ASA Narratives Architecture has never seen its margins, constantly drawing inspiration, collaborations and rendering services and responses in all possible disciplines around the world. With this underlying objective, the Media Cell of Aayojan School of Architecture, Jaipur presents Aayojan Narratives. The annual magazine is an assemblage of opinions, works, knowledge and experience of students, teachers and professionals from various slabs of the design community. We yearn to provide stimulating theme based content each edition that arouses the professional and academic intellect of the reader to understand architecture and its interdisciplinary nature, making it a shared resource of learning. Aayojan Narratives is a magazine for the design enthusiasts, by the undergraduate students of Architecture, for preparing minds to create a better world. Volume 1, November 2020 Published by The Media Cell Aayojan School of Architecture, Jaipur ISI - 4, RIICO Institutional Block, Sitapura, Goner Road Jaipur, Rajasthan, 302022 mediacell@aayojan.edu.in, info@aayojan.edu.in +91-141-2771755, 3081425 Circulation Aayojan Narratives is published annually and can be read on issuu/ASAJaipur. For hard-copy, write to us at mediacell@aayojan.edu.in Cover Prateya Vyas (Batch 18), Pari Mathur (Batch 20) Privacy policy Aayojan Narratives is published by the Media Cell of Aayojan School of Architecture, Jaipur. All rights reserved. No part of the publication may be reproduced or transmitted through electronic media, photocopy or recording with any prior written permission of the publisher. The editor does not take any responsibility for the photos and text displayed and does not endorse the views expressed in the magazine. The editor reserves the right to shorten or refuse publication without prior notification.
Routine revised “There’s something assuring in following a straight line, but when routine becomes a burden, spontaneity makes room. It is when we come out of our contentment; we begin to see new prospects. There is also something harmonious about working with a template. Even cultures and traditions follow periodicity, but as time changes, constants needs to be varied. Patterns and algorithms based on a set protocol provide opulence with ease however design is meant to be independent. Change and routine needs to be synchronised.�
principal’s note
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Prof. Kiran S. Mahajani Dear Reader “The only person who is educated is the one who has learned how to learn and change.”— Carl Rogers Since its inception in 1999, Aayojan School of Architecture, Jaipur, so far in its twenty years, has evolved into an institution which has been pushing the boundaries of time-tested educational traditions by engaging with renowned academicians, practitioners and researchers, from across the country and abroad. This innate desire to explore, learn, and evolve is nurtured within the Aayojan fraternity and in turn made us realise that despite the obstacles during the process, it is imperative to have a continuous engaging dialog between all stakeholders. To further this intent, in 2019, Aayojan Media Cell was established to propagate the critical thinking and discourse culture within the institute as well as the society at large. I congratulate the Media Cell team for their tireless efforts in this direction, despite the challenges faced. It is my honour to present, their fruit of labour, the first edition of Media Cell’s magazine, “Aayojan Narratives”. The theme of the magazine itself could not have come at better time, when this recent pandemic has forced us to question how we have been leading our lives in a set routine. In addition, this crisis made us to quickly step up to imparting knowledge online and communicating with our students at distant locations, while simultaneously making us realise the importance of reaching out and engaging people from diverse backgrounds. On this journey of magazine publication, we have had the honour of having esteemed professionals, such as Yatin Pandya, Meghal Arya, on board with us, exploring, questioning and initiating the debate over change and routine in architecture. My heartfelt appreciation for all our students, faculty members, and alumni contributors in making this feat possible Wish you a thought provoking journey!
dean’s note
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Prof. N.S. Rathore The year 2019 has been a milestone for us, as we finished twenty years towards imparting quality Architectural Education in the state of Rajasthan. The year 2020 has been even more crucial for us and people around the world as it has brought forth a new era and pushed us to think anew for how we lead our lives. We are facing major adversities and along with it, tremendous opportunities have also risen for us to learn and evolve. It will be too soon to say that we have emerged victorious however we have definitely emerged stronger and enlightened. We are re-realising the importance of the written word, the social interaction, which until now had gotten limited to social media interactions. Times have changed and so have we, and the theme of our media cell’s magazine’s first edition, this year’s school magazine is Aayojan Narratives, could not have been more appropriate and hard-hitting. I hope you enjoy this edition and become a part of our endeavour. Stay hooked and Stay safe!
patron’s note
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Prof. Shruti Hemani This is great news for Aayojan School of Architecture. The release of the first edition of their magazine - Aayojan Narratives, has added value to the institutes’ constant efforts towards academic excellence through nurturing creativity amongst the learners and collaborating with leading academicians and practitioners in the field. As a patron of the Media Cell, I am gratified to write this note. The magazine is an outcome of many hours of brainstorming, creative-thinking and tireless-efforts from the entire team of Media Cell. My greetings to the editorial board to keep up the good work and appreciation of the commendable efforts put forth for its grand beginning. I also applaud the support and encouragement from the members within the institute and outside to bring out this issue. I hope the current theme, “Routine Revisited” will excite the minds of the readers to ‘revisit their routine’ and inspire passion for innovation and progressive changes.
editor’s note
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Shubham Mathur Dear Reader, With immense pleasure, Aayojan Media Cell announces the release of first edition of its magazine, “Aayojan Narratives”. The editorial board has put forth an exhaustive attempt at establishing collaborative print and visual media which not only showcases the year-round academic and social events, but also provides opportunities to the students to learn from their alumni and professionals from architecture and allied communities. The theme of this edition of the magazine revolves around the transformational aspect of routine in architecture. It does not necessarily respond to the regular course of procedure, rather it is more to do with the practice and understanding of architecture with respect to a time frame. Even cultures and traditions follow a periodicity, but as time changes, constants needs to be varied. Algorithms based on a set protocol and one’s body of work surely provides a strong datum point. However, isn’t design is meant to be independent.? This premiere issue includes set of articles and interviews that contemplate on the synchronisation between Change & Routine specifically with regards to architecture. The first edition extends collaborations with the renowned architects Yatin Pandya and Meghal Arya, acclaimed filmmaker Avijit Mukul Kishore, our alumni Vibhor Mukul Singh (batch 01) and Annu Saxena (batch 02) as well as faculties and students from Aayojan School of Architecture, Jaipur. This magazine would not have been possible without the critical insights of Prof. Kiran S. Mahajani and Prof. N.S. Rathore, all the creative minds in Media Cell, patron Prof. Shruti Hemani, Prof. Radhika Gupta’s constant support and the contributions of other faculty advisors. May you have a good time reading the magazine!
My journey with Aayojan
My association with the school My association with Aayojan School of Architecture goes back to its inception in the year 1999. Since then the only thing that has remained constant at Aayojan is change. The change has come about in not only physical, but ideological as well as aspirational terms. The school with its humble beginning from a single room, with 40 students has grown and developed into one of the largest and most sought-after school of Architecture in the country. The school that was conceived to address the needs of the state of Rajasthan today has students from almost all parts of the country. This growth and development are not incidental but a result of continuous efforts of the faculty, the management and the eminent advisors and well-wishers from across the country. There is a change in the aspirations of the
students then and now. The students today want great deal of freedom in terms of use of tools, methods of learning from more physical and hands on to virtual and online which is also the need of the times. Studios are no more confined within four walls of the classroom, students like to work from unconventional spaces such as canteen, corridors, steps, etc. As if it was not enough, this pandemic of Covid-19 has taken the studio to the confines of the homes of students and teachers. Philosophy of the school Right from the inception of the school, we were conscious of the fact that we are located in perhaps one of the richest landscapes in the country in terms of culture, art and Architecture. With this background in mind and a deep sense of responsibility towards
Reminiscing the old Aayojan, believing in it’s values and looking forward to new opportunities.
the people of Rajasthan we introduced compulsory and elective courses in culture, history, arts & crafts and built heritage of the state in the bachelor’s programme. We recognized that the diverse and rich, tangible and intangible heritage of the region and the state in particular is under continuous threat due to indiscriminate growth and needs to be conserved & preserved. It was to address this pressing need that the school decided to start Masters in Urban Design in the year 2013, the first and the only programme in the state of Rajasthan.
On education of an Architect at Aayojan Architecture in the last century was totalitarian, meaning thereby that the Architect used to provide all the services required for planning, designing and construction, right up to the occupancy of the building. But today in the age of specialization, the job of the Architect especially in mega projects is reduced to a leader in a large team of service providers. This reminds me about the story of a renowned architect from Mumbai who took a large team of various service consultants to meet his corporate client.
the Academic Calendar. The school also recognizes the importance of building leadership qualities in students, we are doing so by empowering them through annual Student Council elections having representation of a large number of students from all years. Students are encouraged to participate in various co-curricular and extracurricular activities such as design competitions, NASA, sports tournaments, quiz programs, cultural programs, community awareness and development initiatives and outreach activities. Alumni of the school
Carrying forward the values of Aayojan with a vision to think out of the box.
Once he completed introducing the job profile of each consultant, the client questioned him that if all the services were being provided by the consultants, what will be his job? At Aayojan we recognize that an Architect today is a team player and to keep our students well informed and prepared for the challenges that lie ahead we have integrated the allied courses horizontally with core course of design. The allied teachers such as engineers, artists, sociologists and economists are active participants in design studio. Holistic development of the student at Aayojan From the very beginning we understood the importance of physical, mental and psychological well being of a student to be successful in life along with good education. There is a lot of stress from work in Architectural Education and students need an effective let out. We introduced in-campus sports and cultural activities right from the inception of the school; in fact it got prominence by being included in
A successful alumnus is the most cherished reward of a mentor and I’ve been fortunate enough to feel proud of many. Our students and alumnus have brought great laurels to the school by winning design competitions at national & international levels and coming out on top in post graduate programmes in India & abroad. It’s a great feeling to be recognized by the pupil you’ve taught and guided. Once I received a phone call from Paris from one of my former students to thank me for being her teacher. She had just finished explaining a famous building in Paris to a group of architects from London who were astonished to see the depth of knowledge this Indian architect possessed. Longevity is another basic human desire and I strongly believe that as a teacher you live longer than your life through your teachings and ideals inculcated in your pupil. This is the tonic that keeps you going. When I look back at the twenty one years journey with Aayojan, there is immense satisfaction and with a sense of pride I can say that we have arrived at a stage and rearing to go ahead. My journey with Aayojan has been quite inseparable from the schools.
PRO F . N .S . RAT H O R E Dean of Academics Aayojan School of Architecture, Jaipur
Contents 01
05
11
15
Change the routine
Seeking cacophony
Interview
Embrace journey
Yatin Pandya
Vibhor M. Singh
Meghal Arya
Annu Saxena
19
23
29
31
Interview
Book Review
Time to reboot
Urban Renewal
Avijit Mukul Kishore
Shruti Hemani
Anubhav Mittal
Neha Goyal Tater
41
43
45
Dravyawati Bazaar
Temple of humanity
37
Development in developing Place for People Rashi Mathur
Rupali Khatri
Lokesh Katariya
Manjeet Saini
47
49
53
59
Tilted Stay
Kerala
Year review
Harsh Agarwal
Snehalaxmi Shekhawat
Jaipur-Water Studio Rajdeep & Navisha
“Change A fashio n o r the routine� the functio n?
