Panel Discussion: Just Give me Some Space

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Indian Architect & Builder - November 2019

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L-R: Suha Riyaz Khopatkar (author), Vandana Ranjitsinh, Rohan Shivkumar, Anuj Daga (moderator) and Nisha Nair-Gupta.

Just Give Me Some Space: Discussions and beyond Just Give Me Some Space (JGMSS) is Suha Riyaz Khopatkar’s debut book that paints a portrait of the dynamic life of an architecture student. It shares light-hearted anecdotes and playful illustrations from the five years of architectural college education; while navigating through life and growing emotionally and professionally as a young adult; from entering wide-eyed into a design studio to working through the highs and lows of the degree to finally surmounting the final thesis year and coming out as an architect. Building new relationships with friends, family, the society, self and most-importantly with architecture is a key theme within the book. A relationship that is brimming with passion, angst and awe. In the creative community of architecture and design, this book is the first of its kind that addresses mental wellness and self-care.

While a detailed account of life in architecture college, it stays relevant to professionals too as it appeals to the adolescent search for self. It urges students to soul-search, discover their purpose in life and ultimately find their space in the sea of opportunities that lie ahead.

The book released on 28 th August 2019 at Kamla Raheja Vidyanidhi Institute for Architecture, Mumbai followed by a discussion around multi-dimensional facets of teaching and learning. Following is an excerpt from the panel discussion at the launch, with Vandana Ranjitsinh, Rohan Shivkumar, Nisha Nair-Gupta and Suha Riyaz Khopatkar; moderated by Anuj Daga.

ANUJ DAGA: It is a pleasure to share the stage with all of you because each of us represents a certain generation of teachers and students, so we can vouch for a generation that shaped us in a certain way. One of the key things is that I have been constantly thinking since I have read the book is the whole aspect of how ‘we’ relate to ‘students’ - the whole insider-outsider conundrum.

And as teachers who are still learning, I would like to pose, how do we understand the student as a multidimensional persona?

Our engagements with the student often happen in brief moments, whereas the student, in parallel, is living a life of their own, beyond the classroom. This “extra”[academic] life is inevitably feeding into the work of the student itself. How can we build those empathetic relationships within our discussions with the student?

ROHAN SHIVKUMAR: As teachers we expect architects and architecture students to imbibe certain skill-sets and often I would be irked at them for their sketching skills (the lack of it) and so on.

But we forget that this young ‘skilled’ person, between the ages of 18-23, is also growing as a human-being. They are forming an identity, navigating architecture school and simultaneously becoming an adult.

In school, as teachers, we focus primarily on developing the dexterities of the profession that they have undertaken. We perhaps overlook the personal trials and tribulations that the student undergoes in their personal life; hormones, finances, keeping up appearances, etc. For the first two years of architecture school, we should be conscious that the person is growing as a professional and a person, and both journeys are intermingled.

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VANDANA RANJITSINH: The teacher who is assigned to students in the first year is the one who engages with them first-hand and initiates them into their journey of understanding this vocation. They get them excited, introduce them to materials, ideas and more; they should work with them sans judgement and let them operate in their space.

The book mentions an analogy between the L-plate on a car to the first year of architecture school. A new driver with a learner’s licence puts up a sticker or an L-plate to indicate that they are novices. The L-plate endows a certain comfort but eventually the driver must traverse through roads sans it. And the road does get tough. A similar ‘L-plate’ exists in first year of architecture school that steers students but is ripped off in the subsequent years as the curriculum and life gets tougher. Some of us are tough on the students because we are preparing them for the demanding life that transpires after college.

But these are very nascent years when their hormones are fizzing, they’re growing up and getting to know the world and we need to give them some space.

NISHA NAIR-GUPTA: Along with developing an idea of the self, our mental health is invariably tested in the high-strung scenarios from our architecture college. Eventually we develop lifestyle disorders/ arrangements in these five years of studying architecture which we normalise and carry forward into our professional lives. These issues must be addressed more proactively in our education system as well as practice. So during the course of our conversation over the book, I feel, this is a key aspect that can be one of the trajectories the book could take. Because I feel that we don’t talk about the lifestyle issues that we as architects undergo.

