Architecture & Speculative Fiction by BSSA Editorial

BALWANT SHETH SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE ARCHITECTURE & SPECULATIVE FICTION EDITORIAL TEAM EDITOR :

AMMAR RASSAI

ARTICLES & ILLUSTRATIONS BY : AMMAR RASSAI , KAIRA BHALLA , RAEKA TAMBAWALA , TAVISH LAKHWARA , SHLOKA MASHRU , AYUSHI MISTRY , HARSIMAR ARORA , ARRYAN SIINGH , AARYAA JOSHI , PRIYAM GULATI, KHUSH KHANDELWAL, JEEYA SAVANI PROOF READING :

AMMAR RASAI, KAIRA BHALLA

FORMAT BY:

KRISHA JAIN & AMMAR RASSAI

SPECIAL THANKS TO: MR. AMIT SHETH & PROF. APARNA SURVE WEBSITE:

www.bssaeditorial.com

EDITOR’S NOTE Dear Readers, ‘Architecture &’ is our revered endeavour into exploring the limitless possibilities of architecture compounding with themes far and beyond our realms of imagination. As all of us strive to salvage as much as we can from these trying times, we realize that it is in the ordinary that we discover the extraordinary. Recurrently, I read, that in the darkest hours when everything stopped, we turned to artists. We watched films, reconciled our relationship with books and whisked away hours through music. It was in the infamous times of the plague that literature began to romanticize a new genre of utopias and dystopias. We speculated then, in anticipation of a future, and we continue to speculate today for the same sense of gratification. This illustrates as much about the present, as it does about the future. Our theme, ‘Speculative fiction’ is the collision course of the story-tellings we are besieged by, our intrinsic need to fantasize and the omnipotence of art and architecture. The Editorial team at BSSA has put in immense efforts to comprehend, visualize and deliberate visions of other worlds brought to us by authors and artists who dared to dream. This issue also doubles as a platform to showcase the stimulating student-work produced in the preceding semester, as well as our enthusiastic attempts at keeping our campus alive, digitally. Hope you have a pleasureable reading experience! Ammar Rassai, Editor

A MESSAGE FROM THE DEAN Paradox of Speculative Narratives: I would imagine that the drive behind the creation of speculative narratives - be it fantasy, horror, science fiction or history, reimagined – stems from the desire to express deep rooted emotions of suppression and the rage arising from that, to challenge the power imbalances around us in the form of unjust social, economic and political institutions (racism, gender biases, sexuality, caste divides, economic inequity, etc.) or sometimes out of curiosity to discover the world beyond the day to day. One way to do this is to imagine a fantastical world - the Utopia- that doesn’t exist in reality, or to deliberate on the concepts of horror coupled with the narrative of conquest over evil, or to narrate the secrets of untold history that are imagined to resurrect the present. The speculative narratives thus empower the author to propose an alternate reality in hopes that someday it could become that. For the reader, however, this could be an out-of-world experience, distinct from that of the author’s. There is a distinction between the writer’s ‘conceived meaning’ versus the reader’s ‘perceived meaning’ of the narrative, which gives rise to a tension about the real meaning, purpose and authorship of such narratives. The key lies in resolving the paradox and discovering the true purpose behind the creation of Speculative narratives - be it fiction, films, paintings or architecture. French literary theorist Roland Barthes’s theory of ‘Pleasure of text’ makes a clear distinction between “readerly” (readable) and “writerly”(writable) texts by stating that, the reader of a “readerly” text is passive and would experience ‘pleasure’, whereas when one sees the text from the writerly point of view, the experience is blissful. Here the creation of Speculative Fiction too can be understood as an act of ‘Pleasure’, devoid of the rigid functionalism, open ended and free from the paradox of meaning and authorship. Taking Barthes’s literary concept ahead, Bernard Tschumi articulated his theory of ‘Paradox of Architecture’, where he argues that architecture consists of two interdependent but mutually exclusive terms: “conceived space” and “perceived space”. He proposed that the only way to reconcile these spaces was to discover architecture’s eroticism, to reach the point where the subjective experience of space becomes its very concept. This would mean that the creator (architect) is thus freed from her position as a sole author of the architectural narrative – the building, making the creative process open ended and free for subjective experiences and individual’s interpretation with the sole purpose being ‘Pleasure’. Here the creation of Speculative Fiction too, can be understood as an act of ‘Pleasure’ and devoid of rigid functionalism, hence open ended and free from the paradox of meaning and authorship. Tschumi insists that the Architecture of Pleasure is also Real. He says– The architecture of pleasure lies Where concept and experience of space abruptly coincide, Where architectural fragments collide and merge in delight, where the culture of architecture is endlessly deconstructed and all rules are transgressed. The spirit of such speculative and yet real spaces can also be found, in ‘Heterotopias’, the concept proposed by the French philosopher Michel Foucault (1966-67). Unlike Utopias, Foucault states that ‘Heterotopias’ are the real spaces that are ‘other’: idiosyncratic, intense and they exist within the world e.g. fairs, ships, cemeteries, bars, brothels, prisons, gardens of antiquity, etc. Imagining the speculative narratives as acts of ‘Pleasure’ while framing them as heterotopic (“other” spaces within the world), indeed liberates the authors, the creators, the writers, the architect as well as the readers from their utilitarian purpose. Prof. Aparna Surve The Dean, BSSA, NMIMS

