Arguments on Technology

Can this aversion for neatness or organization (being organized) be attributed to the advent of computer technology?

The first thing perhaps my father taught me was to be neat. The first thing he would do when he got a new book was to cover it in a nice brown paper. He would bring in stock, rolls of brown paper, plastic coated sheets sometimes, and neatly cut it to size with a cutter. Cutters would be brought in stock, so that they are replaced once they lost their sharpness. Bad cuts would not work and techniques of cutting was to be learnt through practice. He passed this value to us. He would not allow corners of any of our textbooks or note books to be folded. He would never like papers torn incorrectly. After covering a book, it had to form crisp, pointed corners - no misaligned corners. The covers had to be tight.

On the other hand, he would never allow us to use a pen on a book (text book/printed text), and as far as possible, not even allow pencil marks on the books. Books were to remain fresh till they escaped your life. This, I think was impressioned into our personalities. We would never be allowed to wear un-ironed clothes. the trousers would never have more than one crease. The collars had to be stiff. The hair had to be combed straight....

We grew up with these values. And such values create an immense trouble when I see someone casual about all such things. In some ways, learning architecture or being an architect has amplified this distress. I can not stand misaligned sheets, badly torn papers, ill formatted drawings, crumpled tracings, dirtied and smudged sheets, folded rolls, corners of sheets dissolving due to glue tapes....

What I essentially want to say is that it wasn't architecture that taught me to be crisp, it was my basic family values. You don't find many people following such culture these days. I wonder if it is because there is a software / soft-ness to all these activities. Till the year 2000, we almost dealt largely with physical communication devices. Computer largely caught up only after 2000. I remember, it was only in 2001 that Information Technology was introduced as a vocational subject in the colleges. Today, there is a software for every kind of activity that you once did physically: remember photo albums? the old ones with black tinted papers where one would have to stick each photo carefully, or insert them into their photo holders. Or take for example  writing, where if you had to write, you would carefully select paper, depending on whether you are going to use a ball pen or an ink pen....Today, you have a software to type - where everything is flat. You have a photo album maker, where you just 'upload'. There is no sense of 'care' that goes into it. Unlike the album books where once you stuck a picture, you stuck it for ever (and you ruin it if you try to remove it), in the computer, you can keep on removing or adding / editing picture. Infact, the software detects smiles and faces or crooked photos...it suggests you what could be done to supposedly 'improve' your content. Word software has spell checks as well as grammatical suggestions. There are templates for portfolios. You just feed in data. Everything is ready where a user has to remain a passive information provider.

Is technology making us dumber? I say that because even after having such facilities, you don't find the physical space improving around you. (Can you imagine your camera not taking a picture unless the subject smiled?). Infact, the inconsistencies that we have in understanding such interfaces increases errors which damage our surroundings. Are we all a dumber race? Prof. Punde had a very interesting observation, where he said that our lives are 'embedded' today. Till a few years back, if you missed a telephone call, you would miss it forever - you would never know who called you. Today, even if you missed it, you have the entire history of that event on your calling machine. If you were listening to a lecture earlier, where if you skipped a word, you lost out the meaning of the sentence, you just ended up misinterpreting it, today, talks are on youtube/internet videos. You can rewind them n number of times and keep listening to one statement until you finally understood it. The idea of revisiting the past, the idea of holding a lot of past and carrying it into the future has drastically affected our whole engagement with time.

How does one see this condition - as a distraction or as an opportunity? Information is piling up, the whole world is in your palm, you know who is where all the time, you can control a person in America from India, working hours have changed, communication ways have changed....as teachers, how do you intervene with their world of technology? (well, I  have asked Prof. Punde to write a formal paper on this).

But technology is very considerate. It doesn't back-answer you / question you back at all! It allows you to do tremendous mistakes and takes all the balme on itself. (the computer would crash if you mishandled it. You are not affected by this physically in any way). It remains within the physicality of a dumb machine. Could you possibly impersonate a machine? A machine's attitude is what we have around - an emotionless, insensitive and dumb race. Are they mistaking machines as their role models? Since machines never make mistakes. Ever listened to a person from a call centre? They talk like machines - "Good morning sir, I am calling from ICICI bank, would you be interested in a loan?" - all in one breath, maximum 2 seconds to finish all that talking. They answer you like dumb people, there is never an emotion in their voice - they are just simulated.

