During my childhood when my parents were building their home, my mother would often narrate to us the intricacies of building, working with the teams on the plot and one aspect of how the masons and teams with women engaged in the building worked diligently, with utmost care, improving methods with inclusivity and collaboration, and this had a deep impact on me.
This was also further established in my way of thinking as my parents always worked together supplementing each other with their different skills and temperaments.
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When I first started my practice as an architect and began building cost effectively, the first set of artisans engaged with one of my first projects were a mason called Agnelo and his wife from Gogol Goa.
At that time, it was very common to have men and women teams on construction sites. Men would do the tougher laborious tasks and women would do manual tasks that were proportional to their smaller physique and strength. But what was most characteristic of this composition was the super team work with constant communication and effort to improve systems, techniques and management of work flow of construction on site.
There was also a liveliness with their continuous animated banter whilst working. Agnelo the mason would check the line and plumb, dress the stones for the arches and then lay them to make a lintel while his wife Concecao would guide him, advise him, suggest improvements, assist him in giving the mortar mix, tools, etc.
Agnelo and Concecao would create their magic on site, influencing everybody else. It was as if they were dancing this waltz every day in a beautiful and perfect synchronisation and the rest of the team would follow.
When I began practicing as an architect in 1997, it was this camaraderie of men and women artisans that led me to take on the initiative to not only design natural homes but to also help build them inspired also by Lawrie Baker’s practice and values.
In 2007, I had the opportunity to collaborate with an Indian Architect who had worked extensively as a developer in the west. Her aspiration was to build accredited green buildings in India and sell them at a premium. Since she was from Delhi and was familiar with some contractors from Delhi already working in Goa with other Architects and developers, she preferred to hire a contractor from the big city.
When the construction began, the contractor set up the site with his team of all men workers-artisans, helpers, etc who were from the big city. He explained that with an all men team, there were no ‘distractions’ and they could work for extended hours and complete the job faster. It was odd to walk into the site with only men. There were areas where I felt I could not go to. It felt intrusive and unsafe. They would be working round the clock. Everything seemed rougher and tougher for them.
The easy banter was not easy to find because of the pressures to complete and keep with the deadlines the contractor had set. And because they wanted to finally go home to be with their families after the committed time of 6 months to a year, they worked as much as they could to earn more and utilise all the time away from their loved ones. Is all this worth the exclusion?
Over the years, I began to see less and less of women on construction sites and the joy of sitework, the light hearted banter on construction sites has only faded. In the last few years, there have been rare occasions where I have witnessed a revival of the men and women teams but they have been in other neighbouring states and its elusivity in Goa quite apparent. Today, the access to android phones has also made matters worse.
Masons and their assistants become distracted, seek their phones more often while working and succumb to the pandemic of social media, reels, etc. Ahaana, a young Architect reports from Mangalore that at one of her work sites which has only men, post work hours the workers have been found glued to their phones often watching pornography and other crass content.
She says that her client who is a woman does not feel safe and is constantly worried about the long term impact of this on the wellbeing of the workers. Another young professional from Kudal reports that men on the site often tend to eat junk food as a convenience since they are away from home and family. Junk food is cheap, ‘tasty’ and easy to cook! This has adversely impacted their life expectancy. Diseases like cancer, high blood pressure and diabetes have become very common among construction workers.
Recently at one of my sites, the mason inquired if I was ok with ladies working on the site. I retorted why not? I added that I too am a lady already working on site and I would be more than happy if more could join me! He said that he had a team of three women and their husbands, who would be joining soon and were just waiting for confirmation from me. I told him to call them as soon as possible. The moment they arrived, the energy had changed. There was a different vibe.
The team of all men who were earlier lackadaisical, procrastinating, slow and sloppy were now following the lead as women and their husbands began their synchronised motions of sieving, carting material, making mortar mixes, building stone by stone and also chatting away, laughing in between, sharing a meal, caring for each other! Building with empathy.
(Tallulah D’Silva is an
Architect and silver
awardee of the Golden Door Award 2020 for truth and integrity)
