Cycloid

Today, Prof. Deshpande took us to the first year class where he was teaching the students to draw a cycloid.

A cycloid is the locus of a point on the circumference of a moving circle. Fascinating. It immediately reminded me of the steam engine and the Harrappan toys (frogs with elleptical wheels which when run, jump!). The idea was gripping. Just last week, I had also read about Descartes, and how he took numbers to a visual space. So I immediately asked Deshpande sir about how it could be algebraically noted. Since it was not a free curve, its equation is written in terms of theta (the angle of the radius). Complex. I know. But i could immediately relate to what it meant - it meant that the coordinates of the curve would only be polar coordinates. Fancy no! While preparing for my graphics lecture, I clarified my polar and cartesian coordinate concepts (which I had studied in the 12th standard). It would have been so easy if our teachers then could make us understand visually, rather demonstrate us its use. Today I find it: and I can actually link it to structure of a building, geometry, graphics, algebra, cartesian system and ofcourse - design. Which Design: the lovely Kimbell Art Museum by Louis I Kahn in Texas. There are so many aspects to study in this building. Its amazing.

After coming back home, I could not resist trying to draw this out myself. I quickly opened AutoCad, and the first few times, I got it wrong. Then I had to visit Wikipedia, and learn how to draw it. So here I present to you my version of a Cycloid with a radius of 7 units.



















Imagine if the circle was moving on a sine wave! Now that one would require a software. And what if the circle was a sphere! Keep guessing!

Google Gadgets

Today I have been exploring the different gadgets that gmail offers and it's exciting feeling for a while to make yourself a bit tech savvy. I am writing this blogger post from my gmail account and its fascinating to learn that I am not that bad at technology! Now I will not have to switch between pages to keep maintaining my blogs. Sometimes I wonder how people keep doing such things, where life is becoming so simpler. It's just that on the face this process looked difficult. I made a google search as to how I can blog from my gmail account although I used to login from a rediff username, and google was prompt enough to offer me a solution.

So I am now going to hunt for more such gadgets for my gmail interface. People who visit my blog often will be happy to find my postings more often! Many a times I am too lazy to write, but now, it will be like writing an s.m.s. on my small little blog window on gmail.

:)

Mumbai

Bomb Scare

Yesterday, as I reached to the college in the morning, I was informed that there is a bomb threat call in the college, and it had to be vacated.

I was asked by Adarkar Sir to call at helpline 100 and ask for the Dadar Police chowki number. Mr. Ravindra Punde then made a call on my noted down numbers. He spoke in Marathi - “mee Academy of Architecture madhoon bolotye, aamchya college madhye bomb threat cha call aala aahey, me principal aahey”

Police: “chaalel”

RP: “chaalel mhanje kaay?”

Police: “koni kela phone?”

RP: “aata phone karnaara naav sangto kaa?”

I guess now the police is so used to such checkings, that it’s a daily affair for them. We vacated the college in about the next 15 minutes, and the police van had reached by then.

As I stepped outside the college, I saw a horde of students standing in front of the building of Academy of Architecture, as if it is going to be demolished. It was spectacular. As if they were waiting for the bomb to explode.

No one dispersed. No one moved…


Our class was cancelled, but we thought it would be interesting to have an informal chat in the open ground behind. By then, Neera Ma’am suggested that she would talk at the Ravindra Natya Mandir and ask if they could allow us to use their courtyard for holding a discussion/class. (She knew the director of the place, who had retired, but she just took a chance with the security guard, if he allowed). The space was made available to us.

We held our Design studio in the courtyard of Ravindra Natya Mandir. Students sat on the steps and the faculty addressed the class (almost unfazed by the ’bomb scare’). It was as if everything was normal. After all, this was perhaps the 3^rd or 4^th threat call in the college.

Students used the steps and stage to display their work. The space became like mini museum, and the dark brown granite steps gave a nice backdrop to students’ work.

