Creative Builders Collaborative (CBC), Illuminated Lives

It is but natural that Creative Builders Collaborative (CBC) should shine. After all Deepak (light) and Jyoti (glow) are the husband/wife team who head CBC, one of the premier design and construction firms in Nepal. An illuminating pair, no doubt! The architect pair have an able associate in civil engineer Manohar Sherchan who completes the troika of directors on the board. As Deepak Sherchan, architect par excellence, says, “Our strength lies in teamwork. No one should think that he/she alone can do enough.” Jyoti Sherchan, nee Joshi, is supposedly the organizer and financial whiz while her husband, Deepak, is the artist who conceptualizes designs and puts them on the board. “Manohar, on the other hand, is the implementer who gets things done on the ground,” says Deepak.

It is said that a man’s nature can be deduced from his environment and from the home he lives in. It could also be true that a person’s nature can be surmised from his place of work. If so, then one needs only to visit the offices of CBC on the fifth floor of Heritage Plaza II in Kamaladi, Kathmandu, to conclude that this firm is no common establishment. The main office through the library has an 18 feet high ceiling, and an extravagance of natural light streaming into the capacious and tastefully furnished room through two large windows overlooking a lovely terrace garden, the handiwork of Jyoti. “I love gardening,” she says. “In fact most of the landscaping work on our projects gives me ample opportunities to indulge in my passion.”

Deepak is more geared towards sports and has been a sportsman since the days when he captained his school’s Silver Team and excelled in hockey, football, boxing and swimming.  Today he is more into squash and tennis. No wonder even now he does not look a day over forty although both husband and wife are well into their fifties. “I met Jyoti when teaching at the Institute of Engineering,” says Deepak. So started a love affair that culminated in a fruitful marriage resulting in further blossoming of CBC as well as three daughters- Puja, a doctor who is doing her MD in Chicago; Prathna, an architect with Masters in Housing and Real Estate from Holland and with further plans to acquire a doctorate; and Prakriti who is studying hotel management in Switzerland.

It is no accident that the family is so brilliant in the academic sphere. Although Jyoti’s mother, Angoor Baba Joshi, is well known for her social service work as well as for the fact that she was the first and probably the longest serving principal of the pioneering ladies college, Padmakanya Campus, very few know that Jyoti’s father, Prof. (Dr.) Balaram Joshi, was a nuclear physicist. “You can imagine, there wasn’t much use for his expertise in Nepal then,” remarks Jyoti. “He worked for the United Nations most of his working life but I remember he was recalled to Nepal during the Chernobyl disaster to check and verify that milk here was not contaminated!”

Angoor Baba Joshi, meanwhile, did her B.Lit and Bar at Law from Oxford University. As for Jyoti herself, “I was Board 2^nd in the SLC exams in 1968. Probably the first girl in the country to get on the board.” Her Alma Mater till class nine was St. Mary’s School and then she joined Mahendra Bhawan from where she gave her SLC exams. Jyoti was awarded a scholarship under the Colombo Plan and went on to study architecture in Maharaja Shivaji Rao University in Baroda. She remembers, “I graduated along with Chandra Lekha Kayestha in 1975 and I believe we were the first two lady architects of Nepal.”

Deepak’s family on the other hand, has always been into business and industry but he himself was no less a brilliant scholar than anyone on his wife’s side of the family. After finishing school from St. Xavier’s in 1965, he joined Amrit Science College then went on to do a five and a half year course in Architecture from the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology in Kharagpur. One can guess that Deepak must have really excelled in academia since it is well known that to get admitted to an institution such as IIT, Kharagpur, is every student’s dream come true. Deepak passed out in 1975 and worked with Robert Weize for a year, then with Shanker Nath Rimal for a year and a half. Later, for about two years, he taught at the Institute of Engineering in Pulchowk, Lalitpur where he met Jyoti, who too was teaching there.

Deepak then formed his own company, CBC, along with civil engineer Diwaker Sherchan and architect Sri Ram Bhakta Mathema. The team worked together for about four years after which they parted ways and Jyoti and Manohar entered the picture. From then till now CBC has grown from strength to strength. “One of our most important clients has been the INGO, Save Our Souls or SOS,” admits the couple. “We have designed and built seven of the eight SOS Villages throughout the country.” In fact, for the SOS Village located in Itahari, Deepak Man Sherchan, in 1997, was awarded the South Asia Commendation Award instituted by JK Cements of India. “The SOS Village projects had special design requirements inbuilt into their philosophy of creating spaces where orphans and deprived children could live in a family environment while at the same time growing up into educated and aware citizens,” says Deepak. “So, to give the feeling of living in individual homes, we segregated the living spaces into ten to thirteen units housing about ten children each. In addition, school buildings had to be constructed as well as staff accommodations and administration buildings.”

