Bengaluru: Twenty-eight-year-old Alok Shetty, who was named a “young leader of tomorrow” by TIME magazine, was 19 when he landed his first project a hospital in Jaipur. It’s been a few days since TIME published its article and Shetty is still wrapping his head around the tremendous response he has received.
The architect, who works with the Bengaluru-based Parinaam Foundation, heard from TIME early in 2014, after he was featured in the Forbes 30 under 30 list. “I was under the impression that I was one of six people from India, until they told me that it was an international list,” he said, in an interview with DC. “I’m thrilled by how it has turned out!”
Shetty was picked after a grueling vetting process that lasted eight months, during which representatives from the magazine visited him at the slums he works with, interviewed the inhabitants and took note of his work first hand. “I have a strong online presence, have spoken at various TEDx events across the world and of course, the Forbes list played its part!” he says, happily.
He designs homes for slum-dwellers through the Parinaam Foundation, which works with the homeless and below poverty line people.
India's messy monsoons cause havoc in the makeshift homes slum dwellers set up for themselves, making them breeding grounds for water-borne diseases like malaria.
"Most of the people I cater to are construction workers, so we use materials that they handle on a daily basis," he said. His houses are built at a cost of Rs 18,000 each a single iPhone 6 can buy you four sturdy, makeshift homes! The houses are made out of scaffolding, bamboo and wood and can be dismantled and re-assembled in about four hours. "It's a problem-specific design," he explained. "These people move from place to place with their work, so I had to work with that."
He founded his firm Bhumiputra when he was still in college. "I call it a firm, but back then, it was just me and my laptop," he remarked. "My dad was in the construction business and I would often visit sites with him. It was then that I decided that if I ever started a company, it wouldn't be all about making money. I wanted to give back to society in some way." By the time he was 22, he had built the hospital in Jaipur. "I pitched my concept to the hospital authorities and they liked it so much that they asked me to design the whole thing," he said.
Philanthropy aside, Shetty's firm is involved with some of the biggest projects in the country and has a team of 10 people. “For me, it’s about clinical design, not aesthetics. We live in a city that is constantly changing, how can architecture remain static?”
