Sunday, October 30, 2011

Baghban V


Parents, even if they try to, cannot live without expectations from their progeny. This is perhaps a natural instinct – a give and take relationship. There were already films in ’70s which raised the issue of children ignoring their parents while they grew old. Others sensitized the tension of difference in thought between the generations. Recent films like Baghban, Dil chahta hai, etc bring out several issues of this gap very sharply. Where does the problem actually lie? Every age is a generation, so there ought to be a generation gap in a parent and child span. 30 years.  Very few of the older generations actually are able to connect to their children. There is a change in the value systems, in the way things are understood around them and even the priorities of children change. Then how are relationships understood and expected to remain ideal? Parents always expect their children to take care of them, to support them, to help them financially. Yes, they did that for us too when we were small. But didn’t they know they had to do it anyway before having a child? Are children investments - Social, moral, financial, emotional? And when they do not give expected returns, issues spring up.

I don’t think there has been any film constructed from the point of view of the children. There is a tremendous pressure on the children itself – balancing their own ambitions, managing the family (starting a new one, and keeping the old one), etc. The argument will be: “We did that too” – to which the counter argument is “then why don’t you understand the situation? The circumstances and the complexities of life today have increased, only because the number of options available have increased.” It’s infinitely difficult to communicate this to the parents. Communication has always been a tricky issue in conventional Indian families. Most of the children fear the head of the family. Hence, all talk is routed through someone.

When children grow older, able, and self dependent, they do not understand what kind of a relationship to maintain with the otherwise head of the family. Ours is a patriarchal family system. This head of the family is generally a head primarily because he supports the family financially, according to me. Another is of course the political power that he has in the family. When this head retires, the power automatically transfers to the succeeding financial figure. But how does this new financial position get constructed? I mean, when does a son or daughter decide that he/she would start contributing money for household affairs? How are such decisions taken – these are extremely political, and what when the number of earning heads are more than one?

Education, although on one hand enables children to become more sensitive to parents, it also makes themselves more ambitious and rational. In the pursuit of rationality, children question most things – what they wear, eat, drink, live, use and even relationships. How must parents handle this? Or what should the parents expect out of such relationships? Parents try and educate their children as much as possible, but isn’t it hitting their own heads? Because children are going to be more self contained, self exploratory and self sufficient – perhaps a law of nature. Each time in each generation is a new individual constructed. This is bound to be different from the old one. But this new and old creates a lot of friction.

Someone told me that some friction is good. If a child chooses to keep his/her parents happy, is it necessary that his/her happiness too lies in that? These questions bother me all the time. My ethical stance is to keep everyone around me, related to me in any way, happy. How does that help me though? I wonder. But relationships are complex. And expression towards such relationships is very difficult. The generation gap is what perhaps makes the expression difficult. How must the parents deal with children to make them more comfortable to talk to them? May be, here I must get specific about certain kind of conventional families, where children in their formative years face this kind of extreme difficulty to convey their emotions to parents.

In traditional Indian family systems, the childhood is a period is which the child is trained in family values – social, moral, ethical codes of conduct. The aspect of communication within a family is never dealt with. The emphasis is on teaching – in a crude sense, giving. It is never believed that one could learn anything from kids. Kids are to be attuned to the society and in the process of training in social values, a lot is already lost. Moreover, while communication is not the agenda, it itself is institutionalized. Implied codes regarding what must be spoken and what not are inflicted. Sharing of emotions at a later age becomes a gestural act. Emotions are then to be understood through acts and are not really expressed. At a mature age, it is even embarrassing for most to publicly express happiness or sadness since it has either never been done before or it seems a socially misfit act.

It becomes very difficult for my father to acknowledge or appreciate me in public. He stumbles and doesnot know what to say. My mother ends up expressing her happiness by talking about it to as many people as possible – neighbours, friends, relatives, etc. On father’s promotion, a silent sweet is prepared at home. The tastefulness of this sweet is not orally acknowledged, but suggested by eating a bowl extra. During a festival, new clothes suggest happiness. Gifts on the table for success become ways to express happiness. All becomes suggestive. Such over-suggestion is repressive. It is implosive.  Objects, than something that was once emotive, become more important. This lack of communication suppresses a lot of expression.