Change is an inevitable aspect of any living organism. So there need not be the debate on the necessity, value and worth of the phenomenon of Change. The real discussion is about the definition of change. Does change mean being different? Does change mean losing the bearings? Does change mean renunciating the character? Does change mean forcing the mutation? This is where the discussion lies. Transformation of an egg to larva to cocoon to butterfly is a standard routine with unchanged DNA of the species and yet it is a total metamorphosis of the form and capabilities. From Fetus, to child to adult to old; a human DNA remains the same and yet physically, mentally and emotionally there are differences with time within the routine life 01
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cycle. So does routine in a live phenomenon ever mean boredom or stagnancy? Doesn’t such assumptions seek of the sense of boredom and esotericism? While in reality, there is hardly any live condition devoid of variables even in the routine. Life, even when lived routinely is full of variables, surprises and uncertainties requiring one to adapt every moment accordingly. So if, the routine is about living life, routine is about engaging with even most similar activities every day and the presupposition that it is stagnant or boring is only a mental construct and not the fact. Any existence is about an ever evolving balance between human and human, Human and nature. We are an aspect of society and nature and both of these dimensions of life are inherently-characteristically never constant but ever changing. Existence as an alchemy of time and space is not only unique-as constantly changing but dynamic as
ever evolving. Time is ever changing and evolving phenomenon and as a result time over the space is not the same and space over the time is not the same. For instance, the ever-changing space of urban square in Ahmedabad- Manek Chowk, which over the centuries, has been transforming daily, every moment in day while following the same daily routine. Every day early morning it is a cow grazing ground, till market hours it is a play field and domestic activity spill over the platform, during business hours it is an intense formal and informal market and late evening it transforms into an outdoor eatery. This is its diurnal metamorphosis. Routine is exactly same every day, space is exactly the same all along but there are inherent variables of time and people and as a result no moment time-space people chemistry makes this space feel as the same place. As a quote, “Architects“ create spaces yet it is time and people who transform them into places.”
So in essence, change is not to be forcibly invented in architecture; it naturally emerges when you include variables of context in terms of time, place, people and program. If architecture is a process driven one, i.e. responsive to the contextual forces, it will undoubtedly remain unique even though the processes, concerns and approaches are routine. For example, we go to a doctor to get diagnosed. Doctor diagnoses patient through prescribed routines while considering each patient on his own merit. He does not try to change routine or innovate. Yet each patient’s history, symptoms and conditions may be inherently unique to be diagnosed particularly. The thoughts and arguments about change of routine emerge from the definition of routine as predetermined, preconceived and uniform response. This will surely mean boredom, stagnancy and in appropriateness. Something like universally applied, fully glazed facade Aayojan Narrative
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over steel structure, as architectural “corona” – the worldwide pandemic, in present context. But, if one thinks that holistic architecture has to go through all the aspects of timeless aesthetics, socio-cultural appropriateness, environmental sustainability, economic affordability and structural strength then the resolution would be unique/particular to the context. There is nothing like good or bad in architecture, it is always appropriate or inappropriate. And appropriate is always good; neither boring, nor wrong nor requiring invention. Or should we say that it in itself is an invention having uniquely evolved as resolution of multiple forces and overlaid priorities. Nature is a constantly changing phenomenon. Nature in the form of Sun, vegetation, wind, land-form, water and people are variables from place to place and time to time. Even for the same given place Sun, wind, vegetation and people are a constantly changing phenomenon. Sun in the form of light changes its intensity and angle all through the day, diurnally, and from season to season, annually. Similarly, breeze with its intensity, direction and aroma can change the perception of the space. Vegetation as live medium changes all the time. It decays, it grows, it greens, it yellows, it blooms with fruit or flowers and invites other insects, birds and animals. So while plastic plant needs to be changed physically and forcibly every now and then; the natural plant changes inherently and routinely and needs no design innovation. People create different chemistry all the time. That is why while we get bored looking at seventy channels on television in a closed room; while the elderly can keep gazing out of the window, looking at the street and its constantly changing scenes, spontaneity of actions and unfolding of drama every day, every time. Therefore the same space feels different at different times. This is what organic architecture has been all about. Organic is not about being irregular or being different. It is simply resultant of the processes. Resolution of the forces rather than any pre-conceived notions of form or geometry. An ant will move towards sugar and a tree branch will lean towards light and a sunflower will follow the sun. None of these are trying to be different. They are doing their routine but they adapt and respond to the contextual ethos and manifest accordingly. It is equally a fallacy to think routine is stagnant. Routine can be the optimized constant for the given generic 03
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context which need not be regarded as static or stale. If things are irrelevant for the given time and context, they perish, like an appendix from the human body. Traditional refers to these outcomes of place and people and perfected over time. There is a difference between History and tradition. While history may be a dead tradition, tradition remains to be a living history. When anything becomes obsolete for the given time and place it perishes as forgotten past, frozen yesterday as embalmed history. While like tradition when routine manages to transcend time and remain relevant, it survives as constant. Its survival in itself is proof of those values being relevant even in changed time and circumstances. This is a sustained constant and not stagnation. If we further analyze, tradition has always evolved, slowly and steadily, but most importantly; appropriately. Traditional house form of Ahmedabad- Pol -as six century old typology is alive, lived in and appropriate even today; yet , there are no more than century and half old structures to be found in that original six century old state. Mud houses have conveniently been transformed to lime & stone and later to brick and cement plaster; from jute and mud floor to stone plates to wooden rafters to steel joist jack arch floors to concrete beams and so on and yet they have not lost their characteristic DNA. Changing routine for the sake of overcoming the boredom is aptly found in fashion industry. It thrives on forced change and artificiality. It has to first create mindset through advertising and constant brainwashing to establish that “Aaj kal to FOG chal raha hai”; or “wear RAYMONDS to be a complete man”; that “now pastels or stripes are in vogue” and so on. Age old and timeless saris; which even as same six yard cloth would still look unique on different body contours and can be worn quite variedly; are forcibly regarded as redundant to change to one piece, pompers and once again after thirty years reintroduce sari as fashionable, innovative and the change. Rather than claiming Pizza as fashionable change than thali as boring routine. It fails to appreciate that thali with very same ingredients but as a combination meal renders every bite unique, every time, for every one due to its infinite variety in permutation and combination of ingredients, through its options of varied sequences as well as its proportion variables.
What we need in architecture is Thali concept: a consistent routine every time and contextual ingredients, and yet remaining plural enough to leave its combination, sequence and proportion opportunity to each individual, as designer of every bite. So experience will be unique to each one, in every bite, every time; yet routine and ingredients are the same. Change, variation and innovations are inherently implied in the concept of combination meal. We are the instruments of change, if we sensitize ourselves to place, people and time; the resolution would be unique; always. Timeless is neither boring nor stagnant but ever sustaining constant we need to strive for in architecture...
YAT I N PA N DYA Ar. Yatin Pandya is an author, activist, academician, researcher and practicing architect known for his career-long devotion to sustainability. Graduated from CEPT University, Ahmedabad and later pursuing his masters in architecture from McGill University, Montreal, he established his firm FOOTPRINTS E.A.R.T.H. (Environment Architecture Research Technology Housing). He is an architect of international recognition and repute with numerous awards under his name, written over two hundred articles in National and International Journals and several internationally published books, especially “Concepts of space in traditional Indian architecture”, and “Elements of space making”. Aayojan Narrative
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Seeking cacophony
Is breaking the monotony essentially a desperate attempt towards selfglorification by the architects? Or does our approach needs to be more sensitive and humane... I have been working as an architect in the professional and academic fields for many years now. With a dwelling experience in Asia and Europe, where I have had close ties to architecture, design and technology, I now feel as if I were in the middle of some hysterical tornado, where words like Innovation and Creativity are all spinning around furiously. It is complete madness, but this is what is happening. Climate change, technology, tornadoes, uncertainty... Someday, of course, it will all calm down, probably of its own accord. Right now though, 05
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E n-ro ute to innovatio n
everybody across all sections of the society, is trying to get a hold on these edgy terms. It doesn’t matter what you do, you have to be innovative; otherwise you will cease to exist. In the world of architecture, we’ve become accustomed to a star system in which the quality of a building or design is judged by its looks, its appearance and its traits. Most of the time we don’t even know what problems its physical form is solving (or in turn, if there were any problems there to solve). Creating a nice building with amazing shapes is a great skill and it means you’re clever enough to play to the soundtrack of the zeitgeist in the era you live in. That’s great, but it’s probably not in the slightest bit of innovation. It really just means being contemporary, which is pretty much the opposite of being innovative.
Mixed Use Development at 3rd Circle, Amman (Jordan)
Most of the time, when you’re innovative and creative, nobody notices, because you’re a part of a team solving real problems. Most of the time its team-work that enables innovation, perhaps following some creative spark; again that comes pretty much in conflict with the concept of amazing ego-bound “signature” shapes. You’re being innovative and creative when you find a way of solving a problem when the usual procedure fails to do so. Humbling though it may be to admit, that’s all there is to it. Creating a tailor-made problem for yourself and solving it with your favorite parametric tools to end up with a complex structure/shape (architects will know what I’m talking about- these are the jargon traps), when it’s not really needed for the project while still managing to talk about sustainability and energy efficiency parameters…. I don’t know. I’m not so sure
if that’s what we should be looking for. And here, I could cite so many examples. Monotony and plainness are rarely considered as factors suppressing the common psyche. But consider for a moment that most projects built are by and large the same across the world. Let’s liken it for a moment to clothes. Go into any high school that requires a set uniform and you will immediately see kids subverting monotony in the search for individuality. They are the ones that are always trying to push the boundaries, introducing nose or tongue piercings, shorter skirts, baggier pants or the school caps backwards. It is evidence of the human instinct to desire independence and uniqueness. Could it be the same within the building industry? Could we actually appease levels of envy and resentment though conceiving our buildings form out of a response Aayojan Narrative
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to place? Does this not seem more natural than through fake phyo doric columns, porte-cocheres and herbal moldings, all decorative, yet irrelevant facade treatments? I would characterize this using another musical analogy. It is a visual manifestation of a string quartet in which four identical violins play nothing but the continuous sounding of one note. However, clean and pure that note might be or perfectly rendered, it quickly gets dull to listen to. It is, quite literally, monotonous. Some buildings are built on the same design principle but on a grander scale so that the result is the visual equivalent of a vast Mahler-scale orchestra, but once again consisting of only one instrument, say 100 violins, all playing the same note. It doesn’t matter how many times you replicate that note, it is still monotonous. If that monotone is blasted at us through a megaphone, which is the visual equivalent of what is happening here, it gets worse because we cannot escape and it obliterates all else around it that might be beautiful. In this case, it becomes offensive, a scar on the landscape. When we look at most buildings designed in the traditional manner - this would be pre WWII era architecture, it strikes that the goal of the architect in his design was beauty and they used to seek visual harmony through an appropriate proportioning of the parts which will have different magnitudes. Generally, these will have been deliberately chosen to conform to a mathematical pattern considered corresponding to the pattern of the beauty of the cosmos and which is, in turn, a participation in the pattern of divine beauty. In contrast, when we look at modern buildings built, say, since the World War II, we discern just two simple guiding principles of architectural design. These are even spacing and random spacing. Neither, in my opinion, is a principle of beauty. The first, even spacing, generates visual monotony. The second, random spacing, generates visual cacophony. Does this matter? I think so because beauty matters. The test for each of us to decide if it matters is to consider the buildings we would prefer to see, live and work in. The early 20th century paradigm shift that came with replacing traditional ways of building by modernist 07
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design methods was a wrenching experience; it replaced centuries of cultural preference for humanly adaptive spaces, and imposed on us, instead, an acceptance of psychologically damaging ones. To undo the last century’s archetype shift will be similarly traumatic for everyone involved in design and construction today. A whole set of practices and institutions need to be dismantled. The forces that validated deficient design would be, and should be, discredited in a new paradigm shift–the sooner the better. We need to begin again from zero. We do not merely require a new architecture; as such an objective would be immediately misinterpreted as simply a new design style. What is proposed here is the foundation of a new kind of architecture: an entirely novel way to think about and practice architecture, extending far beyond any superficial novelty of appearance. Triggering a new exemplar shift, one that revalues the value of living structures, won’t be easy. We recognize that a new shift in the way we evaluate the built environment would be as destabilizing to today’s established order the one that occurred in the 1920s. Hence the question, What can we do to motivate a paradigm shift? We cannot turn back the clock. To misinterpret our program as merely returning to prewar traditional architecture will be a grave OR will be a blunder. Such an error is behind the most facile and intellectually empty arguments against change, used to block progress in adaptive design. In fact, we wish to leave the non-adaptive past behind us, and jump forward to a new, adaptive architecture in which spaces and surfaces are exquisitely responsive to human biology. We require a new design language to describe the proposed paradigm shift. Otherwise, we will be forced to reach back to words and expressions from other topics, especially the romantic descriptions of the 19th century and beyond, to explain contemporary scientific results. That would be inaccurate and misleading. Furthermore, it risks condemning the whole effort to failure, from the beginning; because it gives the false impression that we are going back to those historical times instead of moving forward to a better future. Built footprints adapt to climate, flows, and other existing buildings. Allowing each one to differ from the others helps create usable urban space.
