Indian architects must explore international markets

Indian architects must explore international marketsWith globalisation, liberalisation and opening of the Indian economy, opportunities of architectural practice are increasing rapidly, globally and locally. Indian architects must make sincere efforts to make their presence felt at the international level.
“With globalisation, liberalisation and opening of the Indian economy, opportunities of architectural practice are increasing rapidly, globally and locally,” says Jit Kumar Gupta, Vice President, Indian Institute of Architects
Jit Kumar Gupta, who has 43 years of experience in urban planning, development, management, planning legislation, policy planning, and architectural education, shares his views on the evolution of the architecture profession in India and advice to the young architects on providing highest standards of professional services to client.
How has the architecture profession evolved over the years in India? How do you see it going ahead?Profession of architecture is as old as human civilisation. It finds mention in all our old texts. However, profession of architecture in the present has its genesis in the 20th century when past students of architecture of Sir J. J. School of Arts, Bombay decided to form “The Architectural Students Association” with late Mr George Wittel, then consulting architect to the Government of Bombay, as the first President of the Association on May 12th, 1917. The association was renamed as “The Bombay Architectural Association” on August 3rd, 1922 with a number of practicing architects becoming the part of the association. The association got affiliated to the Royal Institute of British Architects, and a 5-year diploma course in architecture was started on May 12th, 1925. With membership spreading over the entire country, the Bombay Architectural Association was rechristened as the “Indian Institute of Architects” and registered as a society on September 2nd, 1929. Today the Indian Institute of Architects is in service for the last 84 years, with membership exceeding 17,000. The institute has its presence across the country, having 17 Chapters operating at state level with 39 centres and seven subcentres.
The institute aims to encourage study of architecture, elevating the standard of architectural practice, promoting the interests of architects across the country, organising seminars and conferences on issues related to architecture, promoting R&D in architecture, improving the standards of architectural education. The Institute of Architects also publishes a monthly journal, named the Journal of Indian Institute of Architects since April 6th, 1934.
Considering the role, importance and need to protect the profession, the Government of India enacted the Indian Architects Act, 1972. The law provides for protection to the title of architect through registration with the Council of Architecture, regulating the architectural education through a system of well-defined norms and standards and promoting professional ethics. The Council of Architecture, created under the said act, is the regulating body, performing various functions enshrined in the act. With the operation of Indian Architects Act, 1972, the profession has got legal recognition and has got wider acceptance both in public and private sectors.
Architectural profession has a brighter future with globalisation and liberalisation leading to much higher urbanisation and rapid growth of cities and towns. With the advent of new materials, new technologies and changing typologies of buildings, Indian Architectural contexts are fast changing and the role of architects is widely recognised in creating aesthetically pleasing, operationally efficient and state-of-the-art built environment.
What are the issues faced by architects in India?Profession of architecture is now standing at crossroads. It is passing through an era of chaos, and crisis of identity and recognition. Accordingly, architects in India are facing a number of issues related to profession and practice. Even after 65 years of independence and enactment of the Indian Architects 1972, most of the buildings are being designed by non-qualified architects who have been permitted to prepare design of buildings and supervise their construction. More than 70 per cent buildings constructed in urban India are still being designed by non-qualified professionals other than architects. Even the National Building Code (NBC) defines the competency of an engineer at a level higher than that of an architect in the area of building design. This has marginalised the profession to a large extent.
In addition, there is no set system of charging architectural fee for rendering the professional services. Despite the fact that Council of Architecture has prescribed minimum norms of professional fee to be charged for various architectural services but they are followed more as an exception rather than as a rule. The process of tendering for architectural projects has led to unethical practices emerging in architectural practice. Sanctioning or approvals of building plans is another issue which has adversely impacted the profession. Rampant corruption, inordinate delays and cumbersome procedures, rules and regulations have made building approvals highly unprofessional, leading to emergence of a new breed of architects who specialise in building approvals.
With profession of architecture largely falling in domain of private practice, architects don’t have any social security to back them and their families, in case of any adversity and crisis. This makes the architectural practice highly vulnerable. With architectural practice not becoming remunerative, most of the architects are turning into builders by taking construction jobs on turnkey basis. Few architects are purchasing land to do real estate business and constructing buildings to make quick money. This has changed the context, complexion and approach to architectural practice bringing in number of irrational, unethical practices.
Unhealthy competition has also become a major issue in sourcing projects among architects. In the absence of any criteria defining the competency, there is a competition among unequals, leading to award of projects on the ground of lowest quotation without looking at the quality of service providers. Competition from foreign architects is also looming large in the Indian context with reputed builders and promoters opting for foreign architects and architectural firms for branding their projects to make so-called value addition and fetch higher returns. Accordingly, major projects are being taken away from Indian architects. As against well-defined rules and regulations, governing the architectural practice at the international level, there is no such system available in India. Students graduating from architectural institutions in India are directly going into the practice without having practical knowledge and experience. This needs to be checked with appropriate mechanism put in place for ensuring that only competent and experienced professionals are permitted to enter into architectural practice. Rules and regulations are also required to restrict the free and unchecked entry of foreign architects in the Indian market. This issue needs closer look and calls for immediate intervention at the level of Indian government to regulate the process on a reciprocal basis.
