1. Lawrence Wilfred "Laurie" Baker was a British-born Indian architect, renowned for his initiatives in cost-effective energy-efficient architecture and designs that maximized space, ventilation and light and maintained an uncluttered yet striking aesthetic sensibility.
Laurie Baker was a pioneer of sustainable architecture as well as organic architecture, incorporating in his designs even in the late 1960s, concepts such as rain-water harvesting, minimizing usage of energy-inefficient building materials, minimizing damage to the building site and seamlessly merging with the surroundings.
Laurie Baker moved to India in 1945 in part as an architect associated with a leprosy mission and continued to live and work in India for over 50 years.
Laurie Baker became an Indian citizen in 1989 and resided in Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala from 1969 and served as the Director of COSTFORD, an organisation to promote low-cost housing.
Laurie Baker studied architecture at Birmingham Institute of Art and Design, Birmingham, and graduated in 1937, aged 20, in a period of political unrest in Europe.
Laurie Baker was seconded to a hospital formerly run by an order of German sisters who were all interned by the Chinese as enemy aliens.
Elizabeth Baker, in her memoir of her time together with Laurie Baker, The Other Side of Laurie Baker, discussed the Berinag tea that they shared that was "very special" to them, as Laurie was a man of exquisite and simple taste, who always loved the simple pleasures of life.
Laurie Baker soon learned that the indigenous architecture and methods of these places were in fact the only viable means to deal with local problems.
Laurie Baker adopted local craftsmanship, traditional techniques and materials but then combined it with modern design principles and technology wherever it made sense to do so.
Laurie Baker built several schools, chapels and hospitals in the hills.
An ageing woman who risked her health to visit Laurie Baker, she refused to leave until she received plans for the village.
Laurie Baker derived creatively from pre-existing local culture and building traditions while keeping his designs minimal with judicious and frugal use of resources.
Laurie Baker made many simple suggestions for cost reduction including the use of Rat trap bond for brick walls, having bends in walls that increased the strength and provided readymade shelves, thin concrete roofs and even simple precautions like shifting dug up soil into the built area rather that out of it.
Laurie Baker advocated the use of low energy consuming mud walls, using holes in the wall to get light, using overlaid brick over doorways, incorporating places to sit into the structure, simpler windows and a variety of roof construction approaches.
Laurie Baker liked bare brick surfaces and considered plastering and other embellishments as superfluous.
Laurie Baker's Quaker-instilled respect for nature led him to let the idiosyncrasies of a site inform his architectural improvisations, rarely is a topography line marred or a tree uprooted.
Resistant to "high-technology" that addresses building environment issues by ignoring natural environment, at the Centre for Development Studies Laurie Baker created a cooling system by placing a high, latticed, brick wall near a pond that uses air pressure differences to draw cool air through the building.
Laurie Baker died at 7:30 am on 1 April 2007, aged 90, survived by wife Elizabeth, son Tilak, daughters Vidya and Heidi and his grandchildren Vineet, Lisa and Tejal.
Laurie Baker's designing and writing were done mostly at his home.
Laurie Baker's architecture focused on retaining a site's natural character, and economically minded indigenous construction, and the seamless integration of local culture that has been very inspirational.
Laurie Baker's writings were published and are available through COSTFORD, the voluntary organisation where he was Master Architect and carried out many of his later projects.