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Published by Chaal.Chaal.Agency Ahmedabad/Bogota chaal.chaal.agency@gmail.com What is this document? It is a collection of the ideas developed during the period of the workshop offered by CCA. This is an open source document for any agency to take and develop on. Compiled and edited by Chaal.Chaal.Agency Designed by Chaal.Chaal.Agency About CHAAL.CHAAL.AGENCY CCA is a design/research collaborative project founded by Kruti Shah and Sebastian Trujillo, which works between Ahmedabad (India) and Bogotá (Colombia). CCA specializes in experimental infrastructures, transformative design, and transdisciplinary pedagogy, locating their area of investigation in the intersection between politics and space. We have been involved in a series of exercises that range from the proposition of publicgenerative devices and light architectures, to a dynamic pedagogical practice intertwined with academic research. Working between India and Colombia has allowed us to enquire into issues and potentialities particular to the Global South, in the prospect of triggering larger transformations through evolving micro-operations, involving students, allied organizations, and proactive communities. A practice envisioned towards more selfsufficient, equitable, and cohesive cultural environments.
भारत में िडजाइन खोज
Course Dates
Course introduction:
As part Winter School programme conducted by CEPT University in Ahmedabad (India), we proposed a pedagogical experiment that could capitalize on virtual modes of engagement with contemporary practitioners. In that manner, the main idea of the course was to bring set students in contact with current developments in the broader profession, yet with a particular emphasis on the Indian scene. As a specific focus, we selected architectural practices that operated both in the realms of design and research from a standpoint of production: not merely utilizing either, but focusing in the elaboration of design outputs (products, furniture, buildings, etc.) and pieces of research (academic, event-based, material experimentation, etc.). Thereafter, the overarching purpose of this enquiry was oriented toward the visualization of current tendencies in the architectural domain, not with the intention of define the contemporary Indian condition, but rather investigate the avenues to explore it in a cohesive and concise manner. This booklet is precisely the collection of these efforts, which are entrenched as a collective effort that set the base for a much larger -and thorough- study Indian architectural practice.
Disclaimer: The objective of this course was to understand different models of practice that utilize design and research in a parallel manner, while figuring outcomes that are not simply reduced to architectural production in the common sense: we were interested in practices that do more than just buildings. In that manner, students evaluated and mapped a series of practices based on accorded parameters that allowed them to set a comparative matrix; one which could be eventually translated into an overall map of contemporary designresearch practice in India. However, even though the methodology was set to bring together very disparate forms of doing through a cohesive and coherent set of steps, the results shall not be considered as objective appreciations or absolute categorizations of these practices. More than that, the produced maps should be seen as informed appraisals withdrawn from expeditious dialogues and conversations that took place throughout a twelve-day period, and offer introductory insights into each of the samples. Similarly, the overall mappings should be seen as initial experiments into visualization methods, that employ preliminary tools of analysis to correlate the collected data vis-ávis further speculations on collective characteristics, tendencies or behavioral standards. Henceforward, these experiments need to be understood as pedagogical exercises to surface knowledge within a field of study where there is very little research, in terms of solid reference material. An inquest which is -as Kaiwan Mehta puts it- “shooting in the dark”, giving that is both trying to establish certainties as well as discover internal inconsistencies or pathways for error. Over and above, the intention is to keep the critical discussion of Indian spatial practice progressing, and at the reach of not only professionals and intellectuals but also to younger generations that are beginning to engage with it.
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Contents
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01
02 03
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Premise 1.1 Mapping Hybridization
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1.2 Selction of Practices
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1.3 Research of Practices
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1.4 Input lectures
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1.5 In conversation with Practitioners
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Methodology 2.1 The Framework Parameters
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2.2 The Grading Matrix
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Mapping methodology 3.1 Mapping Design Processes
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3.2 Mapping Research Processes
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3.3 Plotting Design-Research Vectors
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3.4 Mapping Operative Filelds
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3.5 Towards a Synthesis
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Compund Mapping 4.1 Categorizing Architectural Practices
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4.2 Avenues for Representation
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4.2.1 MODUS OPERANDI
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4.2.2 A METHODOLOGICAL RANGOLI
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4.2.3 WAVE-LENGHTS OF PRACTICE
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Mentors:
Kruti Shah
Sebastian Trujillo
After completing her undergraduate studies from Academy of Architecture, Mumbai, she carried out her post-graduate studies at CEPT University, where she received a Master of Architecture within the Architectural Design specialization.
As a Colombian architect graduated from the National University of Colombia, he worked several years in Sergio Trujillo Arquitectos as studio coordinator, where he was involved in the proposition, design, and development of several public buildings in the country.
After her masters, she went on to work with Shimul Javeri Kadri Architects in Mumbai (2016) and JMA Design Collaborative in Ahmedabad (2017-2018) where she worked as a Senior Architect heading various Architectural projects. Her interest in research lie in understanding micro and macro narratives of lived spaces, their intangible quality, and how they can be translated into small design interventions that impact larger contexts. This has led to her being a studio tutor at the Bachelor of Urban Design program at CEPT University, where she has conducted several design studios -as part of her ongoing research.
He completed the Masters of Architecture programme at CEPT University -within the History, Theory and Criticism specialization- being interested in the function of architecture as a tool for agency, the role of the architect as political agent, the potentials of informality, as well as the spatial/historical contingencies of the global south. He has been a faculty at CEPT University, a Research Associate in the University Press, a visiting faculty at the Isthmus University in Panama and a studio tutor at the National University of Colombia.
