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INTERVIEW OF MRIDUL ARCHITECTS Interviewed Interviewedby: By: Parth Soman and Medhavi Interviewed and Bhiwandkar By: Parth Soman Medhavi Bhiwandkar.
Following is an excerpted interview with Ar. Mridul, who hails from Rajasthan, who talks about designing in Rajasthan, sustainability and construction practices in Rajasthan. Interviewer: What are the parameters one should consider while designing a structure in Rajasthan? Ar. Mridul: First and foremost is the climate. As I had discussed earlier in the seminar, India has 5-6 climatic zones. Similarly, within Rajasthan we have hot and humid, hot and arid, to an extent in some places cold and moderate temperature. That is the first thing we have to keep in mind that the building should be climatically responsive because of energy crunch in India which limits energy consumption. So, the buildings have to be foremost designed in a way that that they can tackle the extremities of climate. Places here should have a micro-climatic environment of their own. Interviewer: Making its way in transitional architecture, because we have been looking around, the old architecture of Rajasthan is very rich, nuanced and expressive. So, is contemporary architecture making inroads in Rajasthan? Ar. Mridul: Yes! That is part of it because if you look from the country’s point
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of view, they are looking towards the west. That’s what they consider modern. In small places like Jodhpur, they look forward to cities like Mumbai and Delhi, that has a different style of architecture. I don’t really understand what is Modern Architecture. Whatever is done today is considered modern whichever way you do it. So, what does modern mean? Yes, contemporary architecture is making its way; unfortunately, we already have highrise buildings but when you do high-rise buildings, there are a lot of climatic considerations that get divorced with your design, because the space traditionally and climatically may have not meant to be for that typology. Intervierer: You talked about Birkha Bawri and we wanted to know if there are any other architectural mechanisms, construction techniques or materials that can be brought again? Ar. Mridul: Fortunately for Jodhpur, stones still remains the non-detrimental means of construction, because that is the local material of construction and we don’t use bricks extensively here as we have to import them from other cities. Influx of new materials remains, but materials for buildings by large remains stone.
VOLUME 1, ISSUE 1/ DECEMBER 2019
