Archi Rendezvous

PP- Precious Pleasure!

2011-05-25T10:38:00.000-07:00

Dear Classmates,

I hope, our four years are done... we’ve managed to reach here! Most of them are happy, as I see. And it is going to matter a great deal than any other. Few had to struggle much to find a right boss for them and some have sneaked in at good places without much hassle. That is how it is... independent of grades in exam, I have realized!

Everybody will be scattered from now, for creating their own little new worlds in some one’s offices. We are 80% out of the closet of academics and the funny, unhealthy chase wrapped in it.

I can see boys buying formal shirts and girls buying simple kurtis without glitters... The signs of transformation are guiding through the way!

After the joys of trainee recruitment, exciting questions arise- How much are they going to pay? Are Saturdays off? Is there any air-conditioner for a soothing survival? Is there an internet connection? Will I be able to log in to Facebook? What if they see me chatting on Gtalk? What will I do in the lunch time of 60 minutes? What if I don’t make any good friends there? Will I get bored?

We don’t know how the days are going to pass without friends, chats, mischief, quarrels, gossips & group discussions which took place over infinite tea cups and appa's khichdi plates! It's hardly possible to make it realize for those who are moving out of station all alone into the unknown!

It’s going to be a fresh start in a desert land while making new acquaintances in new city and getting along with new food! Those who are going to take it positively for their own benefit will enjoy the life. Those who are going to yell over disliked veggies and unlike colleagues are just going survive and not going to enjoy the adventure in new land...!

Be careful but be adventurous, dear mates! All the very best and keep in touch!

How Designers visualize....and solve problems!

2011-02-25T06:32:00.000-08:00

[... I never thought that some fellow would try to think & analyze the designing process that goes behind the minds of architects & designers. Not only think but will do a methodical research on this topic! Ar. Uday Athwankar has done a very thoughtful and remarkable work. Thanks to him and FEED, Pune for this distinguished lecture on 24^th feb.2011]

Designing is all about how you manage space. Space- a gigantic but vague term interpreted in multiple ways by us. The exciting excerpt from this lecture is- Designers can easily work with their minds alone, when they are blindfolded. The brainstorm goes in rapid speed when eyes are closed... I think they are more focused on the brainstorm when they are not able to see anything... But, with eyes wide open, we try hard to concentrate and focus while designing and creating something within the ‘zero’ of space. A dot... a line... a curve... then triangles... squares... circles... rectangles... the play starts with it. The mind is not at all at peace. Mouth doesn’t speak. Ears don’t hear. It is a panic mode. This is a typical experience of any designer. But amazingly, the great human mind is able to work efficiently when it is blindfolded and given a design problem; where it is allowed to think, speak, hear, smell, move and take any kind of gestures and postures to explain our design but without a ‘pen & paper tool’.

It is same like a blind person. Those who can’t sense the space by their eyes, they sense it more strongly by their other four sensory organs. They mostly have better reflexes than a normal person, since they are more alert about their environment. But, the common finding is the interpretation of space! Both of them feel and sense it very accurately. It is a nature’s gift...

It will be a good exercise which I would like to try on myself! Lets’ see what different quality of design I produce with my eyes closed! I think this is a better solution for people who are unable to focus due to many distractions, but with a will to design!

Another thing discussed is sketching. Architects manage to excel in their professional life with or without the skill of sketching. Of course, it is a useful tool to express your brainstorm and give it a definite shape outside your mind. The sketching skill doesn’t matter but the creativity does matter. It’s more important what we draw rather than how beautifully we draw. Sketch quality can always be improved with a will and practice but the creative mind cannot be forced to produce good things...! An architect may or may not be a good artist but the vice-versa is not true! Since, artists imitate already realized work in their paintings, but architects visualize the whole idea before its realization... That is the difference between an artist and an architect- ‘The power to realize the reality before realization!’

Ahmedabad Diaries

2010-12-11T16:00:00.000-08:00

I have stepped in the city which has been just washed away with pleasant but untimely rains. It’s the month of November, 2010 and the occasion is the “architectural study tour”. I am in Ahmedabad… nicknamed as “Ambdavad” by its sweet- tongued Gujrathi residents. Looking out through the bus window, my mind has started comparing my fascinated pre- conceptions and the real scene about the city. Random images of all master architects, then Mahatma Gandhi, Narendra Modi, BRT, Akshardham, terrorism, business minded Gujjus, their sugary styled language, women in colourful sarees, dhokla, khakra, sweets, flavoured peanuts… are crossing in, with little or no reference to one another…! Its 9 am and I can see all the mithai and miscellaneous shops pulling up their rolling shutters to give a fresh kick start for the day.