Student contributors:
Aayush Doshi Anindya Raina Arnav Prakash Dwij Hirpara Kanxa Shah Indrakant Venkata Sai Sasank Isha Chouksey Nehal Jain Niveda Ramesh Roshita Sudhir Siddharth Cyriac Snehal Patil Yamini Manjunath Yash Siroliya
What is the difference between design and research? Or, more interestingly put: are design and research similar processes -if not part of the same continuum? Who is entitled (and responsible) of designing vis-à-vis, researching? How does it happen in professional environments? Why is it relevant to question this relationship? What would be the purpose; towards what? This course will address these questions by probing into a fragmented locus of verification: contemporary architectural practice in India. A platform where architects, urban designers and planners occupy a smaller role within larger networks of action: a new paradigm of experimentation which is no longer set in the historical epistemic centres, but in the radically challenging and diverse ‘peripheries’. From mainstream practices like Studio Mumbai with its “material fundamentalist” investigations, to RMA and their inquest on Indian modernism or SP+a’s housing documentation, to emerging practices as URBZ` with its participatory processes or Mad(e) in Mumbai with its ‘Typological investigations in public sanitation’. And that is just Mumbai. What if we could map contemporary practice across India as a varying index of the design-research continuum? What would be the geographicalcoincidences? What would be the tendencies? Through this empirical investigation, we could perhaps observe if research and design are indeed so intrinsically intertwined, or bounded as a manifestation of privilege and hedonisticintellectual ornamentation. A recognition that could allow students to locate themselves within this spectrum, envisioning possibilities and adopting methods that could couple professional circumstances with academic discourses. The output then is envisioned as ONE complex map encompassing the above.
1.1
MAPPING HYBRIDIZATION: THE DESIGN-RESEARCH CONTINUUM IN INDIAN ARCHITECTURE First presented in the Insight 2018: Design Research Symposium held at the National Institute of Design (Ahmedabad, India) in November 2018.
ABSTRACT This essay discusses the historic relation between design and research in India, from the formation of the profession on to contemporary practice. In so doing, it argues how this relation has been incrementally reinforced into synergies of practice that utilize hybrid methods to act upon space. Aside from briefly referencing historic landmarks of this relations, it brings forward several case studies in contemporary practice wherein design and research are utilized interchangeably in multiple and diverse ways. The objective of this essay then, is to reinstate such methodologies as legitimate protocols of acting-upon-space, which can be incorporated into academic environments as a manner to address lagging binary preconceptions of the discipline in the country.
KEYWORDS Design-research, architecture, India, historic narratives, emerging practices.
INTERMEDIATE POSSIBILITIES
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OR ON HOW TO UNDERMINE THE BINARY
I did my M.Arch in India. As many other architecture students in the country -and the world perhapsat some point I had to choose between design and research. I had to agree on conditions of learning which would be either based –broadly- on textual or drawing forms of communication. Sounds familiar? Sure, this might seem fairly reductive (and even unfair to my alma mater) yet that overall distinction was an institutionalized precondition. Now, despite the fact that this compromise is not harmful in itself (the market expects hyper-specialized professionals in order to establish knowledge-based power systems, right?) the issue arises when we extrapolate this gesture as a structural disjuncture between parallel forms of knowledge production. In other words, the fact that I had to make that fundamental choice, is representative of a binary understanding of the discipline which is far too rigid; perhaps not flexible enough to encourage the development of appropriately complex methodologies -techniques of thought and action- for our time and place. The question then, is not whether this dyad should exist or not, but rather how we think, make and encourage intermediate options in order to expand our disciplinary potentialities. Basically, undermine the designresearch binary distinction. Accordingly, what I discuss in this essay is in reference to that, in three subsequent ideas. The first, is that the relationship between design and research in India
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has grown somewhat in parallel, yet the synergies between both have significantly incremented from the onset of the profession onto today’s scenario. This significant and growing relationship, goes hand in hand with an observable paradigm shift from modern ideologies, to more hybrid standards: I argue that a fundamental reason for this paradigm shift is due to a progressive transformation of the relationship between design and research, and its diversification. The second, is that both design and research possess overlapping processes that make them intrinsically linked (thinking patterns, methods, appointments, etc.) from both an academic and a professional point of view. Basically, stating the obvious. Design research is an extensive field of study which -despite being relatively nascent in disciplinary terms- has been already applied to architectural pedagogy. In this essay, I advocate for its implementation. Finally, I will take some case studies of emerging contemporary practices in India, to demonstrate how designers have structured diverse models of practice in order to apprehend complex environments and construct alternatives of livelihood, construction, community involvement and so on. My argument is that these practices perform their agency through the utilization of design and research as a continuum in constant flux, which allows them to explore alternatives outside seemingly unmovable social, economic and cultural conditions. The conditions of practice are visibly changing; intermediate possibilities are on the rise.
