Hayden Kublalsingh: Designing healthy living

Home to the San Juan Cocoa Estate - one of the island’s oldest cocoa plantation - Gran Couva is a haven for nature lovers. Little streams run by at intervals, setting the mood and creating a picture of natural living for us as we journey towards the San Salvador Estate.

At the wooden gate of the estate, there is a sign identifying the space.

My photographer and I are let in to over 200 acres of land. Interestingly enough, many of the island’s communication towers are located on this property on the heights of the Central Range. Thankfully they do not interrupt the vibrations of the residents here. The towers’ presence here which is just a reminder that a wider world exists outside this compound is easy to forget in this silence and natural energy. As much as we are away, we are still inside the larger context of the society.

But this is the essence of transcendental living – to be a part of the world yet not attached to it.

As we park, a cottage peeps at us through the surrounding trees. A boyish face with a friendly demeanour greets us at our car. Except for the mop of grey hair on his head, he could easily pass for mid 30s – one of those faces that confuses you because you have no idea whether his age should be identified by his hair or his face. The estate around us disappears as we enter the cottage that he welcomes us into. Small but spacious – everything here has a function.

We settle onto an outdoor deck that looks out into a densely forested area. Our conversation revolves around the bugs and flora and fauna around us. Casual conversation leads us eventually into a grounding session.

We close our eyes to the sound of his voice leading us into a brief meditation, bringing all our senses and bodies into focus before we proceed with a formal interview.

For my part, the brief session sums up exactly what we are going to be speaking about – internal/external architecture

We had not come here expecting this but it is a pleasant surprise, even more so that it brought back memories of a time when transcendental meditation, also popularly called TM, was a growing practice in Trinidad.

The name Maharishi Mahesh Yogi is synonymous with TM.

In the 1980s, TM had begun to gather a fairly large following of people from diverse backgrounds in Trinidad.

Stories of self-healing - from smaller ailments like headaches to more serious ones like terminal cancer - proved the health benefits of TM. The Maharishi Institute in Iowa combines secular education with meditation practice to produce students equipped to face the world with more equanimity and awareness.

Among the many subjects of study offered at the institute is Vastu Design Architecture.

Hayden Kublalsingh, founder of Designs for Natural Architecture (DNA), brings his training in Vastu design at the institute, to the local landscape. It is a rare formal design practice in Trinidad and his clientele is composed of many persons seeking to find harmony in their own lives.

“DNA is so named because my intention as a designer” Kublalsingh explains, “is to create spaces that resonate with the human being at the deepest level. The underpinning principle in Vastu is creating healthy energy spaces that can enhance spiritual development by harnessing the right energies in the building, through a number of techniques and practices like orientation, right selection of the land, right sizing of the house according to geometric principles, placing of water, fire, and so on. In the bedroom, for instance, having your bed face east for sleeping is among the things that help to harness a more harmonious living experience.

If you believe this, then the collective experience of living in an environment like that, enhances your deeper connection with yourself and your environment. So, in spirituality, regardless of the faith we follow, we speak about the being, the essence within, your divine inner self. It’s that connection which is our connection with our nature. So when we go to the beach and say ‘Ah!’ that expression of ‘ah!’ is the deep connection with Gran Couva or with the ocean or the river. So it is possible, arguably, to create spaces which are healthier for living and can enhance the development of the individual, simply by being in that space more often. That therefore implies that there are spaces that are not so good for living and working.

So, it’s very common language in twenty-first century architecture to speak of unhealthy buildings as an example. What I am describing in Vastu architecture or vedic architecture or feng shui, is the higher level of healthy living.” Kublalsingh engages in a range of building designs, from residential and commercial to more intimate cottages.

He works with the natural landscape in which he is commissioned to build.

He continues to explain to us: “I don’t dictate where anyone wishes to live or build an office. But when I do find an environment that is conducive to natural design I certainly recommend it as first choice. Proper design requires that you never design something without first visiting a site.

In beautiful healthy locations like where there is a seaview or forest, you don’t want to put a building you would typically have in Valsayn or Goodwood Park. Everything has a place. There is nothing wrong with those buildings, except that I think that they become out of place in a natural environment.

So my emphasis in my design is to keep it natural as much as possible through design, through use of material, through interaction with the topography, be in cliffs, slopes, trees,etc. and if possible, as much spiritual energy principles as possible.

Not all clients will want to know about Vastu but that doesn’t mean as a designer I don’t include it subtly, quietly and have them experience it and see if it makes a difference later on.

Maybe they notice it maybe they don’t, because not everybody appreciates silence. So, I would usually design a building for a site based on how I would live on the site, even if it is a typical Gulf View type residential area.

“Most times I find that people do not change my design.