SUHA R. KHOPATKAR: The school to architecture college transition is tricky. In elementary school if I did not know the answer to a question, I would think of ways to trick the teacher into giving me better grades. I would either write in a better handwriting or write excessively by using multiple supplements. And this is why we are stumped on our first architectural jury because the entire mode of evaluation and the student-teacher relationship is different. We were now being judged not only by our work but also by our disposition, attitudes, stance, speech and so on. And as designing is a neverending process, the teacher’s requirements/expectations inculcate a mind-set that students have to eat, drink and breathe architecture!

This vicious routine affects the student physically and mentally. So, it is very important for the teacher to be more receptive and help students acclimate.

ANUJ DAGA: This brings us to consider what strain of practice the student belongs to. Often we as teachers are trying to find that out to channel the student’s energies towards... We often sense that the way in which the student thinks of architecture may not be how we conceive of it traditionally. What are the strategies through which these modes can be strengthened beyond the normative, beyond what the profession asks for?

VANDANA RANJITSINH: As teachers we need to listen till we hear that non-conventional and non-traditional voice. Every student has a voice that sometimes gets stifled due to competition, as elementary

schools have inculcated this business of scoring high marks. Then there are external pressures or pressures that are constructed primarily by the student themselves. How do you break that?

Suha talks about the “Snowball Effect”; there’s a deadline and we are trying to help and hear the students, sometimes the voice takes time to be heard, but the deadline approaches, it’s snowballing and they’re sliding down this avalanche. Sometimes the system doesn’t allow them to get up. So you need to reassure the student that you are listening. Tell them you can sketch, throw that CAD out the window; you can’t sketch, pick up a model; you can’t speak, you need to put your thoughts in order; but you need to hear that voice. And at times the voice is so confused and troubled with pain; perhaps personal crisis, family problems, adolescent love, etc. And entwined amidst these circumstances, they put up work. And as I say in my foreword, that’s why we teach! You want them to put that offering, that thought in front of you and that’s when you know that now, they can do it.

ROHAN SHIVKUMAR: I don’t perceive architecture as a purely professionally oriented course but as a path for an individual [student] to discover themselves and their role in the world. Looking back, my classmates too don’t pursue conventional studio practice [today], but they’re working in different fields tangentially to architecture.

But architectural education helped them evolve a particular way of seeing, a certain way of engaging with the world that forced them out of comfort zones and observe spatial relationships around them. The fact that social and political relationships are shaped within space is an ability that architecture allows. It endows rigour, ability to see “truth” as there is a relationship between what one communicates and the world that one is trying to build and there is a certain level of integrity necessary in that act. These values are not necessarily related to the making of a building but also of how a person envisages themselves and the role of their practice in the world; be it writing a book or making films. The training of architecture is not reductive in nature, it can be truly empowering. The evolution of the self and their relationship with the world is beautiful. And it necessitates time which is individual-specific. Therefore the (3+2) years or (5+2) years format of graduation in addition to post-graduation can be detrimental as the pressure of performing alongside one’s peers is immense. The students desperately need space to think, to find themselves, to understand who they are and what they want.

ANUJ DAGA: Nisha, I would want you to reflect on the way you floated your design and publishing practise after graduating because I think you embarked on an alternate direction. How difficult was it? How much did your school prepare you to embark upon a slightly parallel practice from the mainstream?

NISHA NAIR-GUPTA: I think it’s what Rohan just spoke about; I was fortunate to be in Kamla Raheja Vidyanidhi Institute for Architecture which is a more philosophical space to be in. It empowers you to think about creativity in multiple ways. I knew I wanted to explore writing. From my third year onward, I explored my design projects through writing. Those were the initial explorations which over time and experience, you articulate and shape into a practice as well.

And every practice has its own difficulties and discoveries as well.

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ANUJ DAGA: And Suha do you feel confident in shaping your practise in your own way?