A large silk screen painting by Binita Rana hangs on the wall of Deepak’s office and lends an air of colorful vibrancy to the surroundings. According to the debonair architect, “Actually, graduates at architectural schools are taught to appreciate art so that after graduation each can go and discover his/her own niche with regard to specialization.” Jyoti is of the opinion that, “An architect is a designer and a technocrat.” Howsoever the couple may define their profession, Deepak is the one who handles public relations, business policies and sketches and admits, “This profession has to be understood in its totality as one having huge requirements in the area of public relations and a firm understanding of business.” Jyoti is the manager and team leader who handles the nitty gritty including the minutest financial details. “She is very good at managing day to day affairs as well as the finer points of financial dealings,” informs Deepak.

The pair are proud of many of their completed projects including Heritage Plaza II. “We finished this in 1997 and since my sister, Dr. Ashok Banskota’s wife, is the other partner besides us and Manohar, we had a free hand while designing and constructing.”  Built on about two ropanies of land, the plaza consists of a built of area of 35000 square feet and has five floors. From their offices on the top floor of the Plaza has arisen many great designs such as the Malpi International School in Panauti, St. Mary School’s new building in Jawalakhel, the SOS Village series, the Mechanical Training Center in Balaju, the Trek-O Tel Hotel in Pokhara, Herman Gmaar School in Banepa, the Marcopolo Business Hotel in Kamalpokhari, Staff Residential Quarters of St. Xaviers’s College in Thapathali, the Family Planning Association of Nepal Central Office, and the offices of ILO Danida, besides many others. The SOS Village in Chitwan has been only recently completed as has been the St. Mary’s School building.

However, the Malpi International School holds special significance for the pair. “Deepak wants to contribute to society through the medium of education,” says Jyoti. “The Malpi School, of which Deepak is the Chairman, cost Rs.15 crores to be built. The school provides high quality education to 400 residential co educational students and all profits go towards the service of the local community in Panauti.” Jyoti and Deepak are excited that the first batch of students from Malpi appeared for the SLC exams this year. Deepak adds, “We designed Malpi is such a way as to promote lots of interactive thinking as well as provide a positive atmosphere whereby creative learning could be encouraged.” One of the highlights of the design is the large and spacious courtyard and ampi-theatre in the centre of the complex.

Although CBC is as Deepak says, “one of the leading design and construction firms in the country,” he himself had started his studies in engineering and only later shifted to architecture. According to him, “The architectural profession started to pick up as a worthwhile profession after people began to notice designs created by Robert Weize- designs such as the Annapurna Hotel, the Malla Hotel and the barracks in Chauni.” Deepak, for a time, was associated with Building Design Associates of which Tom Crees, Narendra Pradhan, Raja Ram Bhandari and engineer Ashesh Giri were also members. “During the premiership of Dr. Tulsi Giri BDA got some prestigious projects like the Airport and the Sherpa Hotel, due to which the architectural profession was further highlighted,” says Deepak.

Undoubtedly, Creative Builders Collaborative is on a roller coaster ride at the present moment and as the pair says, “It’s quite difficult to get the two of us together in a day, we are so busy.” One of their completed projects about which the couple seem specially satisfied, is the Saptarangi Apartments opposite the Prime Minister’s Quarters in Baluatar and although they believe that the building bylaws are lax and builders seem to be getting away with anything, they themselves are careful to follow the letter of the law to the ‘t’.  This conscientiousness, combined with their deserved and proven reputation, perhaps, explains why Deepak has formed a partnership with Prithvi B. Pandey and Mahendra Lal Pradhan to form the Subhakamana Housing Project that is in the process of designing and constructing the Indreni Apartments, a 30 apartment complex, all in one block, in Bishalnagar heights. And no doubt this will be as successful a project as any that CBC has attempted, because as Jyoti says, “The very fact that CBC has designed it and will be building it is enough to give confidence to the public the project will be a worthy one and one that they can be sure will be of the best quality. Something that is dependable and trustworthy.”

Such is CBC’s reputation today, thanks to the illumination of Deepak and Jyoti.