Goa’s green design warriors

In a burgeoning real estate market, Dean D’Cruz, Gerard da Cunha and Arminio Ribeiro make a case for recycling or using sustainable local materials and preserving Goa’s social fabric

Goa is studded with 100-400 year old villas, cottages and outhouses, with laterite walls and Mangalore-tiled roofs that have been carefully restored and reimagined into stores, restaurants, bars and holiday homes. Many of them come with fine woodwork, multiple doors and windows and expansive courtyards offering cross-ventilation, as well as other little details often seen in Indo-Portuguese homes. While on the one hand Goa is bustling with tourism and construction, on the other there are architects who do their best to retain that susegad state of mind we dream of in our busy cities. They promote natural and locally-available materials such as terrazzo, stone, terracotta, fire brick and sandstone, and make a strong case for preserving Goa’s architectural heritage. Here are three architects who explain how tranquil havens can coexist in harmony with modern development and tourism.

The co-founder and principal architect of Mozaic recalls waking up to a rooster crowing and the aroma of curries simmering on woodfired stoves in his uncle’s home, where the extended family lived together. It was a cohesive existence that permeated their village, Saligao, in Goa.

D’Cruz has meticulously restored his 105-year-old Portuguese-style villa, nestled in a quiet green corner of Saligao, which is where I meet him on a rainy evening. The home has been progressively restored from about 50 years ago. A staircase leads to the balcao (a porch) that overlooks a courtyard garden. The main verandah features columns crafted from single pieces of Burma teak and the flooring is adorned with Spanish-Portuguese tiles. Inside, two spacious living rooms with original oyster shell windows with pointed arches, flank the entrance. Since the use of shells is now banned, frosted glass can be used in the pointed arches.

It was in the early 1980s that D’Cruz returned to Goa after graduating from Mumbai’s Sir JJ College of Architecture. The hippie movement was sweeping across the State at the time and Goa was emerging as a desirable destination for a retirement home. D’Cruz partnered with fellow architect, Gerard da Cunha, and together they began harnessing low-cost materials, drawing inspiration from the traditional Goan architecture. Reusing and recycling local materials, such as laterite stone, brickwork, coconut rafters, waste china mosaic, terrazzo flooring and Athangudi tiles, they designed affordable retirement homes for people who really needed them. D’Cruz still receives requests to design retirement homes, he says, from those who genuinely want to make Goa their final home, imbibe its cultural ethos, and consciously protect its fragile ecology.

In recent years, the State has also become a coveted destination for people wanting to build their second or third homes. It has led to the proliferation of a new architectural paradigm, driven by the desire for luxury and exclusivity. “These homes are outlandish, fully air-conditioned with all the frills, such as swimming pools. This new architecture is really changing the ethos of the place,” says D’Cruz. “It is putting immense pressure on the land and resources — water, electricity and spaces for parking. Moreover, this surge in demand for expansive mansions has driven up cost of land, building materials and construction, placing local Goans out of the residential market.”

Alongside the second and third home market in Goa, D’Cruz adds that a speculative market is also emerging, “where people are building only to resell immediately”. This shift has created a dichotomy between accommodating the demands of a burgeoning real estate market and conserving Goa’s cultural and environmental heritage. In villages with a huge demographic change, isolated, elitist enclaves characterised by gated communities and absentee homeowners are changing the social fabric. “These homes are in a way dead real estate unlike hotels, which are efficiently used and provide employment to the locals,” D’Cruz observes.

D’Cruz has designed boutique hotels such as Nilaya Hermitage in Arpora and Pousada Tauma in Calangute; jungle lodges for the Taj and other groups such as Jehan Numa Retreat; and 200-room resorts such as Club Mahindra Holidays, Assonora. One positive outcome from new arrivals to the State has been the revival of many dormant villages, such as Assagao. But D’Cruz stresses that development has to be balanced with a focus on sustainable land use, educational institutions, local marketplaces, healthcare and recreation centres that cater to the overall needs of these growing communities.