It has become a paradox that architects are told to be the doctors of the buildings, as such a thing no longer is found to abide and exist, or at least found to resist in the current milieu of the society. There was a time when the architects were regarded with decent recognitions for the full scaled projects where as now, almost a major sector of them are hired purely for interior and exterior designs, as they are given their spectrum of limitations and scopes of implementing their skills are drastically narrowed down. Nevertheless, architects still fail to understand the importance and significance they are supposed to obligate in the profession, for, they tend to surrender and fall short when it comes to the basics. The very architect who has learnt that a space has to be designed and defined in accordance with the users, convincingly forgets the latter following statement that, “if the user’s needs aren't genuine, they are to be either convinced and worked upon, or confused and differently worked upon.” However, textbook ethics have never been found in action when it comes down to practice, be it law, medicine or architecture.
Here, one of the major ideologies has been contemplated for its uprightness and welfare. Predominantly, architects have been and still are supposed to be the spatial definers/designers, as they have been and still are expected to take full command over the functional and aesthetic part of the building. Of late, the basics and fundamentals are found to have been tampered as the clients (users) have started being half architects, more like the situation where the patients treat themselves with presumptuously and expectantly correct medicines. Only complicated situations are brought to the doctors and so is the situation subdued with architectural fraternity.
India is a land where people used to bathe thrice a day, even when the rest of the world was running short of water. Health and hygiene have always been an unparalleled measure with the Indians, however, along with the phases of Industrialization and Modernisation, water ceased to be used to clean the bottom, as tissue papers started to take over the world. This must have been the turning point in the field of architecture, more virtuously in Indian context as people who squatted were made to sit. The Indians got proselytized as they started adapting to new mechanisms of excretion and since then, stylish & innovative diseases and physical disorders were welcomed to invade India, of which Colon Cancer, appendicitis, inflammatory bowel diseases, etc are few of them.
Architect Alexander Kiro, in his book “The Bathroom”, stated, “human physiology is better suited to the squat”. More or less, the same was experimented by an Iranian radiologist Dr. Saeed Rad, where he monitored 30 people (21-Male and 9-Female), ranging between the age groups 11-75 and subsequently concluded his study stating, “complete evacuation was found in the squat while the sit recorded faeces stagnation.” Keeping apart the facts and figures, Indians primarily had the practices of doing the right procedure, which was bothered by a lot many external forces over the period of time.
In the current scenario, almost 80% of the toilets are European (EWC) as this could be undisputedly understood as a choice of extra comfort that the human races have resorted to. The compromise that has been made for the extra comfort or rather the luxury is not to be forgotten as the negotiation done by retaining self waste within the body. Despite these physiological particulars, it is also proven that IWCs when compared to EWCs, are identified to be more easy and flexible In the aspects of cleaning and maintenance.
In spite of understanding or rather inferring facts and factors through 5 years of architectural education, architects are yet to develop the audacity to recommend at least one or two squat type closets per residence, without which, they are subjected to be understood a failure who got the basics wrong irrespective of however good designers they are. In general, this very exasperation has been compensated by framing the incompetence of the elderly people in the house, but, on the contrary, they are subjectively found to be better off healthier than the current generation.
Having explained the dyslexia that the architectural fraternity is undergoing, it would be inappropriate to forgo condemning the society, which the clients are also a part of, for ignoring the cultural and contextual significances of Indian practices by pacifying the westernised culture in the basic petty practice of excretion.
This could perhaps frame the elucidation for the ever trending, plagued and hackneyed set of words, “Oh Shit!”
Contemplatively Yours,
Arun Shankar.M
