It is all about perceptions!

Last week in Amsterdam was extremely insightful in many ways. The theme of the entire trip seemed to be about sharing, of not only ideas but also about failures and how every individual overcame their sets of challenges. When I was invited to speak about my experience of The Haveli Project at the Reinwardt Memorial Lecture 2019, I thought it was a fairly easy thing to do since I had spoken so much about the project before. There was a fundamental difference though, whenever I had spoken about this project before it was usually with students and we had focused on the technical aspects of this project. So the idea of going all the way to Amsterdam to speak about it was quite flustering.

I get this a lot from people, what is the big deal about this project? Why does the simple restoration of a haveli get so much importance? And sometimes I feel very lucky to get this kind of criticism because it always makes me reflect and think about what is it that makes this project special. This time we had the opportunity for us to relook at this project through the lens of Sustainism, a perspective developed by Michiel Schwarz. Every time I tell the story, I realize the many layers it has, after all 7 years does make up for a rich variety! Each reflection makes me realize how rich experience makes you.

Our cultural conditioning leads to intuitive thinking, its so natural for us that sometimes we take things for granted. The haveli project didn't start out as a professional conservation project, it started out as a conversation between a family that wanted to spruce up their ancestral home and a young architect. Along the way, we grew to understand each other, went through many trials and tribulations and shaped each others lives. The haveli project was about relationships, the relationship I developed with the family, the family had with their building and how those relationships had an impact on the surroundings. We set out with one goal to create a comfortable 21st century house in a historic building that turned out to be listed as heritage. It mattered to the family as it was their home, their memories, their associations both good and bad. It mattered to me as a conservation architect my job was to deliver the dream, to make sure they got what they set out to and the story is about that. How we all went about our dreams and how working together collaboratively and learning from each other helped us.

It turned out that we were the very first initiative of a private initiative to restore a haveli in the walled city and more so the only initiative to make it into a dwelling unit. Now this was unique because most people were leaving to live outside the walled city, everyone wanted a better quality of life, better infrastructure and those who could had already left. But as I learnt along the way, you can live elsewhere in the city but purani dilli will always live with you, the pride of being from Old Delhi, from belonging here in a city of migrants. As a naive young architect, I saw this as a great opportunity, if one family can create a comfortable palatial home, can it be a precedent for others to follow. And I used the adjective naive because if I wasn't I would have given up a long time ago. Most of my friends advised me that the project made no sense, it would be another abortive attempt it was futile to do something in Old Delhi, nothing ever happens there. Sure enough all of the above were true and honestly I don't know if it was just the conviction that it had to work that kept me at it. I realise now that it took a lot of courage, but back then it just felt like the right thing to do. I couldn't leave without completing my job.

There were many roadblocks that came our way and we found creative solutions around them, sometimes it took months to find those solutions. And the solutions were found collectively between the family, the craftsmen and us. We tried things, sometimes we failed, sometimes it worked. But when it did work it was an experience worth sharing and thus began The Haveli Project Blog (https://thehaveliproject.blogspot.com/). The idea was to put out there for anyone else who may want to restore a building the things our experience.

A lot of people asked me if I got any repeat projects, if I was restoring more havelis in Old Delhi. The answer is I haven't and the idea was not to build a business but to build a movement. I believe that if I can, anyone can, I believe that conservation is common sense and if everyone feels empowered to conserve their own buildings then the entire city gets conserved on its own. Some people are fortunate enough to have the funds, for others the government needs to help, to pitch in to create the right policies and enabling environment. Our job is to create that enabling environment as professionals.

So what did these 7 years of The Haveli Project give me? Criticism comes to me in messages such as that it is an unsustainable project, the numbers would never make sense. Sure enough but some things cannot be valued in numbers, I feel truly blessed as an architect to have started my career with this project you know why, because I learnt the key lessons early on as I went along the journey. I learnt that in the end it was all about relationships, it was about being patient and having empathy, it was about getting off the high horse of being a consultant and being a facilitator, it was not just about talking and educating others but about listening and educating self. It was about finding local and sustainable solutions that may not be in the books, but are culturally tested it taught me to trust vernacular wisdom. And it taught me that the lessons in the vernacular are crucial to develop contemporary approaches, which also led to my book Vernacular Traditions Contemporary Architecture (https://www.amazon.in/Vernacular-Traditions-Contemporary-Aishwarya-Tipnis/dp/8179934578). The Haveli Project taught me to be open and to share, to take feedback and to improvise. It taught me that students formed a backbone of a thought process and involving them in this process was one of the biggest success of the project. This learning has led to our next initiative #jugaadopolis. Jugaadopolis is going to be a student led movement to make sense of the old city and it will be collaborative platform for exploring and engaging with the old city.

And although cultural contexts may be contrasting, human stories always connect, so our story resonates with most people across the world. If I had to do this all over again would I ? Most definitely. What would I do differently? Nothing really, it wouldn't be this engaging story if it wasn't the failures and the knots we encountered.