First Day in the US of A

I am finally in US and the reason I am able to write this post is because I am jet lagged. It's 4 am in the morning here and I am awake - and although I tried to sleep back again, my head started buzzing with so many things I need to record!

To begin from the beginning - my flight which was supposed to be a direct one, was first made into a single stop over at Delhi, and later a two-stop flight via Delhi and Paris. This made the journey about 4 hours longer. I took all this time to calm down my mind with thousands of questions, opinions, suggestions, ideas, etc that people back there gave me regarding check ups, security, what to take care and blah and blah. I guess I just chose to forget all things - because I just wanted to experience all of it first hand. I don't remember of making any mistake in this entire process - it has been super smooth (touch wood!).

And at the airport, my parents called, and made me meet another 23-year-old boy who was travelling to New York for his studies. Initially I though it would be nice to connect, but i was taken aback too soon by his 23-year-oldness. You could make out his immense apprehension - as he kept taking out and putting back his pass port from his little wallet that hung around his neck for every check that we encountered. I tried to stick around with him till Delhi and then I said - it was enough of him. I kept getting last in every queue due to him! But the age of 23 is like that. You know that you know, but you know that you need to know more, so you are not sure of any action that you do. I was like that too. So I kept assisting this boy for some time - and like all Indian parents, and like me too, he was over-parented. Well anyway. Let's move ahead.

The flight was boring - the food Air India served seemed to be as old as ancient times and nothing tasted good. I cursed AI from the bottom of my heart. I was hoping to get a glimpse of the Eiffel Tower at Paris, but I didnt even find the Hoffman's avenues! Seems I will make a trip to find out soon. 

Taking off from Paris, we were over the sea for a very long time. There was nothing except blueness and thick layers of clouds. And I waited till I saw the coast of US. When it finally arrived - I only saw huge parking lots. I landed NY in time and it took a long time for the immigration queue till I went to one of the counters - when I was asked by the young volunteer about my status. He informed me that I was in the wrong queue. I  simply asked him if I must get into the long queue all over again and he said he would just put me into the right counter as my turn came.

Paris

Paris

Paris

Paris

The shore of USA

I could already spot my baggage from the immigration area and was already relieved - we were worried of all the fuss that AI created. I took out a trolley and promptly picked up my baggage anticipating further checks. But, there was nothing of all that. I plainly came out of the airport and spotted Neelima who was waiting to receive me out of the airport. 

At the airport, there were cab drivers, exactly like that in Mumbai - asking you for hiring them. I wondered if I had crossed continents. Neelima helped me take a bus ticket quickly and we were on a shuttle. We spoke and updated each other over our journey. As I looked outside, I felt as if I was in a video game. Buildings passing by at a speed same as those in games and shapes and sizes that I once experienced while playing bike games on the computer. This time, all was real. Grand Central arrived soon - Rohit (Manudhane), who has only been a pen friend (knowing me only by my blog) came there to receive me. It was extremely pleasant. Both, Neelima and Rohit cut short their job hours to coordinate my arrival. We got into the Grand Central station terminal and saw a bunch of tourists led by a guide - explaining the heritage of the place. It was so Mumbai-like. People were busy, running, buying, talking, waiting, etc. I could not believe I was in New York!

We had to take tickets to New Haven and I figured out queues, which I though would be ones I would need to get into. However, Rohit led me to the ticket kiosks from where I took ticket to New Haven and got some change - dollars - one of which I got converted into quarters from the store opposite. People have been so helpful by far (touch wood again!). Our train was in an hour and so we though of spending some time at the station. We soon went to a restaurant and kept our luggage. I told both - Neelima and Rohit that I wasn't feeling I was in NY finally!! Felt like dumping my bag and just exploring the tallness of the buildings. 

However, we spoke, joked, had a photo session and also skipped a train since we wanted to spend more time with each other already! NY was fine with it!

I finally boarded the train - secured my luggage on a seat and bid good bye to Neelima and Rohit. The train soon departed and we cut across a landscape I would have encountered from CST to the north via the Harbour line. This was the first instance of being surrounded by ONLY Americans and still, it didnt feel different. It only reminded me of the Mumbai local trains. The conductor was jovial and happy - and he did look down upon me with my extra baggage on the seat. He went ahead to say - "That's a complete no no - while people are standing in the gang way". I asked him if I could keep the bag on the aisle, and he sweetly said, "Not in the aisle, probably there...", pointing at another place, which was occupied. I smiled away with guilt. 

