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 architectural style did Laurie use

assistant: masonry construction, instilling privacy and evoking history with brick jali walls,

user: Did he make his own ideas or follow others

assistant: His Quaker-instilled respect for nature lead him to let the idiosyncrasies of a site inform his architectural improvisations,

user: How did he develop his style

assistant: Baker was often seen rummaging through salvage heaps looking for suitable building materials,

user: Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?

assistant: Baker became well known for designing and building low cost, high quality, beautiful homes,

user: How did he make them low cost

assistant: 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 strength and provided readymade shelves,

user: what else did he do to lower costs

assistant: He advocated the use of low energy consuming mud walls, using holes in the wall to get light,

user: Did he do anything else to save money

assistant: using overlaid brick over doorways, incorporating places to sit into the structure, simpler windows and a variety of roof construction approaches.