Himal / Himalaya

Based on my Visual Culture class, I am trying to do an experiment here with the way maps are represented. We spoke about politics of representation, Euro-centric world map, politics of mapping in our class.

And for a long time I was searching for this upside down map of the world, which I could finally source from here:

I am wondering why Himal Map is called so. On a wild and obvious guess, I present one of the immediate images that google displays on keywords "Himal Map":

Is the reference to the Himalayas (the crest referring to the new figure of the map?). Seems interesting. Errrr, but the real reason is this. Anyway, I think it may be an interesting coincidence for HIMALaya crests to look like the Himal Map of India.

At Kanchanjunga

Palghar

We went to Palghar over the weekend (2nd year students and faculty). However, I guess we were closer to Kelve. Spent some time in peaceful places, cool shadows and timber buildings.

I think i kept harassing the students forcing them to work. Although they visited the same places last year apparently, no one knows where they lost all the documentation work of these places done by them. Anyway, we looked at the buildings more closely. I had to constantly feed in techniques of measuring things. I had strictly instructed the students not to get camera. So there was no drama of photo sessions. Inspite of that, I do not think they observed. Neither did they see. They kept missing some of the key things to take note of.

The gujju gang kept themselves busy with periodical eating rounds. I wondered if there was nothing else that the space prompted them to do. No one discussed anything about space (perhaps because they had already been there last year).

Visiting Mahendra Kale's office, I felt reassured about my decision to stay away from architectural practice for a while. I wondered if he felt conscious of me being around while he explained the structural concepts to students. Anyway, it was really nice of him to have arranged the entire visit for us.

Teen Turmoils

In my quest to help students, sometimes, I overspend my time on them. I don't realize how much time I put into them without any knowledge of what it would manifest into? And it is so difficult to take the role of a counselor. The last stage of the teen age is the most perplexing, most difficult - because you have to decide and take a stand for yourself. I too was so confused at this point of time in my life. I didnot know what was my calling. I wanted to leave architecture, not knowing what I would do...

But I stayed on, precisely because I didnot know what I would do? And another year passed. Over this year, I just spent time in drawings - making just immaculate drawings. Rotrings - I almost fell in love with them. I would spend a lot of time in the library - looking at old, really old books, looking at drawings. Unfortunately, we did not even have faculty who could excite us with our work. Mundane people - clumsy faces... Same old sheets. What else would one do? I kept looking at books, buildings - just tracing them - without knowing why. I didnt even know how to look at books - what to understand out of it! At that time, it was only drawing to the rescue. This is when my performance dropped.

Fourth year cracked because of Prasad Shetty - and I still remember one question he asked while discussing 'histories" in Research Methods class: "Is your grandfather not important?". This invoked a whole new sense of interest in myself. That is where it started...I used to go after classes and ask him one line questions - on generalizations, on opinions. He would say "But these generalizations are not coming from nowhere." And I spent my time only in analyzing these statements he made. Thats all. He would never give answers. He still never gives answers.

But at this point of time in my life, I met some key people: Madhumita Nandi, Ateya and others. A whole new explorations took place. But going back to this confusion, Ateya once told me: "Look at people whom you like - what path did they follow, do you want to be like them?" And it was all about finding the right people and the right paths then. It gave a lot of food for observation and thought. Life seems different now, where I am out of that state of haze. But I can relate to students who feel lost. And it is in such cases having ideal people become important. Having role models become important. Ofcourse, I may have said earlier that in being 'like' someone, we lose ourselves, but we need to be like someone also to know whom we dont want to be like. Being neutral is unproductive. And especially in this world, being unproductive is senseless.

But I dont even know whether whatever I speak to students makes sense to them. Or does it help them. And what if I misguide them by mistake, or what if they misinterpret me? I am too cynical sometimes, and I dont know if those who trust me, too get influenced. That is not something I ever intend to do. I dont know how cynicism or sarcasm affects students. But that has become a part of me. I just feel sorry for too many people experiencing the same old difficulties and insecurities of life. So I just try to listen to them. And there are times when I avoid them - because I dont know if i have a role to play really. Who am I?

Sometimes I feel so many of them are wasting their potentials, but it's their choice. Sometimes I also feel that students take undue advantage of the time I spend with them. I know all that - but I just try dont let it bother me in the 'benefit of doubt' principle - that it's their loss if they do so. But I dont know how this immense problem of not being able to cope up with the field / study of architecture can be more subtle.

I guess eventually people find their way. Just that it must not be too late. Otherwise, being cynical again, I think life is a b****. Life is the step mother of time I guess. Or vice versa. Anyway, whats the point of going into that kind of negativity.

As Dushyant and I would conclude: What is, is is.

(and I don't know how many times I have use don't in the post and I don't want to use more don'ts - what else do you do with language, anyway!)

First Year AD Jury: Expression Spaces

I myself waited with this project and made my fellow faculty wait for a long time before the final jury could be taken. It was because I was not satisfied with the amount of time the students spent in their process of evolving their design. However, the final jury for the 3rd project of the first year students, I felt, had much more content than discussed in the session.

The project was about making and expression space of a professional (profession) by deriving patterns out of their working conditions (behavioural, habitual, through their objects they use or deal in, etc.). We chose 40 professions to begin with - a variety of them - from the vada pav seller, dabbawala to the Chartered Accountant or the Dancer. To limit the scale/scope of the project for the first year, we restricted the area to 50 sq m. I shall be writing a formal "retrospect" brief for this project later.

Each design had so much potential, and each designer had so much enthusiasm. And so I too got enthused. The above sketches were made as I thought along with the students. Of a postman, a space in the wells of the staircase ringing door bells and looking into interiors of houses framed through keyholes and cut-outs in safety doors, of a barber - looking at multiple hairstyles, almost living in hair. For an astronaut, we thought of the ground plane, which is never flat - rather someone who spent time in undefined plane. So the undulating surface enclosed in a space which would be under constant air pressure. However, the student took a complete different trajectory and made something like pneumatic slabs. He lifted this inhabitable expressive space a feet above the ground, thus it being in space (ungrounded) while the user entered or left the space.

For the tailor, we began with the idea of playing between the 3 critical numbers: shoulders-chest-waist. These numbers define the body and in turn, the garment. The idea could have been abstracted into a series of such hangers sized to people. However, the idea was lost. The pattern in the fisherman's profession was seen to be a daily passage between solid ground to the non-ground. This pattern of transition between surfaces that the fisherman inhabits was what we tried to explore. The idea was abstracted through the symbolic net, which becomes a surface to walk as well as envelop. The movement it induces in the body is similar to the movement from land to sea (and vice versa) by cleverly spacing the structural members of the support. I am not sure if the student brought out this aspect clearly. There was perhaps a little conceptual misunderstanding.

A rigorous process followed for the dabbawala - of analysing the codes on the dabbas to evolving it into a spatial configuration. This was truly the most fascinating project in the class. Others were that of the joker, achieved through the act of juggling, and completely colourful while another interesting one was the magician, where I tried to crack the idea of anti-pattern (that a magician works with). Although it was a tricky profession, if there was a little more rigour in the project, it would have worked brilliantly. But theorizing the whole idea of magic for architectural space was something that I enjoyed in my mind. I didnot discuss it with the student since it would make no sense to her. So I kept myself low-key.

I think the students got an idea of anthropometrics and the process of evolution of space. Since the first two projects were too exploratory in terms of form, we consciously kept this one as an exercise for evolving space. Now, we need to introduce them to function, while the students need to learn how to communicate their designs ideas through their work.

photo titles in order (expression spaces of):

bus conductor

priest

magician

bus conductor

dietician

dermatologist

astronaut