SUHA R. KHOPATKAR: Definitely, as I’ve gotten my space now! I agree with Rohan as I believe architecture does give you a new lens.

It gives you that perspective to see things differently. I’ve written in the chapter “Love me or Hate me” about my colleagues who are pursuing and excelling in alternative career paths. After talking to them, I discovered that it traces back to architecture school; be it their honed skill-sets or ways of seeing design around them.

ANUJ DAGA: Yes and it reflects in your book that amalgamates visuals which are your illustrations, the text and the background thought-noise and how it takes an interesting form altogether.

SUHA R. KHOPATKAR: This very lens helped me write this book too.

It devised a framework and oriented my thoughts; from designing the pages to making the illustrations to structuring the paragraphs and ultimately capturing the student experience.

ANUJ DAGA: Drawing from Vandana’s response about ‘listening’, I want to open up questions around the work of language that we use for communicating with students. Using language of all sorts, verbal, visual and even vernacular, how do we make a comfortable space for the students to bring their ideas to us and what can be done about that space? The school receives a very new profile of students every year and that changes the dynamics of communication in the classroom. What are these new ways that will engage students productively in the process of design and architecture?

ROHAN SHIVKUMAR: I find that a lot of teaching is performing.

The ‘performative’ is a larger part of the way in which you begin to communicate. And like performances there is always a degree of truth and a degree of acting that happens within a classroom. It is a very carefully constructed performance that you have when you enter a classroom because you are trying to create an environment that enables a conversation. So every single word and language is carefully chosen. First of all, there is Hindi, English, Marathi… and English is the language I am most comfortable in (and I have to be able to overcome my own dependence on English to communicate because sometimes the language can become a barrier in between the student and me). But then there is of course the tone in which one speaks, so whether one uses the friendly-elder-brother tone or the stern-uncle tone or helplessplea tone, these are ways in which you try and evolve a dynamic through which communication can happen and that can be verbal or visual. But in this ‘verbal’ there is this way of emotional manipulation as well.

Sometimes when you’re within a classroom the tonality of the class can take over and then you forget the act of detachment.

ANUJ DAGA: Do you see any change since the first time you taught and the way you talk to students now?

ROHAN SHIVKUMAR: When I first started teaching, the age-difference between me and the students was little. So some performances that I allowed myself back then seem ridiculous now. As your body changes, as the way that people perceive you changes, the performances that are available to you also changes. Your body and the language of your body create a certain sense that you inhabit and then those are the spaces that you manipulate to communicate.

VANDANA RANJITSINH: The most wonderful thing about architecture education is that you always have a one-on-one relationship with students. You are immersed in their fears, backgrounds, work and more for even as little as 15 minutes, but it’s as intense as it gets. This makes it easier for us to make a connection because I would be terrified to teach calculus, standing in front of a batch of 80, with yawns going around. But here, I forgive my students yawning in a one-to-one as I know they are genuinely tired and that’s the beauty of architecture education, this bond that you make with the student which snaps as they have to go on and meet with the other teacher and get on with their lives but that connection at that time is electric.

ANUJ DAGA: What moment has been the most challenging for you to get across a student or even in terms of being received as a teacher? What are ways in which you’ve tried to establish the ways in which you can help?

VANDANA RANJITSINH: A single teacher or person cannot make an architect from a student. I have a role to play and perhaps it comes easily to me. I also don’t push them as hard and I take them for what they are offering. If it were left to me, maybe I wouldn’t bring out the best in some students; and in some, I would give them the space. So, it takes all kinds of teachers, pressures or space or backgrounds to make an architect. If I don’t get through to somebody, maybe another individual will. I am overwhelmed by the affection and response I get and how the students work for me but I can’t teach with anger. And that may be a failing for me sometimes, and for them a gift sometimes.

ANUJ DAGA: Suha, from the students’ perspective, how do you receive what teachers have to say; do you take it at the face value? Because I know there are some things that people say that keep on rolling in your head till eternity.