What are the steps taken at various levels to overcome these issues?Despite efforts made at the organisational, institutional and individual levels, most of the problems faced by the architects continue to persist. A number of development authorities and local government institutions have put in place simplification process for plan approvals but that has put the entire onus on the architects. With no control exercised on the owners or contractors, during the construction of the building, architects became helpless in regulating the building construction as per the approved plan. The issue needs to be looked more holistically with appropriate safeguards provided to architects in case owner of building under construction decide to change the building plans without the consent of the designated architects.
Tendering process has been continued despite number of representations made by the architects. Parastatal agencies need to take initiative to stop the process to eliminate unhealthy competition. Architects should be put in different categories depending on their level of competency, experience and achievements for evaluating them and awarding them the work. The process of competition for large projects could be used to select architects.
Building bye-laws still continue to be outdated in most cases. Multiplicity of such laws has complicated the process of designing buildings. The Council of Architecture has been writing a number of times to state governments to amend their bye-laws to exclude non-qualified persons from the architectural practice. Issues related to architectural practice and architects are raised at various meets, seminars, and conferences organised at the local, state, and national level. Despite these efforts, issues continue to plague the architectural profession and architectural practice.
What is your comment on Indian architects going globally?With the level of talent available in the country, Indian architects must explore the international markets to showcase their capabilities. This would help in bringing laurels to India besides putting the profession of architecture on a firm footing in the country. Indian architects are already working internationally but the number of such architects is limited. With globalisation, liberalisation and opening of the Indian economy, opportunities of architectural practice are increasing rapidly, globally and locally. Indian architects must make sincere efforts to make their presence felt at the international level. It will be appropriate for Indian architects to form partnership firms in various countries and collaborate with reputed architectural firms to gain entry at the international level. International norms of architectural practices must be made integral part of Indian education to facilitate the process. Countries like Singapore, Malaysia, Japan, China, USA, Canada, England, and Australia need to be explored by Indian architects. The Council of Architecture and the Indian Institute of Architects on their part should try to facilitate the process. The Indian Institute of Architects already networks with four international associations of architects as explained above accordingly, it must explore the opportunities of promoting a mutual exchange of architects for providing opportunities for working in different countries. This will not only help in promoting mutual goodwill and co‑operation but also facilitate better learning and growing.
Is there any crunch of talent as far as architecture profession is concerned?There appears to be no crunch of talent so far as the architectural profession is concerned. Unfortunately, there is a large gap in the number of trained professionals considering the length and breadth of the country. The nation offers enough space for larger number of architects to come and make their contribution in the domain of the built environment. With population standing at 1,210 million (2011) spreading over 7,935 urban centres and 6,40,867 villages, the availability of 40,901 architects (as on September 2011) appears to be totally inadequate to serve the country. In India one architect serves the needs of 30,000 people — a class-3 town (as per standards of Census of India), which is much on the lower side, considering the international standards of architects as service providers. However, it will be incorrect to say that all architects have the same level of professional competence and talent. It varies among individuals depending on their capacity and capabilities. Considering the peculiar nature of the profession which brings in more subjectivity, it will be critical to make it more objective. Objectivity in the profession can be brought in through quality of professionals trained through a system of quality education and quality learning involving quality teachers and willing students. To promote higher talent, the quality of students and institutes imparting architectural education needs to be critically and objectively looked at and improved through capacity building process involving practicing architects.Is the curriculum in Indian architecture colleges at par with the international standards?India has 303 architectural institutions with 22,010 students enrolled in the B. Arch. as of 2012. All these institutions follow course curriculum which is defined by the universities to which they are affiliated. However, universities which run architectural courses are independent to define their contents of the B.Arch. course. To bring uniformity in course curriculum, the Council of Architecture has provided detailed guidelines including course contents and weightage to be awarded with flexibility provided to take care of the local needs of the state. The curriculum in the universities is defined through board of studies comprising of expert architects in academics and profession, constituted at the university level. Course contents are revised from time to time to make them relevant to the context, changing ground realities and the demand of the market and the profession.
The system of imparting architectural education also needs to be made more realistic and effective. Emphasis should be shifted from quantity to quality. With faculty becoming a major issue in architectural institutions, involvement of more practicing architects would be critical and desirable.
Opening of unchecked new architectural institutions needs critical review and rationalising with stringent quality checks imposed to ensure appropriate level of quality education. Unregulated and uncontrolled increase in the intake of students without looking at the capacity and capability of the institute and quality of faculty available needs to be immediately stopped. A rational system of permitting new institutions with defined intake needs to be put in place to check the mushrooming of architectural institutions.
