonstrate their loyalty to the Indian Nation through their garments. It is interesting how the patriarchal state has always burdened women with displaying the markers of identity.

In his essay “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatus” (1970), French Marxist philosopher Louis Althusser argues that the Nation-State operates in many subtle ways in advancing its dominant ideology. The larger argument for the promotion of Varma’s works in India today is that institutions like NGMA function as Ideological State Apparatuses (ISA) that endorse the idea of upper-caste Hindu nationalism. Which is also why there is a desperation to claim upper-caste Varma as a “great modern artist”.

NGMA - Bangalore

While the Varma exhibition has been given high curatorial priority, important works of the Modernists, Indian artists like F. N. Souza, V. S. Gaitonde, and M. F. Husain are left neglected in the deepest corners of the gallery. There is neither sufficient lighting there to appreciate the art, nor the right conditions to maintain them for posterity. As per Dinker, “at [the] contemporary moment… the elite and popular are increasingly intertwined”, and because what is popular today is nationalistic art, places like NGMA work as ISAs, and  continue to ‘rediscover’ (the neoclassical) Varma as a ‘modern Indian artist’ once too often.

[This article first appeared on The Goan, on August 28, 2016]

Greenwashing Second Homes

Is conscientious consumption possible when second homes in Goa are vacant most of the time?

Acquiring a Green Building certification seems to be the latest fad for promoting luxury second homes in Goa. Real-estate projects are invariably profit-driven but there seems to be a rise in ‘conscientious consumerism’, especially amongst status-seeking urban Indian elites. The problem with ‘green’ second homes, though, is that they are not socially and culturally sustainable, especially in the context of a small state like Goa, where land is a scarce resource and cannot even adequately cater to the needs of locals.

Take the case of Nivim Goa, a building named for the part of Aldona where it is located, and which is apparently the ‘first green certified home in Goa’. Built by the company Build Grounded (www.buildgrounded.com), its website tries to impress upon the reader that the company is invested in sustainable practices. And probably to prove the company’s credentials, the construction of Nivim Goa is elaborately documented on the website.  Highlighting the architectural features of the property, the website states that “Nivim is an expansive country home meant to rediscover the quiet luxury found in nature”. The location of property in Goa is itself a unique selling point, of course, but note how luxury and nature are equated in the aforementioned description to attract investors from congested Indian metros. Properties like Nivim fit the aspirational desires of Indian elites who are seeking to prove that they have arrived. This is because owning a property in an exotic destination like Goa, a property which additionally claims to offer access to ‘nature’,  while bearing the badge of ‘green-certification’, surely symbolises the ‘status’ of these new urbanites within the elite class in India.

However, there is a major problem in engaging in such ‘conscientious consumerism’. When the website claims that the house is “perched on a lush slope amongst tropical trees”, it is meant to create the impression of Goa as not just natural, but also devoid of a local population. Deliberately rendered invisible, the seeming absence of locals offers up a scenario where this ‘certified green [second] home’ can be consumed without any guilt or concern for Goa itself. No wonder many elite estates have tall compound walls, which cordon off their residents from the ordinary masses and allow them to remain blind to the issues facing them.

Real-estate companies, like Build Grounded, often claim to be honestly working towards sustainable architecture in order to ‘save’ the planet. American urbanist Daniel Brook argues that green certification programs like Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) is a “system that's easy to game and has more to do with generating good PR [Public Relations] than saving the planet” (2007). The promoters and builders of  Nivim Goa also seem to do “honest soul searching” when they ask on their blog, “[W]hy would a person choose to live in Goa (part-time or full-time)?” Already suggesting that Goa is a vacant land, this rhetorical question is aimed at an elite settler who is invited to participate in a vision of conscientious consumerism, which is exactly what the problem is.

The ‘Gold’ green rating awarded to Nivim is by the Indian Green Building Council, a certification program that is apparently based on LEED. The cons of such programs far outweigh their sustainable claims, writes Vanessa Quirk in an article titled ‘Where is LEED Leading Us?... And Should We Follow?’ (2012). The entire LEED certification has a fatal flaw, asserts Quirk, and it is that “no matter the un-sustainability of the context (the middle of a desert, for example), no matter its purpose (even a structure for parking), if a building adheres to the requirements, a fundamentally unsustainable building could still attain LEED certification”. This is as much true of a vacation homes, which unlike primary homes remain largely unoccupied throughout the year.

Despite this, second homes like Nivim, are certified as “Gold”. Even if the building boasts of features such as “100% use of solar power for water heating… Use of [a] 3-star energy efficient refrigerator (40% less energy use) and 5-star rated air-conditioners (25% less energy use)…”, among others, the project remains socially unsustainable because it leads to the exploitation of resources meant for locals. The vacation homeowners and users seem to fit the stereotype of those who seek the ‘outdoors’ as epitomised by the natural setting in Goa, but cannot do without the luxury within, including the use of air-conditioners. Most local Goan homes, for instance, are not fitted with air-conditioners, and therefore are probably much more energy efficient.

