It is so admirable to be able to create something functional, beautiful, meaningful, original. To be able to stand apart from the crowd and do it one's own way, not for the sake of being different, but while trying to create a better product. Laurie Baker's archituecture was just this. He used local materials, local talent, an orginal brain to solve local problems. 
http://www.lauriebaker.net/ has this to say of his early years: "After a meeting with Gandhiji he was convinced to come to India, initially as the chief architect of the Mission to Lepers building leper homes throughout India. He then lived in Pithoragarh in the foothills of the Himalayas building hospitals and schools and in the tribal areas of Vagamon in Kerala before finally settling down in the city of Trivandrum".
