Laurie Baker, an influential architect, focused on building for individuals rather than income groups and utilized local materials and traditional methods in his designs. He emphasized cost-effective techniques that not only reduced material usage but also incorporated energy-efficient concepts like arches and domes. His notable projects include the Center for Development Studies and the Loyola Chapel, showcasing innovative designs that addressed both aesthetics and functionality while promoting community involvement in housing solutions.

1. “I never build for classes of people – high
income, middle income or low
income groups, tribals or fishermen. I only
build for a Matthew, a
Bhaskaran, a Muneer or a Sankaran.”
-Laurie Baker
Laurence Wilfred "Laurie" Baker (2
March 1917 – 1 April 2007)

2. Baker studied architecture in Birmingham and graduated in 1937, aged 20, in a period of
political unrest for Europe.
During the Second World War, he served in the Friends Ambulance Unit in China and
Burma.
worked as an architect for an international and interdenominational Mission dedicated to the
care of those suffering from leprosy.
focused on converting or replacing asylums once used to house the ostracized sufferers of the
disease - "lepers".
Used indigenous architecture and methods of these places as means to deal with his once
daunting problems.

3. SKETCES BY LAURIE BAKER
Baker always carried his home-made diary fashioned out of old
pieces of paper from envelopes and other waste plain paper
wherever he went. Baker's ability to sketch was one of the main
reason he never learnt Indian languages since whenever people
didn't understand English he would whip out his diary and
scribble a quick sketch to explain what he meant.

6. • 1981: D.Litt conferred by the Royal University of Netherlands for outstanding work in
the Third World
• 1983: Order of the British Empire, MBE
• 1987: Received the first Indian National Habitat Award
• 1988: Received Indian Citizenship
• 1989: Indian Institute of Architects Outstanding Architect of the Year
• 1990: Received the Padma Sri
• 1990: Great Master Architect of the Year
• 1992: UNO Habitat Award & UN Roll of Honour
Awards

7. CONCEPTS AND STYLE OF BAKER
Designing and building low cost, high quality, beautiful homes
Suited to or built for lower-middle to lower class clients.
Irregular, pyramid-like structures on roofs, with one side left open and tilting into the wind.
Brick jali walls, a perforated brick screen which utilises natural air movement to cool the home's
interior and create intricate patterns of light and shadow.
Baker's designs invariably have traditional Indian sloping roofs and terracotta Mangalore tile
shingling with gables and vents allowing rising hot air to escape curved walls to enclose more
volume at lower material cost than straight walls.
Baker was often seen rummaging through salvage heaps looking for suitable building
materials, door and window frames. Baker's architectural method is of improvisation.
Initial drawings have only an idealistic link to the final construction, with most of the
accommodations and design choices being made on-site by the architect himself.

8. ‘Low cost' or `cost reduction' is not only concerning economy. Most modern building
materials are manufactured articles (like burnt bricks or steel or glass or cement). Their
respective costs are one important consideration but just as important is the question of how
much energy (or fuel) was used in their manufacture.
The use of local materials is an example of economy because there are no transport costs.
These styles show that people have discovered that there is a right way and a wrong way of
putting materials together so that they are strong and durable. A wall, for example, is not
necessarily stronger because it is thicker. The bonding together of a few stones is much
stronger than the heaping together of a lot of stones.

10. COST EFFECTIVE TECHNIQUES
Advantages
20-35% Less materials
Decorative, Economical &
Reduced self-load
Almost maintenance free
25-30% Cost Reduction
Filler slab
Advantages
Energy saving & Eco-Friendly
compressive roofing.
Decorative & Highly Economical
Maintenance free
Jack Arch

11. Filler slabs
Filler slabs employ replacing 'un-productive'
concrete by a 'Filler' material which reduces the
weight of the slab and also the cost by reducing the
amount of concrete used. Also, since the weight of
the slab is thus reduced, lesser steel is required for
reinforcement, further reducing the cost.
Arches
The arch is significant because it provides a
structure which eliminates tensile stresses in
spanning an open space. All the forces are
resolved into compressive stresses. This is useful
because several of the available building materials
such as stone, cast iron and concrete can strongly
resist compression but are very weak when tension,
shear or torsional stress is applied to them.

12. Domes
A dome can be thought of as an arch which has
been rotated around its central vertical axis. Thus
domes, like arches, have a great deal of structural
strength when properly built and can span large
open spaces without interior supports.

13. UNI Group Housing, Vasundhra, Sehwag International School, Jhajjar,
Ghaziabad Haryana
Farmer's Training Center for P.N.B., Nimrana,
Rajasthan

14. Laurie Baker Building Centre
Promoted by HUDCO and DSIB, Govt. of Delhi
Ekta Vihar, Sector - 6, R.K. Puram, New Delhi - 110022

15. Rat trap bond
Rat trap bond brick masonry is an alternative to
normal English bond masonry walls by which 15%
of cost can be reduced without comprimising the
quality, strength and appearances.

16. Bricks to me are like faces. All of them are made of burnt mud, but they vary slightly in shape
and colour. I think these small variations give tremendous character to a wall made of
thousands of bricks, so I never dream of covering such a unique and characterful creation with
plaster, which is mainly dull and characterless. I like the contrast of textures of brick, of stone,
of concrete, of wood.
We still do not see that the most important industry in the country is the building industry. We
refuse to see that it can absorb every type of worker from the highly-skilled scientist to the
completely non-skilled labourer. It can solve a large area of our unemployment problem, and,
furthermore, it can start immediately, if we will it, as no other industry can.
My observation is that vernacular architecture almost always has good answers to all our
problems. In every district, wherever you go, the people themselves take an active part in
making their houses. Now, for whatever reasons, they have lost their skills, and need to look
outside for help.