Home Insurance Building, Chicago Aayojan Narrative
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Is society more receptive today? I believe it is. We have become technological, and ironically, advanced technology has revealed the inadequacies of the early industrial model. It is now possible to take the language of contemporary technology, and use it to describe a new kind of architecture.
is sure to be considered a drag on the operation of our economy. Indeed, this substitution of monotony for variety now dominates our society, especially in fields that claim to exalt creativity, including architecture.
Monotony and variety can apply to both the natural and the artificial environments. In both our artificial or built architecture, there are two distinct classes of objects: copied and generated. A template, or a set of design rules, that allows some freedom of execution generates objects; it does not copy them. A copy is literally stamped out. Designing and building in a generative process involves many steps, each of which addresses a range of factors, introducing variety, just as in nature. Variations are the result of environmental forces that differ from place to place and in the same place at different times. In The Nature of Order (2001-2005), Christopher Alexander emphasizes that traditional and vernacular architecture is of this generative type. We see enormous variety and little monotony in tribal settlements, in traditional urban fabric, in historical and vernacular buildings, even in architecture designed according to rigorous classical orders of ancient pedigree. The reason is that, as a natural function of their production over and over again by mankind, they adapt to the complexity of the actual conditions in place. With industrialization, our design paradigm underwent a drastic shift: from generating form to copying form. This was the point of early mass production. Identical copies, with their supposed high degree of simplicity and low cost, became the norm and the primary objective of industrial design. However, producing identical copies means isolating design from local forces — indeed, any adaptive forces. The industrial age came to insist on linear, monotonous alignment of identical copies (Salingaros, 2011). This triggered monotony as society’s principal psychological reaction to the ideals of repetition and mechanical alignment. Monotony in our environment has profound consequences on our psyche. A world-view that exalts visual monotony has taken over an earlier environment shaped by the variety of natural forms. If industrial production tied to economic growth and prosperity necessarily generates monotony, then design variety 09
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Article Sources: 1. Nikos A. Salingaros- Papers on Architecture, Complexity, Patterns, and Urbanism 2. Christopher Alexander- A Pattern Language, The Nature of Order 3. Source: David Clayton-Twin Principles Of Modern Design
Zaha Hadid Architects
VI B HO R MU KU L S I N G H Vibhor Mukul Singh - is the Principal Architect and founder of the firm. He graduated from Jaipur and has worked with some of the well known architectural firms in India and abroad. After obtaining a Master’s degree with specialization in Spatial Planning, Architecture & Urban design from Politecnico di Milano, (Milan) Italy, he obtained Ph. D. from Italy in Architecture, Urban Design, Conservation of Housing & Landscape, and is actively involved with a number of European architects in a series of research & development projects in the field of sustainable architecture, green buildings & energy efficient design and works of metropolitan art. Not only is he actively involved in design and development of commercial, residential & mixed use projects, but is also effectively bridging these projects with practical and feasible energy efficiency solutions. He is a registered member of Council of Architecture, India. Besides, he is also a member of MaCBA (Barcelona, Spain) and the Indian Institute of Architects (UP Chapter). Aayojan Narrative
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In co nvers at ion w ith
Meghal Arya
Meghal Arya is the founder and principal architect of Arya Architects with Vijay Arya, a firm aspiring to change with the vision to ‘reshape everyday used spaces, creating new benchmarks in Urban Design, and bring dignity, diversity and quality to the common, ordinary and routine’. She is also an Associate Professor at the Faculty of Architecture, CEPT University, Ahmedabad. She graduated from CEPT and completed her Masters in Architecture from Georgia institute of Technology, Atlanta, USA. Her interest in traditional architecture led to several publications including books and journals and propelled her to pursue a PhD on ‘Embedded Knowledge in Architecture - Water Architecture in Arid India’.
Routine, as the word suggest, is a term that less for we wanted to keep those operational system is part of our everyday life. But it carries many minimal but those are also significant aspects of introspective layers with varied perspectives. So routine.) what does ‘Routine’ represent in your work? MGA In a way all of us will interpret ‘routine’ as a sense of repetition. Even in our practice we follow the very same trend of repetition which then starts forming patterns which is a cyclic process of ideas. We start the project at Arya Architects with conversation with the clients which we think is the most important step for the project. Those conversations help us better understand the ambition of the project and what potential does it hold at present and in future. These are then translated into the spatial expressions and hence the cycle continues. (There are other important operational routines which aren’t acknowledged like the collective coffee breaks ,routine update meeting. The formal meetings are 11
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So, routine on one hand is processes of operation and on the other hand would be a process of creation and ideation with the required improvisations coming along the way. As an academician for me the routine is not in the sameness of the exercises I give to my students but in the continuous questioning I am engaged in with myself. ‘How do I bring variation to the outcomes which are to follow?’ So its an interesting paradox as you do the same questioning with a sense of renewal to bring out a diversified set of outcomes.
Your projects are shaped by the idea of ‘Appropriate’, as mentioned on your website. What exactly is appropriate and how does this respond to the routine of your practice? MGA There is a deep interconnected link between ‘sameness’ and ‘appropriateness’. So while ‘sameness’ is not materialistic or tangible and comes from our processes of ideating ; ‘Appropriateness’ comes from an assessment of all the factors that are part of the project. It is an intermediate between the context and ambition we are trying to achieve. However, one cannot say whether the ambition or physical context comes first. For example; Prior starting a project,the requirements of the client,site,urban context in which the project has to sit has to be understood along with the larger global context of issues and concerns environment/ materiality/etc which are more expansive than the physical location of the project. These factors are understood and prioritized accordingly based on their impact on the design ultimately getting linked to the ambition of the project, which finally becomes a routine. Thus, it’s an entire loop of processes linked with one another. What is appropriate for the project is getting linked to what we want the project to achieve and it is there where we are bringing in a desire to achieve a grounding understanding which is needed for the entire wholesome process. So appropriate then starts playing the role of tempering and calibrating the imagination; with ambition pushing the imagination to bring out the practically and relevance of design .
How has architectural Education as student/ practitioner/academician has brought about a change in your thinking? MGA Architecture education will alter every mindset. The question is not whether is changes the mindset or not, of course it does, but what does it do eventually. As a student it is an act of introspection. Arya and myself were both very privileged in our education and were exposed to a wide range of architectural philosophies. We both graduated from
CEPT and eventually went abroad for higher studies so our education is a sum total of many cumulative factors which helped us hone our skills of critical thinking and assess the potential of architecture projects. It imparted us with the ability to look at Le Corbusier or Louis I Kahn’s works and assess them with a certain degree of depth and not just look at it as a visual image. We were fortunate with our professors also whom we interacted and learnt merely by observing them. Such is the impact of such individuals in your life who make you value simplicity and humility. I remember, Arya was taught by Yuhani Pasalma in Finland who is an eminent persona in our profession today and you could just walk up to him and he would speak to you over a cup of coffee anytime you wanted to have a discussion. There was no superficial veil which was found intimidating by us unlike what we see today where people claim to be busy and inaccessible. We always felt that whatever treatment we received from these infamous humble individuals we would carry forward the same tradition and make ourselves available anyone seek our guidance. It was an integrated education of not just continuous rigorous work pumped out by great expectations of our professors but a sense of individuality which was imbibed in us that laid the strong educational foundations we have been carrying since.
What is your life like in this lock-down? How do you think this global pandemic will shape the future of architecture? MGA Initially it provided with a sense of relief from the continuous meetings we had round the clock and the idea of work from home seemed like the long overdue break. However, soon when we realized that it is going to be the reality for much longer than that short period of enthusiasm, the euphoria of that format has been reducing greatly and start valuing the significance of one to one human contact. The impact of this global pandemic on arch. Is quite difficult to assess at the moment ,however it surely will our ideologies altered. We shall start rethinking about the health of our physical/ natural/urban environment and it will be our responsibility to respond to that. This might be a long term possible aspect. I feel it will be Aayojan Narrative
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limited to a certain no. as it will soon become business oriented soon as it was. However, in quantitative literal way we might have a no. of hospital projects lined up in future as the healthcare systems will need to go through an overhaul and if we don’t do it now, we’ll never be able to it. So it is an opportunity for govt. and private parties to have a good re-look at the infrastructure of the healthcare sector which at the moment is extremely banal.
The idea of taking alternate route co-exists parallel to following a tried and tested path. Sometimes the attempt to shift on alternate paths is out of need or a process, but it can equally be out of a desire. What is your take on this dilemma, especially as a designer? Taking the idea of change ahead, do you remember any instances from your practice or in general around the world, where the ‘Change’ was starkly visible?
quite intrigued by its courtyards. From Man Singh Chowk to Jaleb chowk,there were a series of courtyards which we wanted to use as a strategy for its restoration and how to bring people in by reducing the chaos in Jaleb Chowk. It is a very complex building and it was difficult to identify a smooth tourist movement through all the zigzag pavements. After we had wrapped up our work, we identified this entire stretch of spaces which are behind the main series of chowk, now converted into ancillary spaces(mostly shops) which one enters into after the Man Singh Chowk. So there were a new set of spaces which were not known and had to be incorporated.) The bus stops we did in 7 cities were similar in function but varied in design according to the context they were setup in. They were tried to camouflage with the existing surroundings so that they rested well in the context and ultimately catered to the larger audience.
MGA We have been quite explorative in our projects. We don’t have a fixed typology that we adhere to and like to experiment with spaces, ideas driven by context, needs and subject. We give ourselves time and are not driven by motivation for quantum of work. We are quite content beings and thus don’t pressurize ourselves to reach out for projects which don’t have meaning for us and thus are always trying to take up diversified projects. In the journey of a project very often we end with a product that is not necessarily defined, which particularly is true for conservation projects. Those buildings are fragile and have been distanced from the idea of change. We can’t just go and impose ourselves on them leading to a dramatic change. The way we approach conservation projects is by determining its presence in the future. What will happen to that structure in the future,determine the present decisions. For example;In Jaipur while working on Jantar Mantar, there was a Rajyantra, a large horizontal space which was supposed to be the kings seating area. We eventually found that it actually was a large sun dial which in the world of academics is a major shift as it changed the way we perceived that particular space. (While working on the documentation of Amer, we were 13
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Ahmedabad Trasit Source: aryaarchitects.in
Architecture is always regarded as a big has been the inability of being explicit about the quality responsible profession. What is your view and we can bring in with people looking at it as a meager importance of architecture in shaping the society quantitative measure. and environment and how does it brings change? MGA I remember this particular project which was a sports facility complex to be built in eastern part of Ahmedabad . It was once a hub of industries but after their collapse it became the most neglected part of the city. When we took the ownership of the project we started reprogramming and did not want it to limit to only sports. Since it was during the early 2000s; turn over millennial with the dawn of digital age , we thought of incorporating a wifi cafĂŠ,restaurant,library, a small auditorium, a creche and soon became a hybrid programming. When the project was inaugurated by N.Modi, we were congratulated for coming up with
However, in reality it can grow to the human spirit and contribute to the aesthetics of the environment with its ideas of beauty, spirituality and joy.
As the society seeks these kind of more explicit and measured ways we have two paths ahead: one we have to continuously attempt to make more explicit the nuances subtle qualities of architecture and the other one is to not succumb to the quantifiable and engaging poetry attached to it. We have to engage with the poetics of arch. And have to keep in forefront as its our only defence. As we cannot beat the efficiency and measured quantifiable game as then anybody who has the ability to do math will be able to do arch.
Architecture is always regarded as a big responsible profession. What is your view and importance of architecture in shaping the society and environment and how does it brings change? MGA As a message I think its very important that we continuously keep pushing ourselves at the forefront of the ability of architecture to improve quality of human life. That’s what our profession calls for.
