Krishnapuram Palace at Kayamkulam

On my way to Adoor to check on a house built by an NRI about five years back without guidance and assistance from professionals,I had a chance to visit Krishnapuram Palace at Kayamkulam which was acting like a temporary house for erstwhile Maharaja of Travancore state which has become part of Kerala along with kingdoms of Kochi and Malabar at north end

I was rather surprised to see appalling condition of house built by my NRI client which even after spending lots of money has turned to be everything at wrong places,without any proper planning and design.This house shows clearly how bad a house can be constructed without professional design by a professional Architect.I simply could not think of ways to make that house even reasonably worth presentable.This house is a classic example of what can go wrong in a house construction when you do not give  importance for professional design of a house.

In comparison the Pathinarukettu house(house with four Nadumuttom) of the erstwhile King of Travancore at Kayamkulam is a good show piece of Kerala Architecture with all its glory and expertise in design and building.Whoever has designed this Pathinarau Kettu house has done the work with utmost care for all details and careful detailed design for each and every part of the building.This building has used Teak and Rosewood wood in plenty or I can even say that the house is built almost 80% with good quality wood with thick sections.

Let us start with some of the pictures.These pictures show front portions of the building which has a Padippura(entry House),Poomukham,an old letter box just kept in the compound,A statue of Buddha kept in front compound,front door shutter with traditional locking system even though the house is practically open at all places as King did not require security inside house as it must have been heavily guarded by his soldiers.

Inside you have four Nadumuttoms.I will give you pictures of them which look almost similar with sloping tiled roof with heavy wooden rafters slope down towards each of Nadumuttoms(Central Court yards)

There is a large pond behind the palace which has an access from the middle of the house which used to be called as Kula kadavu.One can reach this entry to bathing pond by climbing down through brick steps and a sloping tiled roof with wooden rafters is coming down to prevent visibility of the bathing person from other parts of the larger pond even when allowing water flow from the bigger area.See the picture.

You can see both light and water coming from that low level opening .Probably this is where King and his family members might have taken bath.

There are halls were King conducted his meetings,inner balconies,stairs made of wooden steps,balcony with a view to rear pond.See pictures.

Now if you want to see Karna soothram where they kept some holes in the walls in earlier Kerala Architecture as ears of house wall have a look at this picture

I was thinking that earlier houses of Kerala were not having attached toilets and dress rooms.But here they have an attached toilet.According to the guide there ,Dutch used to call these as Kal Khoos and that is how the Malayalam word Kakkoos for toilet came.

Now the dress room for the King by the side of the large pond and picture of the large pond

I have heard from my child hood days words like Kashu for money and Chakram for  equivalent of Rupee in those days.16 Kashu makes one Chakram.I never had a chance to see Kashu and Chakram even though my maternal grand father used to tell always about the glory in having Chakram with you.You can see picture of Kashu and Chakram.Chakram was earlier made in Silver and later in Copper.Bigger coin in the picture is Chakram.Smaller one Kashu.These were displayed  in the palace.

Then there are displays of old sword of the King which might have killed many.

Then there is the famous Kayamkulam sword with the shield.Kayamkulam sword has got two sharp edges and hence it used to be called as Iruthala vall(two headed sword).See the picture

There is a large beautiful mural picture on the wall supposed to be the largest mural picture in Kerala.See picture

There are few mural pictures  on the walls which are damaged with time.See this.

Then there are wooden arches ,balconies,wooden rafter work.See pictures.

Clay tile flooring was used even then but with lesser finish and quality.You can see picture on top.Roof was made with solid wood as concrete and cement were unknown in those days.Lime was the bonding element for brick work

King used to travel by pallakku which was carried by servants on shoulder and King will simply lie down inside it when he was carried for travel. See the picture of Pallakku.

Foundation of the building

Having built houses in different parts of state of Kerala,I have come across different beliefs in different areas about foundation work for a building.