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DESIGN NARRATIVES OR ON INDIAN MODERNITY AS NEGOTIATED RE-INVENTIONS
Let us set an easy onset; start with the basics. Let us take design. According to Jonathan Hill the original word for design comes from the Italian ‘disegno’, which signifies drawing: drawing a line but, mainly, drawing-forth an idea. It arose as a central concept of the Italian Renaissance, wherein the intellectual labor -projecting something through immaterial means- became superior to manual (material) means. ‘Disegno’ was culturally constructed to serve as an index of intellectual superiority and labour differentiation. It consolidated itself as the ideological engine that gave way to the professional condition of the architect as a singular (and heroic) figure, vis-à-vis the collective (and ‘rudimentary’) set of workers that functioned through a master-and-apprentice model: the somewhat anonymous workshops in charge of the materialization of those ‘larger’ ideas. This ideological condition was propagated by Promethean figures as Giorgio Vasari, Leon Battista Alberti and Andrea Palladio, who defined the framework in which we -in many ways- understand design today, as well as the role of the architect itself. All the Fosters and Gherys in the global arena are not a coincidence, they make part of such historical constructions. Thereupon, this dogma of design consolidated in Italy by the mid XV century, was eventually perpetuated by French scholars in the XVI
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century, Inigo Jones in Britain by the XVII century and so on. Design was set unchallenged as the power of drawing by function of intellectual supremacy; detached from ground conditions of action. Therefore, by being intrinsically linked with conditions of abstract cognition -with certain associations with scholarship, education and of course, research- it became a mechanism to concentrate decision-making processes within a particular minority. In other words, the cultural construction of ‘design’ was intrinsically associated with a certain condition of ‘abstract’ knowledge production, yet it was envisaged as a means to reinforce power structures.
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Now, let us place this development in a familiar environment. Let us go home. If we follow the link of the professionalization processes of architecture in India, we can see how the named models of design were extended from the West through the colonial paradigm, as a significant legacy of the British Raj. As Scriver and Bhatt have rightly pointed out the inception of architectural education in the British Raj arose from the necessity to train local draftsmen, which could assist in the construction of colonial facilities; public servants in charge of the execution of governmental infrastructure, while not being direct participants of the creative processes. This is where the Bombay School of Art & Industry (now Sir JJ School of Art, founded in 1857) becomes visibly instrumental in the perpetuation of these power predispositions. However, Sir JJ -the first formal Indian school of architecture- did not taught ‘design’ as such. Rather, they imparted a training that would allow the involvement of students with pragmatic tasks (drawing, management, execution, etc.) as clerks with certain level of sensibility to architectural orders, ornamentation, functionality and so on. A labour which in any way -for the greatest extent of the XIX century- was largely delegated to engineers: technicians who, according to Scriver and Srivastava would be in charge of most of India’s infrastructural development through a hardcore positivist approach. It was not until the first generation of XX century modernists, that the agency of design began to sprout: local architects sent to study abroad,
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eventually returning to materialize the Nehruvian project. The homecoming of architects like Habib Rahman (MIT, M.Arch 1944), Achyut Kanvinde (Harvard University, M.Arch 1947) or JK Chowdhury (Tennessee University, Regional Planning degree) along with prominent engineers as Shaukat Rai (Harvard University, M.Sc) or architecture critics as Mulk Raj Anand (Cambridge University, PhD 1928) coincided with the birth of a postcolonial state in the need for the construction of new identities. Soon, prevailing leading figures of the profession (and consecrated educators) as Edwin Lutyens and Claude Batley became vestiges of the past; the negotiation between international modernity and traditional cultures -from a ‘local’ perspective- acquired centre stage. Design then, was built up as an experimental practice of negotiated reinvention: re-invention of modern dogmas, re-invention of traditional practices, re-invention of citizenship, re-invention of techniques and resources. Subsequent generations -today’s Indian “Master Architects”would exercise the agency of ‘disegno’, by drawing forth ideas of identity, time, conciliation and so on: Anant Raje, BV Doshi, Charles Correa, Raj Rewal, Shiv Nath Prasad, Uttam Jain... Figures which –amid many othershave shaped the diverse narratives of architectural practice and education in the country. Narratives that hardly fit within clear-cut stylistic patterns or conventions, and that have evolved in diversified (and even contradictory) conditions of negotiation with the environment, resources, culture, capital and so on.