Veer Savarkar Sports Complex, Ahmedabad Source: aryaarchitects.in
Secondly arch should constantly be smelling the winds of change. It should be leading the winds of change,continuously oscillating between the timeless and the temporal which comes out of a lot of experience. Young architects have to have patience, work hard and just enjoy their identities.
much more than they had visualized that facility to be. It appeared grander and thought of and quickly started bringing in many people from the neighbourhood. When we went back there after a few years, we saw a lot of women from the lower income groups;mainly housewives;coming in their afternoon/evening break hour to use the gym leaving their children in the creche. It had all added up. Architecture today is quite misunderstood .It is considered as a profession that is contributing only to the surpluses of the world and lacks itself as a change maker which in reality is not true .The problem with it Aayojan Narrative
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Embrace the Journey
Design is a Process, a series of steps in a journey towards a final design. Each Project is ‘Unique’ with a unique set of requirements, possibilities and limitations. Between all these unique parameters the designer needs to find a unique, most appropriate design solution and eventually it tends to get into the trap of a Habit and a Method. Yet, is it best for why and how we Design? The habit which turns into a designer’s comfort needs to be broken revisited…The habit of using the same materials… the same elements…the same ideology repetitively. New methods need to be discovered, method to apply a material, to use an element, to reinterpret the process. Design needs to be a journey beyond the sites, physical limitations of walls, roofs and apertures. A journey ... beyond it all. Limitations of walls roofs and apertures, 15
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Fo r eve ry De sign a Unique jo urney m ust be take n.
A journey that one takes through a storyboard beyond just the site. A storyboard with Images from Life’s experiences; Images from life that attracts us, Images of Color… Pattern... Light... Art... These images then become the palette for Design and the Site is just the Designer’s Canvas. Here’s our story of GRAY The Name – Gray The Palette – Images from life The Medium – Kirigami The Project – a Modern Minimalist Multi-Cuisine Restaurant in Delhi Gray Gray is a perfect neutral that lives between Black and White, so becoming the transition linking two noncolors.
Seating area at Gray
Keeping the Integrity and Pureness of the Color, The Background-- the Canvas becomes Gray taking White as the art work in the foreground. White is added in places to both highlight and contrast Gray. The Space is visualized to be simple in Layout, Uniform in Color and Background i.e. The Floor, Wall, Ceiling all unify as one. The Palette Images of Life are added intricately over the background in a subtle and elegant form. The designs chosen depict Dreams, the Circle of Life, Beauty and Nature, Images from around us. Each image is depicted with complex beautiful patterns and flowing lines. All designs woven together in a pattern of Alternating Triangles which symbolizes Harmony and Integration within all elements. The Medium The Inspiration for depicting the images in a new way – as the Foreground is the traditional Paper cut art, also
called Kiri or Kirigami. The craft presents an intricate design cut through a single piece of paper. The same has been used on a larger canvas, thin single sheets of Corian instead of paper; are cut in intricate detail lines of interesting - simple and complicated designs; to create the same effect but on a much larger scale. The Process The Restaurant is on two levels – First floor and Terrace above. The Design Process started with solving the Layout, creating the Main area and the Servicing areas required. The space was then envisioned as one and the key areas were marked out that would be highlighted with our Story telling. While researching on kirigami we looked at images and elements which inspired us that we could bring together here. Animal profiles in Origami; Images from dreams and Life for the Main Wall, Snowflakes and patterns for other walls. These were then recreated on Formats that could be scaled and cut on large panels.
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Staircase at Gray
The Space The First floor is accessed by a staircase. The Language begins as one ascends the staircase. The wall rises with gray panels with impressions of origami art. The main floor is a long hall with one end with large windows facing outside and the other end with the kitchen. The window side is created as a separate box with seating area framing the windows, sides adorned by lit up panels and ceiling dotted with numerous hanging Acrylic Snowflakes. Snowflakes lit up from above shimmer with slight movement. The lit up panels are a broken pattern of Triangles. A small Bar and DJ counter is placed along the Kitchen wall, both highlighted by the same lit up pattern on the counter front, keeping the overall design simple. The main space is lined with Tables sparsely placed to keep it spacious. Multitude of Materials have been used to form Gray surfaces all laboriously matched together to create a unified space. Washable Cement Concrete paint finish Rafters line the ceiling with cylindrical lights. 17
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The Air conditioning ducts have been camouflaged as bands on both longer lengths also in the same finish. The same Paint covers Walls and all surfaces. The flooring is Vitrified Tile also in Cement Concrete look. A central band of Tiles have also been grouted and divided to confirm the triangular pattern in the Flooring. Keeping the Integrity and Pureness of the color, white is added in places to both highlight and contrast Gray. The Long wall of the Restaurant has been kept completely detached and free from obstruction to form a long complete Art wall which forms the main highlight. The Above floor has a covered seating area, a small Bar all covered by a Tent like structure. Large windows punctuating sides of this space keep it well lit. One glass facade connects this space to an outdoor seating area semi-covered with a wooden trellis custom designed in triangular pattern, with hanging chandeliers. This floor also confirms the same color and pattern theme, only hints of White oak Veneer have been added in the above floor to show a transition from the indoor to the outdoor terrace above.
The Furniture and Accessories are custom designed to accentuate the Theme and make the whole space cohesive.
implementation, inspiration and reinterpretation; A journey of our endeavor to add more value to a space through Art.
Tables have Grey tops with White MS Triangular frame customized bases; chic gray chairs keep the layout light. The Hanging lights are created in a wire frame developed from a basic triangle repetition. The place stands out being Minimalistic in Color and character. The Project was our journey through design and
Hence, For every Design project a Unique journey must be taken. Gray Global Kitchen and bar has been awarded at IIID Design Excellence and has been a part of Top 5 Hospitality Design Projects at FOAID (Festival of Architecture and Interior Design).
A N N U SA X EN A After completing schooling from the Prestigious MGD School, Jaipur Annu moved on to do her Graduation in Architecture from Aayojan School of Architecture with a Gold Medal and an Honors Degree. Annu completed Masters in Landscape Architecture from the esteemed SPA, New Delhi (School of Planning and Architecture, New Delhi) with an Honors Degree. After significant Experience under renowned Landscape Architects of the Country, Annu with her husband Ar. Satya Saxena established their Practice under Aspire Designs in 2008 based in New Delhi. The Firm is a team of young Architects and Designers. The Design work ranges from Restaurants, Lounges and Hospitality to Residential Projects. The Projects boast of intricate detailing, ambiance and above all Uniqueness in Design. Their projects have received Awards and Accolades at major design platforms like FOAID and IIID and published Design magazines like A+D and Inside Outside. Annu with her team continues to work with these Design platforms to share experiences and spread knowledge with the younger designers Aayojan Narrative
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In co nvers at ion w ith
Avijit Mukul Kishore
Avijit Mukul Kishore is a film director and cinematographer based in Mumbai whose love for cinema and visual arts is keenly represented in his work. Born in Lucknow and brought up in Delhi, he is actively involved in cinema pedagogy and is even the co-curator of a national film archive. He worked with Feisal Alkazi’s Music Theatre Workshop, as well as for programs aimed at children and adolescents on Doordarshan. After completing a course of cinematography at the Film and Television Training Institute (FTII) in Pune, he shifted to Mumbai. His films as a director include Snapshots from a Family Album, Vertical City, To Let the World In, Electric Shadows and Nostalgia for the Future.
You began your directorial career with a film revolving around your parents and moved on to cover subjects related to arts and urbanism. What is the idea behind your filmography? AMK I have always been interested in the idea of the personal, the intimate and the private realm framing larger narratives about culture, society and nationhood. We live by the images we make and images that are made for us — images of the ideal individual, images of the city and images of cultures as represented in the mainstream media, arts and cinema. I am interested in examining how these images inform our lives. As a result my films draw heavily from the personal and from archival material from state documentary and propaganda, which tries to frame us within the precepts of ‘culture’. I am also deeply interested in an inter-disciplinary approach to film-making. There are lessons and 19
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inspiration to be found in different art forms for your own practice. These free you, make you grow and relook at your own medium. My interest in the arts, architecture and urbanism comes from this interest in the imagination of us as people and in stretching the boundaries of this imagination.
How has your education moulded your thinking and films? AMK My education in history at Delhi University in the 1980s and cinematography at FTII Pune in the early 1990s were invaluable. . Apart from the formal, structured education we got at these institutions, we were growing up in times of great political and social upheaval in India and this shaped us very strongly. My formative years were marked by the rise of the Ram Janmabhoomi movement and the BJP,
the implementation of the Mandal Commission Report on caste-based reservations and the student protests around it, the demolition of the Babri Masjid and the polarization of Indian society that followed and finally the economic liberalization of India. Such historical processes can be confusing and overwhelming for the young adult but they surely politicize her/him. They also give their perspective on things held sacred, like dominant ideas of culture, of what is acceptable in society and in one’s work. It is easy and seems safer to conform to these prescribed ideas handed down to us. The value of education lies in letting one understand if these ideas are fair, just and sustainable.
Nostalgia for the Future Source: thinkmatter.in
Your last films Vertical City, Nostalgia for the Future memory through the different registers evoked by and Lovely Villa have a distinct edge and give a new the different media it uses along with a layered sound dimension to how architectural documentaries are design. made. What made you explore this genre? Given that architecture and films are such visually AMK All three films, while dealing with housing and strong mediums, even some of the greatest the citizen, are very different in terms of film language architects like Charles Correa worked on a short and form. Vertical City and Lovely Villa look at two film on Bombay. Do you believe there’s some sort conflicting imaginations of the public, society and of interdependency or correlation between these housing in Bombay 25 years apart. One looks at building two worlds? affordable and inclusive housing for the middle classes in the early 1970s and the other at an exclusionary slum rehabilitation project built for the working class in the late 1990s. Both are government-initiated projects. Vertical City is an issue-based film where I chose not to have on-screen interviews and instead focus on the experience of the space of the slum-rehab project with the voices of people living there and those of urbanstudies scholars. Lovely Villa, written and co-directed by Rohan Shivkumar, starts out as a regular film on a beautiful housing project designed by Charles Correa and turns halfway through into a deeply personal and distraught account of loss and the end of an inclusive idea of society that the state was trying to foster in the 1970s. Nostalgia for the Future is the most complex film of the three, mixing different formats like digital video, 16 mm film, both colour and black and white, with archival material from state documentaries and feature films from the ‘nation-building period’ of the 1950s and 60s. The film looks at different ideas of Modernity as manifested in the imagined body of the citizen and the home they would inhabit. The film draws on collective
AMK Architecture and Cinema, being spatiotemporal mediums, have had a long history of working off each-other. I would argue for an abstract sense of temporality in works of architecture, as lived spaces that contain narratives. On the other hand, many filmmakers have worked with space in specific ways. The works of Buster Keaton, Jacques Tati and Apichatpong Weerasethakul are notable for their use of the architectural. Weerasethakul trained as an architect and works as a lens-based visual artist and filmmaker. Many other filmmakers are known for their engagement with space in general. Andrei Tarkovsky is a fine example of that. Charles Correa’s involvement with film was different. He used the film medium to put forth his thesis on town planning with regard to the decongesting of Bombay through the creation of New Bombay in the mid-1970s. The film ‘City on the Water’ has some remarkable and unforgettable images of the city at the railways stations and during the monsoon. It was produced for Films Division India.
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social engineering by a government organisation where the residents of a housing complex were not filtered through community or income group. One just had to be a policy holder of LIC to apply for an apartment. There were apartments of different sizes on the same floor and this facilitated people from different economic strata, family configurations — migrants, single people or those with large families and different caste and communities backgrounds to live together. This project was a complete antithesis to the postliberalisation gated communities that have now become the norm — exclusionary, isolationist and uniform in nature, completely against the nature of the Indian demographic fabric. This is where my friend Rohan Shivkumar, architect and writer-director of this film grew up in a building called ‘Lovely Villa’, which the film is named after. Nostalgia for the Future too looks nature of the body of the imagined homes in India until they become a machine of the nation and finally a liberal economy.