17. •Masonry Arches
Advantages
•Traditional spanning sytem.
•Highly decorative & economical
•Less energy requirement.
•Masonry Dome
Advantages
•Energy saving eco-friendly compressive roof.
•Decorative & Highly Economical for larges spans.
•Maintenance free
Funicular shell
Advantages
•Energy saving eco-friendly compressive
roof.
•Decorative & Economical
•Maintenance free

18. HAMLET
IT is a Baker's home in Trivandrum.
Take a closer look at this remarkable and unique house built on five levels on a plot of
land along the slope of a rocky hill, with limited access to water: conditions most people
would never dream of building anything much less their homes under! However Baker’s
genius has created a wonderful home for his family.

19. HAMLET-Doghouse

20. H AMLET-Entrance

21. HAMLET-Use of natural light

22. HAMLET-Inner cortyard and garden

32. The Center For Development Studies
Centre for Development Studies Ulloor, Trivandrum, 1971
the most important project of baker’s career. The significance of this assign­ment had less
to do with size and budget, than with the idea of exhibiting a range of concepts applied to
buildings of varying functions, scale and dimensions.
An area of nine acres accommodates administrative offices, a com­puter centre, an amphi-
theatre, a library, classrooms, housing and other components of an institutional design.

33. Here, at the summit, the library dominates the centre with a seven-storey tower; the
administrative offices and classrooms are scat­tered in a randomness determined by each
one's position on the slope. However, the buildings remain tightly connected through
corridors that snake upwards to the library along breezy walkways and landscaped courts.

46. Plan Of A School (2 alternatives)
This plan is contained within a 30 foot square structure. It can be This plan contains both a teachers room and a mini stage. By re-
used where only one teacher is available for dealing with a small aligning the seating - all can face towards the stage for assembly or
number of children of different ages. This structure is not dramas or music etc.
uncommon in remote and hilly areas. It is in such regions where
education facilities, including the school building itself, are missing or
totally inadequate.
Seating is indicated in the plan merely to show how the group can
either be taught (or act) collectively or be separated into 3 or 4
classes.

47. Loyola Chapel and Auditorium
Sreekarayam, 1971
The Loyola complex contains a high school and a post-graduate
complex, both sharing a common chapel and an auditorium. It was here
that Baker's skills of cost-reduction met their greatest challenge, as it
required a seating capacity of one thousand. In order to increase the
lateral strength of the high brick wall, without the introduction of any
steel or concrete, Baker devised a wide cavity double-wall with cross-
bracing brick.

49. The total covered area of the chapel
and auditorium and the gallery is
approximately 930 square meters. The
cost in 1970-71, including the furniture
and appurtenances, lighting and
sanitation was kept within the original
gift sum of
1.75 lakh rupees.
1. Chapel nave
2. Sanctuary
3. Narthex
4. Sacristy
5. Chapel
6. Terrace
7. Auditorium
8. Stage
9. Green room
10. Toilet

50. Both the walls were pierced with a continuous
floor-to-roof pattern of jails, so that the chapel was
adequately, though somewhat mysteriously, lit-and
ventilated. Despite its tall proportions, the
acoustics of the hall were remarkable-the exposed
surfaces and the open patterns of brickwork
controlling the reverberations.

53. Loyola Chapel and Auditorium: Estimate of Cost
Rate Quantity Figure Say
Excavation and refilling cu.ft. 0.06 16,000 960 1,000
Concrete foundations 1:4:8 cu.ft. 1.20 1,900 2,280 2,500
DPC:CM 1:3 crude oil 5% wt c. sq.ft. 0.30 560 168 200
RR masonry in 1:5 cm cu.ft. 0.95 3,360 3,192 3,300
first class bricks in 1:5 cm cu.ft. 1.80 16,100 28,980 29,000
4.5" brick in 1:4 cm sq.ft. 0.75 1,250 938 1,000
ditto query extra sq.ft. 0.75 1,600 1,200 1,500
flooring 4"1:4:8 plus c.finish sq.ft. 0.65 6,840 4,480 4,500
slab floor c. finish 500
0.5" cm plaster sq.ft. 0.22 11,860 2,609 3,000
3 coat whitewashing sq.ft. 0.03 11,860 355 500
I Supercem 3 coats (2 and primer) sq.ft. 0.30 11,860 3,560 4,000
RCframe cu.ft. 11.00 8,500 8,500
RCslabs cu.ft. 8.00 2,560 20,480 20,500
Doors 5,000
Windows 500
Chapel ceiling 10,000
Auditorium ceiling '" 7,500
Roof weathering 3" jelly tiles etc. sq.ft. 1.50 1,150 1,725 2,000
AC roofing sq.ft. 1.50 6,050 9,075 9,000
Steel trusses cu.wt. 115. 25,000
Sanitation and drains 2,500
Electrical installation 10,000
3% contingencies 4,425 4,500
Furniture for chapel 18,000
Total Rs 1,70,000

54. Loyola Womens Hostel

56. Abu Abrahams House

61. Major Jacobs House

73. Sewa,Villapilsaala

80. Extension to CSI Church

86. Baker on 'Laurie Baker Architecture’ -Columbus is reputed to have
discovered America, but a large number of people had been already living there
without the publicity of his discovery for a very long time. Similarly, when I made my
own little personal discoveries, I realised that I had merely chanced to find an
extensive set of building systems which were in no way 'discoveries' to more than five
hundred million people! I wanted to make use of this new knowledge in my own work.

103. LAURIE BAKER'S INDIAN
COFFEE HOUSE,
TRIVANDRUM

116. THANK YOU
ARCHITECT-SUVARNA
DESHPANDE/LELE