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RESEARCH NARRATIVES OR ON PROGRESSIVE HYBRIDIZATIONS
Now, I know what you are thinking. How did these transformations emerge from a position of knowledge production? Was the evolution of design related to research practices? Till a certain extent, it was. Let us begin by stating that we can consider a research product as something that is envisioned to generate, assert and propagate knowledge within a particular field of study. Mostly, it acquires the form of some sort of publication. We agree on that, right? It is something that has a public condition (it is meant to be shared with larger audiences) and perhaps a pedagogical quality, and hence it requires the utilization of evidence in order to support premises, challenge assumptions and so on. In the design field –and more specifically architecture-this kind of investigations range from technical aspects, to material conditions, as well as historical or theoretical: in the contemporary realm it has diversified infinitely, from AI and algorithmic design, to studies of gender, race and violence (not mentioning the rapid advancement on intelligent materials, environment-conscious construction techniques, etc.). Now, however modest, in India this kind of inquests arose mainly through print formats -exposing theoretical insights, pragmatic challenges, specific spatial responses- being considerably participant in the development of
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the architectural profession. Research undertakings nevertheless -compared to the design project- took a bit more time to develop and diversify. Although print architectural forums began to appear as early as 1934 -with the Journal of Indian Architects- it was until the late 1940’s and early 1950’s that more robust projects began to take shape, in parallel to the homecoming of the first generation of modernists. MARG magazine for instance, founded by Mulk Raj Anand in 1946, was named Modern Architecture Research Group as well as ‘Marg’: pathway in Sanskrit. Evidence of a somewhat comprehensive agenda of negotiating the construction of new identities. Similarly, other magazines as Indian Builder in 1953 or Design in 1957, would weigh the Mumbai-based discourses onto the representative capital of the Nehruvian project, New Delhi. These were platforms of knowledge dissemination; testimony of the cultural shifts where the rising ‘archi-stars’ of the time could propagate their visions. For decades, these were the most significant and comprehensive archives of architectural research, almost until the mid-1980’s. Till then, most of these research pieces were op-eds, essays (with recurrent topics as education and housing) as well as articles featuring significant buildings of the time and authored by renowned practitioners and academics. In 1985, the first known exhibition of a comprehensive selection of traditional and modern architecture was put together (commissioned by the Association Francaise d'Action Artistique and displayed in Paris as ‘Architecture in India’ ) as an index of the –considered- most significant figures of the discipline, along with some of the most representative sites of vernacular architecture. However, is the 1986 Vistara exhibition which is more widely known and remembered, because of the leadership of -since then celebrated- Charles Correa. These were the first widespread public attempts to understand architectural design in India, through methodical research proposals. Kaiwan Mehta has recently been enquiring into the role of such exhibits in the development of architectural history, as well as the profession at large
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in the subcontinent . Now, from those initial research projects of the 1980’s, a great diversity of inquests have exponentially proliferated. One of the latest -and perhaps one of the most comprehensive- was ‘The State of Architecture’ by Rahul Mehrotra, Ranjit Hoskote and Kaiwan Mehta . By departing from the experience of those previous curatorial projects, they not only managed to restructure an overall narrative of the profession’s development within macro political processes (independence, emergency, liberalization and so on) but they extended these onto the present through both quantitative (growth patterns, gender unbalance, architects percapita, etc.) and qualitative conditions (categories of present practices, speculative enquiries, etc.). Therefore, this research exposed conflicting trajectories, contradictions and structural concerns on contemporary architectural practice, while uncovering alternative responses, advantages and possibilities for emerging propositions. Likewise, another significant aspect of this exhibition, is that it is a statement of contemporary hybridity: it is a research on localized design processes, as well as a design of inherited research material. It brought together historical research proposals along design developments. It demonstrated how architectural design did not develop independently from public intellectual developments (but were rather interconnected) and even how contemporary practices have expanded beyond the objective of just making buildings. Henceforward, the exhibition in itself is a marker of the design-research continuum, while standing as evidence of historical transformations and paradigmatic shifts . Paraphrasing Rahul Mehrotra design can be understood as a synthetic
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process of diverse forces around us, a form of sensible investigation that nurtures society in very diverse manners. For him, good design (as perhaps good research) does many things simultaneously in order to sustain time, while attempting to dissolve the threshold between societies. It attempts to create empathy. In that way we can interpret this as an instance of similar models of practice; design and research then stem from similar conditions of action and thought, towards larger societal and political outcomes. Both require incorporating diverse resources in a concise manner while being polyfunctional. Both are nurtured from context-specificities, while giving back with ambitions of broad betterments. This is the core of future practice; the consolidation of hybrid methods.
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HYBRID METHODS OR ON THE DESIGN-RESEARCH CONTINUUM