I like this nature of urban space in the city. The immediate availability and the way students adopted to it in an emergency situation was interesting. The space was calm, there was no clutter, we discussed student work, and it wasn’t even a classroom. I also like Neera ma’am’s prompt idea, and she also went to the extent of calling other classes to occupy the courtyard of the Ravindra Natya Mandir. I guess that is the sign of an activist.

On the other hand, spectacles are created in the city so instantly. They die instantly too. Looking at 200 students on an otherwise empty road was spectacular, and I couldnot resist taking a picture. In some time, students will walk off after hearing such warnings so easily that the “threat calls” will become a part of everyday. Or has it become our everyday already?

This was one instance also where I realized that it's not so important to have a campus for the college. Infact the very setting of it allows for multiple kinds of activities, and the multiplicity of spaces available to us also changes the way we behave or adjust to space. It was a break from the mundane classroom setting.   Also I realized that how easy was it to convert the existing space itself into a campus. We just need to make holes in the boundary walls of our adjacent plots. Then we have a cultural centre, a large courtyard, a large open ground, a temple and so many things in our campus. How exciting it would be!

Unfortunately, boundaries have become essential. The reason - just the very threat calls!

Art and Artists

In the past few weeks I have attended works of various artists - Sudhir Patwardhan (painter),Gieve Patel (painter) and Mithu Sen (artist) and Dayanita Singh (photographer)

Sudhir and Gieve have been trained as doctors. Their works have dealt primarlily dealt with the idea of body. Though both are doctors the representation of the body in their work is completely non clinical. In their paintings, the limbs never have the bony structure. Bodies donot have biological details. And both the painters capture very different moments in the city. In one of the paintings, Sudhir freezes an accident on the street, in another, he draws out the memories of Parel fly over and mills, talking about memory, history, pace of life in the city, transformation...Similarly, Gieve seems interested earlier in political figures. He also talks about experiences which can be relived while seeing paintings. One of Gieve's work was a sculpture 'Eklavya' - a bronze hand with a cut thumb. I wonder what the experience of an artist would be (who is actually a doctor) to construct a sculpture without a thumb. Similarly, Gieve's painting in which a group of crows were eating a mouse (or a lizard), where the lizard was cut open, the internal organs of the reptile have been blurred. A doctor would precisely know how things inside the body are placed, and when he chooses not to show them, it definitely is a thought to ponder upon.

On the other hand Mithus work (http://www.mithusen.com/ ) was full of glutton, penises, skeleton and biologically morphed teeth and gums. Her work was very provocative. What she shared in the talk I attended was her difficult past and struggle with drawing in academics at Viswa Bharati, and also her difficulty with language. When she moved to Delhi from Bengal, she had a very strong accent, and also she would teach in a school, where people would make fun of her (and she would feel embarrassed). She took time to come out of this, and to become confident when later she got a scholarship to study in London. Her work explores sexual imagery which embarrasses the viewer and forces them to accept the hard reality of life (suddenly as if the position of the person who is making fun, and the person being made fun of was changed). What I saw in her work was the meticulous detail in the internal of the body - the intestines, the detail of teeth, gums, hair, etc. which talk about female sexuality.

The doctors were on the contrary subtle. I visited the exhibitions and talks with Subulakshmi, and infact her presence helped in raising sevaral of these distinctions. The work of art attains so much more meaning when one knows the history of an artist, which otherwise is assumed as a mere painting.