There is a wide gap between the comforts which the urbanite seeks in tourist destinations and the comforts which the average locals are accustomed to, and therein lies the problem of green certifications. Such certification assumes standards that are applicable to elites, while ordinary homes built by locals, within their means, would never be eligible for such certifications. Green Building certifications are status-seeking mechanisms, another PR stunt for the elites.

Nivim being sold, the promoters have moved on to the next project, another “beautiful contemporary [second] home that retains the charm of a traditional Goan-Portuguese courtyard home… [while again] targeting Green Homes certification from the Indian Green Building Council”, as the website maintains [emphasis mine]. While such conscientious consumerism is just a greenwashing of the ugly world of luxury consumerism, local housing needs are marginalised as such projects drive up the cost of land, making housing unaffordable for many Goans.

This article was first published on The Goan Everyday on 17.07.2016

The Ecological Impact of Luxury Second-Homes

The environmentalists might have more important issues to pay attention to on a global scale, but the second-home ownership issue is the hidden giant that is being unjustifiably ignored (Müller & Hoogendoorn, 2013). Second homes are of many types and it is important to distinguish them in order to understand which ones cause higher environmental and social problems. The real evils are the ones used especially for the purpose of recreation and luxury, such as vacation homes and weekend homes. Owning of such second-homes is a continuation of a colonial way of being and operating, where there is a hierarchical interaction with people and a misappropriation of limited resources, given the size of Goa, with no stakes in the future of Goa.

The menace of second-homes is on the rise in Goa because Goa is treated as a pleasure periphery. Sociologist Anthony King (1980) argues that the capitalist economy produces not only a surplus of wealth, but also, for a sizeable minority, a surplus of time.  King claims that the motives of owning vacation homes include seeking compensation for city living, understood as escaping from perceived overcrowding, noise, traffic congestion, air pollution, and the pressures of city life. Goa enjoys scenic settings, with world famous beaches, ‘green’ landscapes, as well as its Europeanised culture, which makes it a cosmopolitan destination for elite Indians. Many who invest here are looking for a ‘getaway’, to ‘have a good time’, rather than to merely invest their money in real-estate.

Premium property promoters, such as Saffronart, proffer the leisure incentive as the main incentive for buying a property in Goa. “Here’s one purely fun situation where buying a [second] home clearly trumps renting one”, writes R. Rashmi (2014) in an article on the Saffronart’s online portal.  Her strongest argument to buy a home in Goa is because now the owners of this new property can “think nights of shenanigans with friends—pool parties, booze, loud music, dancing into the wee hours of the morning… is mainly possible when you buy a home [in Goa]”. Real-estate promoters like Saffronart seem to goad their clients, the elites in Indian metropolises into not just buying a second-home in Goa, but also buying into a certain lifestyle. The implications of these lifestyles on locals are severe especially the unaffordability to get basic housing.  Clearly, the focus of the tourists who once came to Goa for its sights has moved on to the ownership of sites (Trichur, 2013), in the form of real-estate properties.

An article on www.moneycontrol.com, a website which claims to be India’s number one financial portal, states that “majority of real estate investments [in Goa] come from Delhi and Mumbai as people from these states, who once used Goa as holiday destination, are now buying their own cottage, villa or luxury house in the enchanting Goa”. In another article on Guide to Buying Properties in Goa, Dhruv Bharua writes that “in terms of property prices, North Goa gives the investor better returns on his investments”. Not surprisingly, this article is featured in The Holiday Home Times, an online magazine in India that claims to be a “trusted guide for second homes investors”. The decision of buying a second home in Goa is made easier as the real-estate prices are comparatively lower than those in large Indian metropolises. Improved mobility from the Indian metros to Goa, be it in terms of faster highways, train connections, and cheaper air connections have made this place into a weekend ‘getaway’ for the urban Indian elites.

The steering committee for the Regional Plan Goa 2021, headed by the late architect Charles Correa, did identify second-homes as a problem and proposed to tax them. But would mere taxation resolve the issue? The British government has increased taxation on second-homes, but as Clive Aslet, a second-home owner argues,  such moves are not going to solve the basic housing issues of the poor because the problem of housing is a structural one. Apparently, the British Government is not doing enough to supply homes for first time owners, and methods like taxation of second-home owners are actually a deflection from the real issues of housing. Moreover, since the rich anyway invest in vacation second-homes for luxury, taxes would not deter them.

Switzerland is another place that inordinately suffers the menace of second-home buyers, essentially, elites from urban areas who occasionally want to live with ‘nature’. Not surprisingly therefore, on 11 March 2012, in a popular vote, the Swiss population approved an initiative proposed by ecologist Franz Weber calling for a halt on the construction of new second homes in districts where such homes already exceeded a threshold of 20% of total housing stock (Schuler & Dessemontet, 2013). A similar initiative needs to be taken up in Goa, for which the first step would be a detailed survey and building utilization mapping of luxury weekend homes.