As a teacher, I find it extremely troubling to adjust with this newness. I am uncomfortable, sometimes scared. Because I feel responsible. And my idealism is rooted in a space and time which is completely different from today's generation. Is it this feeling that makes you aloof, alone and single? Is it history's safe space that makes me interested in it? I hope interesting debates come up. I could have written a lot more here, but i realize that this will require a larger body to discuss and detail.

Alternative Histories

If at the end of Second year in an architecture course, one doesn't know

that pointed arches do have keystones
who is B V Doshi
that its Frank Lloyd Wright and not Frank Llord Wright
you can not pronounce Antonio Gaudi
the significance of Vitruvian man
Le Corbusier's Modular theory
that Le Corb's Mill Owners' Association is in Ahmedabad, which is in India and not abroad
that Le Corb designed Chandigarh and not Jaipur
that Egyptian pyramids have 4 sides and not 3
that Gallerie des Machines is a Gallery for Machines (the name is the function)
that Triumphal Arches were for the triumph of the Emperors (answer hidden in the question)
that Kanchanjunga is in Peddar Road and not in Colaba and is designed by Charles Correa
that IIM was designed by Louis Kahn
that IIMA is in Ahmedabad; IIMB in Bangalore
that Le Corbusier means "The Crow" and his name is Charles-Édouard Jeanneret
that Mona Lisa was painted by Leonardo da Vinci (having seen the film Da Vinci Code)
that the column beam structure of the Parthenon is called Trabeated system
that the St. Peter's square is an oval (after showing the picture)
that Charles Correa is the last one to be amongst the pioneers of Modern Architecture
that "Less is More" was the statement by Mies Van Der Rohe
that the prime contribution of Romans to our social space is democracy
that Mosques have no idols
that Renaissance was before Industrial Revolution / Modernism
that Eiffel Tower has no vertical but inclined lifts
that escalators are conceptually 'lifts'that iron was discovered and not invented!

then

what does one actually know for one's future  architectural practice?

No, it's not to laugh. It's the reflection of the interest level. In an age of media, where one has access to information 24x7, we see students killing all their time on facebook! But one can even share these facts and discussions on FB! Perhaps, our fundamental perceptions of FB do not match. But FB is killing the age of 12-25. Atleast the others know how to use it! and how much to use it. But it's not only FB. The whole of Internet.

Media has restructured the whole of society. I dont know what it would do to the average architectural practice? Are we just supposed to "learn from them" finding out newer patterns of the market? Its rubbish - what is the content in it - there is not intellectual thought. Should meaninglessness be always proven through a rubbish physical manifest? Our engagements with technology are so half-ripe. At least the developed countries use it right from their birth. We have a condition where such access is not even available to everyone. Weird conditions that the current dynamics of space and time has created. Where children struggle with language, basic spellings (the don't even care for them), what do they really want to do? Are they lost? then why don't they express that they are lost? how will they resolve it? why dont they speak up? what is their problem? I am worried about my place and my space which they could possibly ruin with ugly meaningless monsters! I hope the next three years open them up with their true goals!


(all responses from History VIVA at AOA)

Desires

Heart's earnest desire is always fulfilled.

-Mahatma Gandhi

Passing thoughts

Since the past few days, i have been feeling extremely exhausted and bored to upload anything here. There are lots of thoughts that come and go, but articulating it into text is becoming difficult. Also perhaps because my theory classes have started becoming heavy and they have puzzled my a bit. There is a lot of abstruse stuff that people are thinking...I am wondering if i must indulge myself in all this hi fi gyan.

However, there are other new things that have opened up. Like this book of Kapila Vatsyayana. Prof. Punde says she is like Kishori Amonkar in classical music. Kapila's command on history, he said is excellent. I read some essays from that 1000 page huge book, and they seemed interesting. I hope to catch up on that book again from the library.

