BEST EARTH BUILDER

Vinu Daniel, of Wallmakers

- VAISHNAVI NAYEL TALAWADEKAR

Born in Dubai to parents of South Indian origin, Vinu Daniel was always expected to pursue a career in something mainstream, such as law or medicine. ‘Certainly anything but Carnatic music,’ jests Daniel of his childhood love for the arts and, in particular, the form of South Indian classical music. In a bid to reconcile his passions and his family’s hopes, Daniel moved to India for university, enrolling for a degree in architecture at the College of Engineering Trivandrum in Kerala. ‘I got into architecture, thinking that it would be a creative space where I could express myself. But within a year or two, I became disillusioned by the pedagogical framework of the curriculum,’ he says. It was a chance encounter with eminent British-Indian architect Laurie Baker in his fourth year of university that reshaped his worldview.

That meeting with Baker served as the watershed moment for Daniel’s career, prompting him to ponder where nature should end and built form should begin. ‘I was inspired by the idea that buildings should coexist with nature. Baker also told me something very profound about a meeting he once had with Mahatma Gandhi: that the real people we should be building for are the ones in need, the “ordinary” people in villages and congested catchments,’ says Daniel. ‘But the most important thing Gandhi told him, and one that has stayed with me, is that the ideal house in the ideal village should be built using materials found within a five-mile radius.’