Citation: Martin, Louis. “Transpositions: On the Intellectual Origins of Tschumi’s Architectural Theory.” Assemblage 11 (1990): 23-35.

FOOD FOR ALL, FOOD FOR THOUGHT The global population is expected to increase to 9.7 billion by 2050, up from recent estimates of 7.4 billion. The United Nationsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; Food and Agriculture Organisation suggests that food production will have to be scaled up by 60% from present-day levels in order to meet the demands of this rapidly growing population. Further driving the demand for food is the change in consumer preferences towards an increasingly protein rich diet; as incomes rise, consumer diets tend to shift from being largely plant based to incorporating larger amounts of meat and chicken. Recently, food production has also come under threat from the effects of climate change. An increased occurrence of extreme weather events as well as changing weather patterns have repeatedly lead to largescale destruction of crops and an instability in the livelihoods of farmers. Practices of food production have principally remained stagnant for centuries and have not kept up with the changing practices in other fields, particularly technology. However, the farming industry is now facing increased pressures to adapt to a world in which the demand for food is at an all-time high, yet the process of food production is more vulnerable to climate change than it ever was before.

Greenhouses and Advanced Technology: According to some, the future of farming is indoors: in greenhouses with automated sensors and under artificially created growing conditions. Greenhouse productivity is far higher than that of present farms, thereby allowing for a larger produce per unit area while using lesser resources at the same time. For instance Netherlands, being at the forefront of the greenhouse revolution in the agriculture industry, is the second largest exporter of agricultural products after the US (a country 237 times larger in land area). Dutch greenhouses rely on novel tech-savvy methods of production such as aeroponics and hydroponics while additionally using vertical stack and columnar arrangements of planting to increase the output per unit area. Controlled conditions with constant testing of soil and environment by sensors allow for optimised growing conditions that are occasionally even specific to each plant in the greenhouse. This allows for produce that is far more nutritious than that grown outdoors while also alleviating farmers of the vulnerabilities of growing outside. The crops are no longer prone to damage by weather events and have no requirements for harmful pesticides anymore. With the change in farm typology, the farmer of the future is expected to be radically different too; he will most likely be a STEM graduate whose only interaction with the crops will be through a computer interface, that is of course until the computer assumes complete control of the system.

