Academics - A Fractal of Reality

I think as academicians in the field of architecture, we take more pleasure in the production of representations of the real world. We love to get beautiful work done from students on paper. We like good drawings, good models: all good looking things which are a miniature version of the real world. Do we feel happy about it being more pristine, clear and pleasing to the eye as compared to the reality around us? Are we too disturbed by the adulteration of imagination as it becomes real? What kind of a world do we live in - that of the comfortable 'experiment' space where we can change colours or materials to suit the eye. It's only about the eye. That which looks pleasing to the eye. On the other hand is writing, which can slip from within our hands...

Yes, academia produces questions, criticisms, debates. But the nature of frustration that professional practice brings is absolutely different and could completely validate the physicality of the built environment. I guess the biggest factor in profession is time - the time in which you deliver. Imaginations get crunched in this time machine. Other is the reality of economy, unfortunately. And lastly, all material things that manifest ideas. I am recalling Plato and his idea of the ideal being something that you could hold...

But I have to find stronger role of the academia in the built environment - not just that of the training. How much of training does the built environment reflect anyway? The professional any way has an different institution through which he/she operates. Its almost like brain washing - what you retain from school is only the factual knowledge. It's a pity that those who want to engage with critical questions only can teach...I am wondering if profession can allow / look beyond time, money and material...I am sure it can, and it has, but the extent is very less.

Anyway, why I thought of this was thinking of all abstractions that we make in school to make things look good. I had this habit of making models as they would look in real  - so I had really jazzy colourful models. Later I started making monochrome models - but buildings are not monochrome! And in addition, people like multiple colours on their walls...But in school, its probably all about the aesthetic, or rather am I getting too driven into it? Hmm, point to note.

Pedagogical Deviations

Over the last year, we were experimenting with a very bottom up approach. We would give the students problems which completely throw them off and force them to question if that is what architecture was. Our projects revolved around strong theoretical ideas and issues and we were able to raise important issues through conceptual solutions that students unknowingly brought to the table. The faculty was interested in thinking with the students and I felt, it was an interesting way of working.

However, by the beginning of second year, we realized that students had no idea of scale and proportion and still drew their drawings as if nothing mattered. They had no idea of logistics of space or proportion. Staircases were randomly placed or unresolved, rooms were obnoxiously proportioned, there was no relationship between sequencing of spaces, no response to anthropometrics - something that we thought was a matter of observation. However, students failed to even think about all of it. This year, it was scary to have designs which had no idea of proportion and scale - even when questioned about it, students were in oblivion. This is when we realized that we need to address this aspect critically in our upcoming projects.

As a result, we started thinking of very pragmatic projects, limiting the scope of thinking and response. The project like the play school, which the second yearites are currently working on - is a fairly simple, infact simplistic project. Inspite of this, I do not see conceptual ideas coming through. There is a big gap in the students' mind in relating the programme with the space and user. There is no inquiry into how the user behaves. No one thought of their own childhood - all are working like scientists, trying to manifest it into a formal idea, which itself is based on very weak grounds.

If I was to say that our initial projects in first year were about form (Marrying Machines), constructability (Building out of waste), expression (Expression space) and function (Building New Grounds), in respective order, the students have completely ignored the learning out of it and infact brushed it off. It was disheartening to hear from them that they felt that those projects never addressed 'practical' design issues. I felt that was too myopic a judgement made. However, accepting their feedback, we thought we must try working with them on a practical project and see how well they receive it. It is always difficult to channelize a project without a theoretical stand point for me. The project "Playschool" does not appeal to me, because one does not know how to channelize thought. They have been asked to work out the design through mathematical principles (eg. Fibonacci, fractals, modular, etc.).

Before the mathematical principle, one has to arrive at an idea. This idea across the class is a landscape of randomness - none of the students have come up with a relevant idea, that even relates to a child, or a play school or the organization of a building. Probably what I mean is in such a project, any idea is workable - and then, how do you contextualize? None of them have yet, gone into their childhood to dig out any aspect that they could manifest into a project. But then, there are these vague ideas of working with rhymes, music, dance, sound - all of which can we dealt with in so many ways. The lack of theoretical stand point does not allow to channelize a direction specifically for this particular project.