On the other hand, during tough times, a maudlin silence pervades the atmosphere of the home. Behaviour becomes stricter. Television programmes are moderated, volume of talk is regulated. Eye contacts are stolen; everyone looks at the walls or dead vantage points. Low moods are never discussed – the feeling of vulnerability is seldom a part of the institution of the family.  The family always presumes an ideal role for itself. Perhaps it is due to its hegemonic social function of keeping all the state of affairs at home in a happy condition.
But I am very concerned about the how members of a family talk to each other. I believe that the hermetic way in which traditional Indian families behave is detrimental to furthering of social values and the problem lies in the training period of the child during early days.

This is a highly “under construction” post. Feedback is most welcome.
Earlier threads of 'baghban' can be searched at "Search This Blog" Section (Type Baghban)

Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Folds / First Year Final Jury 2011































Envelops for (from top to bottom):

1. Florist
2. Bhel Wala
3. Rat Poison Killer
4. Corn Remover

Project Brief

Body - Envelop

Students are supposed to select a hawker from their respectively studied areas and study how they negotiate their activity in space. Hawkers carry their shop with them and thus, the shop becomes the spatial envelop of the body. These shops are objects that transform into spaces while they still respond to the body. This understanding has to be developed into a portable envelope that supports the profession of the hawker and solutions that can offer more than what the hawkers currently do with their envelops.

Saturday, October 22, 2011

For Sky Walks




























Sky walks have become spaces to wait, loiter and transit into various places around stations. In a city where we struggle for spaces to meet, interact and spend time to do nothing, sky walks seem interesting places to be at. These spaces not only elevate you from the otherwise busy ground, but allow new perspectives of the city as a distant observer. The passivity of this observation prolongs our gaze deeper into the fabric and functioning of the place we live in. The activity of peeping into everyday activities from a distant perspective / view point makes us conscious of things that we otherwise ignored while moving through them. This phenomena makes us aware of the hidden patterns that the city works in. One can observe how traffic moves, where densities travel, the mosaic of types commodities, the closed and open spaces, the commercial-residential-market activity relationships and how they make the city space.

At many other sky walks, people have started to meet their lovers, partners or friends. The sky walk remains reasonably peaceful, offering a tranquil, shaded, breezy space right above a thriving, messy, congested market place or a busy road, aligning to the transport hubs of the city. It being covered and elevated, one is not bothered by externalities of weather (sun or rain). In addition, these are absolutely "free of cost" spaces right outside station premises. Such a model becomes an extremely successful public intervention in the city space where one is able to achieve a public space at the nodes of transport and market activities. Its open architecture poses no security problems keeping all activities transparent. Thus, it is self vigilant. It conveniently allows to sway away from busy hubs, yet being near / contained within them!

It has been noticed in some places where the footfall is too low, that the sky walks have become jogging tracks during the morning, 'kabutar khanas' for bird feeders, etc. Thus sky walks become an interesting space for the birds and scavengers hovering in the sky, who often take refuge in people's homes and building corners (often undesired) in the city.Sky walks could save a lot of birds who lose their lives getting entangled in wires, or experiencing electric shocks.

The architecture of sky walks, if taken seriously (apart from its aesthetic & structure) by studying various activity patterns they are creating can become an extremely useful and vital intervention for the city. After being built, sky walks may occupy minimal space (if well designed) on the ground, and their design can facilitate activities below them. In making a space of themselves, they also create a space underneath them where people prefer to walk in strong sun or heavy rains. They become massive overhead shades for hawkers, people who have forgotten their umbrellas during rains or sudden downpours.

Sky walks can be extended into smaller viewing decks (without seatings, thus maintaining their transitory nature, not accumulating crowds), to expose or introduce people to interesting or attention-seeking areas of the city. Could they become viewing galleries and mini-display spaces without extending into museums or galleries? Their surfaces could harvest a lot of solar energy for lighting urban infrastructure or collecting great amount of water for maintaining city spaces (or something that could be supplied to the poor?).

One important aspect of the city that the sky walk opens up is a large number of people who meet only for a small amount of time to exchange smaller personal activities of their day while going to work or returning home. This exchange of momentary time forms an important nature of public space. The public spaces that we design never address such issues of quick meetings, talks, chats or instantaneous give and take that often happens on the streets. Sky walks thus are an interesting model which may address such issues of public spaces.

Most of the times, we reject sky walks due to their non-pleasing visual appeal or over-designed structure. However, it is high time we acknowledged their presence in the city and channelized their programmatic possibilities and use them opportunistically to revive the lost sense of public space in the city.






























