October 2013 - Anniversary Issue

INDIAN ARCHITECT & BUILDER

VOL 27 (2)

OCT 2013

MUMBAI

27 th Anniversary Edition

Arya Architects k s a architects and planners DUSTUDIO Hunnarshala Foundation

Lotus Nagaraj Vastarey

PRACTICES OF CONSEQUENCE

Cover Š Andreas Deffner, courtesy DUSTUDIO

VOL II

Sameep Padora and Associates Samira Rathod Design Associates S+PS Architects Architecture Paradigm DDIR Architecture Studio vir.mueller architects

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VOL 27 (2) | OCT 2013 | ` 200 | MUMBAI RNI Registration No. 46976/87, ISSN 0971-5509 INDIAN ARCHITECT AND BUILDER INDIAN ARCHITECT & BUILDER

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PRACTICES OF CONSEQUENCE: VOL II

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Arya Architects

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Ahmedabad

KSA Architects and Planners Pvt Ltd

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Mumbai

DUSTUDIO

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Auroville

Hunnarshala Foundation

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Bhuj

Lotus

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New Delhi

Nagaraj Vastarey

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Bengaluru

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Mumbai

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Mumbai

S+PS architects

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Mumbai

Architecture Paradigm

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Bengaluru

DDIR Architecture Studio

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Bengaluru

vir.mueller architects

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ractices of consequence the idea is not to live forever; it is to create values that will.

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Manifesto…

Does architecture need one? Does every architect have one?

Method…

Does philosophy define it? Does it define architecture?

Architecture…

What is good design? Do all manifestoes and methods achieve it?

Consequence…

Is this the inception of an era? Are we doing it right?

Identity…

Has the history of the future begun? What is India’s role in it?

This idea in the penultimate edition subscribes to the belief that contemporary architecture in India is being paraphrased in differentiated stages as opposed to a more purely linear notion of progress. As a key theory, the second edition of ‘Practices of Consequence’ extends as an unfolding narrative of documentation, seeking to examine the phenomena in terms of a wider web of relationships, including the many dimensions of their multiple contexts – a collective contribution to architectural thinking. The focus is on a potential largely cultivated by individual and communal aspects rather than a more resonant approach guided by its concomitant organisational principles.

Today, in context of rampant eclecticism prevalent, much of the architectural scene is characterised by an insular resilience with a focus on invention rather than investigation or interpretation. The recovery of relevance is part of the regeneration of this culture, one of the huge collective challenges of our time. Therefore, another assumption underlying this series is that we are in the throes of an epochal transition. And that the successful negotiation of this transition will reinstate architectural culture constructed as an evolutionary approach with meaning and a place in history. There are few and far between who espouse this sense of symbolic thinking, who understand and participate in this transition, knowingly and unknowingly, by furthering and helping to shape it in a constant act of negotiation rather than a straightforward expression.

PRACTICES OF CONSEQUENCE VOL II

The scripting of this issue is a projection of a myriad of subjective preconceived ideas and the various knowledge forms that inform them, allowing for a space to be understood within the field of architecture praxis. The exploration elaborates on the dichotomy between process and form: an operation method reinforced by both, an internal methodology and ideology. Consequently, defining architecture as a relational praxis where the parameters are continuously flexible, pushing the solidification of physical design to the very end of an open-ended process. Making a virtue of necessities, the increasingly abstract grid in which the process is encountered, enhances and, up to some degree, gives a meaning to them. The physical manifestation arising largely from these qualities, thereby delineates a role of pattern expressing a more resonant connection to all individual and communal aspects. The articulation of this is to elevate views on essential purpose of architecture, its psychological and existential grounding based on bigger frames of reference such as identity and philosophy.

The discussion here is deliberately non-academic and narrowly selective, and the purpose is to aid us in our pursuit of an architecture that is more complete in its range of concerns than is the norm today. We sought patterns, in fragmented layers, not styles; through spatial deployment of activities and the choreography of their relationships − through architecture and ritual, the ways in which psyches are projected into space to better explore and elaborate them, as well as intensify their experience and meaning. They are postulated as manifestos with the process as evidence of the project’s formulation, where the texts should not be read as expressions of philosophical ambitions but as crucial elements which reposition the ideology of the process. The information is purely accumulative, and does not form an evolution – at times, as a linear transformation, sometimes in stasis, bifurcating, looping, parallel and sometimes forms of information is forgotten in the process. The orientation is diluted in its impact as a declaration but is more of an extractive ethos, and for architecture we believe – a preservation ethic embedded within a practice’s compositional responsibilities, of the capacity of architecture to carry metaphor and metabolise history. As Austin Williams puts it, it’s ‘a time for manifestoes.’

Could an intention determine ways of exchanging? And be the measure of the making?

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Arya Architects AHMEDABAD

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he Aryas began their journey in 1999 with two projects – in Kutch, post the earthquake and a competition. Working together, the initial period of dialogue, discussions and debate set up design directions, philosophy and a working methodology which was eventually formalised as a partnership firm.

Each project is shaped by the underlying idea of ‘appropriate’.