The train was phenomenally quiet. It felt as if we were flying! We reached New Haven in exactly 1 hour 45 minutes - as specified. This was the first time I had to handle two of my huge bags all by myself . It wasnt so difficult. As I waited back for the crowd to clear for me to take my time with the staircase, a lady hinted me to use the elevator. I was so glad - I just walked up to the elevator where I already saw a few people with their bags. Fellow passengers helped me secure my bags inside and held the lift doors open for me. It seemed as if it was their duty to do so! I was impressed. It just made my life easier. I called up my land lady from the station and she said she'd be there in 9 minutes! And she was!

She drove me to her house explaining me little things and I finally reached my home. Carolina (the land lady) seems to be an extrovert and we spoke a lot. She is in the process of furbishing her house and thus I was already able to give her a lot of suggestions :P

She seemed in oblivion of all options available to her.

I haven't seen any of New Haven yet and I feel exactly like I felt in Chandigarh some 8 years ago. Being in the house, I can hear silence, and a car or two passing by once in a while. It's extremely quiet and I am relaxed. This space already seems productive to me. I have written almost about 1400 words!!

Check this space for more of US!

Farewells

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I feel like writing an individual note to all those whom I shall be leaving behind. So many people, so many incidents, so many stories, things unsaid...although I do not have the time to write them all, I keep constructing letters in my head and dissolving them thinking what the person will think on receiving those letters. Letters are interesting devices, constantly making you imagine a person in a certain way and thus helping you construct a response. I have so many imaginations of every person that I would end up writing so many letters.

Most of the times, I end up not writing anything imagining unexpected reactions of people on reading them. But there are thousand things to tell - to parents, to friends, to students – all of them. But how valuable it would be for any of them? Who would want to receive them? After all it’s a letter, not an artwork. And neither are people like me who preserve letters from 20 years of history.

I think of whether the letter would assume more value if written by hand, personally, or does the content remain of more importance. This dilemma is as old as the debate between craft and the machine. Our aim with using the hand or the machine is also to do with neatness. We like our letters to be legible, clean and clear, which in some ways also conveys the clarity of content. Does it always mean so? Such letters are notes that talk about the high points of relationships and events between individuals. Parting notes, as most people like to maintain, must be amicable.

I have to write a lot and if I begin writing, I will end up writing a book! But I am waiting for my writing to be fresh now – to go into a new world and think back in a fresh perspective. Although, I have in store a lot of unposted stuff. Let me see how I can get it across.

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On the other hand, it is so encouraging to see people appreciating my written work. Most of them have expressed this by gifting me diaries, notepads, sketch books - all where I can draw, sketch and write. I wonder if I will be able to carry all of it with me. I wish I could. I would have filled up all of it to have an absolutely new archive for a new phase of my life!

I too had gifted myself diaries - ones which I make myself, simple, clean, and plain - purely functional, which I can't romanticize about. I like them cheap - newsprint paper spiral bound between two thick filecards. I like it that way. So whenever someone gifts me a diary, I preserve it, since it is far too precious than  my humble notepads. I find my notepads have their own character, which I do not hesitate to spoil. They allow me to be myself, without being conscious about maintaining them fresh. I had written about the idea of 'preserving newness' some time ago on my blog. And it's a strong dilemma I have to get over all the time. 

By now, I have about 15 notepads / diaries / books which I have never used. I always had a secret desire to fill up my entire cupboard by my own writings, notes, sketches, drawings. I do not really have any thing fancy  (expensive books, etc.) in my cupboard. All I have is collections from events, of places and of things - from there and there, that constantly remind me of what I have done and have been doing. They remind me of what shall be the logical next step for this journey...

Sometimes, I find it too hard to leave all this behind me. Of this little cupboard I have, I love every object stored in it - they have come into it with a lot of toil. I hope to keep building it up :)

Let's see how it develops from now...

Learning from Architecture school

Whenever you give your best shot for something, and it it doesnot succeed, remember that your final product wont be bad.
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Think about the logical way in which things would fall int place in your design.
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Everything is okay in the end, if it is not okay, it's not the end.
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Start with whatever you have. Material resources may be minimal, but results may be good.
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Get important work done quickly and well.

Things I am doing right now

What more can an architectural professional do?

In the professional world, awards become a means to validate practices. Awards give you something to flaunt about yourself. Awards are purchased and sold. Most of these awards are organized by cement or steel companies that want professionals to use their products. On the other hand, awards are given to establish linkages and networks. Very few of these awards are academic (given for buildings that address academic issues).

In the midst of all this, if architectural professionals stepped back and thought about larger agendas with their practices, we would have a much responsible built environment.

I was thinking what Responsibilities of architecture professionals could be:

1. To take some time and teach skills to upcoming students.
2. Engage in more intellectual works by reading and writing.
3. Be open to criticism and open for dialogue with students.
4. Inspire people by taking up challenging projects.
5. Contribute to public works in the city by means of critique and suggestions
6. Keep a check on the capitalistic notions in market and maintain integrity of the profession.
7. Supporting students by means other than financial - adopt good students and sponsor basic work infrastructure.
8. Publish and reflect more upon cultural and everyday activities around them.