“Design and Research are indivisible. Today’s designers –especially those who work in service, product, environment or interaction design- are users and creators of knowledge, transferring that knowledge to (and creating it with) users, clients and co-creators. Perhaps twenty years ago when we were still in the process of defining design research, then debates over the relationship between theory and practice, academia and the professional domain, had some relevance. No longer.” According to Brenda Laurel research is key to make design a more ‘muscular’ profession. Is a form of confronting structural matters of practice, retrofitting into the ‘why’ of design. She says that the question then is not whether design has power, but whom it is serving and to what purpose: research methods strengthen appropriate directions. Now, let us take this back to the narratives we have assembled. We revised the construction of the architectural profession in India, in parallel to a process of modernization and nation-building. Whilst architectural design practice –as we understand it today-somehow materialized this project, widespread research processes accompanied in parallel the construction of this paradigm. The engagement of practitioners with research during the latter half of the XX century, invigorated the profession in such a way that if founded many of today’s ontological and teleological conditions of the profession. In other words, this synergy laid the foundation of the ‘why’ and ‘what for’ of architectural practice, which still linger –implicitly- in many contemporary discourses: the architect as hero (singular and exceptional), the architect as historic mediator (of past and future), the architect as global and local (modern and vernacular), architecture as tool of development and craft (hi-tech and frugal) and so on. However, is important to highlight the fact that despite both complementary forms of knowledge production in India (design and research) matured somewhat jointly, these synergies were restrained within specific circles and it did not entirely translate into academic realms; as we know, an orthodox modernist (binary) mindset lingers in academic environments . A perhaps regressive condition in view of our contemporary possibilities. In contrast to that –and as a historic alternative- RMIT University in Melbourne, started a PhD program more than thirty years ago (around 1986-87) which focused on architectural research; set in motion through the virtue of revised practice . As a ground-breaking program in the field, it began by gathering practicing architects to discuss and analyze their work, consequently unveiling underlying processes that explained their particular mastery. A critical process of examination, meant to be set as
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evidence of certain skills to be extrapolated, shared and improved. Hence, one of the main ideas was to help designers surface methodological and discursive settings, while facilitating researchers a window into grounded circumstances of doing. To this date, such program has developed into a diversified system of research cells, which dwell in practice-based investigations from the perspective of multiple cultures, contexts and circumstances around the globe. This compelling project is representative of the design-research agenda, as an expanding field of study. A fascinating enterprise since -as Bonnie McDaniel Johnson affirms: “is inherently paradoxical: it is both imaginative and empirical” . Design research is an act of imagination that nevertheless needs to be grounded in empirical evidence, a discipline that probes into the unknown by agency of known frameworks. Now, academia is only a part of it. Design practices all over the world have been contributing in parallel. Teddy Cruz’s practice, for instance, proposes design research as a bottomless enquiry that addresses the gap between institutions and the public, while projecting new geographies of civic imagination and political will. He advocates for the assemblage of artistic experimentation, social responsibility and institutional transformation (specifically situated in the US-Mexico border). His role as architect/artist is set then, in the transformation of everyday politics, institutional unaccountability, and the shrinkage of public establishments. Art and architecture for him, should not only reveal underlying conditions of injustice, inequality and so on, but primarily construct specific procedures to transcend them: an informed and functional set of operations, which connect intellectual scrutiny with the urgency of everyday issues. What Cruz proposes is -in a nutshell- a shift from critical distance to critical proximity , where practice is closely engaged with socio-political and economic domains, making changes from within; within contingency itself. He seeks to expand practice, by reimagining counter-spatial procedures that may lead to new modes of sociability and encounter. Similarly, in India, a large amount of architectural practices have incorporated such hybrid models (especially from the beginning of this century). And as an increasingly common phenomena, this form of practice -which was once restricted to a few grand masters- has now become point of departure for the emergent.
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UNFOLDING PROSPECTS OR ON THE POSSIBILITY OF CONTINUATION
These practices then, can be understood as a set of prospects unfolding in tandem with complex contemporary environments, for which they are divising diverse ways to employ design and research in interchangeable settings. Unexpected assemblages, cohesive continuations, pragmatic convergences, feedback loops or contingent consolidations. The continuum between these disproven counterparts, design and research, is located at the core of a developing paradigm. Now, the claim here is not that mainstream practice is adopting these conditions of hybridity (in fact all of these practices are rather exceptional in the overall panorama) but, rather, that there is an emerging tendency -amongst recent collectives- which is leaning towards it. Although the methodological interrelation between design and research in India can be traced to the conformation of the architectural profession itself, the process of hybridization between both -in the current state of affairsdemonstrates starkly different properties. Not only that: it promises a great degree of exponential diversification. Henceforth, this possibility of continuation of the design-research continuum lies, mainly, within two different fields of action. Firstly, in the pragmatic opportunity for contemporary practices to capitalize upon methodologies that can open to wider –and perhaps more enriching- alternatives. Doing buildings is not enough anymore: the only way to sustain the architect’s relevance is by surpassing conditions of profit-based instrumentality and the unquestionable drive for aesthetics. We need more thinkers that can do, and even more doers that can think. And secondly, it lies in the prospect of its pedagogical applications: our present challenges are set not in the consolidation and definition of a certain sense of ‘being’ (what we are, what Indian architecture is and how we teach it) but rather how we open towards platforms of interaction and collaboration, through which more nuanced, appropriate, diverse and innovative cognitions can emerge. For that, conceptions of education (as concepts of practice itself) have to be withdrawn from binary preconditions –opposing design and research- and taken into hybrid stages of capacity. The design-research continuum, more than an external phenomenon of disciplinary hybridity, is a methodological tool to internalize. An-other way to move forward.