Overall, it seems like a teenager slowly stepping out in the outer world, with his half mind in the past but confident enough to grow along with the time. Some part is old with culture rooted deep down and some part is exposing to modern architecture and lifestyle. This character settled on both banks of the Sabarmati River prompts me of my hometown- Pune.

First day brings me to appear in front of two 'stand alone' buildings- Le corbusier’s Sanskar Kendra and Balkrishna Doshi's Tagore Hall, facing one another in the same campus but detached by landscape and a tar road moving in between… one in exposed brick, other in concrete; but, both pure in their sense. Though the blank facades appear dry at first glance they are filled with intricate simplicity. Corbusier’s philosophy of the stilt floors connects the building with the outer landscape while ramps connect vertical spaces of the building. The ramp allows users to move up without keeping attention on their footsteps, enjoying the surrounded building features. Only the dried, unattended water body in the courtyard of this masterpiece left irony within me.

Afternoon session pleases me with the sight of shining white vaulted structure of Sangath- Architect B.V. Doshi’s office place. Astonishment, anxiety, pride everything is saturated when I enter and travel through the meandering pathway leading to the entrance of this underground building. From paving tile composition detail, water ponds, cascades, benches, trees, climbers, sculptures, day- lighted wall paintings to the draughtsman’s desk everything is just picturesquely worked out! It reflects a homogenous inspiration of works of Le Corb, Louis Kahn and Antonio Gaudi. Making a climate responsive building is like modestly proving to nature that man is not always at the ‘receiver’s end’! Same picturesque influence can be found at Doshi’s Gandhi Labour Institute, except the direction of the barrel vaults, built to admit the north light in the interiors.

Next day offers visit to IIM-Ahmedabad. I have always been fond of Ar. Louis Kahn, his intricate geometry, monumentality and deep mystery. Wandering alone in the old campus of IIM-A has been a spiritual ride through Kahn’s arches, large circles of openings, huge- scaled corridors, the play of light and shadow and exposed brickwork. Kahn used to say-

“I asked the brick- what do you like, brick?” The brick says- “I like an arch!” and if I say, “Look, arches are expensive, and I can use a concrete lintel over you, then what about that?” Brick says, “I still like an arch!”

I haven’t heard or read about any architect who ‘conversed’ with his building material and acknowledged it so innocently! He was a mystic man and a magician of spaces. It felt like I’ve just visited a temple… a place of enigma, silence, solitude and self- realization.

The rapid ten-minute visit to Le Corbusier’s Mill Owners’ Association Building strikes in each of its aspect. Again the huge ramp projecting out of the building takes you directly to the first floor… a simple and purely functional thing like a ramp can give a building its identity. Many times we end up giving ramps somewhere hidden in the building or just to fulfill the provision without understanding its need! This building looks raw in its first glance with huge fins projecting out. The grey, checkered concrete façade woven with climbers is not just a good- looking façade but a simple detail made to respond the hot and dry climate. The handrail of the ramp converts into an art object and a security window has a concrete slab cantilevered like a stone block in a temple. Somehow, the urge to explore this building from inside left unfulfilled.

In three days I’ve visited most of the prestigious and architecturally remarkable buildings in Ahemadabad. They represent the most logical and practical ‘modernist’ style of architecture, with zero ornamentation but giving timeless aesthetics. In B.V. Doshi’s words, ‘Louis Kahn was a Yogi and Le Corbusier an Acrobat!’ Though being foreign architects, they clearly understood India in terms of culture, lifestyle, climate, nature and every aspect of human life over here. But, we, as Indians, and as Indian architects- to be precise, hardly know about our self, and blindly keep copying the flashy building forms and glass boxes of West.

Again, coming back to the city level, all the monuments of these master architects seem to contradict! Huge malls, multiplexes, tall corporate offices cladded with glass and aluminium are leading to where? It’s time to step back and understand the root of the system before we act. It’s high time to learn from the past and then to sprint ahead in the making of future by our brains and hands.