Pig City by MVRDV: Another Dutch vision for the future of farming is Pig City. Conceptualised in 2001 by the Rotterdam based firm MVRDV, the project intended to design a sustainable means for the Dutch to meet their future pork consumption demands. In 2000, the Netherlands had 15.2 million pigs and 15.9 million humans. Each pig required an area of 664 m2 including food production and processing under pre-existing farming practices. However under proposed organic farming methods, the area required would rise to 1726 m2 leaving only 724 m2 per Dutch person for other activities. Thus, the concept of Pig City worked towards consolidating all of the activities centred around pork farming into a series of self-sufficient 50 storey towers. The base of the tower housed a slaughterhouse, thereby reducing the transport emissions of moving the pigs from farms all over the country to the slaughterhouse. The tower created a self-sufficient ecosystem in which the hay for the pigs was grown from an onsite reed farm that used the manure from the pigs while also housing water channels and a biomass plant to generate electricity and heating for the pigs in winter. Emphasis was also placed on the humane treatment of pigs with adequate space for leisure provided on each floor along with the provision of human-centric amenities such as toilets, nurseries and crèches for the pigs with in-slab service pipes for ventilation and sewage. A collection of such towers would form a pig city that would ideally be placed near a port in order to maximise Dutch exports of pork. This method of farming works towards reducing emissions, resource requirements and land usage while at the same time providing better care for pigs and improving industry profits. Whether this concept comes to life in the future is a tale for time to tell.

Urban Farming: Unlike models that work towards consolidating farming practices to large scale greenhouses or pig farm towers, there are also concepts that envision smaller urban farms as being a part of every residential structure/community in the future. These models that focus on reconnecting the urban to nature work by combining the problem of pollution in urban centres with the environmental drawbacks of large-scale farming in order to create a symbiotic ecosystem in which the smaller scaled urban farm helps reduce pollution in the city while also reducing the harmful effects of transport and refrigeration of produce. Architecture studio Penda works towards incorporating these farms alongside modular residential units in their project The Farmhouse. The plantation is stacked vertically so as to minimise floor space usage while also providing better ventilation and shading for the residents inside, thus reducing their energy consumption. The farms also navigate around the common areas of the building in order to enrich the connect between the residents and their food. Additionally, the studio envisions that many such projects will come up in the neighbourhood thereby helping the city create a topography that is distinct from the repetitive International Style; by once again placing emphasis on the flora and fauna of the region as a defining characteristic of its architecture. TAVISH LAKHWARA Citations: • Hegen, Tom. Behance, 2019, www.behance.net/gallery/86574881/The-Greenhouse-Series?utm_medium=website&utm_source=archdaily.com. • Precht, Chris. “‘We Need Agriculture Back in Our Cities and in Our Minds.’” Dezeen, 7 Mar. 2019, www.dezeen.com/2019/03/07/vertical-farming-agriculture-architecture-cities-chris-precht/. • Rotterdam, MVRDV. “Pig City.” MVRDV, 2001, www.mvrdv.nl/projects/134/pig-city. • Kateman, Brian. “Is The Future Of Farming Indoors?” Forbes, Forbes Magazine, 14 July 2020, www.forbes.com/sites/briankateman/2020/07/14/is-the-future-of-farming-indoors/.

SPOT THE DIFFERENCE

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SPACES: INTERTWINED TO INFINITY 2001: a space odyssey

Filling up the vacuum of time, the vast experience of time travel; vividly curated details of space: a basic element of architecture. There is nothing more fascinating one could take from this sci-fi masterpiece. From human evolution to the possible future, the film is set in a journey of time travel, focusing on the worlds which existed, and those which could possibly exist. Shown through a series of frames, the graphics and the spaces illustrate the possibilities of extra-terrestrial life so intricately. It makes the human mind wonder the farthest possibilities of anything that could be.

CITATIONS: Kaye, Don. “10 Reasons Why 2001: A Space Odyssey Is Still the Greatest Sci-Fi Movie of All Time.” SYFY WIRE, SYFY WIRE, 17 June 2017, www.syfy.com/syfywire/10-reasons-2001-a-space-odyssey-still-greatest-sci-fi-movie-of-all-time. “Redirect Notice.” Google, Google, www.google.com/url?sa=i.