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BIBLIOGRAPHY
Ameen, Farooq. Contemporary architecture and city from: The South Asian Paradigm. Bombay: Marg Pub, 1997. Creswell, John W. RESEARCH DESIGN Qualitative, Quantitative and Mixed Methods Approaches. New Delhi: SAGE Publications Inc., 2009. Crouch, Christopher and Jane Pearce. Doing Research in Design. London & New York: Bloomsbury, 2012. Cruz, Teddy. «Returning Duchamp's Urinal to the Bathroom? On the Reconnection Between Artistic Experimentation, Social Responsibility and Institutional Transformation.» En Design Research in Architecture An Overview, de Murray Fraser, 205-2016. Farnham: Ashgate Publishing Limited, 2013. Dalvi, Mustansir. Twentieth Century Compulsions : Modern Indian Architecture from the Marg Archives. Mumbai: Marg Foundation, 2016. Dengle, Narendra. Dialogues with Indian Master Architects. Mumbai: Marg Foundation, 2015. Desai, Madhavi. Women Architects and Modernism in India Narratives and Contemporary Practices. London: Routledge, 2017. Fraser, Murray. Design Research in Architecture An Overview. Farnham: Ashgate Publishing Limited, 2013. Gast, Klaus-Peter. Modern traditions: Contemporary Architecture in India. Basel: Birkhauser, 2007. Gupta, Pankaj Vir. Golconde: The Introduction of Modernism in India. New Delhi: Urban Crayon Press, 2010. Hill, Jonathan. «Design Research: The First 500 Years.» En Design Research in Architecture, de Murray Fraser, 15-34. Farnham: Ashgate Publishing Limited, 2013. Hosagrahar, Jyoti. Indigenous Modernities : Negotiating Architecture and Urbanism. London & New York: Routledge, 2005. Joost, Gesche, et al. DESIGN AS RESEARCH Positions, Arguments, Perspectives. Basel: Birkhauser, 2016. Kagat, Carmen. VISTARA: The Architecture of India: Catalogue of the Exhibition. Great Britain: Festival of India, 1986. Kazi, Khaleed Ashra and James Balluardo. Architecture of independence 29
: the making of modern South Asia : Charles Correa, Balkrishna Doshi, Muzharul Islam, Achyut Kanvinde. New York: Architectural League of New York, 1998. Khanna, Rahul. Modern architecture of New Delhi 1928-2007. Delhi: Random House Pubs. India Pvt. Ltd., 2008. Lang, Jon , Madhavi Desai and Miki Desai. ARCHITECTURE AND INDEPENDENCE The Search For Identity - India 1880 to 1980. Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1997. Laurel, Brenda. DESIGN RESEARCH Methods and Perspectives. Cambridge & London: The MIT Press, 2003. Laurel, Brenda. «Muscular Design.» En Design Research Methods and Perspectives, de Brenda Laurel, 16-19. Cambridge & London: The MIT Press, 2003. Mehrotra, Rahul. Architecture in India since 1990. Mumbai: Pictor Publishing Pvt. Ltd , 2011. Mehrotra, Rahul, interview by Jyoti Narula Ranjan. The Agency of Design (18 December 2016). Mehrotra, Rahul, Ranjit Hoskote and Kaiwan Mehta. THE STATE OF ARCHITECTURE Practices and Processes in India. Mumbai: Urban Design Research Institute, 2016. Mehta, Jaimini. Architectural Education in India, an Overview. Vadodara, 2006. Mehta, Kaiwan. «Charting Trajectories.» DOMUS India, 2018. Press, Mike. «The Resourceful Social Expert: Defining the Future Craft of Design Research.» En Design as Research, de Gesche, et al. Joost, 22-34. Basel: Birkhauser, 2016. Ranade, Shilpa, interview by Sebastian Trujillo. (6 July 2018). Ratti, Carlo and Mathew Claudel. Open Source Architecture. London: Thames & Hudson, 2015. Rewal, Raj, Ram Sharma and Jean-Louis Veret. Architecture in India: Catalogue of the Exhibition held at the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts. Paris: Electa Moniteur, 1985. Scriver, Peter and Amit Srivastava. INDIA Modern Architectures in History. London: Reaktion Books Ltd., 2015. Scriver, Peter and Vikram Bhatt. Contemporary Indian Architecture AFTER THE MASTERS. Ahmedabad: Mapin Publishing Pvt. Ltd., 1990. Simonsen, Jesper, et al. DESIGN RESEARCH Synergies Interdisciplinary Perspectives. New York: Routledge, 2010. 30
from
Woods, Mary N. Women architects in India : Histories of Practice in Mumbai and Delhi. Oxon: Routledge, 2017. Zaera-Polo, Alejandro. «Well into the 21st Century: The Architecture of Post-Capitalism?» El Croquis No.82, 2016: 252-287.
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Local x Society Landscape India
Banduksmith studio SeaLab Studio 23n72e JMA Design Arya Architects Surya Kakani Thumb impressions SRDA BARD studio
sp+a
URBZ DCoop Think matter
1.2
SELECTION OF PRACTICES
Charles Correa Foundation
This selection process consisted in pinning down 27 disparate practices throughout the Indian territory that exhibited both design and research products in publicly accessible platforms.
Social design collaborative Busride design studio Case designs Dhirty hands Mad(e) in Mumbai
Hyderbad urban lab
Fields of view Architecture for dialogue
Urban design collective Sponge collaborative Thannal- Hand sculpted homes
Anupama Kundoo
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1.3
RESEARCH OF PRACTICES Each practice was carefully studied through their internet presence, in order to understand the approach these practices want to project in order to eventually compare it to more particularized notions.
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1.4
INPUT LECTURES
In order to establish a common understanding of what we meant by design, research, contemporary, visualizing, and so on, the first module of the course was based on extensive lectures on these topics.
In the first one, we laid down the conceptual principles of the research with a special emphasis on the historical background of Indian design-research practices.
Similarly, we began emphasizing on different tools of visualization, not necessarily as forms of presentation but tools of enquiry and thought.
Mapping in that sense became a capstone technique, that allowed us to correlate quantitative data through qualified theoretical agendas.
In parallel to that, the “Compass for Political Architecture” by Zaera Polo was thoroughly examined, in order to establish a recent precedent of similar efforts.
That was collated with the exhibition catalogue of “The State of Architecture” by Melhrotra, Hoskote, and Mehta, to have a local understanding of what contemporary practice is.
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DAY 02 > SANKALPA FROM THUMBIMPRESSIONS COLLABORATIVE
As a founding member of the collective, Sankalpa discussed topics from the role of academic experimentation to the place of the designer in the contemporary social scenario.
1.5
IN CONVERSATION WITH PRACTITIONERS In order to get a further insight into the workings and methodologies of the selected practices, students were tasked with interviewing 7 practitioners that represented different trends and approaches within the entire panorama.
DAY 04 > MANUEL DE LAS HERAS FROM LxS
Manuel discussed the potentials of Indian urbanity and the possibilities that contextual properties offer to designers and regular citizens.
DAY 05 > RUTURAJ PARIKH AND MAANASI HATTANGADI FROM STUDIO MATTER
Ruturaj and Maanasi talked about their diversified interests and initiatives, which possess exceptional range and quality of achievement.
