Gurjit Singh Matharoo is the youngest Indian architect to be made an international fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects. What makes his designs unique? A net enclosing an entire house,a blood transfusion van that turns heads on the road,a curtain door,and stone walls that are remote controlled this is the unique canvas of Ahmedabad-based architect Gurjit Singh Matharoos 18-year-long career. Each of his designs has an element of the fantastic and a story to tell. For instance,in the Net House in Ahmedabad,the client wanted a weekend home open to nature,providing all the comforts of a modern home. We used the machhardani or mosquito net as an analogy and created an open column-less house encased in four gossamer layers of net,blackout blinds and glass. The net is sometimes visible,sometimes not,and all the layers offer infinite variations,so no two visits to the house are ever the same, says Matharoo. The imaginative palette of his design projects led the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) to award him with an international fellowship,making him only the third Indian after luminaries in architecture,Charles Correa and BV Doshi,to get the honour. Matharoo,46,was picked by an international body of selectors and makes the rank as one of the youngest RIBA fellows. At his temporary office in Ahmedabad,Matharoo sports a bright orange turban and seems almost unaffected by the win. His firm,Matharoo Associates,launched in 1992 is not new to international accolades,its founding philosophy being grounded in it. Starting out as a two-member team,we used to enrol in competitions at a national and global level to get work. That paid off. We were not very busy but we got to build what we wanted, he says. The firm works on three to four big projects annually,ranging from schools,offices,and residences to public buildings and automobiles. We dont touch the ornamental,traditional designs that are largely the mainstay of real estate projects. Project costs range between Rs 7 lakh and Rs 3 crore. Then there is the oddball customer who walks in with a request. After seeing the crematorium we had designed at Surat,overlooking the Tapi,a man wanted us to design his house. The Ashwinikumar Ghat was a shift from the traditional crematorium,with an introverted site design,and a pavilion-like structure. The teams winning formula is: reduce whenever in doubt,when not in doubt,surely reduce. Most of the times,designs made by his team get approved simply because they use minimal materials and are cost-effective. Most residences play on exposed concrete,obviating the need for plaster or paint. In most homes,he uses polished concrete for the floors,giving them shiny and maintenance-free finishes. He plays with texture and scale,often giving a dramatic twist to unexpected corners. While many design approaches get a new meaning with Matharoo,the buzzword,sustainability,is also reinterpreted. We use materials in their natural form. With harsh sun falling on wood,concrete,brick,stone or metal,we are able to get profound textures,much like carvings do to a temple in light. While our buildings remain truly embedded in nature,our approach to sustainability is taking green and adding a little blue for open spaces,so environmentalism goes hand-in-hand with science a turquoise approach to architecture. says Matharoo. Talking of his turquoise theory, he explains that whatever is not good for the climate,should not be used. But while reducing cost is important,scaling up is also important to Matharoo. In the Weekend House by the sea in Raigad,he gave each room a view of the sea and built a swimming pool that almost roller coasters its way through the house and out of the ship-like building. While most architects walk out of design schools with theories and settle for decorative squalor,Matharoo has steadfastly toed the line of modernist architecture,one he picked up from his student days. Matharoo moved back to India after working for a year in Switzerland. He taught at the Centre for Environment and Planning,his alma mater. But that was 20 years ago. Things were different then and architects thought that they had to go abroad to make a mark,but now Asia is the front runner in design. The economic surge has created a lot of opportunities for architects, says Matharoo. But he sees through the surface of a seemingly optimistic future,Earlier,architects were called master builders; today we have made builders our masters. It was called the noblest of all professions,but our own vision has become myopic. We have long traded nobility for upward mobility,and now,only we are to blame. He isnt sure if awards will increase his volume of work but believes it will reinforce peoples faith in the firms experiments. A large part of our work is making our clients believe that we will create something they have never seen before. As a team,we look for a peculiarity in our brief. A home he built for a city-based builder has remote-controlled stone walls. It was a joint family with three couples,operating as a single unit. So to retain privacy,the walls could be closed and opened up when the family wanted to socialise, he says. This December,Matharoo will shift his 18-member team to Shilaj village,14.7 km away from the city. His new studio will have an indoor swimming pool and a steel dome-like structure covering the top. The dome will suck out the hot air,leaving the ground floors cooler. Buildings have the power to create emotions in a person. I believe the new studio will be enjoyable,functional and intellectually stimulating, he says. Matharoo is also a bike fanatic. His design sensibilities for buildings and automobiles have spilled over in equal parts. So much so that despite an academic background in architecture,Matharoo is an important part of the National Institute of Designs Transportation and Automobile programme. His firms design for Prathma Blood Centres (in Ahmedabad) mobile blood transfusion van was called Cattiva,the Italian word for bad woman and designed like one,he says. It was the centres attempt to reach out to the youth. The new-age van has a seamless feline-like body,with impressive interiors,which includes a pantry,a refreshment area and a lounge. Another house in Ahmedabad has a popular Matharoo innovation an enormous sliding door that opens out like a curtain. This was a home with a composition of planes that we didnt want to break. Since I was then nearing 40,love handles were the inspiration for the door. A recent challenge came in the form of a design for a building for an association of realtors. Matharoo designed a building with walls that move. It can be an office when required and when the owners want an interface with the public for events,the walls open out to a large entrance so that people can walk in,maintaining the duality of the building, he says. A poster in his office sums up Matharoos eccentric yet competitive streak. A piece of chocolate cake in every imaginable shape reads: How to make a chocolate cake? This is a hit in my design classes at the institute. I get students to make designs through cakes. I tell my students,at least,you will end up making good chocolate cake if not a good design.