Lovely villa Source: anarchytect-blogger
at the changing citizen and their cog in the great customer in the
Routine, as the word suggest, is a term that is part of our everyday life. But it carries many introspective layers with varied perspectives. So what does ‘Routine’ represent in your work?
If you have to pick instances from your films, how do you believe the Indian architecture and the AMK There is a sequence on filling water in Vertical City where the residents of a slum rehabilitation society as whole evolved with time? complex have to take buckets of water up the stairs of AMK I would like to refer to Lovely Villa for this. The housing complex called LIC Colony was built by the Life Insurance Corporation of India in the suburb of Borivali in northern Mumbai in the early 1970s. The LIC, like many public sector undertakings had land all over the country. They decided to turn this one into a public housing project which was given to the clients upon the maturity of a certain kind of insurance policy instead of money. People could also take possession an apartment and pay towards it as they paid their insurance premiums. The complex was designed and landscaped by Charles Correa in a beautiful way that ensured community interaction in the common spaces — the landings, the courtyards, the market and the shortcuts between buildings. What was truly remarkable was the fact that this was an exercise in 21
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a high-rise as the elevators do not work. That is a very violent idea of how we do not provide for citizens we do not find important and choose not to see. Even at a more mundane level, Snapshots from a Family Album is all about my mother dividing her time between two apartments, in Delhi and Bombay, in periods of work and when she visits ‘home’ where the family is. Both Snapshots from a Family Album and Lovely Villa are about spaces of the mundane where great narratives of life, rites of passage and death play out against the routine of domesticity. That is what I mean by the temporal nature of architectural spaces.
The idea of taking alternate route co-exists parallel to following a tried and tested path. Sometimes the attempt to shift on alternate paths is out of need or a process, but it can equally be out of a desire. What is your take on this dilemma, especially as a film-maker, where various technicians and artist from varied fields come together to make a project a success? AMK It is interesting, as my collaboration with Rohan is a specific one — that between a cinematographerfilmmaker and an architect-academic. It leads to a specific kind of film-making. As does the process of working with or making films on visual artists, where the medium of film has to, by definition, respond to a specific art form and find a language to render it cinematic and experiential. It is hardest to shoot paintings. An immersive installation lends itself better to being shot and there are some works that are very hard to translate to the cinematic medium. Shooting another art form is an act of translation — you have to adapt it to the idiom of your own medium.
What message do you have for the young architect, aspirants trying their hand to make films and the design fraternity as whole? AMK We need to watch and study work in different media and different genres. I don’t like privileging work of one genre over another as I feel there are different languages to be explored, learnt from and even stolen from while making our work. Finally, be very serious about your work but do not take yourself overly seriously!
Taking the idea of change ahead, do you remember any instances from film society or in general around the world, where the ‘Change’ was starkly visible? AMK I don’t believe films, especially the kind we make, bring about direct change. The mainstream media like television and commercial cinema are way more powerful than independent and documentary film in their ability to influence opinions. But we can surely influence some viewers in terms of information, outlook and perspective, especially with documentary films. Whether it was the film society movements in different parts of India in the 1970s and 80s, or later programmes of screenings, we notice that these are very well attended by people who are looking for different kinds of film and discourse around it. It is these people — students, activists, academics and people from different backgrounds who go on to influence and inform in their own capacities. We have to live with hope, especially in the face of brazen state propaganda seen from time to time, like what we are experiencing at present. This is a dramatic time for people who study the processes of culture-making and propaganda across different media.
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Book Review
C l i ma x City : M a ste r-planning and t h e c o m p le x ity of urban growt h David Rudlin and Shruti Hemani Published in June 2019 RIBA Publishing along with URBED, The URBED Trust and The Academy of Urbanism.
So why don’t we just allow cities to selforganise? Do we really need planning or design for cities? Our book “Climax City: Master-planning and Complexity of Urban Growth” started life as a book of hand drawn maps (on digital devices); maps that have taken a huge amount of time to be produced! It’s our labour of love for maps produced at 5 different scales, each 5 times 23
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larger than the preceding plan that take the readers around the world to explore how human settlements have transformed over time. The maps range from 80m radius urban ‘tissue’ through to 400m public realm, 2km figure ground, 10km trellis and 50km context. We started to ask: why is the figure ground plan of Venice so similar to the morphology of Indian slum or a small village in Mali? Why are they so different from the planned towns of Jaipur, New Town Barcelona or the New York grid?
Maps produced at 5 different scales for different cities worldwide, each 5 times larger than the preceding plan explore how human settlements have transformed over time
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I (Shruti) have spend much of my time researching on the morphology of informal and historic settlements in India and David, throughout his career (>40 years) has been trying to understand the “gap between places that we aspire to and those that we have created” and explore “how we might approach the act of masterplanning differently?”. The book is a product of many years of thinking about cities through a combination of urban mapping and critically analysing them across their political, social, cultural, economic dynamics to help us understand the process by which the cities change grow or shrink or morph into something different from what it may be. 25
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The title of the book is drawn from the biological concept ‘Climax Vegetation’. If you leave a piece of land fallow, undisturbed from human intervention, over the years it would mature into a distinctive natural state depending on local context and climate of that geographical location such as a Broadleaf Woodland or Savannah, Tundra, Rainforest and other. It seemed a useful analogy for the diversity of human settlement that developed under varied urban conditions across the planet. If you take any human society anywhere in the world and leave them to their own devices each society will produce its own form of urbanism adjusting and adapting to their needs and local (climatic, social,
La-Barroux, France and Jodhpur, India. Urban structures created across the world by very different societies in very different conditions are remarkably similar.
political, social, religious and economic) context in order to achieve a desirable urban form without a clear or complete map of what they were making as a whole. Established ‘complexity’ theories have drawn similarities between the cities grown naturally, outside planning, with an anthill, slime mold or termite mounds. These suggest that just as a higher level order or a pattern of an ant-hill emerges from millions of semirandom encounters between individual ants, cities are also made up of several co-evolving interdependent parts influenced by millions of decisions taken at individual level. The cumulative outcome of these millions of decisions taken become a complex system
and the resultant form is an emergent pattern rather than a designed one. This process of natural growth has given us some of our most beautiful towns and cities from the past. Perhaps, the same old messy natural process of city building may now also be at work in the slums of the developing world. So why don’t we just allow cities to self-organise? Do we really need planning or design for cities? Our book explores this. But, before we get carried away with this idea we get reminded by the cautionary tale of the walled city of Kowloon that grew into an extraordinary 14 storey slum. Take away planing in Aayojan Narrative
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many parts of the world and the ‘climax state’ will not be a Tuscan town or Tokyo but a slum, kacchi basti, barrio or shanty. Elsewhere the removal of planning will result in excess of global capitalism - the urbanism of tower, the mall, the theme parks, the sprawling suburb or the exclusive gated community that can be found from Lagos to Mumbai, Dubai to Docklands of London. Unlike ants or termites, to which complexity theory makes reference, we argue that humans are able to think, discuss, debate issues related to their safety, livelihood, community and have aspirations, take decisions and plan for it. Design and Planning are therefore seen as important and indispensable components that influence the pattern of growth or decline of a city alongside many others. Much of our book is about the struggle between planning and systems across the world and the process of natural growth and emergent patterns. Through the study of several cities across the globe, from Tokyo to Tuscan, Manchester to Manhattan, Paris to St. Petersburg, Jaipur to Rio de Janerio, Brighton to Barcelona and more, we argue that Climax urbanism is a result of the way by which “natural” urban growth interacts with the process of “master-planning”. Our book is divided into four sections: 1. THE SPONTANEOUS CITY which looks into places that have been created through the natural processes and emergent behaviour and makes references to complexity science. 2. THE DESIGNED CITY talks about the formal act of master-planning and its various forms such as invention of utopias and star-architects, urban expansions and reforms as well as the subtle art of master-planning. 3. THE UNRULY CITY explores the phenomenon of dramatic urban change expressed through explosive growth (exploding cities), acute decline (shrinking cities) and limitless sprawl (sprawling cities). 4 THE CITY AND THE PLANNER explores the process of planning and urban design that guides natural growth rather than controls it and celebrates the 21st Century Urban Renaissance. Alongside several cities, we talk about natural growth in historic towns and study of slums in India and their process of growth. We explore questions such as: 27
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Are slums a form of proto-urbanism? Is this process so different from the way London and Paris were developed in the 16th-17th centuries? However we do not suggest that historic towns are a sort of models for the way we should be building human settlements. If we were, we would have not given birth to modern day planning. We also argue that there is a fundamental problem with attempts to design a natural town as the very idea of ‘design a natural’ town is oxymoron. Imitation of traditional towns soon slide into pastiche that sit well in Fairy tales, Theme parks and Fair grounds but not real world. On this note we look at the well meaning profession of master-planning and how it has been used throughout the history to plan new cities from scratch like St. Petersburg or Auroville, to expand existing ones like Navi Mumbai or grid of New York or New Town Barcelona and in rare instances reform the existing ones such as remodeling of Paris. We explore questions such as: How is it that with the best of our intentions we have created some of the worst of all outcomes? Why is it that the professions whose sole aim is to improve our towns and cities have in the eyes of most people achieved quite the opposite? This we think is because of the mismatch between the idea of design / planning and the reality of cities. Planned utopias, be it ancient cosmic ideology or the modernist diagrams or the present day technological innovations of the perfectly smart city, all strive to achieve a perfect or ideal end-state in equilibrium. Our argument is that a city is not an artifact that can be designed entirely on paper as an end state and realised exactly as a blueprint of it. Rather cities are complex systems that can be influenced by planning but never entirely controlled by it. There is nothing wrong about dreaming of a better future but we argue that modern day design and planning undermine the natural process by which cities are built. We are fighting a losing battle to impose order on natural systems. Design and Planning is not just about ‘big architecture’ or ‘utopian vision’ but a means to shape the natural process of urban growth rather than control it. A good master-plan provides a firm structure- like the ‘trellis upon which a vine grows’. This is a process similar to that of old city of Jaipur or plot based development of Glasgow, a system that uses the master-plan as a fixed frame onto which the natural growth evolves. Its a process by which cities have been planned for
centuries but have struggled under the weight of the urban changes that have taken place since the Industrial revolution. We call this as the subtle art of master-planning, which we need to rediscover, to allow the new climax urbanism to emerge. We also do not put forth Dubai or Masdar as examples that represent the climax urbanism of global capitalism in the 21st century, a model that all of the world’s cities are trying to mimic. The process that generates these capitalist forms is ill-suited to an age when cities are once again emerging as engines of economic growth, creativity and diversity via a new phase of transition. Los Angeles, downtown is coming back to life and the city of Manchester, which has featured throughout our book, is growing rapidly. Many (but not all) of the cities of China, India, South America and Africa are transitioning directly from their explosive phase to their renaissance phase, as their heavy industry is being replaced by knowledge economies and their success is increasingly based on their ability to attract the young and the educated. Climax state of the 21st-century city is likely to be more urban than its 20th-century predecessors and that we need to reform our urban systems so that they are fit for this new urban future. We might be set for a golden urban age ……
Climax state of the 21st-century city is likely to be more urban than its 20thcentury predecessors and that we need to reform our urban systems so that they are fit for this new urban future. We might be set for a golden urban age.
PROF . S H R U T I H EMA N I Shruti Hemani is a professor for urban design at Aayojan School of Architecture, Jaipur. Her doctoral research at Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati was an interdisciplinary inquiry into influence of urban forms on social sustainability. She is a recipient of Best Thesis Gold Medal (M.S. University), INREB Sustainable Urban Communities Students’ Prize (RIBA design competition). David Rudlin is a director of Urbanism Environment and Design (URBED), Honorary Professor at Manchester University, Chair of the Academy of Urbanism and winner of the Wolfson Economics Prize in 2014. Their book Climax City has won the National Urban Design Awards 2020 - BOOK by The Urban Design Group (UDG), a membership charity open to all who care about the quality of life in our cities. Aayojan Narrative
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Time to reboot
Wh o k n ows wh e re i nn ovat io n c o uld l ea d ?