But eventually, we are moving towards the same random design method of the old school: give a project - student brings an obscure idea - nudge it to make a project. Eventually it will become something. My problem with this is a large amount of literal translation that becomes foolish buildings in our built environment. For example: a child is like a blooming flower, so the building becomes a flower; or children like basic shapes, so the building is a concoction of triangles-circles in plan, which eventually extrudes into a cake form. That the school is a place where knowledge grows - so the graph of growth of knowledge becomes a building; that it should be a happy place, hence curved forms. Such cliches shape our physical environment and a brief like this does not address it at all, in fact, it allows them to take it forward and make it build-able. It is the academia which has to address such issues. However, that's not happening right now.

We always chalk out objectives of the project but we never evaluate at the end of the project if students have achieved them. Most of them don't. And with the current 2nd year class, they ignore much of it, rather, they question the objectives itself! That's silly. But this pedagogical shift which embraces the old school programme driven projects are disappointing and unfortunately become monotonous engagements with a singular site.

I know this post has become fussy - I am not clear on any thing mentioned here. I have not stated what is the deviation, because I am not finding the right words to articulate...but eventually I would elaborate.

The Architecture of Non-Reason

"Why can't architecture be illogical?" asked a student.

I answered in the classic modernist way - that architecture is not absolute sculpture - and that thus it differentiates itself from art, that it is for a function and that it has to serve a larger community. That no architect can generate buildings (event if it was for the self) without considering logistical factors. That sculpture does not have to follow rules..." and so an and so forth...

To which, another classic, but un-informed response - "But all forms work..."

I said: "Yes, you put a toilet block in the middle of the road and it shall work - but what as an architect are you offering?"

Ah! Classic statements (I have educated myself on this while I was studying in my SYB Arch fuelled by my angst regarding role of an architect and what we are supposed to do? these were explanations I was satiated with...)! However, to me this debate was outdated and it did not take us anywhere. Sometimes, students ask questions which they themselves do not believe in. (I felt so with this one)

(my problem was the misplaced question on illogic: a brief that demanded an inherent mathematical logic to arrive at a design solution must not have harboured such a question which absolutely seems a-contextual to the project method)

I have been thinking of writing on "The Architecture of Non-reason", which shall ironically be logically reasoned out. I haven't decided on how and what would I write on it. But the trigger is my recent engagement with documentation of Sen Kapadia's projects - absolutely unreasonable. One can't even call it absurd: It does not even fall into a logic of method - he makes purely a-typical objects / spaces (as he would prefer to call them). He calls them intuitive. His buildings are absolutely un-relatable, abstracted to a level where one has to struggle to make an association with the reality of the world. 

Below are some images from Sen's office - and I have purposely chosen images I do not relate to. In all images, I see the manifest of non-reason. He would never justify even if my threw my question in the most direct way. 

The architecture of non reason perhaps works through intuition. Intuitions are one time decisions. They are untamed. They appear and die, one does not make plans for intuitions, they come on their own and go away! They do not have histories and hence are free of associations. Can one justify intuitions? They are not empirical or scientific, yet correct  most times - or at least decisions made intuitively never make you feel dejected. They qualify themselves as acceptable, and certainly one can not demand explanations for intuitions.

That is how the above architect works - with the idea of non-reason. But I am still not sure if non reason is a reaction to reason. Is it the struggle to be unreasonable that one makes such alien forms? Are these objects from another planet? They certainly do not qualify as poetic formally, the look like remains of some dead object, or something that has smelted, melted, eroded, in the state of metamorphosis - non conclusive. 

However, I have to elaborate some pedagogical deviations or revisions in the next post. Meanwhile, the post has allowed me to surface some points to elaborate my argument on the idea of non reason.

Implosions

I have not been writing. I have no drive to write meanwhile. Perhaps I am just in a void.
There are times when I want to draw badly - and when i take a paper, the pencil refuses to draw.
There are times when I wish to paint - but as I arrange all my materials, the paints become colourless.
There are times when I feel like writing poetry - and as I write, sentences reduce to words and letters.