Time frames from the different scenes in the movie which sh

Through artificial intelligence, the possible outcomes of how space and time would be, if intellect was used to its fullest, is depicted through negative and positive ways. The two sides of everything- too much dependence on artificial intelligence, too much exploration, and even the fastest mode of time travel- the positives and the negatives are so vividly illustrated through a series of frames and incidences. From the evolution of humans from apes, to the possibilities of afterlife and aliens, the time frames make us wonder what the interior and exteriors of each ‘space’ would be like. It’s all conceptualized as if it was real- the interiors of the space shuttles, the landing platforms on the surface of the moon, the bedrooms on extra-terrestrial surfaces- it’s all depicted in a certain way which makes us anticipate the space in a way where somehow, each and every creature, including humans, were to act like an architect. Right from the evolution, each little organism designs its own surroundings, be it the apes, little insects or marine life. Time frames make us wonder – what if the space shuttles were not designed this way? Would there be a hundred new possibilities of the same design? Would the materials used on earth be relevant to the extra-terrestrial surfaces? Any of us watching the movie would think, indirectly, with the mind of an architect.

“All of time and space, everything that ever happened or ever will, every star that ever was.where do you want to start?” -Doctor Who Fiction exists in one way, which is a make-believe story where faith holds the greatest place. It does trigger the thought that things might not be the way they are- and by ‘things’ we always refer to the surrounding space, the interiors, the stark possibilities of afterlife, and much more. What if we break the stereotypes of sci-fi, think a little beyond, and focus on how things would be different from what is shown- this could trigger imagination in a whole new way. As science says, space and time cannot be looked at as the same concepts- but the most we can do is think it through, and break the make-believe stories and curate them into something that could possibly exist. Every creature is the architect of its own surroundings, be it from the evolutionary era, or the aliens from the futuristic times. We need to believe in our own imaginative potentials.

AARYAA JOSHI

how a transition of time and space simultaneously

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ARRYAN SIINGH

MANIFESTATI

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"You come to the bedrock, the slurry wall, the emptiness, and you are suddenly enveloped in a space that isn't just what you see on the ground. You're in connection with this place and its history, and that connection speaks to you. It tells you what the limits are, the taboos. You cannot treat it as if you were just walking on another kind of ground. This place is unique. There is a delicacy about it that has to be protected. That's all part of exploring the site. We would call it a spiritual journey." Daniel Libeskind’s architecture, in terms of emotion, speaks volumes when it manifests itself inside our realities. He brings a place to existence, and you find yourself taken aback with the growing intensity of what you could feel. The Jewish Museum in Berlin becomes exemplary in architecture’s ability to provoke emotions. Libeskind’s descriptions elucidate the art of engineering spaces to reflect or create emotions. It's a crucial aspect of architecture, to provoke its occupants to emote; it's almost theatrical in its attempt to arouse feelings or in translating them. Architecture can produce a range of emotions, some that even seem unfathomable. Emotional architecture acts like a third eye, the one that may expose the human mind to its own abstractions.

CITATIONS

'The Haunting of Hill House' Ending Explained: The Red Room, Bent Neck Lady, & More BY VINNIE MANCUSO We mustn't forget the emotional impact of the buildings around us Written Daniel Libeskind Illustration by Pat Perry.

