The recent news of an Indian architect of ‘low-cost homes,’ Balkrishna Doshi, being awarded Pritzker prize has not attracted much attention in New Zealand, other than casual reporting.
The news has failed to spur any public debate in NZ, which if Housing and Urban Development Minister Phil Twyford is to be believed is currently reeling under an unprecedented housing crisis.
Mr Twyford has spent first few months in government in investigating the scope and the breadth of the state of the housing crisis in NZ, including commissioning an independent stock-take of New Zealand’s housing sector.
The report, A Stocktake of New Zealand’s Housing, released earlier last month assessed the entire housing continuum from homeownership and market renting, to state housing and homelessness and suggested that the state of crisis is much bigger than what appears to eyes.
“It paints a sobering picture of the devastating impacts of the housing crisis, particularly on children,” Mr Twyford had then said.
Against such a gloomy backdrop, it is interesting that the news of global recognition of an Indian architect’s work on ‘low-cost housing’ has failed to incite much attention, leave aside raising any call for the cross-pollination of ideas or collaboration around the low-cost housing.
The Pritzker Prize is regarded as architecture's equivalent to the Nobel Prize.
And the judging panel's statement read, “Indian architect Balkrishna Doshi was awarded this year's Pritzker Prize for being able to interpret architecture and transform it into buildings that respect the Eastern culture, at the same time that he has improved the quality of life in his homeland.”
Long considered to be one of India's foremost living architects and urban planners, Mr Doshi is widely known for designing extensive low-cost housing projects and public institutions.
Mr Doshi’s work on transforming ‘quality of life’ of people through low-cost housing would resonate with the cherished goal of this current government by its own admission.
To many, the idea of any comparison of ‘quality of life’ in New Zealand, a developed economy, with India, a developing economy facing the existential challenge of lifting millions of lives out of poverty and deprivation may appear incongruous.
However, the point being made here is about the expertise available elsewhere overseas, in terms of how low-cost housing can transform the quality of life.
It is not clear if the government has yet warmed up to the idea of “low-cost housing” as a viable option in the mix of solutions that this government is currently mulling upon, in order to fix the housing crisis.
It is important to note that what the government has openly stated so far, is the intent to build more houses, both state houses and in private market, but no clarity, if any thought, is given to “low-cost housing.”
While, in the recent past, government has made two major announcements of construction of state houses (88 state houses in New Lyn, Auckland, and 155 new state houses in region), which supposedly are meant to be modest in size, however there is no clarity if the government is pursuing ‘low-cost’ housing as a viable solution to the problem of housing crisis.
In Mr Doshi’s case, and in most low-cost housing project overseas, there is a preference for the robust use of concrete, something which has not yet been tried in NZ.
The prize citation of Mr Doshi stating the influence of two of the great 20th-century architects, Charles-Edouard Jeanneret, known as Le Corbusier, and Louis Kahn, on him, read, “how their influence can be seen in the robust forms of concrete which he employed."
Probably, it’s time to explore, and include ideas and expertise, in the bouquet of already considered strategies for addressing one of the most pressing crises that we are facing in New Zealand.