Why does this happen? And why is it happening now all of a sudden - when just some days ago, I was almost regularly reflecting on everything, everyday. Am I tired or bored of it? Do I need a change? Do I need to quit what I am doing? Do I need to find a new place for myself to be in? Do I enjoy teaching? Am I doing enough  or far too much than required? Or am I too ambitious and focused? Should I just let things easy? I keep floating in this pool of questions - wading one question by another! There was a point in time when I was negotiating questions by doing things. Now, I am just meandering through them! I feel it's dangerous, scary. For some time, I feel like a weed - existing for nothing worthwhile!

Although, I enjoy completing half done things initiated by others, - when students produce sparks of ideas, and are not able to take them through, I feel like pulling their pencil, sitting on their stool and finishing off the ideas. "But those are not my ideas", I say to myself. Why am I not producing ideas? Am I really not producing ideas or have I just fed myself with too much of theory? Do I need to sit and just ruminate over all what I have read by far? I have read a bit too much i feel- it has made me very quiet, perhaps? Am I quiet? I don't know...

I keep going to the library occasionally - only to remind myself that there are so many books I haven't read yet. Today I re-familiarized with the library, and found there were so many new books...Whenever I see a new book, the only thing I think is that someone is thinking far more than myself. I am badly stuck in the sea of information. The other day, Chaitanya spoke to students in class: "This is your time to gather information, after a few years, all will make sense." I am in a phase where all information makes perfect sense to me and I don't know what to do with it! I am tired of being patient. I am tired of waiting. Wait is painful. I have to move on, and I am losing all interest to take the next step...

Its terrible - there was a time when I was upset because of my unclarity. Now I am so clear that I don't find the means to bridge huge gaps that lie towards my goal...

Janmashtami

This time I made a tree out of newspapers. I rolled up lots of newspapers and then kept tying them up using the knot system. Basically like a cue. I kept pairing lots of papers to make a thick trunk and left the branches loose to hang down. Then I painted most parts of the tree in brown to cover up the 'news' on the tree :P.
However, lastly I got some natural fibre of the tree from the building campus and covered it up with it and some green leaves. In the process stage, it looked a really gorgeous abstract tree form - like an octopus. I had to subtle it down to appeal to my family!

Some propping of branches was required due to the weight of the leaves, but the dim lights and correct focus successfully hid all the jugaad!

Natural trees and lots of clay toys made up the forever acceptable raas-leela scene for Jansmashtami. I had a good day of experiment.  

Plaza, Dadar

Kafkaesque models

TEXT - WORDS - IMAGE - BUILDING

Over the past 3 years we have been trying to formulate programmes which translate text into a physical landscape. Our endavours to engage with text have primarily been to inculcate may aspects into the studio. A study of Adrian Forty's "Words & Buildings" will give a worthwhile explanation of how we negotiate through language to communicate intangible ideas and how they finally get understood and manifested. In such transfer of ideas from faculty to student, and student to physical form, wide gaps are created. These gaps are because of the varying levels of understanding at which thoughts are exchanged. Much of the times, these thoughts are physically manifested as literal.

I have been trying to exactly define what does one mean by 'being literal' in architecture over the past 2 years. There is one mode of explanation that I generally use.
If you say,
A = B
A = C
then make B = C,
(where A is a word, B, C is a meaning)
you will be making something literal.
Mathematical logic in equating words & meanings perhaps makes architecture literal. The words we use for communicating our thoughts in architecture can be translated literally. Much of the goof up happens in verbalizing. While faculties talk of ideas, students understand it as words and dictionary meanings.

However, in this process, we were able to generate some interesting forms - sloping, crooked, twirling, swirling, spherical, conical, biological, etc. Only that none of the forms were placed in an appropriate site context. We have to still investigate how the interaction of form and site should be instructed. An architectural form is a result of not only the externalities of context, but also responds to the interior functions. This complex process, when well balanced along with all other default parameters like light, ventilation, circulation, etc allows for a debate at the next step. In juries, we ignore much of it and still are not able to talk of architecture.

However, if I was to evaluate text-based-entries to generate design solutions, we have to care to make students aware of the following:
1. When do you choose a text to intervene in a site.
2. On what basis shall you choose the text - how do you make a text relevant for a project
3. Do you use text as meaning or as concrete poerty? In other words, how do you use the text?
4. How should you rephrase architecture as words?
5. How should your building 'read' as text?