My proposal "Platform no. 0" - an early conception of skywalk for Dadar Renewal project as a part of Urban Design Studio in 4th year B Arch (2006-7):

Excerpts from my concept sheet:

The area under study is a very dense activity area. There is some activity going on in the area at any time of the day. These activity patterns have formed over years, and my activity pattern thus becomes temporary.
Hence I see myself as someone who is disturbing the existing activity pattern.
And then, there are many people, who come to Dadar, contributing to the Temporary Activity Pattern. These people might not have anything to contribute to the existing plane of activities, but they use this plane to commute to the Dadar station.

Thus, conflicting planes of activities create a lot of conflicting movement at a single plane. It is hereby, imporatnt to SEGREGATE the various activity planes such that the area comes under order, and becomes a pleasent space for all activities, and allows easy movement.



Layers:

Every layer of activity existing in the area is contributing to the richness of the area. Hence, each of the layer has a right to exist there, it can not be completely eradicated. Natural Markets, the Wholesale markets, Vegetable Markets, Shopping lines, Flower Market - all diverse activities converging at a single patch of land makes it extremely resourceful and important.

Objectives of the programme:


1. De-congestion: The design aims at decongestion - NOT of the area, but of the existing singular plane, by creation of multiple planes. Thus, the traffic is segregated and each plane fucntions smoothly.
2. To Look Into Activities: The precinct has a lot of activities which are hidden due to the very layout of the same. Hence the redesigned scheme would try to bring visual attention to all the activities in the area.
3. Allowing Free Movement through segregated layers: Due to a lot of activities happening on a same plane, the pace of the commuting user having no interaction with the plane reduces considerably. The area of walking reduces due to its occupation by hawkers, extension of shops, etc. Thus the elevated plane helps in taking commuting users through the same space, quickly,  giving them opportunity to divulge/look into activities happening underneath and over.


































Each plane attempts to have its own character, trying to accomodate the activity in a better way, 

The created plane constantly tries to have a connection with the existing lower plane such that activities flow into each other, still remain separate.

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Architecture & Mathematics





























Our second project for the second year class was based on mathematical principles and how they could be used as methods for design. Shinkre sir had an interesting way of looking at it:
A building goes through mathematical operations at all stages and levels of its realization. Right from anthropometrics (measure of human body proportions) to the number of people who occupy the space, to areas, and finally the structural logic (along with many other things).

One can work out a lot of ideas to manifest the building through maths. To me, the most interesting relationship between architecture and mathematics is the translation of numbers into shapes. The relation between algebra and geometry. Saurabh Vaidya very nicely elaborates on this idea on his blogpost as follows:
According to Foucault, the relationship between thought and language is that of geometry and algebra, where all the geometric shapes spontaneously pre-exist in nature waiting to be drawn and discovered but it is the algebraic expression that provides the shape a meaning that is precise to its nature, where the spontaneity of the shapes' existence gets tuned in a mathematical meaning that when played will become that shape. And sometimes it is formulation of an algebric expression that could lead us to an undiscovered shape.
What interests me is that equations become shapes on the Cartesian space. An expression like x^2+y^2=1 becomes a circle or a locus becomes a sine wave...of how patterns happen and how ratios work towards beauty. There are so many things to think of with numbers and architecture.

However, I am still to see the final output of the students on Friday...

Sunday, October 16, 2011

Rolling thoughts / Roofs in Architecture


Folds / Readings

I was reading Deleuze's "The Fold" a week ago and tremendous ideas rolled my head. I have these phases when I heavily start interpreting students' work through the latest reading that I am doing. Sometimes, I feel it's unfair and silly. Many of my ideas and opinions are influenced by my immediate readings...

The fold opened up to me something like Einstein's theory of matter - that every particle's density can be exploded and expanded into large amount of energy. Meanwhile, I keep thinking of shrinkable spaces - spaces which fold (literally) into packets and when unfolded, become large envelops that surround bodies.Yes, although it's a very apt reference for an exercise where we are looking at hawkers, bodies and enveloping spaces, I feel I am too influenced by Deleuze's "the Fold"!

Some time ago, I was reading theories on "Diagrams" or "Diagramming" and I felt that I got carried away in understanding everything around me as diagrams. Reading Stan Allen, Tschumi and Reiser on Diagrams has been enriching and these also feed into my graphics classes. Some time ago, I was reading Koolhaas and I became very cynical of things around me. I guess readings really really engage me and change me...When as a student, I read fountainhead, I almost became a Roark! It was only until someone gave me a reality check that I realized that I had gotten unnecessarily into the character...

Reading Rosalind Krauss's papers on grids influenced me to working with grids in innovative ways, breaking earlier conventions - I designed a whole Graphics exercise on grids last year. Archigram's work influenced my drawings, sketches. Readings of David Harvey again changed my outlook to society and things around me...But readings have made me too academic and I must change the nature of my reading to lighten up a bit...