SUHA R. KHOPATKAR: The first thing we encounter in college is the architectural jargon used by the faculty and as mentioned in the chapter, “Learning the Visual Tongue”, one of the many differences between the first year and the second year of architecture college is that we adopt these ‘trending’ words from our faculty or your seniors and eventually incorporate it into your vocabulary. But while we speak the similar language, do we truly understand the jargon? Or are we mimicking the dialect?

There is definitely a communication gap between the student and the teacher in the beginning and have been on both sides of the story. In my first week of college, the project briefing by our Teaching Assistants would make no sense to us. We made them repeat the instructions several times and four years later when I became a Teaching Assistant, I confused the juniors in the same manner. This rather hilarious circle of events reinstated that language must be effective and not flamboyant, just like design. The idea is to communicate and present your ideas with clarity.

NISHA NAIR-GUPTA: When we conduct our writing workshops what we often have to do with young architects is make them understand the literal meaning of a few words because as architects we assign new meanings to words. I think that what we try to do over years also making simpler ideas very complex so that they seem intelligent.

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ANUJ DAGA: As the students’ language is also constantly changing, I want to introduce the idea of the “new-givens” to gesture to not just language, but they are also perceiving environment in such new registers. The values that students came with 20 years ago are changing constantly and how do we tune those moralities into our teaching processes? We constantly keep reinstating certain values and ideals of designing while we are offering feedback to students but how do we tune into these new registers through which they have grown up?

VANDANA RANJITSINH: Thank god I had my children late! I knew the right jargon or the ‘it’ song back then, but now I feel the gap.

My youngest daughter is 27 years old and I realise that the gap is widening. But children and students give us as much as we give them; whether in the studio, or as trainees or as young architects. The world is moving fast and they’re swimming in it better than we are. And as we talk about the language shift; when I was in CEPT in school, I hadn’t heard of the term “paradigm shifts”, so there is always this new jargon that emerges and you are adapting to it when the students are already comfortable with it. So, you change your vocabulary to answer to what they are using as much as they are picking up the jargon that we’re putting out. Language is a two-way street.

ROHAN SHIVKUMAR: I teach the Theory of Design class. So, I address a big idea like “Deconstruction” and make it legible to a bunch of 19-year-olds. Hence I try to stay updated with the pop culture and connect with youngsters. It is kind of silly that as a 50-year-old-man I listen to music that 12-year-olds listen to like Taylor Swift. This is a good way for me to discover new ground as it helps me sharpen the theoretical questions better; I re-contextualise these ideas every time I’m bringing a new reference in. This is definitely a two-way street then.

NISHA NAIR-GUPTA: To add to this contemporary language and representation; the reason we connected with the book and with Suha too, is because the book narrates the story in a contemporary manner.

It is the current-day narrative. To be sure, this is not how I would speak about my five years of architecture neither would Vandana nor Rohan or Anuj. This book perfectly illustrates what it means to be a student of architecture in the world right now, which is truly refreshing about its story-telling.

ANUJ DAGA: My last question refers to something that Rohan responded previously in this conversation. If the teachers are ‘performing’, the students are also’ performing’; I am wondering if “lie” is a productive way of communicating with each other and is it a way of creating space? And what are its ethical limits?

ROHAN SHIVKUMAR: It’s the way you choose to represent the “truth”. It doesn’t mean that the truth necessarily changes. It’s like when a person wears a mask, at one point it may seem as if they are concealing but in the choice of the mask it is actually about projection.

I don’t think it’s a lie as it’s not a deception.

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“

Suha Khopatkar’s Just Give Me Some Space is a candid and witty documentary of college anxiety. Although the story would ring familiar to other coming-ofage stories, it is through her vivid pen-and-ink drawings, which function less as illustrations than records of action, that the book feels pithy and personal.

They are an expression of her design sense, rather than merely a presentation of her story; a sense of being in this world, partly shaped by it, partly at odds with it. And in this they are both revealing and liberating for the reader, boldly reckoning the limitations of the narrative itself. In their style, Suha’s drawings are reminiscent of the work of Marjani Satrapi, the early woodcuts of Félix Vallotton or Karl Thylmann’s Gulistan - engaged in an intense exploration of pattern. Through the changing relationships of shapes and expressions, and of the changing dialogues of light and dark, she explores patterns of mood and behavior, of legacies and incident.