ION MANOR

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We often imagine, or create visual patterns of people, places, things, that are summed-up impacts of how people and objects with emotion drive us to reflect, recreate, mimic, react or even manifest. Architecture is one form of the visual perception of our realities that births feelings. We view the world as set of colours, lines and shapes. We can't speak of our understanding of aura's and energies, but we can transform the spaces around us to affect them. A very simple example could be understanding the small act of focusing on a task in a room, may it be cooking, reading, writing, etc. We observe that our efficiency while working, depends on the atmosphere around us. Absence of light, or ventilation, clutter in spaces, the temperature, confinement and everything that we set up for ourselves tends to keep changing our energy, hence making us responsive to it. We're all social and spiritual beings and architecture should be designed to channelise our energies in the ways we require it. Speculating the responsiveness of our spaces, we may as well imagine spaces that become live entities much like ourselves and start responding to emotion as we perceive it. We could feel panic, and then see the room manifesting our emotions. It is translating itself into a room full of panic inducing elements responding or mimicking your emotional state of being. We could imagine ourselves in a series of memories, and nostalgia, and see the place turning into pieces of experience and imagination. The walls in our surroundings sense us, changing volumes and scales in response to our current state of being. We could have sensors embedded in the surrounding that function in response to electrical impulse. There are endless possibilities with the aid of current technology. Maybe the next step towards intelligent architecture could be responsive spaces. Intelligent spaces that could be used to therapize the user by changing its form. Mike Flanagan, the director of a popular Netflix show, ‘The Haunting of Hill House” follows the similar notion of a home being an alive entity on its own. The plot revolves around a haunted home that negatively impacts the psyche of a mother, causing her to harm her children. The room behind Hill House's ever-locked ‘Red Door’ is kind of like ‘The Room of Requirement’ from the Harry Potter books, except it possesses your mind and drives you insane. It's about how the house keeps its residents complacent in the face of perpetual horror. It's whatever the residents need to stay sane as they gradually lose their minds in incognizance. The room changes its form and features to not only pacify the characters but also to make them examine their feelings as they experience the horrors of staying there. The director talks of the home’s shape shifting, “It was a toy room for the young and rambunctious Nell. A family room for the lonely Shirley. A treehouse when Luke needed to get away.” It also effectively serves as a waystation between the living and the dead; it's where the house converts people into fuel. “Mom says that a house is like a body. And that every house has eyes, and bones, and skin, and a face." The above is a very important dialogue that signals this nature of the house. "This room is like the heart of the house. No, not a heart. A stomach." This dialogue rationalizes how the home and its rooms react and manipulate the user, hence rendering it as a separate entity. The room is given the role of the stomach as its digests human emotions and in turn reflects them in the form of fear-inducing devices. This brings us back to the question: Could spaces be alive? PRIYAM GULATI

IT’S A SMALL, SMALL WORLD WHY ARE WE SO FAR? The Kingdom of Bhutan is a beautiful, landlocked country in the Eastern Himalayas. It is a country where growth is not measured by GDP, but via Gross National Happiness, by and for the welfare of its people. I was lucky enough to visit the Buddhist paradise in August 2019, for our college study trip. This photobook is an attempt to put forth what Bhutan made me feel. It is an analysis as to what is it about the place that makes it a world in itself that begs for learning.

PARO AIRPORT

SIMTOKHA

THIMPHU

PUNAKHA

PARO

PARO AIRPORT

TOPOGRAPHY

Our first visit at a Dzong (Monastery) gave us a beautiful moment to witness, the monks of the Dzong had come out of their daily pray session, spotted playing various native game, all dressed ‘harmoniously’ in a red robe called Kāsāya.

HARMONY

The frame captures the moment, set alongside the courtyard, merging the beautiful architectural setting.

ARCHITECTURE

Simtokha Dzong

Flying to Paro, a town in the Paro Valley of Bhutan, situated at 2200m above sea level, it was a clear and sunny weather. The flight offered a surprisingly added view of the highest point on Earth- Mt. Everest. The overwhelming sight was still not enough personally, to realise what we were landing into a paradise set amongst the Himalayas.

Bhutan is a country where the people wear their national costumes daily with pride. Men wear a heavy knee-length robe tied with a belt (gho). While women wear an ankle-length dress called Kira.

Bhutan Airlines

Simtokha Dzong

The frame is set in an elevation setting. It gives a subtle hint of the style of Bhutani façade, the minimal plain white stone wall, juxtaposed by highly intricate elements of fenestrations.