It would be, I suppose, so futile to discuss "The Fold" with the first year-ites - they don't even understand "anthropometrics" yet! I don't really have any one to discuss ideas here! So I keep listing them! What will happen to these lists I do not know! I feel, theory is an area where one grows through only discussions. I am in a world of my own references!




Globalization & Insecurity

Globalization not only creates cultural homogenization, but also induces a tremendous feeling of insecurity. This insecurity is caused due to the slow rupture of roots from one's own culture, one's own way of living and working. It is a process in which one tries to adapt some new kind of order that is imposed or set by another faculty. Globalization automatically creates minor hierarchies though destroying many others. For example, culturally, most of the developing nations accept the western ways over their natives. The idea of 'imported', or the favour to white skin, the adoption of English - all are indicators of accepting the west as superior, thereby setting an order of aspiration. The sense of not possessing many such (foreign) values creates a lot of insecurity. It challenges one's confidence in one's own culture. 

Image production capitalizes upon and nurtures itself through this insecurity. Today, the entire world is presented to us as an image - through television, internet, mobiles, photographs, etc. What we once lived as memories of distant lands are now virtually available to as as visuals. The fact that we can see and virtually experience a simulated distant reality hybridizes existing cultures thereby creating doubts in everyday living. Doubts begin through comparison and end in homogenization or flattening of cultural practices.

In universalizing English as the communication language, hasn't globalization quietened a lot of people who haven't able to cope up with change? Hasn't it paralysed people who can not use the internet? Hasn't it generated a lot of gap between the immediate generations of fathers and sons? Although people are putting in a lot of efforts to make a tool like the internet as accessible to all people, the language base it uses is still English. I am thinking of the most interesting and subtle folk traditions, cultural practices, of songs, theatre, craft - what would happen to them? We can record and keep everything, but could a Jaipur Music festival at Mehrangarh fort be experienced by images - where the fort walls are equal participants as the performers? Or can the Siddhivinayak be really worshipped on a website - where the smell of the incense or the place makes one feel transported to a new place? I am not being romantic here, what I am trying to say is images flatten our real experience, and they win over us through our insecurity. 

But why am I writing all this? Because I actually wondered why I felt so vulnerable as a college kid and almost felt lost in a whole new world that opened up after my school...It was a time which forced me to rethink my value systems, upbringing, culture - everything - it was a very difficult period. An in this insecurity, I took time to be quiet and rejected most images. I could never rationalize for myself the reasons for homogenizing....And I still haven't been able to rationalize...


Saturday, October 08, 2011

Open Jury at AOA - II

"Open Jury" event at AOA is an initiative to exchange ideas and reflections on student works across classes, departments and faculties. We had the second open jury yesterday. It was more of a review in the process stage.

The invited reviewers were to comment on students' process work. I feel it's pointless to call reviewers in process. It's like asking a pottery specialist to comment on the strength of a pot when it's still drying. Or like asking a chef when he's cutting the vegetables of how tasty the dish will eventually be...In such cases, you know what the feedback would be like.

Some classes decided to show their earlier projects. We (UA) felt that showing an earlier project right in the middle of another project is adverse on two grounds - one that you re-prepare to present your earlier project (a day spent in touching up earlier sheets) and second that you spend another day in something thats done long before and closed! So we decided not to have any special people and instead let our students see what others are doing...

Our principals like to keep the mood of the college upbeat. They keep on thinking of doing various things in college - like tamasha. I was reminded briefly of Sarita Vijayan at IAB - many said that she never bothered about the content of her magazine but kept on doing all sorts of nautanki - organizing events, seminars, launches, etc... 

The other day I met an absolutely beautiful human being - Vandana Sinh. She spoke to me of her recent participation at the NIASA awards. She was invited to a small place in the interiors of Maharashtra to choose the best architecture thesis projects amongst some 20 colleges which participated. These included city colleges along with the smaller towns. Without a doubt, the city colleges were far ahead in their thought, work and representation. The others were not even talking of issues around them...(The identity of such colleges appeared to her only later, since in the jury, the college names are not revealed). She said that she had, on perusal, absolutely rejected the entries of the smaller towns.

A girl from one of such places comes and asks her politely: "Ma'am, I wanted to know why my thesis wasn't selected amongst the final 10". Vandana looked up her file to read her comments on the girl's entry. She had written - "NO - X ". She felt absolutely guilty and without disclosing her sharp judgement, she asked the girl probably to recall her project. She then patiently spoke to her.