And there are many more, but the above questions are highly complex. What we wish to do is to expose the students to reading, thereby imagination and visualization. At that level, the project does open up points of debate. A lot of effort needs to then educate oneself on exposing to a lot of text-to-visual translations.

I don't really blame students, it's too early to manage all of it together. Perhaps if we could control our ambitions and design more feasible projects, it would be better for students. Although studios would be dry then, we should be able to bring out much more interesting and promising work.

Teachers's Day 2000

Ten years ago on this day, I was preparing for a lecture on "Biosphere" for class 9. The next day was going to be Teachers' day and students were going to pose as teachers and take a class. I was excited. Most of my classmates taught lower classes and were surprised of my choice to teach a class immediate to mine (I was in class 10 then - my matriculation year). Moreover, it was a subject handled by one of our strictest teachers in the school. However, I wasn't intimidated.

The next day was fun. We dressed up as teachers and went to classes to see how our peers performed and what responses they got from students. Later during the day, it was my class. Although many would pass of this day as waste, I conducted a serious lecture. I explained each part of the lesson using my own version of notes. Students asked questions later and I clarified each and every doubt. The jury went around classes and looked at how we conducted classes.

At the end of the day, results were announced. To my surprise, I was declared to be the Best Student Teacher. I was thrilled and excited. My friends were surprised of me handling class 9 being just one year senior.

The story wasn't over. I was only thinking that this was just a one sided affair. The jury felt that I conducted a good class. The next day, as I attended my regular lectures, the Geography teacher of class 9 (the strictest one, as I said before and our class teacher then), came to my class in person and shouted:

"Anuj, what have you done?"
I was scared! I asked, "Why, what did I do ma'am?"
"They are not letting me inside the class, they say they want you!" she was referring to the students of class 9.

This had  never happened in the history of our school before. Most student teachers pass off the day for fun, but I was quite passionate about it! She never taught the lesson to that class later - they only discussed questions on it. I felt truly appreciated and hence, the certificate below is very precious to me.

Perhaps there would be no better time than this to relive this part of my history. What importance do such certificates that we win during school times hold ? - probably they only gave us confidence then. But they have certainly helped / shaped our current trajectories...

Baghban IV

In the past few weeks, I have been questioning, rather understanding the construct of the institution of Indian family. How does the Indian family work. What are its codes? What are the roles of each person in the family? How is one made/supposed to behave? What if one does not follow the codes? How does it rupture one's way of living or operating then?

If family is our first school, then a lot of rules are set up within this institution. The Indian family is very hierarchical. The hierarchy dictates the code of conduct. Essential values like respect, truth (honesty), economy are controlled by this hierarchical setup. What one must speak and how one must talk to any one is also a political construct of this hierarchy. Unfortuantely, this hierarchy continues till you die, so there is not way to peek into your parents' lives by pointing at them any questions. Questions can easily be screened through the wall of hierarchy: "How dare you ask this question?"

However, a bigger problem is that all these values conceptually conflict and contradict each other. We are taught to be truthful and honest in our childhood. We are asked to talk politely to elders. We should respect others, and all that! In the real life, these actions are guided by factors completely unknown to us. There are times when our parents themselves refute their taught value systems. Money is a funny issue! All this while, my father maintained that life was larger than money, and these days he says that money is very important in life.

A major portion of the education from family or school is imparting certain idealist values in a person. These ideals were created and suited to a certain historic time and space. Do these values work in today's world? Does the conceptual framework of the formation of ideal ideas change? Are ideal thoughts sacred? Ideals create a lot of friction in the real world. The family never addresses this issue. Why does the ideal get so much importance in our lives when it never holds true? Why are we made to believe in this apparent truth, which ceases to exist? What consolation do we seek for in honesty? I don't understand. The family has to teach a small slice of corruption or to be flexible to corruption. We don't live in an ideal space and we have to be groomed for such a space right from the beginning.