We discussed Kracauer and Heidegger in the past classes and nothing of it was absolutely clear. I need to re look at all of it. We need to also make a time line of some 20 people who we have discussed by far in our class. We also have to write an essay on "What is design process? " for Sen Kapadia's class and I just cant get myself to write anything. Although I started to write something on design.
Everytime I think of a new idea to theorize, I talk about it to some people and immediately that idea is rejected, or seems not to make any sense, However, I think thats a part of the learning process.

I feel like traveling extensively now and just write descreptive things about a place. But that never materializes. Anyway, i think i am just putting the random thoughts that are arriving in my mind, but this is the fastest that i have written my blog. 

Mango Madness

I have been enjoying gazing at the growing mangoes on the mango tree in our college campus since the past few weeks. The green raw mangoes solely hanging from the tensioned branches of the trees look extremely tempting. For a long time I wondered whether it looks better on the tree, or if it would be nicer to touch, feel and smell it. A lot of koyals keep on singing these days and none of the crows have disturbed any of the fruits on the tree. Finally, Nandu broke his barriers of temptation and hit the closest hanging fruit from our second floor staff room balcony.



The raw green fruit dropped down on the fabric canopy, rolled onto it and fell in the bushes below. Nandu ran down like gushing water to pick it up. He came back with a big green orb. I wondered how big it was as compared to what I assumed it to be from a distance. We placed it on the table and let it roll. Both Nandu and I kept looking at it  - finally I grabbed it and felt it, its smoothness, its curves, its texture, its skin...

We thought of showing it to all - as if it was a wonder of the world. We discussed its shape and compaed it to the ones we draw in our drawing books - we argued if it resembled the haapus (alphonso) - and both agreed that  it was not that perfect. Still, we were not able to comprehend its beauty and our wonder - taking the king of fruits - and the first one of the season in hand. So I suggested we display it for some time. Nandu was extremely eager and enthusiastic about it. He quickly arranged for a glass and filled it with water. I  felt there was something missing in it: may be more colour. He then got some leaves and flowers from here and there and we almost made it into a momento...

Then we all enjoyed staring at it, praising the fruit and preserving it for some time. But finally, Nandu couldnot resist his gustatory urge and he cut it into slices, soon distributing it to everyone around. It was as if beauty (in all forms) has to be destroyed and finally digested.

We all ate a slice of it.
But memories of mangoes (especially the ones you pluck from the trees on your own) are nostalgic and mango trees inevitably take you to your childhood, if you ever flirted with the trees when you were young.

Building New Grounds

FIRST YEAR ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN
Atul Mhatre | Akhil Kapadia | Anuj Daga | Rohan Haksar                                          
Project 4

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Architecture’s preoccupation with land as its primary resource for operation has led to sharp rise in the density of built form in cities. Mumbai’s land resource has almost been exhausted due to immense pressure of development. This has resulted into either creation of more land (by ways of reclaiming the sea) or sourcing alternative land on the outskirts of the city. Living away from the city creates difficult movement patterns and people prefer to be closer to the city core. Under such circumstances, can architects not look at new unclaimed “territories” to build?

How do we conceptualize living conditions in new ungrounded context? The project aims at exploring resources other than land for manifestation of architecture. 

Following a short research on non-territorial contexts, the project aims at building a dwelling for a family (1-4 people) which exists an any resource other than land surface. This dwelling, although dependent for its basic existential supplies on land, it could perform independently allowing the dwellers to connect to the ground. The project tries to investigate inter-terrestrial relationships (relationship between land and water/air/underground). In doing so, one would also look into the physics of matter, how it influences form and what new conceptual technologies and opportunities can be sought for architecture in the future. Issues of sustainability and generating basic energy for sustaining the dwelling remain open subjects to engage in during the design process. 

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My ideas for the project: (to be elaborated over with more diagrams)
copyright anuj daga


Ofcourse the ideas below have some conceptual errors, but as ideas, i think these can be developed into potent architectural strategies. More than that, I have enjoyed rendering these and placing them in urban context, although they are almost devoid of them being in air or water or underground.

