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http://society.guardian.co.uk/communities/story/0,,1981418,00.html
With strong roots in building community projects, the incoming president
of the Royal Institute of British Architects tells Peter Hetherington
that the social dimension of his profession must be retained
Peter Hetherington
Wednesday January 3, 2007
Guardian
Sunand Prasad jokes that, in his professional life, he has skipped a
generation by following in the footsteps of his grandfather, a
"self-made businessman", rather than his father, "an unreconstructed
Gandhian". But as a leading British architect with strong roots in
community projects - health and social care centres, schools, flats for
the homeless, older people's care units, a young people's centre, a
multicultural arts complex and much else - it is clear that his father
has had a strong influence on his life and values.
Prasad was born in the foothills of the Himalayas, into a family
prominent in India's independence struggle, and was then raised at
Sevagram, central India, in an ashram, a Hindu religious retreat. He
came to England at the age of 12 and quickly progressed from a secondary
modern in north London to grammar school, before going to Cambridge with
the idea of studying astrophysics.
"I like astronomy and all that," he says, while recounting what seems to
have been an idyllic early childhood in a self-sufficient,
internationalist community. Everything, from food to cotton for clothes,
was grown in this sustainable village. His father, who is now back
living in Delhi, was an art teacher. "He built an art school in our
community, and I do have an early memory of pointing with a small trowel
between slabs. He used to make quite a lot of things - DIY really,
furniture, that sort of thing - so there is something [of design] in the
genes I suppose."
But Prasad went on to make money - a concept, apparently, still anathema
to his father - as a founder of a successful London-based architectural
practice, Penoyre and Prasad, of which he is a senior partner. "We still
argue, in a friendly way," he jokes.
Later this year, Prasad assumes the presidency of the Royal Institute of
British Architects (Riba), having served his time as its vice-president
of policy and strategy, with a mission to raise the profile of the body
and run it as a "modern membership organisation . . . we can only build
the influential profession that we want, and society needs, by Riba more
effectively involving its members". We can expect to hear much of him on
the airwaves, and in print, extolling the importance of good design and
a "sense of place".
But while few can dispute the high international profile of British
architects - Lord [Norman] Foster, Lord [Richard] Rogers, Terry Farrell,
et al - and their iconic buildings worldwide, might they have become
disengaged from the public in their search for a higher design order?
Social art
Prasad, who is especially proud of a network of community treatment and
care centres his practice is designing around Belfast, quickly jumps to
the defence of his profession. "Our own work is heavily social," he
responds. "In fact, in Britain in particular, there is a long stream of
social engagement of architecture. For example, one whole stream of
architecture talks about it as a social art, and we certainly belong to
that."
With the UK in the midst of the biggest public sector building boom in
many years, with new schools, hospitals, and health centres sprouting
everywhere, he says such engagement is vital. "Because the public sector
spends so much money on buildings and it accounts for several billion
pounds annually, it is inescapable that that side of architecture is
prominent. You have to be engaged. Do you know we're building one school
a day in this country for the next 10 years? In the bidding processes
for these there is an extensive amount of consultation."
Therein, apparently, lies the challenge. "There are two dangers in
consultation," Prasad asserts. "On the one hand, it can simply be lip
service, or window dressing, at one extreme; and at the other extreme,
it can be the experts almost abandoning their responsibilities, saying
to people - teachers, staff, the community: 'What do you want? We will
then build it.' If experts are worth anything, they know about pre-risk
experience, about how things have been done differently elsewhere. They
can look after the longer term and, to my mind, 'longer term' sums up
the nature, but also the problems and the opportunities, in public
sector work. The sector has become very driven by the short term, rather
than the long term."
While complaints about short-termism, and continuing cost pressures are
certainly endemic in the profession, Prasad wonders what legacy will be
left if officialdom has its way, always pressing for the lowest price.
Thankfully, he thinks the buildings designed by his practice are a
testament to the fact that the public sector, charities and even
business can be driven by higher aesthetic ideals. "With electoral
cycles, and the short term, it's difficult to factor in whole life
values, for example," he says. "But the encouraging thing is that people
are aware of this. The Treasury, for example, is about to bring out a
publication that makes it more explicit that public bodies should take
into account whole life values and long-term costs."
Pet projects
And so to his current pet projects - a network of integrated care
centres in Northern Ireland, where - unlike the mainland - health and
social services have always been joined up in single boards. "They
provide everything from family and childcare services to chiropody,
dietary matters, and physiotherapy," Prasad enthuses. "We're building
three in south-east Belfast and three in north-west Belfast, with local
partners. It's very much oriented towards the patient, part of
patient-focused care. It specifically caters for patients who can't go
to the centre, so the service goes to them. Poverty and social
deprivation are linked to health, and it's joining up the two types of
care so that the experts can have a far more collegiate, joined-up
approach."
It all seems a world away from the tranquillity of childhood, when his
father, in his early 20s, became active in the anti-imperialist
struggle. "There was a 'Quit India' movement and, like so many young
people in colleges around the country, he threw himself into it and
became extremely radicalised - as did my mum. I guess that's where my
radical politics comes from."
The eventual passage to England was unconventional. Schooled in the
Gandhi tradition, his parents were resolutely pacifist and
internationalist. His father took up a post in London in 1962 as general
secretary of an organisation called War Resistance International. "He
was an internationalist always and he had set up a quasi-Utopian
community in India," Prasad recalls. "We were self-sufficient. We grew
our own food, we spun our own cotton. I probably planted the cotton,
harvested it and spun the thread. Spinning thread was one of the great
acts of the independence struggle."
Now, as a British Indian, Prasad is anxious to attract more people from
ethnic minorities into his profession so that it is truly representative
of modern Britain. He has no qualms about "positive action" to attract
the brightest from other cultures, but is opposed to stronger measures
on the grounds that class, rather than race, is the overarching divide
in British society.
His immediate task is raising the profile of architecture in line with
the manifesto for change on which he fought the Riba presidential
election last year. Through it all, his own personal credo shines out.
"Without question, there is a very strong social dimension to our work,"
he insists. "I don't even see the aesthetic dimension as something
separate from that because the aesthetic is about communication. It is
not just about having a building that works, but one that communicates -
values, aspirations, and something more prosaic, perhaps, showing that
the organisation actually cares."
· Curriculum vitae
Age 56.
Born Dehra Dun, Uttar Pradesh, India.
Status Married, three children.
Lives Hackney, east London.
Education Primary school, India; secondary modern, Enfield; Edmonton
grammar school; Cambridge University; Architectural Association Schools
of Architecture.
Career 2004: elected to Riba council; 1988: formed Penoyre and Prasad
with Gregory Penoyre; 1988: doctorate at Royal College of Art, following
a period as research fellow studying north Indian courtyard houses and
urban form; 1976-84: Edward Cullinan Architects, leaving to combine
practice and research.
Interests Cycling, food, music.
SocietyGuardian.co.uk © Guardian News and Media Limited 2007