Dayanita's lecture at Max Mueller was another interesting one, where she spoke about book making. She spoke about her experiments in laying out books, distribution of books, publishing, and dissemination  in the industry of publishing. Her ideas were great, and no doubt that she is a good artist. But photography, she said was something alien to her. She had actually went to study typography at NID. She ended up taking photograpy due to some strange reason where she felt she could express better through that medium. There was no stress on the act of taking a picture or photography in her entire lecture. I wondered if she actually was a photographer. She spoke about how she liked making little booklets, how she liked making books, presenting them in different ways to raise several questions about pulishing and the industry of prints. She shared her experiences with Gerhard, who is supposed to be a great publisher from Germany. However, it was silly when she said that her real place was the 'road', where once her work was displayed in the jeweller's shop front, where beggars, and paan walahs would point to people her work and ironically when she was selling her newest booklet (about 50 pages, vertical half A4) at MMB (without any bills) priced at Rs. 2000/-

Anyway,

l have several questions about artists, the practice of art and about who become artists, rather who should become artists? What separates one artist from another? Is there a relationship between medium that the artist uses and him/herself? Are artists confused people or people who are confident with confusion? In the above cases, I see that they project contradictions. Unfortunately these are encountered only by other artists. I wonder if these contradictions reach people. It's only the artist community which talks about such issues and artists become famous. How do artists become famous otherwise? They receive grants, huge amounts of money, for whatever they want to do - ofcourse once they get famous! Funny isn't it? But I am sure there is more to it. Otherwise who would raise these large questions of gender, identity, body, space, time, place...

I have many such complex issues with my own self. One of these I tried to raise in my thesis. I am not particularly skilled. Artists find a way of representing their contradiction (even thought they might not be skilled). Perhaps that is what is commendable. How does one represent complex issues with the self or the society? Artists bring these difficult or complex experiences together in some form. Can this form be architecture? Can architects be artists? A big debate. However, I am still to start a practice, and still to get a commission to experiment this question.

and for this question,
My father says, 'Life is very long',
and I believe that's the whole problem.

Western Railway

Letters that start with 'unfortunately'....

...and discuss it
---

Dear Anuj,


unfortunately I couldn`t meet you personally this week, please except my Email instead.

As you know already, the Cultural Spaces-project will not be carried forward in the format we had expected, rigtht now it has even come to a stillstand and I do not see that we will carry it further before July/August.

You have been very helpful during the process and even afterwards in assisting us in our regular work with many good ideas and design proposals. Nevertheless I would like to suggest that we stop the work contract at this stage due to the circumstances given in the cultural spaces-context. Moreover our institute will remain closed during the second half of May and there are not many programs in the low season before July/August.

Please let me know whether it would be agreeable to you to end the cooperation with the end of this month. Since ths is very short notice I could also offer to continue till mid May, until we close the institute.

We really enjoyed working with you and you have become a member of the team.We see many opportunities to cooperate in the context of other programs in the near future and would be very happy to stay in touch with you.

Looking forward to hearing from you,

warm regards,

Marla

---

Dear Anuj,

Unfortunately, I am unable to offer you admission to The Master of Architecture II program
of the Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture program of The Cooper Union.

Our deliberations have been concluded. All of us continue to be impressed by the outstanding academic and creative talents of all our applicants, but we have a very limited number of openings. Generally, we admit less than ten percent of all applicants.

I wish you continued success in the future and especially in your academic career.

Sincerely,

Mitchell L. Lipton
Dean of Admissions and Records
and Registrar

---

Dear Anuj Daga,

We regret to inform you that after careful consideration of your application, the Admissions Committee is unable to offer you admission to the Harvard University Graduate School of Design. We would like to underscore that the Committee is keenly aware that there are many strong candidates whom we are unable to admit. We very much appreciate your interest in the Graduate School of Design and wish you the best in your career pursuits.

Sincerely,

Gail Gustafson and Geri Nederhoff
Directors of Admission

---

I am truly sorry to inform you that we are not offering you admission to MIT in the Department of Architecture. The number of applicants for admission to the Graduate School greatly exceeds the number that can be accommodated and it has been necessary to refuse admission to some fine applicants.

We appreciate your interest in MIT and sincerely hope that you may be able to continue your studies elsewhere.

Sincerely,

Yung Ho Chang
Professor and Department Head
Department of Architecture
Massachusetts Institute of Technology

---

Dear Anuj,

Letters have been mailed out… you should have or will be receiving one most any day.
For those accepted into the program, they were contacted by telephone. We had so many excellent applications this year and unfortunately we could not accept everyone. If you have received an offer from another institution, you may want to consider accepting it.