Twenty years ago, when I entered the precinct of this great college as a first batch student of B. Arch students, I had little idea of what lies in the future.
Steve Jobs at his famous Stanford speech talked about staying hungry… and staying foolish.
Many times we get satisfied with what we are doing, what we have – what we normally called a ‘safe option’. There comes a time when each one of us feels a sense of ‘settled’. Like a student may think, I have made it to College, now life will be smooth – Companies will offer a lucrative job and then suddenly the economic downturn comes and there are limited jobs. So much for being settled! Similarly, a great company or a CEO may think – I have got the best product in the market, what should I worry about? I know it all… and before you know the Competitor has outrun you (remember what Gmail did to Yahoo).
This was his address to young college graduates. And one does have to think what was so powerful in these simple words that one of the best entrepreneurs had this to offer as advice.
A few years back, Google despite being one of the valued companies of the world has still decided to reinvent itself by starting a company called ALPHABET with a cool domain name www.abc.xyz. It is clear that
I feel extremely proud and happy that my alma mater has allowed me to write in this special edition as we celebrate 20 years of Aayojan School of Architecture. It is special for me as I started my journey in the field of architecture the same year when Aayojan School of Architecture was born.
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Google despite having multiple successful products is still hungry and looking to learn. As per me, the most important thing is to constantly keep looking for new things, new leanings, and never get satisfied. You will have difficult times but the only thing that will help you to propel in your career forward is your passion and love towards your true calling. Every day is exciting when you are following your passion and there won’t be any Monday blues. Upwards and onwards always! Basis my experience of delving both in the academic world and also as a practitioner, I believe that from a human ecological sustainability point of view, this is a good time to reflect on the things around us. Before the current pandemic hit India, we already had a series of sustainability-related challenges. Every year as winter approaches, almost entire of North India braces itself to breathe in the toxic air. Thick smog blankets the vast stretches of India making it difficult to breathe. Experts advise against moving out of homes as toxicity makes the air unfit to breathe. Winter in 2020 could be even more harrowing. As most of the public transport remains shut, we will see more sales of automobiles as people will be forced to buy their vehicles. Air pollution and traffic congestion which were already spiraling out of hand, unfortunately, may get worse. This in turn may lead to even more toxic air. COVID has exposed many fragilities in our world – from lack of international co-operations amongst countries (for basics like equipment, testing kits, and ventilators), to complete failure of our public health facilities in India even when we had time to prepare. The impact has been colossal. The impact on economic, social, and psychological aspects may never be known fully. Countries/States which had better infrastructure were resilient; while the others just collapsed. Even today we hear countless stories where people who got COVID+ were left to fend for themselves. And these are stories that we have heard. As is well known in India, most cases go unreported. And this is despite the marvelous technological advancements that we have achieved in various fields. We have explored space for five decades now, revolutionized our working methods through the aid of
software, decreased child mortality rate considerably; yet achievements from these fields have not always percolated to our daily life. And to make matters worse, most of this growth has come at a colossal cost to the environment. Challenges like – water pollution, water scarcity, deforestation, lack of affordable housing, etc. have only increased. However, we also know, once prioritized, any challenge can be surmounted. Be it eradication of polio, saving tigers from extinction – we know once a will has been put in, solutions were found out. It is important that all of us as architects continuously strive to understand the challenges better and implement solutions to the most pressing problems in our field. COVID related disruption should be used as a time to reflect, review, and maybe re-boot the way we are leading our lives. At times we should think that architecture needs to be so bound…so much to be led by the individual choices… or we should have architecture for conditions which are limitless or maybe architecture for circumstances… which is variable from a single house and transforming it into a city or maybe a Metro city? Megacity? We have created enough destruction if we continue unabated; there may not be even a chance to re-boot in the future!!! Because “Who knows where innovation could lead?”
P RO F . A N U B H AV MI T TA L Associate Professor, Faculty in-charge Training Placement, student welfare Aayojan Narrative
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Urban renewal of Historic core of Vrindavan NIASA Best Thesis, Master of Architecture in Urban Design, June 2019
Vrindavan is one of the most visited destination amongst the sacred landscape at Braj Region in India, attracting tourists from all over the world for its exemplary architectural, natural and spiritual expressions of traditional Indian culture. Over a period of time, the development of various religious institutions and Government initiatives that focused on religious tourism has facilitated the pilgrims with contemporary requirements. The pilgrims that visited Braj once or twice in a lifetime, are now visiting frequently within a 31
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year. The number of tourist has grown from a modest 5000 (1950) to 13 million in 2017(Annual Tourist visits Statistics, Tourism Dept., Govt. of UP) annually, which approximates four time of the local population of Vrindavan. Located at the bend of Yamuna River, Vrindavan is surrounded by water from all three sides, the fourth side being open for development towards NH-2, offering connectivity from Mathura and Delhi. Once
Historic evolution of Vrindavan
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Built use and activity mapping
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rendered with variety of Thickets, beautiful temples and majestic ghats, the sacred landscape of Vrindavan is now bustling with pilgrims, congestion, encroachment, unhygienic conditions & massive movements of people on an ecologically sensitive area. The historic core has lost its sense of place and urban development is progressing irrespective of the unique traits of settlements evolved over centuries.
of present and proposed urban development strategies on the same and the detailed analysis of the issues and gaps identified forms the base for proposal of urban renewal strategies for Vrindavan. The project intends to come up with Urban Renewal model for historic core of religious settlements respecting the sacred environment while facilitating the socio- culturaleconomic development of local communities.
A comprehensive study based on literature and site survey was undertaken to understand the historic environment of Vrindavan and how the town has evolved through ages. The thesis identifies the impact
The solutions developed in this thesis demonstrates the renewal process of a historic core in response to its unique culture and tradition. Design guidelines and speculation provides starting point for further
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Existing layout of Biharipura and Dushyat Moholla
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development, as Urban Renewal is a continuous process, especially in the cities like Mathura, Vrindavan that are witnessing rapid growth due to large pilgrim influx. Interventions in the core area are developed in response to the morphological pattern of the clusters and their socio-cultural structuring. Since Vrindavan’s core area is situated on an undulating plateau with labyrinth of narrow alleys, Ecology is a major inbuilt criterion for design development.
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Through my thesis I have tried to understand the city at multiple scales and how these scales interact with each other on different layers such as Ecological, Cultural and Economical.
Proposed serial vision through Master Plan
N EH A G OYA L TAT ER Neha Goyal, post graduate student of Aayojan School of Architecture, Jaipur completed her masters in Urban Design (2017-2019). Her thesis was awarded with the NIASA Best Thesis Award (Masters of Architecture 2019). Currently, she is partner at Navya Designs, Jaipur. Aayojan Narrative
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Development in the A myth o r Developing re ality?
Are we as a society crippling at the hands of this global pandemic? Are we giving in to risen economic crisis at the cost of existing legacy? Are we ready to suffocate the cities with socio- political influences? Since time immemorial India has seen many cosmetic and non-essential projects revamping the entire cites without their permission. Such revamping happened sometimes due to a political propaganda or a vision any ruler saw for his/her state. History is filled with such innumerous examples all varying with multitudes of region. Whether it be the planning of Jaipur done for the betterment of the communities or the completion of the Brunelleschi’s 37
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dome in Brussels which was seen as a symbol of status. Every ruler of the state risen in power, dreamt of leaving a legacy behind and becoming immortal in the history. With development synonymous to power it becomes essential to improvise such decisions which mostly had very little groundwork to back them up. It is true that such urban level projects are important for an overall development of the cities and accommodate the everlasting changes of the pandemic we are facing along with the world. However by robbing them from their very own essence does not assure them a spot in the criteria of the most urbanized and developed cities. User participation, a concept alienated from
Proposed serial vision through Master Plan
infrastructure and urban development, too, is of vital importance in the cities. In order to get to the core of the issue, it is prudent to genuinely look at some of the past projects established in the name of development and comprehend if they actually led to the desired results.
Unfortunately this exercise mostly yielded the agony of the unattended masses whose opinions were not taken into account and only resulted in the accentuated urban poverty in Indian cities and a loss of sense of belongingness. One of the best examples of such thinking and administration are the projects made in various Aayojan Narrative
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Indian cities in the name of beautification of rivers with promising avenues, elaborate landscape and pedestrianisation. It would have actually added to our cities’ value like it did for the similar projects in London (along river Thames) and Paris( along Sienne )had it taken into account the opinions of the communities affected, existing topography, biodiversity and built environment. However, unfortunately it only resulted in the reduction of these natural features to nothing but low- lying areas with diminishing biodiversity that flood every year and displacement of communities from their centuries old settlements. Such situations arise when land is monetized and private players take the lead and deliver such projects lacking the soul in them. It is the need of the hour that the architects and planners along with the public, the primary user if the product (space)have an equal participation in the entire process. For it is only when the social fabric and economic needs of an area are critically analysed and worked upon can one put forward valid and accomplishable proposals leading to actual development.
the major routes in Pune increasing the walk ability in the entire city . Though it sometimes requires widening of roads and claiming lands it bears the best interest of the city and is much far sighted than of such other projects in other Indian cities which attempts in robbing the city with its major landmarks and spaces for the luxury of a few. Due to the current pandemic and the social distancing norms its brought about, transformational reforms are bound to happen in the urban spaces. Even the ‘new normal’ can be catastrophic if we still ignore the basics needs of the citizens and continue with blatantly irresponsible spaces. Even with various logical objections from these sensitive architects and planners, the bureaucrats anyhow always emerge victorious with their rotten and selfish notions of development centering a particular class. It is therefore very crucial that these scared spaces are tailored with respect to the context and need of the hour by sensitive individuals who see them as holistic projects for the community beyond mere politics.
Its not that such practice is absolutely obsolete in India. Many Indian architects and planners for the likes of Charles Correa, Pradeep Sachdeva,Sameep Padora, Riyaz Tayyabji, Prasanna Desai, AKG Menon, Gautam Bhatia, and many more contributed to the society with their designs in an attempt to raise their opinion ; which were not only citizen –friendly but enhanced the overall area they were situated in. It was because they were planned keeping in mind the social infrastructure of the area, future expansion and transit options along with the feasibility of the entire project in the present as well in the future. One of the few examples to have come up recently is the abstraction and reinterpretation from the centuries old paradigms of temple in Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh by Indian architect Sameep Padora .He admitted in one of his interviews that if not for the local priests and people who not only accepted their modern designs but also helped in making it more accessible by building roads, their deigns would have been mere structures with no identity. Another such example on an urban scale can be seen in the works of Pune – based urban planner Prasanna Desai, who has been ardently working on pedestrianisation of 39
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RAS H I MATHU R Batch 17
ADE Awards The Aayojan Design Excellence Awards 2019-2020
Students at different stages at school are expected to explore the relationship of architectural space with Human dimension (2nd semester), Vernacular practices (3rd semester), Climatic factors (4th semester), Structural systems (5th semester), Mechanical and electrical systems (6th semester), Physical surroundings (7th semester) and the Urban Environs (9th semester).The Aayojan Design Awards (ADE) seek out the best projects that sensitively use these thematic explorations to enrich the quality of architectural space and its experience.
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Place for People
M ixed-u se re d eve l o p m ent of V id hya d h a r N a g a r, J a ipu r When we think of an urban space, we relate it to plots and roads but what we often forget is that an urban space is nothing but a place for people. A place that stays active 24 x 7 throughout the year for all age groups. What bring life to a space is the activities that people get to perform in that area, be it strolling in the morning or an outing at night. An urban space in the context of this design project is a mix of commercial area and residential area both held cohesively with open interactive spaces for people.