The idea below (the bubble) works on the principle of controlling the air pressure to create pockets of space for different activities.

My screen prints

Untitled

They make their houses quite interestingly. Using rejected collapsable shutters, jaalis, grills, etc. they make the inner reinforcement of their house, which not only becomes the railings for their windows, but also take on GI sheet claddings as wall surfaces. Red and green. The colours, which make quite an interesting collage. They fade in sun and get painted and repainted. Quite simply.

A completely utilitarian logic proportions the massing and visual aesthetic. The openings do not seem unpleasant. The slopes of each of the house give a flow - not only to the architectural fabric but also to the water that has to be drained in the monsoon. 

Across the train, I always try to see beyond what my eyes can look. The scrap that makes up their domestic space may be our own...

Containing oneself

Can a spoon contain itself? Dushyant once asked in the class. I think after thinking a lot, I can offer this answer:

From sky to earth

Anuj: There is something wrong about these yellow copper pods.

anuj: But they are beautiful.

Anuj: I know they are beautiful, but what goes wrong?

anuj: They look bright and spread randomly on the floor.

Anuj: Yes they do

anuj: then?

Anuj: They made a nice combination at Bharat Bhavan on the red sandstone.

anuj: Do you mean to talk about their background?

Anuj: I guess so. Yes, i think they do not deserve this silly faded pink paver blocks.

anuj: C'mon, they don't design paver blocks for flowers now.

Anuj: But why cant they? And why should the paver blocks be only diseased pink and yellow? Or the concrete grey? Do they think about what colour the paver block should be?

anuj: you've gone nuts

Anuj: Imagine how beautiful it would be to have nice backgrounds for different flowering trees. The gulmohars look lovely on black tar roads. But when they fall on pink blocks, they lose all their character. The bogen-villas - pink, white, orange, blue: they keep flying off like paper on the streets. Aren't they almost theatrical?  

anuj: hmm, actually i never thought so.

Anuj: If they planted pavers according to the trees, or if they planted trees according to the pavers...they would build up a beautiful urban landscape.

anuj: then why only pavers, i would say walls too.

Anuj: yes, absolutely.

anuj: hmm...

Anuj: but we haven't finished sussing out on the paver block issue. I hate when the sweeper sweeps the yellow flowers from the college entrance floors every morning. Those lovely yellow dots, although random, call for finding a pattern. I love looking at them from the first floor large window. Why does he sweep them? His sharp toothed broom must be hurting the peltaforums.

anuj: but they dry out anyways

Anuj: Yes, and the wind would wash them away anyways. Dont you like walking on a yellow carpet of flowers, gradually turning golden?

anuj: I do, but...

Anuj: Exactly, I am talking about these dead paver blocks - they suck. They don't suit our environment. They need to be sensitively designed.

anuj: dont you think that's too small an issue.

Anuj: Unfortunately, that is what most of us end up thinking and giving up for.

anuj: okay, you can keep this thought for your future practice.

Anuj: May be. But i surely think paver blocks can respond to the trees they jacket. 

anuj: sure. For now, may be you can take pleasure in watching them fall on you as you walk under the trees. The weightless flakes - you can keep in your books, if you like it so much. 

Things yet to be Introduced

When I was about 12 years old, I used to maintain this book called "Things yet to be introduced". In this book, I used to sketch out things that might be useful, but not yet been made. I don't remember what was the inspiration for all of them? The cartoons perhaps. Also sometimes they came out of strong concerns of energy crisis. My maternal native place being Bihar (now Jharkhand), there were massive power cuts, sometimes for 5 days in a row or telephone lines would not be there for months. We used to visit our native place in summers when it would be terribly hot and without electricity, the place would be as good as hell. Some of these techniques were therefore a resolution towards these issues. Others came out of pure fascination for mechanics, or techniques or some science fundas. I used to draw them out, in plans, sections, elevations or even views. Today when I look back at them, I wonder how did I ever understand, at that age, "top view", "Section". At any stage in my drawing, I do not call them so...