Please let me know if you have any questions.

Best,

Dianne WhitmoreDepartment of Architecture
Graduate Field Coordinator
Cornell University

AOA Final Jury 2010

(photos in order: house for atheist and a believer, again same, house for plant maker/breaker, house for a person with mixed identity, drawing for space for sculptors, model of the previous, space for a body builder)


We finished the First year AOA final jury today. Looking through incomplete works, unthought-of panels, last minute models and messy floors, we finally shortlisted 8 projects to be discussed in the class. I would like to discuss those projects on my space here.


Project 1: Shamin Bhangwar - She built a space for a musician and a meticulous lady in Sherley Village. What she explored was the musician’s space where she translated the 5th symphony of Beethoven into her architectural expression inside the house using curved roofs, sloping ramps and fabric coverings. Though the project was quite literally translated, the effort was commendable. Her drawings were beautiful and the model was superbly executed.


Project 2: Sahil Kanekar - He chose to bring a character from Madhya Pradesh’s dry land to meet a sailor in Sherley village. He decided to recreate the experience of a ship through the house he designed for both these characters. So his house sat inside a depression where in you climbed to a deck through a ramp crossing the water that would accumulate in the depression. He created a watch tower, a bedroom which was half submerged in water (like you would see from inside a ship) and a suspended floor where one could experience the unstable of the ship.

Project 3: Vidhi Jain - Chose to work with two sculptors (and some complicated story). She manifested the terrace of a 6 storey high tower into a beautiful sculpture like rib case (or rather a spine) - the language of which flowed in to the space of the second character. The perfection with which she executed her drawings and model were superb.

Project 4: Anushka Desouza - I was not interested in her characters at all. However, what we found interesting in her project was the way in which she articulated her spaces in a shoe box like space opening and transforming the spaces outside it.

Project 5: Hrishikesh Borse - His users were a car stealer and perhaps a mechanic? He actually ended up in an exciting dynamic form, which was derived after studying the aerodynamic properties of a car. Though the concept did not apply to the site, or even the function, we appreciated his commitment to a form, which was quite fascinating.


Project 6: Siddharth Kantharia - The most celebrated project of the class - where the two users were an atheist and a believer of God. The design posed an interesting dialectic of spaces which questioned and supported the belief of God at the same time. This was manifested again in Sherley village - a predominantly Christian community, where Siddharth chose to begin by using his building to hide an existing cross, which is only revealed at the end of the journey in the house. The house uses Christian signs and play of light and shadow to create experiential spaces where a dialogue between the atheist and the believer would take place.


Project 7: Nikita Mahale - Her users were a psychologically irritated person who would purge his frustration by plucking leaves (in his village) and grass and a gardener from Hiranandani. The project saw the two users as plant-breaker and plant-maker, in the context of the site, and developed a language wherein the house protects the trees from inside while the trees grow on outside the house. Nikita worked consistently over manifesting a cage over which leaves would creep and become the skin, which could be plucked to open out a window from the house while the gardener thought that he is protecting the trees from his house partner.

Project 8: Rohini Bapat - Rohini’s project was selected for her improvement graph and the beautiful large sections that she drew. She worked with the scrap material on a junkyard site to create a boundary where a night watchman could give a cricket enthusiast practice lessons to develop his skills in the sport. Though Rohini’s project had large technical errors, the quality of spaces that she created were really good.

All project in some ways questioned several notions of the city. The communal mosaic of a neighbourhood, the large green bounded gardens in Hiranandani, the wealth of material in what seems junk at Chor Bazaar, or the junk that converts into a space in a formal space… there were interesting contradictions. Perhaps students were too tired to discuss them,

But that is what was perhaps depressing. We asked students if they liked philosophy or how they decide upon liking certain things, or how they look at the city, or what do they feel about slums - none answered! However, they liked certain drawings, because of technical correctness, not because it was a nice experiential space, or because it felt nice…I think students take pleasure in construction and graphic subjects, where things are given. They said they refer books for Basic Design, not for Architectural Design. They refer to google and type in keywords (themes) for their AD on search engines (how ridiculous can that be!). However, they said they like to study real sites.