Reading Landscapes

Wall Building

Image city

Checklist for Immigrating Students

My friend Akhil Kapadia just shared with me an absolutely vital list that every immigrating student would like to have for efficient planning.

I must thank Akhil for allowing me to share it with all on my blog upon my request.

On academic spaces

I have spent the past week writing an essay for the college magazine, where I was asked to talk about the academic orientation of the school. Writing elaborate notes, explanations, incidents, I felt I would never be able to express something in the given word limit. I have been a voracious recorder of AOA on my blog and felt repeating any of it would not be helpful for me or my readers. Three things that I went ahead with in my head with was - my audience, my opinion and the practical constraints like the word limit given to me. I defined my audience as students, faculty and management of AOA, my opinion as critical and my word limit stretched to 1500.

Although I would publish the write-up on my blog here in some time, Here I present the edited substantiation on the essay. The original essay has already been criticized by the Principal (AOA-UA), saying that I "could have used my 1000 words more effectively" and that I "should have constructed the article without any reference to the Institution's history". This according to me is highly political. However, I do not have any more time to dwell on the essay. Here are edited excerpts of the article that is (hopefully) soon to be published in "Rachana Evergreen" magazine.

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Generally, the academia is constructed and projected as something that would aid the building industry. But the academia has to critically address the building industry so that new directions are opened up for pursuits of the act of building. The academia has been a product of the act of building buildings.

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over a facebook conversation on 'relationship between practice and academia', Prasad Shetty says:

"Why is only the architectural academia expected to 'bridge the gap' with the act of building buildings (I think the term practice is too broad to be used here as being in the academia is also a practice). Can we find ways where the act of making buildings becomes sligtly more academic."

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Over the last year, during an intense academic meeting, some one assertively said, "Whenever someone comes to me with a confused mind thinking over the choice of his / her career, I suggest him/her to do architecture."

This statement has merits as well as demerits. I will be glad to believe that architecture exposes a person to a range of things in the course of its study and enables and individual to engage with a range of conditions. However, it is the failure of our academic space if it is not able to cater to the dilemma of ‘choice’ that every student faces in this vast range of subjects that are available today. Nor do our universities allow any cross pollination of ideas between various departments. That is something I leave for a larger discussion later. 

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Should the role of academic space be to critically address such changing mode of production or should it become a default function of such demand? In other words, should architectural schools enable its students to think of possible new ways of emerging practices or should they reduce themselves to become vocational centres which equip students with skills to work in offices?

An attempt to answer the above question posits us to an existential predicament – whether education is meant to satisfy the hunger of stomach or satiate the restive mind? It is only societal hegemony that separates the two. A learned individual uses his / her education to negotiate the real world and invents new tools while struggling to placate his / her existential needs. We are made to believe that the academy is supposed to equip with tools. But ideally, one must develop one’s own tools in the way one chooses to use one’s education.

In my opinion, academic spaces need to help students to get interested in themselves, with their immediate environment and become sensitive as well as critical to these conditions. Such conditions have to be located in a larger cultural, social and political environment.

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The first year studio’s intention has, for us, been about leaving the baggage that the student has always been carrying with him/her. We place our understanding of architecture in a broad social, anthropological and critical episteme, where students understand the ‘self’, look at things around critically, and understand their own social construct.

Thereby, we attempt at drawing our architectural problems from social conditions, notions of history (institutional and personal) and certain set clichés in perception which are brought to the class and followed by a rigorous process of deconstruction. In the process of this deconstruction is the building up of the project.

Architectural Design studios are about CONSTRUCTION OF MEANING in contrast to the skill based exercises of Basic Design. Students are forced to understand the meaning of architectural forms, the way things function, and why are they the way they are. We try to delve in this meaning through various forms of media like films, readings, essays and critical discussions.

from Academic Report 2009-10, Architectural Design, AOA

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Four very important, misunderstood words:

Glossary:

Practice: Learning to do a job by repetition.

Profession: The aspect of using practice as a service. The exchange of service for money. 

Discipline: Critical reflection on the way on practices and executes in real world.

Institutionalization: the term is used to denote the process of making a mode of behaviour as an established custom or norm within a system

-this section to be elaborated over an independent post

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look forward for

"In Search of Academic Space"

at Dagagiri

and Rachana Magazine (if it's not opposed)

River in the City

Second Complaint to BEST / Bus stops in Mumbai

Dear Sir / Madam,

It is extremely encouraging to have your responses and constructive dialogue towards positive action. In this same positive spirit, please allow me to continue to point out several other matters of design that you must critically address while you upgrade the BEST infrastructure in future. I would like to remind you that these 'reflections' come about through my expertise in architecture and design.

