First Questions

How were buildings made before the British introduced the orthographic methods of drawing? How did the focus on orthographic drawing and European construction methods shape the thinking and practice of architecture in India? Can construction be thought through ideas beyond permanence and resistance? How do we think of a history of architecture beyond styles? Why should the architect disturb this status quo? What is the value of fiction in architecture? How do we mobilize data meaningfully in architecture? What is the experience of technology? What are the limits of resource extraction? How do we understand and reconfigure digital-material relationships in architecture? In what registers can architects think of space and form? What processes would strengthen acts of meaning making with our environment? What questions must be asked for emerging urbanism? What is research in architecture? Several such inquiries, gathered by academics at the School of Environment & Architecture (SEA) have resulted in the book ‘First Questions’ that provokes spatial practitioners to challenge their equation and role in addressing the built environment. The book marks the completion of first five years of experiments and interrogations at SEA, oriented towards making inroads into these inquiries, as much as generating new ones. The thirteen incisive essays layout a landscape of thoughts that architects, academics and students ought to engage in urgently, and intimately. It is time we asked these first questions.