I spoke a lot, and tried to engage them in a discussion (but maybe that’s ironical and did not help in a ‘dia’logue). I should have kept my mouth shut. No one likes to talk; no one wants to discuss things. They come from a setup where things are always fed! But things will be like that. And I will continue to be irritated by the system.

Pushp Ki Abhilaasha (Desire of a Flower)

Today while traveling in the local train, a rose fell off a lady's hair, and then what happened:

चाह नहीं मै सुरबाला के
गहनों में गुंथा जाऊं
चाह नहीं प्रेमी माला में
बिंध , प्यारी को ललचाऊँ



चाह नहीं सम्राटों के
शव पर , हे हरी डाला जाऊं
चाह नहीं देवों के सर पर
चढूँ , भाग्य पर इतराऊँ



मुझे तोड़ लेना बनमाली ,
उस पथ पर तुम देना फेंक
मात्र भूमि पर शीश चढ़ाने ,
जिस पथ जाएँ वीर अनेक.

-Makhanlal Chaturvedi Ji – Rajiv Krishna Saxena

Accidents on railway tracks shot up by 53%, from 5,304 in 1997 to 8,244 in 2007
 

Source of chart: http://mumbainews.wordpress.com/category/railway/

Tactical City

(this is a highly unstructured and cynical post)
----

They are more intelligent than us.

Perhaps the Municipal Corporation did not want the slum dwellers to occupy the pavements along the D N Road in Andheri. Initially, before this, we saw them making tents, temporary poles covered in plastic spilling over the pavement, which also accommodated the formal activities like bus stops. I rarely saw people walking on these pavements.

So they started putting planters alongside the compound wall which screens a huge plot of land reserved for god knows what! I thought they would grow plants in it. They even filled it with soil. Then they started to screen it with iron grills. These grills come till your chest. These grills seem illogical from all possible thinking angles - the maintenance, the gardener or even the passer by.  However, I did not know that things could work out just the other way!

The same old people now started using the grills as walls. Only that the room turned inside out. In the gaps, they created their mini kitchens, where they cook on sigdis. In series, the next one has a well defined lavish bathroom, which also takes care of water buckets and leaves enough space for having a shower. The un necessary stuff of the house is dumped inside the grills (in flower beds) - so they essentially become storage bins. Clothes hang on the grill all along. Eventually, I think they will span it across the trees and make a shelter out of that. But a new house typology is ready!

To see it from Rupali’s point of view (or rather Michael De Carteau): it would be “Tactical” - ironically against DeCarteau’s own “Strategic”.

When I see this, I feel that the corporation rather give them houses, just along the pavement. Or is it that they love living in such frugal conditions. When the government gives them housing, they run away - something that Kairavi’s research points out is that the issue is not space, but economy. Seems like they are like gypsies. They want to keep moving with work. But then, I think they need to carry better houses along. Do they need houses? No. They need infrastructure - anyway they sleep on roads. They like to sleep like that I think. So they must be provided infrastructure that can contain water, stove, clothes, that’s all. All other things are temporary - the comb, soap, food…all of it.

Amidst all this, what about the pavement? Do hell with the pavement: they can take nothing but paver blocks! On this one, the trees bend such that you actually crawl under them at regular intervals. Bus stops? They are dysfunctional any ways! Ah! Perfect! That makes a perfect case in favour of these gypsies! But what about the Flower beds? We can make bowls out of those: Topiary!

Why do such things happen in the city: This shows how “engineer-minded” the people in the system are, and how “creative” people outside it are! And people from developed countries will document all of this to make it into a publication under perhaps two broad heads (suggest more if you can): Housing in India and Product Design.