In their content, they are at once anxious and assured, much like the urban stories and situations of a contemporary, the New York-based graphic artist Liana Finck. Through the pervasive presence of her city Mumbai in the everydayness of her student life, Suha chronicles not merely her trials and tribulations within a discipline where she is trying to find her bearings, but a city that both nurtures and disrupts a culture of learning at odds with more conventional modes, and the loneliness it involves. That most of these encounters occur within public transportation systems, street corners and apartment corridors of Mumbai subtly hints to the metropolis’ hidden porosity, while yearning for bucolic campusrefuges, impossibly carved out within the city.

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- Shubhra Raje, shubhra raje_built environments

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NISHA NAIR-GUPTA: …in addition to that, I think it’s about communication or representation. It’s about a choice.

VANDANA RANJITSINH: I’m going to out this in another way, the whole idea of architecture education is about using materials so there is this kind of materiality that we work with but the magic lies in the void. We teach them that it’s not the material but the voids in between spaces, that which is unsaid which is going to make your architecture. So, it is not the lie but the unsaid. I think the magic lies in the void and the space-time continuum and that gets captured in the designs. That’s the communication you are trying to get across. So how can mere words fulfil those roles? As my professor Anant Raje once said, “unless you experience your architecture, you won’t know what it is” so we can only simulate...

SUHA R. KHOPATKAR: I think when it comes to communicating from the students end there is only a small difference between a lie and a genuine excuse. And because the jurors are faced with these on a daily basis, their tolerance for anything other than work drops tremendously.

In my first year, due to heavy procrastination, I went to a design studio on a submission day without a design model. I contrived a story about the model bouncing off my hands on a violent speed-breaker, falling out of the auto rickshaw and getting squashed by a car! That day I lied to get out of showing work but later that week, while working on my assignments with full integrity, I discovered that I was short of time to produce 1 model out of the 10 assigned to us. I had no excuse. That 10% of incomplete work got me into trouble. It’s intriguing because students do use excuses to escape work. But that is only one side of the coin. At times we genuinely need more time but then again it can lead to cutting corners and lying for not delivering as instructed. Either way eventually their complacence will catch up. Hence, I feel we must grow more tolerance towards genuine excuses because the insincere ones are lying at their own expense.

NISHA NAIR-GUPTA: Suha, there is a very distinct visual language in your book which is very contemporary, where does that language come from?

SUHA R. KHOPATKAR: We, as architects, acquire a style of sketching or even writing. All the illustrations in the book are hand-drawn and I have developed this language consciously because as a student, I found myself being influenced by others’ working styles, so finding the perfect match was important and also a fun process.

ANUJ DAGA: How did you come across writing this book and how was this a cathartic experience?

SUHA R. KHOPATKAR: It was a small moment of fragility. There was a moment in 3 rd year when I looked at my reflection on the laptop and I couldn’t recognise the tired girl staring at me. In that moment of exhaustion I knew that my lifestyle needed a holistic overhaul. The endless sleepless nights, the same unhealthy routines and stress got me into a hot mess! I often uplifted my friends in their moments of weakness; a major segment being encouraging speeches to push us till the next submission, the next jury and so on. I promised to not only make myself healthier but also help the ones with similar paling reflections.

Emotional catharsis is an important factor in a person’s well-being.

And writing this book became a medium for me to come to terms with my insecurities. Looking back at these events and their discourse in my life offers me much inspiration and peace. It reaffirms that those moments of fragility were just that, ‘moments’. And I am focused and stronger now. I wanted to ensure that all the students in the design community have a friend to turn to. This book will give them hope, inspiration, comfort, useful tips, some laughs and a desire for self-exploration.

The above is an edited excerpt of the book-inauguration panel discussion. You can buy Just Give Me Some Space on Amazon and at leading bookstores.

Indian Architect & Builder - November 2019