Kerala is yet to reach a situation were professionals are sought for design and construction of a building.Professional Architect and structural Engineer is considered to be ornamental requirements for those who build large costly houses.Most of the professionals of Kerala are also responsible to a great extent for this alienation from the majority of their possible clientele ,as they never tried to make themselves easily accessible to their possible clients.

People of Kerala have this peculiar behavior where they try to avoid making payments to professionals for their services.I have come across several people who ask “Why you want to take thousands of rupees for drawing some lines as plan of the house?”They will not bother about spending lakhs of rupees but spending few thousands will be extremely painful to them especially if it is design charges or consultation charges.For such services they expect the professional to be happy with whatever they may please to pay without specifying any specific fees or charges.

In different locations of Kerala  people are following certain practices for doing foundation of a building without bothering to check with a qualified professional to see whether that procedure is the right ,technically correct way of doing foundation of a building.

In most of the places especially in southern Kerala people believe that excavation for foundation of a building should be at least six feet deep.Soil in most of these places are quite strong and in some places it is even hard laterite.There is no point in breaking this solid soil strata to have “deep excavation”.Technically depth of excavation do not matter much if you have a stable soil.Of course having wider excavation helps to increase strength of foundation.

After excavation in most of the places people use dry pack rubble foundation.Instead of doing rubble dry pack foundation carefully with good tight packing,rubble is simply thrown into the deep excavation area leaving lots of gap in between rubble pieces.This actually weakens foundation.In stable soil conditions you do not need more than two feet depth for excavation.It is better to make it about 45 cm so that foundation when done with careful dry packing of rubble will have about 15 cm projecting up.This 15 cm or slightly lower projection of foundation due to ups and downs of ground level can be used to raise ground level slightly higher.

Once the foundation dry packing of rubble is done fill the gaps of rubble work with crusher sand  using water forced into the foundation as can be seen in the pictures below

Force fill crusher sand into rubble foundation till water will not go down any more thus making your foundation rubble work one monolithic  water tight rubble work. You can  then be sure of strength of your rubble foundation.

Above proposed ground level rubble foundation is called Basement.You can either do it again with dry pack rubble work(which I recommend)or Rubble work in cement mortar.In case you do daypack,point outside of basement with mortar to fill gaps between rubble pieces.Again fill inside of basement with red sand for filling and force fill this sand into basement rubble work using water forced inside as in the case of foundation this time from inside basement.Top of basement may be given a plastering with mortar.See pictures.

Is Architect just a drawing worker?

When I see the behavior and reactions of some of my clients I get a feeling that they consider an Architect as simply some one to draw plan and Elevation of building as per some cranky ideas they may have.

Quite often I have come across situations caused by highly inflated ego of the client who thinks and demands that Architect should simply follow his orders and as the person spending money , Architect should simply act as a paid employee  and nothing else.

In this modern age a paid employee is not supposed to be a simply yes man obeying by word even foolish directions given by the boss .Employee today is supposed to be more informed than the boss possibly due to his knowledge and expertise at least in a field of knowledge.As a person who knows better ,employee is supposed to advise his boss  and direct him to better course of action using his better knowledge and intelligence.

When I was building house at Ootty from the very beginning,my client was simply vetoing most of what I advised him based on my knowledge and experience simply citing the reason as he working as Vice president of his company managing much bigger budgets than What I am managing.That is no reason to allow him to go on doing blunder after blunder simply because money involved is his.In spite of my mild reminders he was insisting on making wrong decisions over ruling my suggestions,with the argument that when he spends money ,things should be done as he pleases.After few reminders I will leave matters to his choice and I will simply watch him doing mistakes after mistakes wasting his own money in the process.On quite a few occasions I reminded him that there is no point in hiring an expert if he is not willing to follow his advices.

