The Day We Lost the Football and found Suniel Shetty

Greens at Mitraniketan

Today was an interesting day; we had a heavy dose of laughter as dinner, thanks to our very sweet and naïve senior, Peterson.

So the day started with very interesting talks by the architect duo- P B Sajan and Shailaja Nair, on cost-effective construction techniques and slum upgradation projects done by COSTFORD, respectively. Reducing the cost of construction should be done from micro-levels, including footing size, building materials, bonding for walls and minute things to use the natural sunlight and wind flow for comfortable room temperature. The designers in LBC and COSTFORD have been using innovative techniques for buildings even in the coastal region. As bamboo can be found extensively in forests of Kerala and is one of the renewable building material for the area, they have used it in most of their projects, even as a pile foundation!

Among the slum upgradation projects done by the designers, Karimadom project stands out the most. This project doesn’t have any type designs and is consciously designed for every individual families’ needs. This project, though had gone through much hurdles, remains as an example for slum upgradation throughout the world. This is a people-based project, which was profoundly doubted by the residents at first, but by and by has been accepted because of the honest effort by the team.

After the lectures we went to visit Mitraniketan, which literally translates to ‘The Home of Friends’. This organization, founded by K Vishwanathan has been providing education and training to families in rural areas of Kerala. Here, we could see bakery, metal, wooden and mud workshop for sculptures and even coconut fibres being extracted. We also saw Laurie Baker’s first residence in Kerala, where wife of K Vishwanathan is residing nowadays. The classrooms were spread out in small blocks through a part of the whole area and was closed for a seasonal break at the time.

Inside Laurie Baker's first residence in Kerala

A typical classroom in Mitraniketan

The bakery at Mitraniketan

The clay vases at Mitraniketan

We could see few teenage boys playing football with a worn out ball in the ground. As Peterson, one of our teammates joined the kids, their ball ran off down the hills, never to be found again. On the bright side, the kids got a new football. On a brighter side, Peterson found Suniel Shetty waiting in the elevator of our hotel, in replacement of the lost football!

<3 !