She then shared with me how bad she felt of her decision and judgement. She spoke of how under-exposed the kids in the smaller towns are. How un-motivating their faculties are...We spoke of our experiences of students from smaller towns (I spoke to her of my NIASA experience when I met students at Bhopal trying to take our autographs on winning the national award). We spoke of how sensitive students are, and "students are same every where", she said. She said how she would never do the mistake of rejecting a kid's work in future. But we were all very concerned of the under exposure of students in the interiors to issues and works around. Rohan (Shivkumar) once said to me (when I asked him - what's the point of organizing these seminars so frequently?) that "Anuj - students get to talk, they get to meet people, they want to meet new people"

Within these thoughts, I wanted to contextualize yesterday's jury. Our principal called fancy architects: Sanjay Puri, Ratan Batliboi, Chirag Jain etc. I wondered if there was any coherent agenda - all these reviewers are different schools of thought. What does the Academy want to think like? On questioning the team, it would be conveniently passed of as: "We wanted different points of view" - but I believe, that's an escape. We have to accept that we dont have a stand - it's always a pao bhaji - like our built environment. The physical condition of our environment is nurtured / begins at the school of architecture.

We refrained from calling any jury. Although, taking from Rohan's point, I felt, the students should absorb from others. That they might find some resonance and ideas from other panels. But I wonder how much are students from the urban areas interested in all this!? Only a few. The review would have been much successful if we called a college of Bhopal or Nashik or Lucknow to interact with ours. They would all sit together and talk to us - as a team. They would realize the value of discussions we have. Many of our kids take this time off to chew some more bubble gums and spend time at the canteen, giggle off jokes and not even note down a new comment in their books or sketch out a detail from a panel the liked, or connect to a senior on an idea, or get back to faculty on a comment he/she made...! Who is interested?

That's why I reject such grand gestures as 'tamashas'. They only feed into grandiloquent egos of our decision makers. Although they ask us for suggestions, they change or amend their decisions only peripherally to accommodate even our significant ideas - to make us feel happy! That's the kind of diplomacy I despise. So I keep myself away from meetings and suggestions. 

If this post seems to be too judgemental, I cant help it. This open jury at AOA (the second one in series) seemed least interactive to me. None of the internal faculties across departments really got time to see other work, the management is always a fuss, space was terrible (they covered up all open spaces to make them green houses, which were supported on bamboo framework that visually interjected all possible panels) - our comments muddled up in a lot of street noise - but i guess that was all desired - a part of the designed chaos. I hope the students made some meaning out of it. 

Monday, October 03, 2011

Untitled

When
I take my tongue out in the air
I can't taste it
I feel, 
Have I
lost my sense of taste
Or is the air tasteless?

When 
I plug onto my ear
the music from my earphones
I feel
Have I
merged my song with the tune
or is the city full of noise?

When 
I try to see new things around
trying to frame through various means
I feel
Have I
just turned blind
or is the space around me unchanging?

When
The sweat rolls by my forehead
to wet my temples
I feel
Have I 
worked enough for the day
or it's some hidden tension oozing out of my mind?

When 
I think of my senses
and sense my thought
I feel
Have I 
started to think too much 
or I think too much to start?


Boredom

If there is any thing that I could write here, it should be about my absolute boredom with the current state of my life. I think I am done with this city and there is nothing more Mumbai has to offer to me! Although I haven't seen the entire city, every new place I go could be categorised into some kind of generalized experience. I went to Dharavi yesterday and I didnot feel any thing different, just before that, I had been to Ghatkopar and I felt like I would feel in all typical neighbourhoods. A few days ago, I had gone to Brinda Somaya's office - yeah , that was something that made me feel as if I entered a different area, the huge walls screening of the docks and the sea. That was interesting. But over all, the fort and the suburb has nothing new to offer.

The events in the city are mundane. The fast paced life is machinic. Not that I didnot try to unwind myself: I enjoyed at Namrata (Shah's) engagement over the weekend - we danced, jumped, ate...But why would I feel bored? I wonder!

I have written off to Sen Kapadia and Vandana: Both have been extremely helpful and cooperative. I have no interest to undertake those projects now. I could have ended up in great papers on their practices. There is a sudden lack of motivation to work on it now. Project offers come and go. Design ideas don't occur to me. Studios are dull. Teaching is exhausting...

?

But I am not even working enough, producing enough...sometimes I feel I should take a sabbatic - just go to some asylum. I am wondering if I can carry it on for the next year...!?