Reviving and exploring sustainable architecture
Swati Sushmita Lakra is an Architect currently located in Kolkata, West Bengal. She has a Bachelor’s degree in Architecture from National Institute of Technology, Patna. She is an enthusiastic Creative designer with a multitude of skills, having worked in the Architecture, Interior design, furniture, graphic design and Paper Industry. Good with Free-hand Sketching, Logo design, SketchUp, Photoshop, Illustrator and Indesign. She has acquired strong hands-on skills in Arts and Design fields. She has worked in various roles of Graphic Designer, Creative Designer and Architect with enterprises like Rohan and Arpana Invitations, Bluecat Paper, Bonito Designs, Didi Contractor and Studio Sthala respectively.
Growing up an Oraon in West Bengal, Swati developed interest in designing spaces as a child. Her liking for Hannah’s bus in Hannah Montana show drew her towards designing spaces and functions in school. Growing up she witnessed the fragile structure of the ancestral mud house in her native village which cemented her resolve to become an architect.
Design education helped her understand the psychology of spaces. Working with Didi Contractor helped her explore materials and human psychology around space as an architect. Her specialisation was in Vernacular architecture as she was interested in mud architecture and in local materials. Her graduation project was about a church and a training centre for Theology in Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh where she enjoyed the flexibility to play with natural light. Her thesis elaborated the importance of wind channels in buildings lying close to the sea so as to prevent any damage to the building whilst chanelling air to provide good ventilation and maintain temperature throughout the building.
She attended monsoon volunteering after graduation so as to have an experience of ways and means to protect mud houses during the rainy season. Volunteering with Didi Contractor enriched her experiences with constructing mud houses from scratch, documentation of an entire institution of ten or more buildings, shortcomings of mud and its alternatives.
Indiscriminate deforestation and pulling out of stones and sand from rivers had brought a realisation to Swati to work with materials having less carbon footprint. Presently she is employing fly ash bricks, mud and bamboo in her projects. Dr. Aarti’s residence in Hamirpur was one of the key projects for Swati where she incorporated an old concrete house with a mud house. Presently as an independent, self employed architect she faces challenges as a woman in convincing the people that she is in-charge and about the unconventional materials being used. She wishes to spread awareness about the significance of vernacular architecture, vernacular materials in mitigating climate change. Long term vision is to establish a firm working in vernacular architecture with local and alternative materials. Short term vision is to construct a complete structure made out of mud. Further, she believes in utilising the structures that are already present by suiting them to the contemporary needs. She is optimistic that mobility in coming times is not equated solely with concrete structures and urban spaces.