Reflecting
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Revathi Kamath Architect
THE ECOLITERATE ARCHITECT Ecological consciousness is a civilization pursuit, essential to comprehend and activate the self-organizing and self-healing capacity of the ecosystem that we inhabit. The holistic nature of the environment needs to be valued and nurtured as we create our material reality. The current global economic space, based on industrial and post-industrial consumerism, results in a skewed distribution of the resource base, creating four categories of human beings - the biosphere people of the developed world, who enjoy the produce of the entire biosphere, the omnivores of the developing world, the ecosystem people, and the ecological refugees (Madhav Gadgil). Seeking to redress this imbalance in resource use across humans, we must, through activism, transition to an ecological civilization. The built environment and architecture express the characteristics of the interface between nature and culture. In an ecological continuum, nature and culture blend into a seamless whole, and so should architecture. 33 years ago, at the outset of my career as an architect and planner, the words of Mahatma Gandhi, influenced my thoughts and energized my action, He said “Recall the face of the poorest and weakest man you have seen, and ask yourself if the step you contemplate is going to be of any use to him. Will he gain anything by it? Will it restore him to a control over his own life and destiny?� Following these words, I was led to the exploration of earth and craft-based architecture that ensured the involvement of unskilled, semi-skilled, and skilled labour for the production of buildings. Creating an architecture that involved the current skills of the woman labourer, the beast of burden, the lowest in the hierarchy of the workers in the building industry, became a short term goal. Site-specific buildings, using local materials and skills, and being guided by traditional wisdom that has evolved over millennia became the characteristic of my practice.
While gathering materials to build with, it became obvious that the environment and natural ecosystems are being abused to an extent far beyond their ability to replenish themselves. The self healing capacity of our resource base has become a major concern and therefore assimilating the wisdom of nature is imperative to the practice of architecture. Human patterns and forms should not colonize or destroy nature, but must be harmonious and evolutionary, sustaining life purposefully.