After all, the tourist who buy second-homes in Goa are not here to settle. They are here to consume Goa and move on to greener pastures when the going is not good and the green is gone. Their primary residence continues to be the Indian Metropolises from which they control this territory. As R. Benedito Ferrao has argued, Goa has now become a colony of a post-colony, literally, as its land and prime real-estate is controlled by the elites from Indian metros.

[This article was first published on The Goan on 22.05.2016]

No Bamboo Banawing!

On a recent visit to the Konkan Bamboo and Cane Development Centre (KONBAC) at Kudal, I came to know that there has been a drastic change in strategy to promote bamboo as construction material. Rather than endorsing bamboo as an affordable material for the poor, especially to build cost-effective houses, it is now being popularised as a material that satisfies the upwardly mobile elites’ fad of sustainability. Although the desire to replace unsustainable materials is laudable, the question is whether these projects, using bamboo, are truly as sustainable as they claim to be? Moreover, there also arises an issue of appropriation of material culture, especially of the poor in tribal areas by the dominant elites.

One of the strongest criticisms of the appropriation of the architecture of the poor has been made by the sociologist Anthony King, who writes that the rich often appropriate the architecture of farmer’s cottages (farmhouses) for their vacation homes (which are usually their second or third home). These elites, King observes, only absorb the aesthetics of a farmer’s house and not their lifestyle. The problem of the cultural appropriation of marginalized cultures without assimilation of the marginalized population seems to be prevalent everywhere. Raising the issues of cultural appropriation of hairstyles is a recent video titled Don’t Cash Crop on My Cornrows by Amandla Stenberg. There are many similarities between hairstyle and architecture. Both are about identity, and clearly about style. In so many ways, hairstyles are, in fact, a form of architecture. Stenberg’s major criticism is that white Americans love black culture more than they love the black people.The video demonstrates how hip-hop and pop have been appropriated from African American culture especially in terms of hairdos such as pleats, cornrows and so forth, while continuing with the racist hatred towards black people. These hairdos, as Stenberg notes, are ways in which black hair is kept from knotting. Stenberg laments that while these hairdos are stereotypical of the community, when white Americans adopts them, they turn into high fashion. This is a similar way in which vernacular architecture gets appropriated when architect claim them as ‘contemporary-vernacular style’. While the rich appropriate the poor farmer’s cottages to model their vacation-homes, these houses are always fitted with appliances and systems (air-conditioning etc.) needed for the comfort of upmarket modern living, which the vacationers cannot do without. Additionally there is also a failure to acknowledge the role of vernacular people, the ones who have championed the use of sustainable materials and forms in the first place.

In his book, The System of Objects, Jean Baudrillard argues that a suburbanite who aspires to move up into a higher class usually does so by buying antiques – symbols of old social position brought with new money. Essentially, he argues that the upwardly mobile class signal their social standing through material signs such as antique furniture, works of art, and so forth. Today, it is materials like bamboo that are being pressed into the service of consumption, because they give the image of sustainability. Using bamboo is fast becoming fashionable as appearing sustainable can symbolize that one has truly arrived in the elite world. Bauldrillard further discusses that every object has two functions – to be put to use and to be possessed. While a plastic chair in a living room can be put to use, it never seem to be dearly possessed, whereas the antique voltaire, may at times not even be used but is dearly possessed as an object. The argument for the bamboo is similar. The rich use it in an attempt to possess it as an object rather than utilising it functionally. It seems that the dominant cultures intermittently stoop to peripheral ones in order to appropriate from them, without the guilt of further marginalizing them. The violence is doubled as the poor are made to believe that there is legitimacy in the marginalized culture only when there is a sanction of it by the dominant ones.

The use of bamboo as ‘sustainable’ material in the construction of elite houses is also problematic because of the cost and distance of procuring it, as it is usually not locally available. Holistic sustainability has to factor in the ecological implication of transporting materials, plus the carbon footprint of the air-travel that the ‘designer’ architect would spend on travelling to the site. Moreover, even if sustainable material is used for the building of a second or third home, then the very idea of sustainability is defeated because sustainability has to be about satisfying only the primary needs of living and not about luxury.

It is not that architects and clients should completely ignore bamboo as a sustainable building material. In fact, organization like KONBAC have resorted to the marketing of bamboo to elites because there is no culture of building in bamboo in our society. Today, bamboo should not be a material of choice but that of convenience and compulsion. What is then required is a system of making bamboo easily available by creating a network of bamboo farmers, as KONBAC claims to have done. It is also important that the government create bamboo forests in close proximity to urban areas so that its transport from the source to the site is sustainable. Building in bamboo should not be about style but that of real ecological and social responsibility.

[This article first appeared on The Goan on 24th April, 2016]