Another client of mine who came to me for designing his house after not satisfied with work done by other Architects earlier gave me a list of his requirements and when I gave him the design he was quite pleased with it and expressed it.Suddenly he realised that square feet plinth area of the house is higher than his expectations as he happened to be one of those persons who think that cost of a house is simply dependant on square feet plinth area and nothing else.He then asked me to cut down plinth area drastically without reducing any of his requirements for the house.I said that it is not possible.Then he started literally abusing me and told me that Architect is supposed to  obey whatever client asked him to do.

In another rather funny case an NRI client of mine approached me for design and construction of house at Cochin attracted to me after reading my blogs.He has a six cents land with lot of restrictions.When I put down his requirements into a drawing,the land was not sufficient to meet all his needs.When Vasthu compliance is brought in it reduces flexibility of the Architect as certain positions for a particular type of rooms are essential to comply with Vasthu.After using all my creative and experience capabilities,I came up with a plan which was a compromise on his demands and requirements within the limitations of land ,vasthu and building rules.He was very much upset and started demanding me to do impossible tasks.I had no option other than saying bye to him.There are several such stories basically due to ignorance  and highly inflated ego of the client which I do not want to go on narrating.

Basically you hire an expert to get the best.Of course you are spending your money and you have every right and reason to put forward  your wishes and demands.But when an experienced expert advises you,you should have the wisdom to listen to him.No professional is going to insist you to accept his advices.It is for you to try to understand why he is advising you possibly against your demands.If you chose to ignore his advices and go on with satisfaction of your ego,finally when you realise the mistake,it will be too late and you can only suffer your losses due to wrong decisions.

In my work sites,I listen to practically illiterate workers and try to accept their suggestions wherever i feel that it is worth it.I never keep my ego between their suggestions and my acceptance of it.By experience they may have so many valid suggestions worth examining.Unless I am clear that it is wrong,I try to accept it for the benefit of better work.I have learned a lot through interactions with practically illiterate workers.So it is the idea which is more important not the man who put it forward.

Trip to Kozhencherry,Aranmula-Aranmula mirror

I had a client request for inspection of existing house at Kozhencherry.House built about three years back in rock solid laterite soil is developing cracks .Owner of the house,Mr.Murali Nair who is an NRI on leave to his native place requested me to come and inspect house and find out why cracks are developing on walls . Everyday he get bad dreams of his house built about three years back with plinth area about 2800 sft crumbling down with cracks developing on walls.

While building house at Ranni and also at Thiruvalla,I have faced hostile local people assembled in large numbers for not following their generally accepted foundation construction methods.

Even if the soil is very strong laterite,they dig about six feet depth for foundation.Then on bottom of it they put concrete without reinforcement and lower mix ratio about 1:5:10 for a thickness of about 10 cm.Then they simply dumb rubble without proper packing in to that almost six feet depth and without force filling  with water and sand,they build basement with rubble using cement mortar at a ratio of 1:10.Deeper the excavation for foundation,they think foundation is stronger.If you go against this generally accepted practice,you will not be allowed to build in any other manner reducing depth of foundation.Almost every person staying at a radius about 5 Km will come to the building site and will check and supervise the work being done.

At Ranni I had to threaten to leave the work to build foundation in the proper technically correct manner.At Thiruvalla,they were more strict.I had to leave the work for not following their practices.Later when the house was completed at Ranni,all those who were against our method of work agreed that our method of work is correct and started ridiculing others following their old practices.

When I checked up cracking walls of 2800 sft house built by Mr.Murali Nair about three years  back with close supervision of a local builder who is also a close relative of him,spending about Rs.35 lakhs,I noticed that the foundation was sinking and cracks developed due to this.Naturally their generally accepted method of foundation which actually do not give proper strength to foundation is the reason behind development of these cracks.

Having reached the place,I also did a Vasthu evaluation of the house and suggested some modifications possible without spending extra money.