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DAY 07 > SAMIRA RATHOD FROM SRDA
Samira discussed her approach to collaboration and design, emphasizing on the ground realities of practice and construction.
DAY 08 > DHARA PATEL AND NISHANT MITTAL FROM STUDIO 23N 72E
Dhara and Nishant shared their efforts to correlate initiatives of landscape design, infrastructural systems, ecological networks, and artistic agendas.
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DAY 09 > MANUSHI JAIN, SOURAV BISWAS, PRAVEEN RAJ R M, AND
SHREYA KRISHNAN FROM SPONGE COLLABORATIVE
As a young collective with an exceptionally transdisciplinary approach, they shared experiences and aspirations in regards to infrastructural projects.
DAY 10 > MAYURI SISODIA AND KALPIT ASHAR FROM MAD(E) IN MUMBAI
From their academic engagements to their larger urban-architectural projects, Mayuri and Kalpit elaborated on the synergy of their projects.
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After thoroughly investigating the selected 27 practices, the group agreed on a series of parameters that could allow for the evaluation of each. In a nutshell, the idea was to quantify qualitative factors in order to construct a comprehensive matrix, which could eventually be visualized in way that could convey tendencies, similarities, groupings, and so on. In that manner, a framework consisting of eight different parameters was established, wherein the practices could be individually located in either of the two contrasting sides of each parameter. Now, more than evaluating these practices by categorizing them within absolute -binary- conditions, the exercise consisted in grading the tendency of each practice to be locate itself towards a particular side of the appreciable spectrum. Hence, the conceptual effort entailed not only understanding these practices, but critically examining them in order to form an argument that could sensibly place them in a scale between one side of the spectrum or the other. Therefore, students graded their selected practices (within a scale from 0 to 5 in each parameter) to eventually construct a grading matrix, which would be then translated into individual mappings of their operative fields. From this data set, the entire course was divided into two groups of students, which proposed two different ways by which the overall landscape could be visualized in a compelling manner.
2.1
FRAMEWORK OF PARAMETERS
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2.2
THE GRADING MATRIX After thorough discussions and evidence-based procedures to locate each practice in a particular place of the spectrum, a larger data set was constructed with all the selected practices.
*Brainstorming and idea development through online platforms.
Discussions began through the visualization of evidence and the correlation of information, which was ultimately translated into the common ground.
*Brainstorming and idea development through online platforms.
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We utilized a base format to map the operative fields of the selected practices, wherein the components and logic used to carry out the mapping exercises can be seen here in detail. As a point of departure, design and research processes are mapped separately (through the same categories) in order to understand the extent by which one is in fact an extension of the other, or rather these are confronted in entirely different ways. Further on, based on an in-depth analysis of such practice each process is quantified in order to establish a comparative scale and visualize these different qualitative conditions. The gradation for each process is given by means of a system of tensions between contrasting categories, where design and research are located within a wide and variable spectrum through fluctuating vectors. In that manner, the larger the vector denotes that that particular practice is especially determined by that factor. However, is worth clarifying that the evaluations are given under a comparative process between the chosen proposals and therefore do not concern universal values. The final process refers to the union of the vectors’ arrowheads through a malleable shape that denotes the operative field. Henceforth, the resulting shape (specific to each practice) refers to specific designresearch processes that can be later compared in summation.
3.1
MAPPING DESIGN PROCESSES These were outlaid in the vertical axis and plotted in a contrasting blue colour, wherein each vector manifests the tendency of a practice towards a particular side.
<DESIGN PROCESS>
3.2
MAPPING RESEARCH PROCESSES Interwoven with the prior, research vectors were given a reddish tone and gradated through a horizontal directionality.
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3.3
PLOTTING DESIGN-RESEARCH VECTORS
Despite the fact that each follow distinct directions (vertical-horizontal) and acquire contrasting tones (blue-red), is important to note that both types of vectors operate in the same plane in a concurrent manner.
3.4
MAPPING OPERATIVE FIELDS It is therefore by the unique combination of vectors that a particular shape results by joining together the arrow-heads of the prior; an oddlydefined operative field that reveals the specific way that practice performs.
