Título: Laurie Baker
Seção: Architectural style
Background: Baker was born into a staunch Methodist family, the youngest son of Birmingham Gas Department's chief accountant, Charles Frederick Baker and Millie Baker. His early schooling was at King Edwards Grammar School. His elder brothers, Leonard and Norman studied law, and he had a sister, Edna who was the oldest of them all. In his teens Baker began to question what religion meant to him and decided to become a Quaker, since it was closer to what he believed in.

Conteúdo: Throughout his practice, Baker became well known for designing and building low cost, high quality, beautiful homes, with a great portion of his work suited to or built for lower-middle to lower class clients. His buildings tend to emphasise prolific - at times virtuosic - masonry construction, instilling privacy and evoking history with brick jali walls, a perforated brick screen which invites a natural air flow to cool the buildings' interior, in addition to creating intricate patterns of light and shadow. Another significant Baker feature is irregular, pyramid-like structures on roofs, with one side left open and tilting into the wind. Baker's designs invariably have traditional Indian sloping roofs and terracotta Mangalore tile shingling with gables and vents allowing rising hot air to escape. Curved walls enter Baker's architectural vocabulary as a means to enclose more volume at lower material cost than straight walls, and for Laurie, "building [became] more fun with the circle." A testament to his frugality, Baker was often seen rummaging through salvage heaps looking for suitable building materials, door and window frames, sometimes hitting a stroke of luck as evidenced by the intricately carved entry to the Chitralekha Film Studio (Aakulam, Trivandrum, 1974-76): a capricious architectural element found in a junk heap.  Baker made many simple suggestions for cost reduction including the use of Rat trap bond for brick walls, having bends in walls that increased the str

user: What led her to this style

assistant: designing and building low cost, high quality, beautiful homes, with a great portion of his work suited to or built for lower-middle to lower class clients.

user: Why did this lead him to do

assistant: His buildings tend to emphasise prolific - at times virtuosic - masonry construction, instilling privacy and evoking history with brick jali walls,

user: What was wrong with this

assistant: a perforated brick screen which invites a natural air flow to cool the buildings' interior, in addition to creating intricate patterns of light and shadow.

user: What did he also bring about

assistant: Another significant Baker feature is irregular, pyramid-like structures on roofs, with one side left open and tilting into the wind.

user: What did this do to him

assistant: Baker's designs invariably have traditional Indian sloping roofs and terracotta Mangalore tile shingling with gables and vents allowing rising hot air to escape.

user: What else was so unique

assistant: Curved walls enter Baker's architectural vocabulary as a means to enclose more volume at lower material cost than straight walls,

user: What did this do to him

assistant: Baker was often seen rummaging through salvage heaps looking for suitable building materials, door and window frames, sometimes hitting a stroke of luck as evidenced

user: What did this do for him

assistant: sometimes hitting a stroke of luck as evidenced by the intricately carved entry to the Chitralekha Film Studio (Aakulam, Trivandrum, 1974-76): a capricious architectural element found in a junk heap.