Schools have to teach us to be tactical, opportunistic! Unfortunately, we only learn this when we grow 60 years old - that knowledge conveniently classifies as wisdom! By then we already lose on all luxuries of life - then they say, be happy of the fact that you never committed a crime! I say - well, those who committed are living far comfortably! Truth is over-rated, honesty too. Yes, we do need it, but in a world like this, family values itself have to change.

History:

Baghban
Baghban II
Baghban III

This post needs more clarification and elaboration. It shall be done in subsequent time.

Toys

Since a long time now, I have been wanting to write a post on the kind of toys I played with in my childhood. This thought was triggered primarily by two things: the reading of Roland Barthes'  "Toys" from Mythologies and my discussion on the same some time ago with a students during the Humanities lecture. Rather, I wanted to test if my toys have really shaped me!? I thereby started to write on cartoons too. But that article is not complete yet. I  have to refine it further such that I can make it into a formal paper.

I hardly remember what were my childhood toys like! Perhaps I must have thrown them, chewed them or swallowed some of it - I dont know! The faintest memory of my first toys is a jumping chicken which my mother brought for me after I got my teeth extracted! It was a white furry chicken which lasted for a long time and needed to be keyed. Yes, there were a lot of toys which worked on keys. My uncle used to travel to foreign countries very frequently. He had then got us (my brother and me) a car each. Mine was an old style fiat! I loved it. I would keep rolling it around my axis! During 1990 we had the opportunity to go to Singapore. My parents got a lot of toys for us from there. They were mostly electronic. Electronic toys could be trusted being imported! But it was an eclectic mix - a golden robot, 2 fighting tanks, a set of cars - all of it worked on batteries! I don't remember but there must have been a lot more! We must have misplaced them here and there.

As we grew, our choice of toys became peculiar. I was drawn to more human toys, more subtle; while my brother to the  more destructive and aggressive! I had a distinct liking for teddy bears! They were quite expensive then. So my first and the only teddy bear was stitched by my mother. My aunt gifted me another one on my birthday some time later. I kept them for a long time! I also remember buying a doctor's set - I would see myself as one! It had plastic scissors, cotton, bandage, a fake thermometer - all that! I still remember it cost Rs. 28/-. We got toys only on two occasions: on getting a good result or on a birthday. There were no un-occasional toys. 

Further I invested more in the GI joes - they were really marketed well and I wanted to almost make a collection. Over 4 years, I could collect only 4 of them, through which I would weave stories and plays. Immediately then, the teddy bear became the monster due to its size...Cars were all half broken so they could carry the gi joes...I had enough material to create a setting.

Later, I invested in toys like the safari (cars going through a track), i also had "The Young Architect" and "The Mechanix". I took a game on cricket too, which i seldom played! But these were the toys through which I really experimented a lot! I would not stick only to the manuals, but would go on to make more exciting moving things. 

There is another aspect to the whole story - games: all sorts from board games to the virtual ones (video games and computer games). I had distinct liking for games. I would play games like Business or Ludo with my friend and I guess it informs my notions of 'circulation' that I use in my architectural work today. Computer games like Prince of Persia and Digger presented the world of 'sections' to me. Later as we played newer games, they appeared in perspective. Spaces revealing themselves in perspective were scary...sectional spaces were so much subtler! Games like Tetris on the video games probably taught me articulation - of fitting things together compactly. I had immense liking for racing games. I don't know if they really induced in me the idea of competition. But I developed immense amount of patience and perseverance through these games.

All such games and toys made a definite space around me - a very human like, mechanical environment. Gijoes were a great way to understand anthropometrics and mechanix taught me structure. I think these toys contributed to a lot of my architectural knowledge. I still have all my toys, well preserved - to an extent that my parents are fed up of me. I don't share them with my nephews since they would immediately break them into pieces! Although some of them have been destroyed.

But I am going to try to theorize the above! It's just a descriptive account meanwhile. Somewhere, it does make me different from my brother's aggressive nature coming from his toys like the gun, or the bat, or the WOLF or DOOM he played on computer...Hence the Barthes connect...

Don't our toys shape us!? I have been wanting to pull the idea of toys in studio, especially since Prasad Shetty mentioned it last year to which I refuted. But I guess I am going to think about it seriously to be able to understand and derive newer expressions from the idea of toys and games...lets see...