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The approach for this design started by first studying some of the nearby existing urban plazas and streets like GT, Madhyam Marg, Raja Park, Nehru Place, etc. at various times of the day to understand what things make a public space lively. The design was initiated by making figure ground diagrams to develop the open spaces followed by the edges of the buildings and then narrowing down to the built block. The zoning of spaces for the project was done according to the existing neighbourhood i.e. the axis
of the building follows the original axis of the area, therefore, becoming a part of the surrounding area. The major accessible roads are utilised to their maximum potential by providing commercial areas on the sides adjacent to these roads and the residential area across the street mixing up with residential area of Vidyadhar Nagar. Distinctive features of the design are: 1. Inviting – the buildings surrounding the plaza are provided in such a way that it allows maximum visibility from roads making it more inviting for visitors. 2. Interconnected buildings – since the buildings are very large and wide, connections like skywalks, bridges, arched gateways, etc. are provided between them for easy access. 3. Series of courtyards – Keeping in mind the climate of Jaipur, courtyard enclosure is provided.
Plan
Central Plaza
4. Architectural Character – considering the rich heritage of the city, emphasis is given on use of those architectural features in the building so that it integrates with the character of the city. Elements like arched skywalks, arcaded walkways and gateways have been provided. 5. Inclusive and integrated development – The building is placed and built in a way that it gives a feeling of inclusion of people for all age groups. Spaces like kids play area, gazebos, exercising area with jogging path, kiosks and sitting, etc. have been provided
Entrance View
RU PA L I KH ATRI
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Dravywati Bazaar
“A rc h it ect u re d oesn ’t ex ist wit h ou t p eople”
Architects have a responsibility to provide more open spaces, spaces that can be transformable, allowing the people to interact and use the space in their own way. Only we have to provide the platform and let the people take over it.
Main Entrance
The project aimed to ensure complete involvement of people by providing multi-functional spaces encouraging a collaborative experience of socializing and recreational activities. Major part of the site is used to accommodate food court, multipurpose hall, kid’s play area, open air amphitheater and commercial spaces like offices and showrooms. The site located along river Dravyawati beside landscape garden and primary school, offers extensive views and an opportunity to provide sports playground.
Visitor Circulation
Service Circulation
The site extends a 9m level difference that has been treated to achieve maximum shade for the circulation of users. Two entrances lead to the site with a separate service entry where the primary entrance is enclosed by varied plantation. Trees have been aligned to provide a sense of direction to the user. Showrooms located at the entrance of the site to avoid any hindrance in the visual connectivity of the user.
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Plan
The amphitheater, which is situated at the lowest level of site has a separate entry for the convenience of users, acts as a multi-functional space, catering to myriad of cultural and social activities while also offering a retreat spot. The spaces are interconnected and designed to provide an easy accessibility with the multipurpose hall acting as the central focus, and has four separate entries to avoid chaos and promote
an organized flow of circulation. The building is tied together with landscape with each module offering it’s own open area. The food court is situated along the river, covering maximum area by the shade of trees providing extensive views to the site. The building has been designed in accordance with the site context, catering to the multi faceted needs of the society.
LO KES H KATA RIA
Seating can be used for group discussion or for the major event
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Temple of Humanity Triangl e of tra nq ui l l i ty
The project aims to build a temple to honour all the religions in the Jaipur city of Rajasthan by focusing on the theme of ‘Structural Design’ and exploring new construction techniques and materials with respect to the climatic response. Named as ‘Temple for Humanity’, the project focuses on creating a secular space for all religions. The concept of the design has been inspired from natural elements which have been incorporated into different spaces in order to create a sense of tranquillity. A new typology and experience has been given to the spiritual expanses through texture, colour, structure, size, proportion etc. Thus, rather than being guided by a singular concept, several concepts bind together to make the space whole. To enrich the understanding of this particular building type, the project was initiated through the sketches
of the form of the temple and various spaces to be incorporated in it and how they blend together with the natural elements like light, wind, water, etc. Then in order to understand the scale and connectivity of spaces, process models were developed. The functionality of the building was also taken care of side by side as it played a major role in the design. The structure was further integrated with the design. As a result, a contemporary white triangular pyramidal space was formed along with other spaces having light roofs which provide a hierarchy to the whole space. Use of new materials has been explored in the design, specifically which are light in weight and have better insulation power. For the fenestration, blue tinted glass was employed for better view also providing diffused light from the roof. The explored material used was Carbonated Fibrous Composed Sheets (CFC).
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View
As it is said, that design is a never-ending process, the approached design of the temple might be rendered as incomplete and yet the thought process embraced in it, intends to create a symbol of unity which would prove to be beneficial for all of the humanity.
architectural elements to the space to provide distinct feelings to the users in different spaces. The effect that such a building might create on the society is an ineffable one to the humanity.
From the learnings of the 1st semester, the circulation in the temple along with climatic response of the structure, these considerations amalgamate the true
MA NJ EET S INGH
Plan
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The Tilted stay
A n accomm o d ati o n ti l ti n g t owa r d s envi ron m e nta l re sp o ns e
A Farm-stay is essentially an accommodation available on a working farm. It’s one of the best way to enjoy and comprehend nature away from the hustle and bustle of the city.
Design Development
The site is situated in Narkanda, a town in Shimla in the Indian state Himachal Pradesh. Covered with a vast apple orchards on all sides of the site which allows a mesmerizing view throughout the year with ease and freedom from pain and constraints. The stay have to be designed in a way which provides maximum comfort to the owner as well as the guests staying in there and thus respecting the natural context. The idea was to develop a built mass with abstract and minimal visual concepts, and create a unique experience for the guest. Supporting the function, such a roof form is devised which would allow an increase in the surface area towards the southern direction and also give a perception of the tilted form. Having skylights designed in a manner that augments the form well and would allow the light to pass through even during snowfall.
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Sensitive organization of spaces according to different users (owner and guest) also facilitates the owner’s privacy but should also induce a well interactive environment with the guests. The owner is a farmer his space was planned on the upper floor with abundant heat trapping from the southern direction and an attached balcony which could fulfill his requirements. Each room having it’s own open interactive space accessible by a sliding in the south. A Dining facing the west with rich vegetation outside have a walkway leading to an open sitting deck designed as a minimal representation of the form acting as an informal gathering space between the shrubs at the southern side of the stay for the guests. The wooden structure is low cost and easy to install which also provides adequate insulation. Standing out by it’s form and concepts, every feature of this
stay connects from the external environment and elements merging with each other providing it’s guests a homely yet distinctive experience. The owner is a farmer his space was planned on the upper floor with abundant heat trapping from the southern direction and an attached balcony which could fulfill his requirements.
The wooden structure is low cost and easy to install which also provides adequate insulation. Standing out by it’s form and concepts, every feature of this stay connects from the external environment and elements merging with each other providing it’s guests a homely yet distinctive experience.
Each room having it’s own open interactive space accessible by a sliding in the south. A Dining facing the west with rich vegetation outside have a walkway leading to an open sitting deck designed as a minimal representation of the form acting as an informal gathering space between the shrubs at the southern side of the stay for the guests.
Plan at 1200mm
Design Development
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Section AA
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Kerala! God’s own country
Learni n g w hi l e trave l l i ng
Alleppey backwaters Photographed by: Vishwesh Gupta 49
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Socio cultural influences have for a long time helped in shaping the architecture all around the world. The 2019-20 educational tour was a comprehensive journey throwing light on the rich socio-cultural heritage of Kerala. Headed by Prof. N.S. Rathore and Prof. Archana Rathore, the trip covered the cities of Munnar, Trivandrum and Kochi, diving deep into understanding the culture, identity of the people and places. As part of the outdoor learning program, the objective of the 11 days trip focus was to understand the intangible i.e. the culture, behavior and practices, to truly understand the tangible i.e. the architecture, land and its people.
architecture, expansive beaches, temples and many art galleries. It is also home to Kuthira Malika Palace, adorned with carved horses and displaying collections related to the Travancore royal family. Along with being a center for traditional learning, Trivandrum is also an important landmark for information technology. Dressing up in the traditional ensemble of Kerala known as the Kalli Mundu, the group also visited the Padmanabhaswamy Temple. The time spent in Trivandrum advocated the importance about co-existing with the nature and the importance of cost-effectiveness by studying works of Dr. Laurie Baker.
The first leg of the trip took place in the valley of Munnar. Covered with a panorama of mountains, Munnar is a hill station located in the Idukki district of Kerala known for its cold climate and tea plantations. Nested amidst the tea plantations is Anayirangal Lake which literally translates to the dam where elephants come down to quench their thirst. Munnar also houses the Eravikulam National Park which is home to the famous Nilgiri Tahr. The natural aura takes one away from the constant urban conundrum of city life. The second day was marked by a visit to the Eravikulam National Park where the students learned about the geography and the natural heritage of Munnar.
Kochi also known as ‘the queen of Arabian sea’ was the last destination of the trip. It has been a port since 1341, when a flood carved out its harbor and opened it to Arab, Chinese and European merchants. Sites which reflect those influences include Fort Kochi, a settlement with tiled colonial bungalows and diverse houses of worship. Ruled by the Portuguese, Dutch and British, Kochi elegantly celebrates the confluence of history, culture and architecture. Since, the core of architecture also lies in the economics and politics of a city, the first agenda of the fourth day was to learn about the political glory of Kerala. Thus the students studied the Kerala Legislative Assembly and The Secretariat Building. The Legislative Assembly is a representative of the local architecture of Kerala. It is
On the third day the tour group headed to the port city, Trivandrum. It is distinguished by its Colonial
Napier Museum, Thiruvananthapuram Photographed by: Manas Sharma Aayojan Narrative
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a structure with grand staircase, gardens, water bodies and a large Central Assembly Hall. The Secretariat Building is the seat of administration of the Government of Kerala, constructed in Roman and Dutch style. Here, architect Dr. G.N. Shankar, of the Habitat Technology Group, greatly influence by Laurie Baker, advocated the students about the importance of sustainable architecture, truth to material and the functional utility of a building structure. Kerala is considered to be the landmark to study the works of Laurie Baker. The students celebrated the ideologies of Sir Laurie Baker by visiting, studying and documenting The CDS Campus, Loyola Chapel, Laurie Baker Center and The Indian Coffee House to truly understand the philosophy behind the initiative of costeffective energy-efficient architecture and design. The day was summarized with an interactive seminar by the DGP of Kerala, Sir Rishiraj Singh Bhati where he spoke about Kerala, its geography, history and culture. On the fifth day, after a stop at the scenic beach of Trivandrum, students visited the The Kuthiramalika which literally translates to the Mansion of horses. It was an example of traditional Kerala architecture, with its typical sloping roofs, overhanging eaves, pillared verandahs and enclosed courtyards. On this day the students attended an insightful seminar by Prof. Anand DK, College of Architecture, Kerala. The visit to the city
of Alleppey, sitting in the houseboats, along the Kerala backwaters was in fact a detour from the process of learning and documentation. The latter days of the travel were spent in the magnificent city of Kochi with visits to the Hill Palace, Saint Francis CSI Church and the famous Fort of Kochi which proved to be destination of immense historical interest with its European heritage and true cosmopolitan temperament. It has the best memorial history of colonial times with its old colonial roads, treelined avenues, quaint little towns and buildings and the magnificent Chinese fishing nets. From watching the city at a slow pace on the riverside to the exploration of food, art, drama, and history, Kochi proved to be a great learning experience. Guided by the professors, the students’ along-side researched and documented the buildings and places they visited. The tour gave a deep insight about the how history and its evolution is important to understand the architecturally vocabulary of the place. Experiencing a place physically and understanding and understanding the behavior of its people helps in molding better ideas for design studies. The knowledge gained through this first-hand experience of culture and architecture of Kerala will stay with the student beyond the studio and college realm.
Top- Centre for Development Studies Left- Laurie Baker Centre, Thiruvananthapuram Photographed by: Manas Sharma 51
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Batch 19, Kerala educational tour co-ordinated by Prof. N.S. Rathore, Prof. Archana Singh and K.N. Singh.