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>> ANUPAMA KUNDOO
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Research by : Indrakant Venkata Sai Sasank and Isha Chouksey 67
>> ARCHITECTURE FOR DIALOGUE
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Research by : Dwij Hirpara and Kanxa Shah 69
>> ARYA ARCHITECTS
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Research by : Nehal Jain and Yash siroliya 71
>> BANDUKSMITH STUDIO
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Research by : Sebastian Trujillo Torres 73
>> BARD STUDIO
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Research by : Roshita Sudhir and Yamini Manjunath 75
>> CASE DESIGN
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Research by : Sebastian Trujillo Torres 77
>> CHARLES CORREA FOUNDATION
78
Research by : Dwij Hirpara and Kanxa Shah 79
>> DCOOP
80
Research by : Sebastian Trujillo Torres 81
>> DHIRTY HANDS
82
Research by : Arnav Prakash and Niveda Ramesh 83
>> FIELDS OF VIEW
84
Research by : Anindiya Raina and Aayush Doshi 85
>> HYDERABAD URBAN LAB
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Research by : Siddharth Cyriac and Snehal Patil 87
>> JMADC
88
Research by : Roshita Sudhir and Yamini Manjunath 89
>> LANDSCAPE INDIA
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Research by : Nheal Jain and Yash Siroliya 91
>> LXS- LOCAL AND SOCIETY
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Research by : Roshita Sudhir and Yamini Manjunath 93
>> MADE(E) IN MUMBAI
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Research by : Nehal Jain and Yash Siroliya 95
>> SEALAB
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Research by : Sasank and Isha Chouksey 97
>> SOCIAL DESIGN COLLAB
98
Research by : Arnav Prakash and Niveda Ramesh 99
>> SP+A
100
Research by : Sebastian Trujillo Torres 101
>> SPONGE COLLABORATIVE
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Research by : Anindiya Raina and Aayush Doshi 103
>> SRDA- SAMIRA RATHOD DESIGN ATELIER
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Research by : Arnav Prakash and Niveda Ramesh 105
>> STUDIO 23N72E
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Research by : Sasank and Isha Chouksey 107
>> STUDIO MATTER
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Research by : Dwij Hirpara and Kanxa Shah 109
>> SURYA KAKANI ASSOCIATES
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Research by : Siddharth Cyriac and Snehal Patil 111
>> THANNAL HAND SCULPTED HOMES
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Research by : Arnav Prakash and Niveda Ramesh 113
>> THE BUSRIDE DESIGN STUDIO
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Research by : Sebastian Trujillo Torres 115
>> THUMB IMPRESSIONS
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Research by : Siddharth Cyriac and Snehal Patil 117
>> URBAN DESIGN COLLECTIVE
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Research by : Siddharth Cyriac and Snehal Patil 119
>> URBZ INDIA
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Research by : Sebastian Trujillo Torres 121
3.5
TOWARDS A SYNTHESIS More than allowing us to compare, assimilate, and recognize patterns, these mappings worked as tools to think about the way these practices perform individually, while providing a valuable data set that could be eventually translated into a larger mapping.
Anupama Kundoo
Architecture For Dialogue
Arya Architects
Banduksmith studio
BARD studio
CASE Design
Charles Correa Foundation
DCoop
Dhirty Hands
Fields of View
Hyderabad Urban Lab
JMA
Landscape India
Local X Society
Mad(e) in Mumbai
Sea Lab
Social Design Collaborative
sP+A
Sponge Collaborative
SRDA
Studio 23N 72E
Studio Matter
Surya Kakani Associates
Thannal- Hand sculpted homes
The Busride design
Thumb impressions
Urban Design Collective
URBZ India
With the intention of withdrawing larger inferences from the prior mappings -and speculating on the directions of contemporary practice in India- the crafted data-sets were compounded, in order to evaluate both the methodological capacities this avenue offered (in tandem to its limits and hindrances) as well as the correlations between the studied practices. As a mapping experiment, the results obtained should not be understood necessarily as refined elaborations, but as initial approximations to the challenge at hand. Having said that, it is relevant to highlight the three directions this exercise took: while a first group (MODUS OPERANDI) leaned towards a more statistical approach to the issue at hand, the second (A METHODOLOGICAL RANGOLI) opted towards a vector-based approach, while the third (WAVE-LENGHTS OF PRACTICE) utilized the data as threedimensional trajectories. In that manner, these were developed as swift time-problems that would offer different approaches to the categorization and visualization of architectural practices, with the intention of eventual refinement and further development.
4.1
CATEGORISING ARCHITECTURAL PRACTICES Perhaps the biggest challenge of the course -which evidently requires a great degree of theoretical expertise- was identifying and naming larger tendencies, groupings, and so on. For that -and given the limited time given for this particular task- this process of categorization resulted from the reappropriation of the precedent data.
* One to one discussions on the implications and intricacies of visualization.
Evidently, this process implied a back and forth negotiation between the canstructed data-sets (in tandem to the developed work) visa-vis the eventual compound mapping.
* Discussions on potential avenues for visualization.
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4.2
AVENUES FOR REPRESENTATION As part of the pedagogical process, different formats of mapping were presented and discussed in order to withdraw the most appropriate avenue for representing the constructed categories.
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4.2.1 MODUS OPERANDI Team members (from left to right):
Roshita Sudhir, Yamini Manjunath, Aayush Doshi, Anindya Raina, and Sasank IVS
*Initial diagrams and sketches for the construction of a map. 131
READING THE MAP:
Each practice was analysed with respect to its lenience towards either side of the specified parameters. Inferring from their respective individual graphs, it is positioned in the relative graph after summing up its respective gradings. Thus, each practice falls into one of the four quadrants. Graphically, it is connected to its respective parameters through lines, among which two lines are highlighted which have the highest grading. Each quadrant has a specific character demonstrating the practices’ approach towards design and research. The graph remains the same as with the case of individual gradings, with research grading on x-axis and design grading on y-axis, with opposite approaches and methodologies on either side of the axis.
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4.2.2 A METHODOLOGICAL RANGOLI Team members (from left to right):
Isha Chouksey, Arnav Prakash, Nivedita Ramesh, SIddharth Cyriac, and Snehal Patil
*Initial diagrams and sketches for the construction of a map. 137
READING THE MAP: Departing from the vectors of the prior design-research mappings, these were reconsolidated within a larger format wherein each practice would be position in accordance to the average forces of its composite vectors.
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4.2.3 WAVE-LENGHTS OF PRACTICE Team members (from left to right):
Dwij Hirpara, Kanxa Shah, Yash Shiroliya, and Nehal Jain
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