India’s New Architects

When it comes to construction, societies turn to architectural engineers for problem-solving. However, certain communities, due to their poverty, cannot afford the cost of the modern process of design and construction which leads to the appearance of random unplanned areas with designs and buildings that aggravate their problems instead of solving them. The people of Tilonia, India – an extremely poor community – have found a creative solution that does not complicate the problem even more. The solution lied in “creating” their own architects from within the community with a slight help from outside at first. They were called “Barefoot architects”.
This constitutes the subject of the present research paper that studies this model. First we’ll observe and analyze all its aspects. Second, we’ll determine its positives and negatives in order to benefit from it on a larger scale so that it would be of use to a greater number of poor communities that need such inventive solutions.
Previous researches studied this issue from different point of view: Hassan Fathy covered methods of building for poor people in his book ‘Architecture for the Poor’, others like Amr Abd Alghany – Ain Shams university, Masters thesis – was concerned with the Educational problems and solving them on the basis of comparison with other educational systems. Johan van Lengen studied the ‘Barefoot’ example as a greener approach to housing.