Henri Fanthome Office for Architecture

Rusted Side Panels and Door of Electrical Switch Box in DDA Park Mehrauli

You see it on the Pavement. You see it on the Delhi Metro Stations, on the walls and floors of your housing complex, in the classrooms of the schools you attend or teach in. You see it on the road, in the public toilets, in the local markets.

There is a good chance you see it at home too.

The faulty drawer in the kitchen that wont shut, or the bent window frame that lets in a small cust of cold winter air every-now-and-again.

Or the flaking and slowly disappearing plaster and paint of the new IIT hostels on the ring road!

You see it everywhere!

More correctly, we see the absence of it.

One would imagine, that buildings, and public facilities are designed to be permanent, and lifelong. Of course that is a fallacy.

Materials have life cycles, and like everything else, mam-made or otherwise, experience wear and tear, from use and weather, they undergo stresses and strains, sometimes even damage.

To design a building, without expecting as much is foolhardy, and to commission projects and not expect to have to maintain them- or to put it more directly - to expect not to have incur expences on account of periodic maintenance is a rather self defeating idea as well as guarantee for raking up large expenses on account of repair, and replacement that might far outweigh the costs of periodic upkeep, not to mention the ease and comfort of having a working, long term system in place and functional at all times.

One might argue that the private individual, who sometimes very unwisely sink all their available resources and more into affording housing/ or cars or whatever else they fancy, might be strapped for funds when maintenance is concerned.

But I fail to see how public projects, and infrastructure could be effected by this?

Or is maintenance just some thing we never plan for! If that is the case it is a huge issue? Do planners and designers actually think about this? Wear and Tear, that maintenance is a real concern and a means to achieve both frugality and economy, and a great degree of environmental and material responsibility.

Is it policy failure? or is it apathy? or are funds being siphoned off? One does wonder?

Its almost everywhere and No one seems to mind!