Om Mani Padme Hum- The sacred wheels are niched in beautifully in the stone walls. The three rows of timber ornamentation symbolise jealousy, desire and attachment, which one must let go of, in order to attain enlightenment, which is further symbolised by the white circles on the top row. Following a monk in an elevation frame multiple times has been an attempt to add context and value, along with scale. Taschicho Dzong, Thimphu

The Payab Gochu, traditional Bhutanese window is typically embedded within the facade walls of a building, & is an important architectural element. Another important feature among dzongs is the inward-sloping walls (battered walls) which is actually illusive. What ties the image together is the various levels of the structure captured together, with the monk being the anchor. Taschicho Dzong, Thimphu

Jadhang Tazi is the name commonly used for traditional railings. Every ornamentation was sybolised and had deeper meanings to them, which constantly reminds the viewer of the teachings of Buddha. In the frame, the famous Eternal Knot symbol can be identified on the parapet of the window. It symbolizes the endless cycle of suffering or birth, death and rebirth. Taschicho Dzong, Thimphu

The typical traditional doors are called Mago. Highly intricated, the door similarly juxtaposes the plain white wall. Ornamentation and no crime – is what came to the mind while composing the frame. The degrees of intricacy carries high potential to render the viewer’s mind speechless.

Well again the Everest was seen....the trip ended, wish it never did. Thanks to my liking for spatial photography, I was able to solely feel the space speak to me, enlightening me with the teachings, architectural lessons, and above all, this feeling- it was the people, the buildings, the setting, all that contributed to it. It was a feeling of peace and shear happiness, it was a feeling of Bhutan.

Paro Dzong, Paro

Imagining a world like Bhutan . . . One doesn’t need to be in Bhutan to live a happy life. Why is Bhutan so different, and compartitively so much better than the rest of the human civilisations? While everyone is trying to be like the other in this small village called world, the Bhutanese choose to be themselves, fully. It is not because they have uncovered some magical spell but simply because they are truly rooted to their true self, and not their material self. How simply and subtly they do that to themselves, is a lesson we’ve yet to learn.

The Tascchicho Dzong even offered a direct visual link with the mountains from inside the structure due to the visual depths which the humungous monastery creates between its utses. The scales of the structure resonated with the mountains....

Taschicho Dzong, Thimphu

Paro Dzong even gave a glimpse of the magnificent religious paintings, valuable inscriptions and artefacts. The columns are called Kachen, & are also beautifully carved, also reflecting the Bhutanese history. Quite serendipitously, the frame showcases two young boys, giving an impression of guiding & learning, in a setting so full of history and teachings carved and painted all over the space. Paro Dzong, Paro

It’s this one realization that makes the difference. Exactly what they have done, and exactly why GNH is ranked higher than GDP. Where material desires quench in the backburner and pride for one’s culture oozes through the pores of orange fabric from men who’ve learned to accept and live fully, happily in the one thing they have, NOW. Imagine a world like this. Is it too much to ask for? Connecting to your inner-self in the sanctity of a space you’re honored to call home. Our beautiful world would then become equally beautiful for all who get to become a part of it. KHUSH KHANDELWAL

CROSSWORD

ACROSS 3. A totalitarian society whose leaders regulate the citizens working, eating, drinking, sleeping, talking, thinking, procreating...in short living. 4. One of Italo calvinoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s most popular works 5. Mythology made real; encompassing a plethora of Indian culture and architecture. 8. A tv show with a digestive red room.

DOWN 1. A totalitarian regime controlling fundamental and reproductive rights. Tainted by the blood of its citizens, the country has forever changed. Punishments are severe and redemption is impossible. 2. Space and time intertwined, journey from evolution to infinity; triggering imagination to new dimensions, one of the finest makings of sci-Fi 6. Living in a cramped up space of 38 square feet in a city that forces you to try hard to exist, forget live. 7. A dystopian society split into 13 districts ruled by the ever powerful Capitol, where the people are forced to serve the Capitol through hard labour.

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ES NC RE FE RE LM

BOOKS

• INVISIBLE CITIES

By J.G.Ballard

• 1984 By George Orwell

TV SHOWS

• BILLENNIUM

• Di INC rect ed B EP •2 y C TI OD 00 hri ON stop Di Y 1 her rect S : A Nol ed B SE S •B an yS Y P Di A A t anl CE rect H ey K ed B U ubr •T y S BA ick H GA E .S L .R I Di M H aja rect E U mo ed B S N uli G yG ER ary Ro ss

By Italo Calvino

• THE HANDMAID’S TALE Directed By Kari Skogland

• THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE Directed By Mile Flanagan

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