Look at the amount of money spent by him about three years back.He could have constructed the house with better design and better quality saving about Rs.10 lakhs had he taken care to obtain professional assistance and guidance in design and construction of that house.This house has several design drawbacks and lot of wastage of size,improper planning etc.But all those Mr.Nair will have to suffer through out life of that building.If only he could spend few thousands initially for a professional Architect,he could have obtained a better design for the house.A professional if involved during construction could have ensured proper engineering and quality of construction and finally with all these benefits,he could have saved lakhs of money

On my way back ,I passed through Aranmula famous for Aranmula mirror about which I have only heard about earlier.I found out a place where they made these special and unique mirror without use of glass.They actually use an alloy and rub it continuously using different sizes of sand paper progressively till you get mirror finish or in fact mirror quality.Major component of this alloy is brass and because of this when you touch the Aranmula mirror with your fingers,salt from your sweat will adversely affect the visibility of the mirror.So the craftsman gave me red oxide and tissue paper to clean surface of mirror after touching by hand.

I purchased a medium type Aranmula mirror costing about Rs.2000/-You can see the craft man holding that river with a smile in the picture.Bigger variety shown in picture without glass inside will cost about Rs.35,000/- with Aranmula glass inside.

They get mostly export orders as people abroad are more fascinated by this special mirror manufactured only at Aranmula and according to him this Aranmula mirror is likely to have a silent death within few years as not many are interested to learn the art of making Aranmula mirror as other jobs are more lucrative for youth of present day Aranmula.

He also told me that the belief is that if you keep an Aranmula mirror in your house,you will become more prosperous.So I am keeping the mirror in my office.Let us see whether  more prosperity will come my way.

Now look at pictures

Foundation-Soil Investigation

There are lot of wrong concepts,beliefs and wrong practices on construction of houses in Kerala depending upon location.As I have built houses in almost all parts of Kerala,I have come across these local practices and beliefs many a time and had tough time convincing local people especially in the interior parts of Kerala as almost the entire population around construction site will come to the site to supervise,question and offer free advices and suggestions sometimes cautioning the owner,sometimes threatening him with dire consequences and always opposing what we “coming from Cochin”  are doing.

First of all you have to assess the soil condition technically.In stable soil conditions,an experienced Construction Engineer will be able to assess the soil nature and suggest appropriate foundation design.In places like Cochin where most of the land is filled up or marshy area with practically not even a trace of sand even up to depths as high as 40 feet,a proper professional soil test will be essential to find out what type of foundation will be required.

While conducting such a soil test they will dig the place where the house has to come up up to about 45 feet and will collect samples of soil on the way to depths.These samples of soil will be tested in Engineering laboratory and a proper professional soil test report will be given to you.This report will be passed on to a Structural Consultant(An Engineer who has done post graduation in Structural Engineering) preferably with experience in designing structures for many years in that area.

Structural consultant will give a foundation design prepared using a software called STAAD in consultation with the Construction Engineer/Architect concerned.For smaller plots one bore for soil test will be sufficient normally done at centre of the plot.For bigger plots,more no of soil test bores will have to be used.

Engineering Estimate

After the Plan is finalised an Engineering organisation dealing with house construction will be able to give you a detailed item wise,step by step costing at least for the structure part.

From the drawings they will calculate quantity of each item of construction like brick work,concrete,plastering etc . Using data available with them about cost of inputs required for construction of each item in the Estimate like material,labour and other expenses involved,unit rates for each item can be calculated to a greater extent of correctness depending upon extent of their involvement with  regular construction activity.

If you simply get an Engineering Estimate from a design office or those with little day to day contact with actual construction activity,even though quantity of each item calculated may be correct,costing figures need not necessarily be correct as cost varies rapidly in Kerala conditions.

For work after structural work like foundation,brickwork,concreting it will be better to attempt to take cost figures after completion of structure work.One of the main reason for this is that for after structure work there are so many options each varying in cost figures at greater difference.Depending upon fund availability and your taste for finishing and interior works,cost figures will vary.You will need the guidance and assistance of your Architect in plenty at this stage even though many people think that Architect and Structural Engineer is required only at structure stage