There is a story inside all of us, waiting to be told. It can be heard through all the little choices we make. Our clothes, our food, our celebrations, even the things we decide to keep and the things we throw away. And all of this happens inside our home. So for a space that literally holds our story, is it enough that it just looks good from the outside? Every house holds different little pockets of these intimate moments. When designed properly, these pockets can turn into pages of your identity. And what better way to express your identity than with the way you live? That is where an architect’s role comes into play.
An architect does not simply make aesthetically pleasing elevations for your four rooms. The job is more personal than that. Often when taking a client’s brief, the architect will be aware of the actual sizes and numbers of rooms that a client asks for beforehand. So what are these lengthy discussions for?
The first thing that an architect looks out for is space planning. While the exterior needs to look beautiful, it is more important that the spaces inside the house work with each other in a synchronized manner. A well-designed structure may even disregard the elevation if it does not go along with good space planning. When an architect plans out spaces in the right way, they automatically become well-lit and ventilated. There are various ways in which this is achieved. In the context of India, one such way would be to keep the larger openings of spaces facing north, or east-west. This is done to prevent excessive heating, as places in the Northern hemisphere get maximum solar radiation from the southern side. The placement of windows may not be as simple as one thinks, to create good ventilation. Their size, direction, and placement concerning each other are all things an architect will keep in mind while planning a space.
An architect will also make sure that every square foot of the plot or structure built will be utilized. Poorly designed spaces often have unusable corners that become redundant. Multiple such occurrences thus reduce the actual overall usable area of the land you bought with your hard-earned money. There are strategies to avoid this that come from all the years of design experience that an architect has and it is their responsibility to use this knowledge to the homeowners’ advantage.
A house may be well planned and may even look good, but if it is not designed with the local climate in mind, it may become a burden to live in over time. Air conditioning costs, change of used material, flooding, or leakages can all become a hassle when a house is built out of place. It is also critical to design a house in a manner that makes use of the local climatic patterns to its advantage instead of considering it a side measure. Places with heavy rainfall must have a good number of openings for ventilation so that the house does not get stuffy, but these openings need to be protected as well so that water does not enter the house. This and other unique measures require planning from before, which again is an architect’s responsibility.
Material choices also largely influence the design of a house. Architects know that locally sourced material is much cheaper and does not usually need skilled labor, as it is common practice in the area. This reduces costs greatly. Houses in extreme climatic conditions are prone to problems if they do not utilize the correct material. Using earth to build in a flood-prone area would not be wise. Likewise, using flat RCC roofs where it rains heavily but can also get hot will lead to the spaces underneath getting too uncomfortable to live in. Leakages will also be a problem. Likewise, using thick walls and cool materials in hot places helps keep the interior cool. Thus, an architect will guide the homeowner toward the right choice of material.
Not just material, but even the right technology can make the house better. In construction, the responsibility lies with the architect to make use of the best technology in construction. Better tools, machinery as well as strategy-making techniques should be employed to get the house made in the fastest and cheapest ways possible. Inside the house, efficient use of power can be governed by upcoming smart tools. In a fast-advancing world, it is difficult for homeowners to be aware of all these advantages that are at their disposal. In their stead, an architect takes up that task.
The overall effect of employing these practices in designing a house makes the structure very easy to maintain. Cost for the same gets limited to once in a few years, while also reducing the mental toll it would take on the owner, for their house to be under constant repair. Systematic planning can be beneficial in reducing the overall budget as well. Often, experimental methods lead to unnecessary expenditure such as ordering excess/inadequate quantities of a resource, the wrong resource entirely, faults in construction methodology, etc. All these factors can make a project more expensive than it needs to be. Pinpointing such events takes years of practice to avoid these mistakes. Responsibility in such cases lies entirely in the hands of the architect. It also ensures that the homeowner can watch their house rise from the ground without anything to worry about.
Of course, an architect’s job goes beyond just these factors. The objective behind them is to bring out and understand the little details of your daily lives that could turn your house into a space where you can be comfortable. For example, a person who has lived their life in the spotlight and loves to indulge in the occasional heart-to-heart with their neighbors would want a grand verandah where they can host such gatherings. A person who prefers solitude and keeps their distance from crowds may also want a grand verandah, but for themselves. Designing this same space for two different purposes is what gives character to their respective homes. Houses in villages interact with their surroundings much more than their urban counterparts. In some parts of the country, kitchens are a space for women to commune. It then doesn’t make sense for such spaces to be so far inside the house that their gathering interjects with the other activities of the house. Yet, the space is not one open to outside men, so it still needs to maintain boundaries of privacy. On the other hand, urban kitchens are closed spaces, catering only to the families living in the house. So when the use of each space varies so much for houses, their design should be an important part of the building process as well.
An architect deduces the needs of the client to add these personal touches, bringing life to an otherwise dead space. They listen to that story of your mother preferring to pick fresh milk from the milkman every morning from the broken wall in your backyard and add a little window to the design of the new wall for her to be able to continue doing so.
Visava will do the same from across the screen. Being the first digital platform to provide its user with such a technology, it will turn the process of figuring out the nitty-gritty of building a home into something much like a game. It will provide all the benefits of an architect, and yet keep the process affordable for those who cannot access one. Based on just a few critical inputs, Visava’s technology has been developed to churn out the most unique solution for an expecting homeowner. Owning a home is a dream for millions of people in our country. The daunting task of actually making it often makes it difficult for them to do so. Through Visava, we hope to make this task much easier, while also making sure everyone gets to tell their story.