When I explain why we want that view, or rooms in a particular place or why the wind flow is important here or sunlight is important there, most times, nobody has said, well let’s change this. So it seems to work.” In our fast-paced, rapidly growing urbanised world it is only natural that people would search, whether consciously or subconsciously, for spaces that feel more natural and healthier.

We live in a time where home has a multiplicity of meanings and varies from individual to individual.

“I have found that most of the people who come to me are of a certain type. They are usually seeking something within themselves. As part of that inner search they are looking for spaces which, through my advertisements of through word of mouth, they’ve come to speak to me about what they are thinking of or where they would want to live. And then we would have that conversation, which is basically about purpose of life, how we should live, purpose of income and so on, and then I would make recommendations accordingly.

More often than not, they engage me and we work together to complete the project.” A key part of Vastu design, Kublalsingh notes, is understanding the client.

“I like to get a sense of the individual, their spouse, the family.

Getting a sense of what they wish to achieve in their home and how they wish to live is also important.

For instance one client may want very open space plans, with decks that open out to a view while another may want, because of location, like let’s say a residential area in Chaguanas, less of the open space plan and more intimate spaces for privacy.

My own intuition will tell me that when people want those intimate spaces there should also be some open spaces for a sense of freedom.

So your bedrooms could be intimate for instance, but when you come down to living areas, kitchen, outdoor decks and so on, there should be more visibility, light, wind, a sense of openness.

You can build a house and live in it and not know that you are missing anything.

But you can build a house and realise that this porch is necessary for your living because of where it is positioned.

Natural living goes the extra yard to give people the experience of natural life – silence, natural light, views, natural materials, the sound of water - everything that you might call Zen.” As part of the Zen/Vastu principle, Kublalsingh is cautious about becoming overworked.

He stresses the need for constant grounding in oneself for efficient designing particularly as he works in a business that thrives of inner awareness.

Even as he generates an income, he keeps focused on his core.

“We can trivialise income but income is always a necessary element of life. The question is what path do we take to earn it and how complicated do we make our lives to do so.

This is a business with a philosophy, as any business has I suppose. In my case I guess it’s a business that involves more esoteric principles. My intention is to use what I know and what I have experienced to share with others, so that they can experience higher living principles, within the spaces that they operate from.

I think it will be difficult to really capture natural designs and natural living if one is not continuously grounding himself in nature itself and by nature we mean external nature and internal nature.

So I’m not saying that it’s not possible for a typical designer who has gone through the normal ropes to do natural design. I think you get a little closer to the objective, however, if you practice what you teach.” Kublalsingh has his background in corporate life. He has held management positions at Agostini’s Ltd. and was general manager of EIL (Electrical Industries Limited).

Although he is still a director with the Electrical Industries Group, he has essentially stepped out of a corporate life and is now cautious about how his time is used.

“I was careful not to have any of my current activities get me back to where I was in terms of my busyness. So even in my design practice I am careful not to take too much work. I am careful to project manage it in a way that I don’t get overwhelmed, where I can’t take a trip up the islands every few months or so. So outsourcing is very important to my model. I do the creative work and supervise.” Design needs led to the birth of another company – Timberyard Homes.

“When I began to build for clients, there was no single supplier in Trinidad supplying high quality, first-grade lumber at good prices, slate stones for roofing for example, wooden windows and doors, all of which I supply.

So the company is based in Chaguanas with a fairly large warehouse.

Timberyard Homes is a stockist for green heart, purple heart, locust wood and others.

We also supply timber cottages.

So I have married the DNA design part to the Timberyard supply chain end and I can design and supply an entire project to clients.

We do a complete service from getting the plans approved to building construction.

As part of the Vastu focus on environmental awareness, Timberyard Homes imports its lumber from a supplier in Guyana who, unlike some other suppliers, engages in proper sustainable forestry practice.

“They have hundreds of hectares of concession land and they are allowed by law to cut only a few trees per hectare so it doesn’t affect the forest canopy in any significant way. They can replenish but don’t necessarily have to. So my supplier engages in proper environmental practices and the lumber is sustainably harvested.” Among the upcoming projects in which DNA is engaged, The Toco Nature Resort – KASALA, a work in progress, is a source of pride for Kublalsingh. Another is The Great House in Gran Couva, a completed example of Vastu architecture that maximises on the surroundings. The Cottage in the prime residential area in Gulf View, San Fernando, is also a special design.

As the island becomes more heavily populated and once rural areas become more modernised, DNA is a symbol of the possibilities of healthy building designs.

With mental and physical illnesses on the rise, Hayden Kublalsingh’s designs seem even more applicable, bringing nature to us to offer health and harmony in places that we can truly call home.

sharda.patasar@gmail.com