Centre For Development Studies – Trivandrum – Laurie Baker
Laurence Wilfred “Laurie” Baker (March 2, 1917 – April 1, 2007) was an award-winning British-born Indian architect, renowned for his initiatives in cost-effective energy-efficient architecture and for his unique space utilization and a simple but beautiful aesthetic sensibility. He came to India in 1945 as a missionary aid worker and since then lived and worked in India for over 50 long years.
Centre for Development Studies was the most important project of baker’s career. The significance of this assignment had less to do with size and budget, than with the idea of exhibiting a range of concepts applied to buildings of varying functions, scale and dimensions. An area of nine acres accommodates administrative offices, a computer centre, an amphi-theatre, a library, classrooms, housing and other components of an institutional design. The Computer centre at Centre for Development Studies were Baker evolved an innovative system of curved double walls to save on cost and to conserve the energy that goes into air-conditioning a building of this scale and purpose.