Over this post, I would like to talk about the BEST bus stops in the city presently. Honestly, I am not aware how the process is facilitated (who builds these bus stops and how are they executed). But I am sure you have a stake in funding them. I understand there must be many economic, technical and technological constraints in realizing them across the city. However as a user, tax-payer and concerned designer, I would like to point out the following:

The BEST bus stops at most suburbs are over-designed. These bus stops can be much simpler and efficient. Right now, they seem to be using more material than required, ergonomically incorrect and extremely dysfunctional. Let me explain what problems users face with the present bus stops. Eventually, I will talk about factors must be ideally considered while you plant a bus stop on any pavement:

a.     The Bus stop not only indicates a stop for the bus, but also becomes a temporary shelter for the passenger of the bus on the road. A shelter has to protect the user from externalities like rain, sun, etc, and at the same time, it must organize movement of passengers into the bus. 

b.    The present bus stops do nothing of the above – they have only become objects to take on as many advertisements onto themselves as possible. Apart from this ‘marketing’ function, bus stops have to respond to two important parameters:

i.    Response to Sun: Bus stops must provide shade – most of the times, people have to stand in scorching sun. Sometimes, they move away from the bus stops to go to areas of shade to alongside shops or boundary walls, stand behind the bus stop in its shade to protect themselves from the heat. This is the first failure of the stops, since people refrain from using them the way they are intended to.

ii.   Response to Rains: People get wet in rains while standing in the bus stops since there is no adequate overhang that protects them from windy rains. Several times, people stand with open umbrellas under the bus stops since they leak tremendously. This means that the gutters of bus stop roofs are not fixed properly or need maintenance.

In both the above cases, what essentially is the use of providing an overhead roof?

c.     The seats of bus stops are very badly designed. There is not enough gap between the backrest (rod) and the seat to place one’s bum comfortably. Moreover, the railing opposite to the seat is too close to allow a person to stretch legs or even allow another passenger to pass through the already formed queue. 

d.    The signage of every bus stop is illegible. It gets hidden in the depth of the bill board on the top (due to the perspective way humans see) and almost gets neglected because of its size as compared to the bill board.

The above problems occur because of extremely poor understanding of how people interact with urban furniture (street infrastructure). The designer of the above bus stop has not taken into consideration any of the above factors, which are intrinsic to the place of Mumbai – scorching heat and heavy rains. A simple solution would have been to think of permissible projecting roofs that not only shade but also protect against rain (a principle similar to chhajas in buildings). Massive prototyping of same bus stop module may be important for large scale production, but please understand that small alterations in design can make them adaptable to different light (sun) and local conditions of the city. (Sun-paths i.e. direction of sunlight can be studied and designs can be made adaptable). When people stray away from bus stops in search of shade, they have to run towards the bus when it arrives on the stop – often, in this running, people miss the bus, hurt themselves by crowding at the bus entrance. Thus, a small factor creates a huge mess.

Secondly, the bus stops along Bandra-Kurla Complex (the ones near MMRDA work brilliantly, are extremely simple and a great example to follow. They offer good seating, good shade and enough protection against rains. How do they seem to be so well planned?

Lastly, I hope you will locate the design priorities of bus stops in the correct order, as explained above. The issues of shelter and BEST instructions are more important than advertisements and bill boards on the bus stops. With increased ticket fares and almost double the amount of people travelling through BEST buses, it is the responsibility of BEST to cater to important issues first and make itself the best transportation service in the country.

I have more notes to make. However, we can discuss them one at a time. Your active involvement and dialogue will be really helpful.

Looking forward to your response on the above.

P.S.: A photo documentation of the above issues can be generated and compiled. Drawings explaining problems could also be initiated. Attached are images of bus stop designs being referred to.

source of above photo: http://vgshah.wordpress.com/2011/02/10/love-u-zindagi/

source of above photo: http://www.mumbaimirror.com

Anuj Daga

Architect, Mumbai.

anujdaga1@gmail.cm

a.daga@aoamumbai.in

            +91 98191 41118 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting            +91 98191 41118      end_of_the_skype_highlighting      

201, Hill View Society, 

Yashodham, Film City Road, 

Goregaon (East), Mumbai – 400 063.  

On Tue, Jul 10, 2012 at 12:01 PM, Transport <transport@bestundertaking.com> wrote:

Sir,

This refers to your mail to us.

Your suggestion regarding Seats, Windows, Destination boards etc. have buses forwarded to the concerned section for taking necessary action.

As regards Bus Drivers/Conductors not giving adequate time to passengers to board the buses, necessary introductions are being given to them.

Yours Faithfully
Traffic Manager
Planning & Control