Notice also the dotted lines that show displaced positions of moving parts...the nature of hard lines versus the soft (wires, cables, etc.). All of these contraptions were accompanied by a short writeup about what all they perform. Some things here might have even been introduced or been there in some other part of the world! They were only not exposed to me then!

And why would I so neatly keep them, archive them? It was the Diary of Anne Frank I guess. In 11th standard, we studied about Anne Frank and how she maintained her Diary during the Nazi war. And later all her writings were published by her father's efforts. I kept maintaining my things after that, thinking that one day all of my work will be published!!

However, what I do not understand is that why did I decide to draw (and not write)? And so accurately? And I wonder if all this was building up towards my choice to be an architect?

Surrealism & Privacy

Along with visibility, the internet also makes possible a lot of privacy. Privacy by hiding / faking. But the interesting part is that it allows privacy visibly. That's quite an interesting aspect of it. The dimensions that internet allows for the manifestation of privacy are multifarious and interesting. Taking forms of second life, alter egos. The internet thus allows a lot of reality to exist in its original form. It it was not to exist, people would definitely take on those changes onto themselves, to hide their real selves. (something like make-ups).  But at the same time, we may confront ourselves in being someone else. In that confrontation lie questions of identity and self-hood.

In our architecture theory class, George Jose spoke about Bataille and the Surrealist movement in much detail. At some level, the surreal movement was quite brutal / cruel in confronting the self. I think the surrealists enjoyed the discomfort they created within people's mind (and themselves?). To discomfort is to push the boundaries of knowledge, they felt. The matrix of people that influenced each other across disciplines is also very crucial to understand how one form of knowledge / understanding transgresses into another. For the surrealist movement, it was the three disciplines of literature, art and film making. How they brooded over each other could be a real interesting study. 

However, studying the works of these people will allow artistic expression of privacy that exists in the soft world. Quite paradoxical. A person who is able to confront his/her private world should be ideally very strong. I don't know if the society allows this strength. Rather, what form of strength it gets moulded in the space of the society remains an aspect to observe. 

Look at me

Saifee Hospital. Charni Road. Mumbai
Blinding Brightness / Longest building in Mumbai
Architect: Hafeez Contractor.
Lighting: ?
Interior: ?
Structural Consultant: ?
Area: ?
Earlier, they had multicoloured rainbow lights

Strangeness

I felt immense strangeness as I re-entered my class today. I felt like a stranger. Those faces that I saw for 9 months - why did they all appear new? The feeling was exactly like that on the first day in this class. Did I mentally decide to not look back at time? What had changed? Was there a breach of relationship? Was there a relationship in the first place?

Atul asked me the other day: "Have they all disappeared?" - as if it was a give and take thing all this while? I remember; that day when I put the final list: they yelled, cried, were overjoyed, some disappointed. Immediately that time, some did come to me to talk, and perhaps I was not in a frame of mind to talk. I gave them monosyllabic answers. Why? Because I know they still need to work so hard. And I felt incomplete, since my objectives weren't achieved. But I keep telling myself: "You tried." Although it does not satisfy me.

Going back to the question of exchange - was this such a give and take? Give submissions take marks, and get out! But even I don't remember going back to my class coordinator ever. But I think that's how it is. I am unnecessarily thinking too much about it. Yes, why should I be taking it so seriously. May be it comes from this utopic mission to bring a change. And who has ever changed any thing? And why do I think I can change! These are all things stemming from my idealism. I have to detail it out!

But this strangeness was disturbing. Why did I need to feel comfortable? Why the hell did I want to feel at ease? Did it really make any difference to anyone of that last week of immense negotiation?

There are more important things to do. Focus Anuj. May be that was my initial year with such an intense full-time engagement. Regulate it. And I keep talking to my mind. It's almost this alternative person. He always seems more logical, more right, more balanced, more strong...I wish I could be like him.

(this post has been edited on 8th April 2011)

Synecdoche

INDIA won the WORLD CUP 2011.

Synecdoche:

It's a figure of speech which is used to refer a part of the whole of a whole of the part.