The Indian Institute of Architects, Council of Architecture and UGC should work together to evolve the curriculum for the B.Arch. course to bring uniformity and standardisation of architectural education. Dilution of architectural education needs to be avoided and controlled in order to ensure appropriate quality of the profession and the professionals.Opening of technical universities at the state level mandated to control and regulate the architectural education, has also damaged the profession of architecture to a large extent, because of the domination of engineers at the decision making level. This needs to be rectified by granting adequate freedom and liberty to frame and run architectural courses to improve the standard of architectural education and course curricula. Multiplicity of regulatory agencies involved at the state and national level needs to be eliminated in order to regulate and rationally focus on the architectural education.
What is your advice to budding architects?Considering the fact that the built environment has major implications in high degree of energy and resource consumption, generation of large quantities of waste and greenhouse gases and promoting global warming, my call to budding architects would be to design buildings which are highly energy efficient, consume minimum resources, and generate minimum CO2 to make this world cleaner, greener, and sustainable.
They must promote commitment to the profession and focus on providing highest standards of professional services to client. Monetary gains should not be the guiding principle while rendering the profession services. They must advice their clients with highest standards of professional ethics and commitment, and provide the state-of-the-art architectural solutions.
Budding architects must widen the horizon and scope of architectural practice with focus shifting from merely designing buildings or group of buildings to designing of cities to make them more liveable, sustainable and productive. Budding architects must also consider the option of designing cost-effective, energy-efficient and affordable housing to overcome the major problem of providing affordable shelter to slum dwellers in urban India for improving the quality of life of majority of urban residents and making our towns and cities slum free in the process.
Budding architects should also explore the opportunities of developing technologies which help in reducing the time span of construction of buildings without compromising with the quality of construction. A 10-storey building has been constructed in 48 hours and a house is being constructed in 20 hours in Mohali.  Young architects must contribute their might and expertise in standardising the building components through their design solutions to create buildings for the masses on a large scale within a defined time span. Such an approach would guarantee in providing high degree of recognition to the profession of architecture and place it high on the professional pedestal as the provider and promoter of the interests of the community and the nation.
The young architects should also focus on promoting better fellowship among architects and interact with all professionals to evolve a collaborative and mutually supportive approach to minimise the problems in the built environment. How our young and budding architects provide their professional services with honesty, commitment, sincerity, and integrity would hold the key to make this world more liveable and productive. This would also determine the sustainability, recognition, and future of the architectural profession and architectural fraternity.
With FDI in retail is almost through, how it is going to boost the field of architecture?With 1,210 million population spreading over four mega cities, 53 metropolitan centres,7,935 cities and 6,40,867 villages, India offers second largest consumer market in the world after China. With population estimated to touch 1,500 million by 2041 and per capita income growing rapidly, India’s retail market has emerged as most attractive and promising globally. Permitting FDI in retail will open floodgates for the entry of reputed players in the retail segment who would like to explore the potential and make their presence felt in the Indian market. This will require a new typology of buildings to meet the emerging need of global players in the retail market.
Retail in the developed countries is highly organised and professional business and accordingly requires not only a well-defined system of production, procurement and storage but also marketing of goods. The system requires support from an efficient system of transportation for movement of goods. In most cases, the retail is also supported by food courts and display of new goods and products. Considering the number of visitors, providing adequate parking becomes integral part of the retail component.
Departmental stores and supermarkets have proved to be highly successful in making retail story a success by stabilising prices and providing a variety of quality products. To provide right kind of ambience and maintain highest standards of safety, health, and hygiene, retail business requires quality structures. Considering the intent and context of retail business and length and breadth of India, a large variety of buildings will have to be designed constructed. Entry of reputed retail companies will open gates of opportunities for the Indian architects to design new set of buildings based on the international norms and standards. Entry of multinational will also usher an era of enormous competition in India compelling Indian retail sector to modernise and bring in qualitative reforms to match the international players. In the process, Indian architecture would also undergo a qualitative change to meet the emerging requirements of well-designed built space for the organised retail market. However, international retail brands with their presence across the globe will opt for designers from developed countries who have rendered services to them earlier. This would pose a formidable challenge to the Indian architects, who will have to quickly learn the specific requirements of international retail business and offer design solutions which not only meet the international norms and standards but are most appropriate keeping in view the Indian climatic and marketing conditions. With large variations in the climate, culture, products, and purchasing capacity and habits of people in India, challenge would be how to create the state-of-art buildings for the retail market. Searching for new building typology involving quality of spaces, making marketing effective and efficient, and providing optimum comfort to the buyer would be critical to promote retail through the art and science of building design. Architects will have to do their homework in a most professional manner to prove their capacity, competency, and capability retail marketing to carve a success story.

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