S NEH LA X MI S HEKH AWAT Batch 18 Aayojan Narrative
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Jaipur Water F re nch Studio Exc hange 2 0 1 9
The initiation of the student exchange program started with the collaboration between the two schools Aayojan School of Architecture, Jaipur and Ecole Nationale Superieure D‟Architecture de Toulouse. The aim of the program was to establish an exchange of knowledge and study the role of water in the urban development of Jaipur and Amber along with development of strategies for fighting the water crisis of 2031. Water is the known to be the most important element on earth for the living beings. For centuries human civilizations have evolved around various natural sources of water. We have devised multiple methods of storing and preserving water as the main component necessary for everyday lives. From the very beginning regional people have made an intimate connection with water, not just for survival but also religiously, culturally, spiritually and aesthetically crucial. In the history of Rajasthan, „water‟ holds a lot of strategic importance and value. It has always been a central feature, even while 53
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planning settlements, due to the climatic requirements or establishing a settlement in the first place. But in the past few years, as the metropolisation of cities took place and the disregard among the people towards this precious natural resource, the water sources started have become polluted. In order to initiate an urban scale intervention for resolving challenges faced in today‟s time, the program took off with a two week long workshop at Jaipur, in the year 2018. It was proposed to be a three phase workshop for the consecutive years. The program initiated by The Principal & Director Prof. Kiran Mahajani, Prof. Rémi Papillault & Prof. Sanjeev Vidhyarthi commenced at Jawahar Kala Kendra, Amphitheater with the explanation of the importance of water and the system used during historic times which seemingly redundant today actually hold the key to survival, the need for their documentation and the role of architecture in this. The idea was to bring together a
Rainwater harvesting and metropolization of Jaipur Aayojan Narrative
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team of Post graduate and under graduate students along with professors, urban designers, historians and experts from various fields on the subject for a thorough and efficient study. The main goal for the first phase was to document and understand the working of ancient water structures in the cities of Jaipur and Amber. The manmade lakes, kunds, tankas, wells and baoris were a part of the study. The students from Aayojan and ENSA were divided into groups of 3 to work of selected sites across the city. The workshop included site visits to Jaigarh fort and Amber Fort in order to study the ancient water systems developed within the sites. At the end of each day, the students got a chance to learn from the guest lecturers already, working towards the same goals. Professor Khangarot, Dr. Reema Hooja and Prof. N S Rathore were a few names on the panel. At the end of the intense documentation work for two whole weeks, the students compiled and presented their data collected on site to a panel of jurors. Taking into consideration the success of the workshop and to provide with a more comprehensive study, an exchange program for the students was organized. A
group of six students from ASA, Jaipur were selected to attend a semester at ENSA, Toulouse in the year 2019. A group of 9 students, 3 French and 6 Indians, was made to work on the areas in Jaipur and Amber for the semester. The studio being “heritage in progress�, the compilation documentation of heritage in terms of water, culture and architecture of Jaipur and Amber was carefully studied for a month and presented to the entire studio of 22 students. The process of study to be followed was a 3-stage process which required working on various scales it required the 9 students to work together on Regional scale of Jaipur after which they were further divided into 3 groups with each group having 2 Indian and 1 French student to work on urban scale of city of Jaipur, Mansagar to Maotha and the city Amber. Furthermore, each student had to select a particular site in their respective areas and design a project on the architectural scale for the same. At each stage it would require reference and changes to the previous stage. It focused upon studying the region, the city and then their particular sight which provided different levels of insight throughout the semester. This reproachable
Left: Project research, Nehal Goyal and Angelique Cha, City Palace, Jaipur Right- Project discussion at ENSA, Toulouse
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Urban planning development throughout time according to water supply - the case of Jaipur and Amber. Aayojan Narrative
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process of designing was new and quite interesting for the Indian students leading them to understand how even a small intervention at the urban scale should be proposed and its impacts at the architectural scale, vice versa. The Regional scale study started off by mapping the development of the city and urban planning according to the water supply from 1037 to the scenario in 2019 along with a prediction for 2031. Followed by the study of change in water system and its use throughout the time. Mapping of the major heritage structures focusing majorly on those related to water along with their current condition was necessary as for their long standing value throughout history and culture. Studying the changing and developing Green corridors spread throughout the region and their conditions play an important role in water conservation and maintain an ecological harmony. The region was analyzed and evaluated on those standpoints to decide upon specific areas of study on the zoomed in scale for stage 2 by each group of 3. The further studies were called Forms of water in walled city, Connecting Maota and Man Sagar, Balance between the urban and rural life of Amber. In order to gain a new perspective on Heritage in progress a studio trip to Rome, Italy was arranged by ENSA, Toulouse led by the professors. Prof. Francoise Blanc was highly enthusiastic to teach the students the preservation of heritage, its architectural and cultural relevance and interventions which can be made in a contemporary way for the modern and historical to coexist, aid and complement each other. The aim of this study tour was exchange of this knowledge which may develop a much needed sensitive approach while dealing with such projects in the professional practice. For Stage 2, each area was studied on an urban scale from standpoints like water network, supply, conditions and storage structures; vegetation grids, people, fauna and urban settlements; Touristic facilities, opportunities and transportation system to analyze and formulate strategies accordingly. Following to that in Stage 3, corresponding to the strategies in stage 2 each student chose a site in the area to design a proposal keeping in mind all these standpoints. The outcome of the entire studio was to have 9 interlinked proposals at the end keeping all the standpoints and scales in mind. 57
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The students returned with an enlightening experience and different outlook towards architecture to ASA, Jaipur where they presented the project in their institution to share with rest of the students.
Read from top-left to bottom-right Puranjai Singh Ranawat, Prof. Nathalie Pratt, Satya Narayan Singh Bhati, Prof. Francis Blanc, Vasu Jain, Navisha Sogani, Gayle, J.V Rajdeep, Angelique Cha, Shubham Mathur, Prof. Remi Papillault, Mauriene Certain
NAV IS HA S O GA NI J .V . RA JD EEP Batch 17 Aayojan Narrative
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Year review 2019 2020
Aayojan Lecture Series Lecture by Dr. Rima Hooja 09-09-2019 Dr. Rima Hooja’s lecture on ‘Iconic Buildings, Urban spaces and Institutions fostering creativity marked an impressive beginning to the lecture series of the new academic year. She has been doing astounding work by inculcating value and respect for our culture and heritage in students.
Lecture by Dr. Rashmi Jain 19-09-2019 The second session of lecture series was on ‘Issues of Sustainability, Equity and Engagement in Urban Space by Dr. Rashmi Jain. The lecture focused on urban spaces, urban sustainability, civic management, gender equality and challenge of urbanization in India.
Prayojan: Cultural week 20/09/2019
Based on the theme of depicting architecture through four different versatile architects, the cultural week was a perfect blend of sports, dance, and music and on the spots enthralling the hearts and minds of the students . 59
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Convocation 04-10-2019
The 2nd convocation ceremony was hosted on 4th October awarding nearly 100 graduating students their degrees in UG and PG courses. The convocation address was given by chief guest Prof. Rabindra J Vasavada, Founder and Former HOD Conservation Dept. CEPT University, Ahmedabad.
Session by Prof. Vasavada 07-10-2019 Prof. Rabindra J. Vasavada and Prof. Pooja Agarwal addressed the faculty members on the process of getting Indian cities of Ahmedabad and Jaipur inscribed as UNESCO world heritage sites
3D printing workshop 24-10-2019 3D printing workshop was organized for students of third year to enable them to create complex, accurate and durable scale models quickly and cost effectively Aayojan Narrative
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Alumni sports meet 18-12-2019 Aayojan Alumni Association Society and Aayojan Sports Carnival committee hosted its alumni sports meet to cater to the nostalgia and bring back the old memories
Lecture by Sushil dagga 24-01-2020 Advocate Sushil Dagga delivered a lecture on constitutional provisions of rights, duties and responsibilities of underprivileged groups of our society. The interaction eradicated orthodox beliefs.
International conference on science of water planning and design 27-02-2020 With the collaboration of Department of science and technology, Aayojan organized an international conference. It aimed at disseminating knowledge on science and technology behind water planning and design to people, enthusiasts, environmentalists, practitioners and architecture fraternity. 61
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Outgoing class of 2020 - Batch 17
Section A
Read from top-left to bottom-right
Hitesh Parwani, J.V. Rajdeep, Ishani Shah, Akhil Soni, Avi Jain, Avi Vanavadiya, Harshil Gandhi, Hamza Khan, Aman Sharma, Hinal Pokharan, Aayushi Goyal, Ashish Sharma, Ankit Mehra, Chandni Agarwal, Agrima Sharma, Aayush Jindal, Akhilesh Mahar, Kartavya Goyal, Ansha Kohli, Dashpreet Kaur, Ankita Sharma, Avni Gupta, Bhawesh Pandey, Aarushi Maharshi, Gopika Khandelwal, Bharat Saran, Ashutosh Vyas, Devanshi Agarwal, Aayushi Rajani, Akshay Mandot, Harshita Khazanchi, Ankush Lakhera, Devyani Sharma, Ankita Goyal, Aarushi Pandey, Bhavya Mathur, Dimple Jethani, Divya Singh Rathore, Anamika Gupta, Aayush Ostwal, Anupam Jain
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Section B
Read from top-left to bottom-right
Nikhil Vaid, Kushaj Thakur, Poorvi Jain, Prateek Bansal, Palak Mittal, Mahak Sharma, Nivea Gupta, Mohit Paliwal, Mehul Goyal, Mansi Mathur, Radhika Chauhan, Manaswi Garodia, Puranjai Singh Ranawat, Kriti Kaushik, Kanak Agarwal Priya Agarwal, Pranav Goyal, Nitya Varshney, Medhavi Choudhary, Kavisha Singh, Krati Mittal, Kritika Agarwal , Monika Sharma, Meghna Bhargava, Navisha Sogani, Pooja Maheshwari, Kashika Goyal, Pranjal Jain, Medhavi Jhalani, Krati A. Maheshwari, Nikita Kher, Pragya Kabra, Neha Choudhary, Payal Soni, Jhanvi Makar, Juned Guchiya, Purnima Sharma, Natasha Mathur, Lumina Sharma, Niharika Agarwal, Kartik Mathur, Niharika Choudhary, Jahnvi Daftri
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Section C
Read from top-left to bottom-right
Vasu Jain, Tanvi Gupta, Shiwam Bhatia, Varnika Tholia, Saumya Bhargava, Rohan Jain, Rashi Mathur, Shubham Jain, Shrey Patni, Shweta Yadav, Shweta Vaishnav, Vishal Ameta, Tavishi Tewari, Shikhar Gupta, Roopal Naga, Satya Narayan Singh Bhati, Shubhi Chaturvedi, Shivangi Talwaria, Sukriti Setia, Tarang Vishnoi, Tulika Agarwal, Shikhar Soni, Utkarsh Mahajan, Tushar Kejriwal, Tanish Moorjani, Yesha Kasat, Shikhar Khandelwal, Shivani Agarwal, Vandita Baheti, Shubham Mathur, Tanay Sethi, Sambhav Mehta, Rupali Khatri, Shweta Vaishnav, Vidhu Chaudhary, Sushmeet Kaur, Saloni Chaudhary, Sanya Narang, Shanu Soni, Vinay Kumar Shreshtha, Shivanshi Seth, Yuvraj Vaishnav, Kaushal Modi, Tarun Sharma
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editorial board Shubham Mathur (Editor) Manas Sharma (Asst. Editor)
Graphics Team
Content Team
Outreach Team
Sambhav Mehta
Khushi Rajawat
Prateya Vyas
Snehlaxmi Shekhawat Tanay Sethi
Nimish Tyagi
Prateek Bansal
Kritika Maheshwari
Vipneet Kaur
Sandali Rathore
Rashi Mathur
Simran Gandhi
The Media Cell is a team of enthusiastic students with a creative knack, working closely with faculties to publish the annual magazine, to strengthen the bond with the Alumni community and manage the institute’s social media platforms. Students interested in working with us in the next session may send their resume at mediacell@aayojan.edu.in
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Next edition Inviting innovative themes from our readers for the second edition of ASA Narratives, 2021. Send in your entries at mediacell@aayojan.edu.in See you all next year !
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