People danced naked on the streets and shouted slogans. They took out their cars and burst crackers. In the last week, strangers sitting next to you in buses or trains asked you match statuses while you were still listening to your good old collection of songs. When you answered "pata nahi" to their match related question, they would shrug their shoulders. They were peeping into tiny shopfronts having ultra-mini TV screens in queues to watch the "HOW" of cricket. How does he hit the ball, or take the run or take a wicket...it's about the how - and you enjoy it only if you understand the game. Just like the classical music. My brother clapped sitting in the living room peeping at the wall where he projected the world cup through a rented projector (to feel in the stadium) - and I felt as if it was his classical Indian music. Most cricket fans in India are this crazy. They critique the team at every ball such that it feels like a reality show! (how about if each move of the game was to be decided by an audience poll!). But invariably, if you found your palms hitting each other when the team won, you just echoed that "I am an Indian and I am proud that India won".

Event: 

That is what you require to activate a space. Events are essential for interaction. Can architecture be eventful? Then the building has to perform. It has to be performative. Ever changing, ever evolving / devolving. The cricket stadium holds a mass through an event. The theatre holds an audience through a virtual event. The rallies are held through speeches. Something that hold such a great mass together is actually all non-physical. The game, the show or the speech. Architecture is just a by product. It helps in encompassing the void - the hollow that holds the event. 

Architecture is the manifestation of synecdoches. part for whole / whole for part...

Out of 'Practice'

While working on a project that I am handling after a long time today, I realised that I have become tremendously slow at AutoCAD, and that I am slowly starting to just not like doing all this. I can think designs, sketch, but drafting on CAD is like hell. I just wondered only if I had an assistant, I could just sketch and tell someone to make the changes on the computer. Gone are the days when I would be on toes and do the finer changes jhatpat! I also have forgotten so much on Sketchup!! And I am feeling terrible about it!

Atleast practice keeps you up with your skill-speed, especially when you are skilled! But on the other hand, my typing speed has increased tremendously. I learnt typing from a typing institute after my 10th standard.

Typewriter fascinated me, more so, the sound and the tension on the keys. That's what I joined the class for. To feel the typewriter. I never learnt typing the right way. The right way is to look at the paper (where you read from to type in) and the fingers on the keys. I always kept looking at the keys while typing. After all, i wanted to see the mechanism of each printed word. Something going up when i pressed the key down - hitting the black ribbon and printing the letter - it had so much of character! The black south indian lady who was the supervisor would keep telling me: "idhar nahi dekhneka" - after she went, i again gazed at the lovely machine. Due to this, I never learnt the right way to type. As years passed by, I have learnt to correctly look in the paper and type - perhaps computer as a machine is not as fascinating as the typewriter. The keyboard is a softer interface though; as compared to the typewriter. It's too passive. I liked the older keyboards which made noise (tik tik tik), the sound made you realize how well you typed. Now they have all added these silencing devices to them, so you dont hear anything.

But well, AutoCAD has gone 6 years forward from where I started and it has become as complicated or organized as MS Office 2007. Sometimes I feel scared if I will be left behind. But may be this is a question of what I consciously want to prioritize...

Design Methods

They crave for a method. And there are very few who can teach methodologies for design.  What methods do is that they allow form-al, spatial, structural, etc. progress of design logically. Design methods can be debated (unlike designs, where personal opinions come into picture). But that's the catch - methods are a very "modern" way of working. But it might be interesting to get different structures of thought from the modern thought itself.

Design methods doesnot figure anywhere in the curriculum of architecture.  "Criticism" has been a popular way of learning design at Academy of Architecture. Somehow, the reality of practice and the ability to handle it gives the alumni of the college a lot of confidence. But we need only some one to tell them how badly most of them do it!

Academic practice can be far more rigorous if we discuss academic issues instead of the practical. The practice is all for materializing the ideas. But the academic space needs to inculcate into students how to handle ideas and let them be produced. Meanwhile, we only have black squares towering up the sky. Design methods can help breaking the monotony.







(above: placing planes that indicate movement in the site owing to interests of view, climate, function and regulating their spacing and height through logic of circulation and context. The design ended up quite differently, but at the end, there was a reasoning for everything that was placed on the site)