Originally posted on sciy.org by Ron Anastasia on Sat 17 Dec 2005 03:24 AM PST
Home >
News > India News
Posted on 17 Dec 2005 # IANS
Architect builds hopes and houses for tsunami victims
By Papri Sri Raman, Chinnurpudupettai
(Tamil Nadu): Architect Sharukh Mistry had a providential escape last
year when the first monster wave hit the coast where he was holidaying.
Undaunted, he is back on the beach - to rebuild houses for the
tsunami-hit victims on the Pondicherry coast.
His firm, Mistry and Company, is in the process of constructing 800 permanent houses in the SOS Kinderdorf-Children's Village.
"I have been associated with the SOS Village for almost 20 years now," Mistry told IANS.
On
the fateful Dec 26 morning, he was at one of the beach properties in a
healing centre at Auroville, along with 12 other members of his family
and friends.
Mistry recalled: "We had all been on the beach from
the early morning until we moved into the covered area for breakfast.
It was just at that time that the first tsunami wave crashed on to the
beach. Ours was a providential escape."
The disastrous tsunami
killed some 10,000 people in India, an overwhelming majority in Tamil
Nadu. Pondicherry lies along the Tamil Nadu coast.
It was
natural that when he was offered the SOS Village's reconstruction
project on the east coast, he promptly agreed. He and his men sit under
a thatched roof on the first floor of a newly built house that they
have designed and put together in the last six months. A table has
their laptops and rolls of drawings.
Mistry said: "We began
our work in July. About 45 houses from this lot of 116 in this village
are completely ready. About 95 percent work in other houses is almost
over."
Talking about the hurdles the architects faced, Mistry
said: "The original village Sripudupettai was just about 500 metres
from the sea. The government chose the relocated area for the new
village. It is about a mile (1.6 km) from the sea.
"The area was very sandy and before we began to build, we had to prepare the soil."
The
villagers were consulted at every step during the reconstruction
process. Mistry said: "At all times, the villagers have been part of
the decision-making process. At least 30 percent of the workforce came
from the local community.
"We were clear that they needed
long-term support. We took the drawings to them and discussed their
requirements. Once the buildings started coming up, the people just
walked in and out of them, experiencing their new homes, and we let
them.
"People here are very traditional thinking. We, however,
found thatched, matted houses worked out to be more costly. We tried
convincing them to use alternative material. We promised them that
alternative material houses would be much better than concrete ones.
"But
after much discussion, each one in the community came up to us and
said, 'Can you please give us concrete houses?' So we have built
concrete houses for the village."
Mistry said each house was
so designed that a floor can be added to it in the future if the owner
so wishes. He added: "With each house we provided a garden space.
First, when we asked the villagers to plant trees, they wanted to know
how they would know where to plant the trees. They said they did not
know which plot and house would be his until the allotment was made.
"We
told them, plant wherever you like in the given area. If your tree
grows in someone else's area, someone else will have planted a tree in
your garden.
"We had to convince the villagers to go a little
beyond their little world, into the community. We have provided for a
designated community area, a medical centre and an assembly hall. We
have used nets, bamboos, local material in many of the common areas.
"Now
that some of the houses have been allotted, we are telling the owners
to paint the houses themselves, do art work on the walls and build
their own fences."
When the reconstruction gets over, Mistry
and his men will move on to Akkaraipettai on the Nagapattinam coast in
Tamil Nadu and to Colachel, further south, to build more permanent
homes for tsunami victims.
Attachment:
