60 SOCIAL SCIENTIST to a kuccha mud house. He looked at walls and designed them as U inch (112 mm) thick walls in lime mortar—the configuration of the wall made it structural and yet economical. Baker however treats each building as a craft object and not as a part of a national programme. So he is able to carry his architecture beyond its pure functionalism into the realm of cultural continuity with the past. His roofs, windows and wall elements such as Brise-Soliel recall the vernacular traditions of the regions he works in. More important than that is his style of working. He is on site most of the time working closely with his team of masons, constantly discussing alternative solutions, overcoming site problems and innovating all the time. To many of us who have seen him at work he certainly epitomises the only kind of architect who will be able to play a role in a rural housing programme. It is also abundantly clear that if the government is serious about a rural housing programme which is not to produce millions of boxes, then they will have to search for and take guidance from such architects as Baker. ROMI KHOSLA* 1 Bakshi D Sinha, Housing Growth in India, Biria Institute of Scientific Research, Economic Research Division, 1976, p 34. 2 Indian low cost housing terminology is always liberally sprinkled with two words pucca and kutcha. Pucca really means "cooked" and refers to the use of fired materials for the walls, like bricks or blocks; it also assumes, more often than not, a concrete or firm tile roof and all the ancillary specifications such as good flooring, doors and windows. Kutcha conversely means "raw" and implies mud walls, a temporary roof of thatch or country tiles. The debate between the need to provide pucca and kulcha houses is discussed in the article later. 3 Sinha, op cit. 4 Sunil Sengupla, P K Kodiyan and G Mis^ro,, Rural Poor and the New Programme, New Age Printing Press, 1975. 5 Ibid. 6 Uday Kapre, The Rural House in Ghazipur—The introduction of better building technology in a village. Integrated Development Agency, Ghazipur/Ballia, U P. 1979 7 The Musehars are the poorest of the poor. They lease their labour out to landowners in the harvest season and carry pallanquins on their shoulders by profession. 8 (i) Low-Cost Demonstration Houses - a catalogue, Delhi Development Authority and National Buildings Organisation. (ii) Housing for the Rural Poor - The beginning of a quiet revolution: a catalogue, Uttar Pradesh Development Systems Corporation. Lucknow, 1980 9^ Take for instance the need for fuel that a poor rural family has. If for 1000 people per day, 1500-1000 Kwh/day is required, then assuming a high photo-synthetic efficiency bio-production at 3 Kcalo/m^day, the requirement is for 40-50 hectares of forest if all the fuel is to come from wood. In other words 400 families (or 1000 people) require 1 square kilometre of fuel forest. ^Architect and member of the Group for Rural and Urban Planning (GRUP), New Delhi.