Appropriateness is the result of a thorough understanding of the brief, the site, the context of the profession as well as the innate creative urge. It implies informed decisions as a critical part of the design process. The manifestation of this philosophy is seen in the choice of giving primacy to material and craftsmanship in the Mewar Complex, or to brief development in the Samakhiali reconstruction projects or the material and structure relationship in the Jindal Bus Station design. Over time, this approach has created diversity in the language of the office. Design decisions are carefully weighed and all possibilities are considered, without any filters of style and language. Explorations and experimentation in materials, technology and structure is evident in the office portfolio. Every design is approached with its own set of potentials and limitations. The firm engages in this tension between the physical reality defined by site, society, culture and the internal urge of the creative process.

Our vision and motivation is to reshape everyday used spaces.

Much work done in the office therefore falls in the critical space of public architecture, be it schools, sports, transit or public health facilities. It is a challenging space to be in, often defined by the processes of government regulations. It is a space very few young practices in the country engage with. The endeavour is to change the benchmarks of public spaces, and bring dignity, diversity and quality to the common, ordinary and routine. This is done through the projects and also through regular dialogue with the government authorities.

The public nature of architecture demands it to be inclusive, democratic and equitable. The reconstruction project in Samakhiali was a laboratory to test some of the processes. Engagement and communication with the people was recognised as a core way to develop the design and its objective. We also understood our

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own value as arbitrators and synthesisers. The projects are strung together by providing spaces of interaction, dialogue and occasion.

The BRTS bus station was the reinvention, of what was otherwise considered a banal object in the cityscape of Indian cities, into a spatial, experiential entity that brings comfort, identity and ease into the everyday lives of residents. Careful in the reinvention is the ability to keep it in the human scale, never to overwhelm, but engage with the subtle nuances of urban life. In the pursuit of providing the same, our projects become a way for us to address questions about people’s lives, environment and cities.

Our journey in architecture is enriched by a concern and a deep respect for traditional Indian architecture which we have extensively documented. Semi-open spaces and in-between realms are seen as valuable to the Indian social and climatic condition.

These spaces are a repeated element in the design. Informal public spaces like 'chowks' and the streets have been the life of Indian towns and cities, creating over time inclusive realms. In recent times, however, the quality of public life is deteriorating and public spaces are getting to be exclusive. The projects in the public realm are an attempt to bring back the inclusiveness of this domain through architecture. These are spaces that most citizens encounter, visit, inhabit and occupy in their daily lives. Inserted within the existing fabric, the projects draw upon experiences that are diverse and complex, yet the spaces pose as a silent backdrop to encourage and allow public interaction, participation and cohesion by bringing people together. Architecture evolves from an exploration of these spaces that are appropriate in terms of climate, are inclusive, allow for spill overs, are flexible, transparent and yet carefully defined.

As partners in the firm M/s Minakshi Jain Architects, the firm has brought in contemporary ideas of conservation into architectural practice. Our work continues to be fuelled by the challenge of responding to the people’s needs in the contemporary times, along with an acknowledgement of the country’s valuable traditions.

Naturally, there are no perfect answers, but it is the quest that keeps us going.

- Meghal + Vijay Arya

Arya Architects

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Drawings, Images and Writings: courtesy Arya Architects

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FREEDOM PARK, BENGALURU Indian Architect & Builder - October 2013

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Ahmedabad Football Stadium: The Stadium project was a challenge in generating porosity, light and ventilation, and expanse of space in a very tight land condition. Invoking the courtyards as an idea, the project was a vertical expression of solid (functions) and voids (courtyards).

AA: Arya Architects IA&B: Could you tell us about the beginnings of your practice? What were the formative years like? How did your work evolve?

AA: Meghal and Vijay Arya, both graduates of the School of Architecture, CEPT University, started their architectural practice in Ahmedabad after returning from their postgraduate studies in architecture from Georgia Tech, Atlanta and Aalto University, Finland respectively. The international education, coupled with substantial travel across Europe, gave them a richness of architectural experiences. The initial years of debate and discussion led to the emergence of two areas of interest – working in the public domain and seeking to decipher meanings in traditional Indian architecture. Since work in the public domain was limited in volume, this phase was marked by many competitions; quite a few of them in the area of transit facilities like bus stations and airports. It was a fascinating area of design – a paradox where the mobile and the static were in a continuous dialogue. Over time, the firm has established a niche in this area. ↑ Ahmedabad Football Stadium: An unbuilt project, it was a tremendous exercise for

the office in exploration of form, inclusion of a very wide range of functions, logistics of services, area, accessibility, etc.

150mm th. stone masonry wall

35mm x 35mm M.S.T. section

The maiden years were engagements in extensive documentation of historic buildings. Computer drawings were beginning to become a preferred way to prepare construction drawings. We took the documentation process as an opportunity to create our own systems for making high quality computer-aided drawings. The early years were also of realisation that architecture constituted a wide spectrum of actions that went beyond the drawing board design. Execution of the design and its parameters were assimilated. The value in the chain became evident with experience.

weld mesh waterproof plaster continuous coping bands

mezzanine floor

50mm x 75mm M.S. purlin weld mesh coursed rubble stone masonry (250mm th) 100mm th. R.C.C. band at lintel level

200mm wide gutter adjacent unit

shared wall

possible location for opening

key stone

I.P.S. flooring + 450 mm level

Seat

Street

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weld mesh B weld mesh A coursed rubble stone masonry 100mm thick plinth beam existing ground level 150mm th. P.C.C.

HUDCO Housing: Detailed sketch showing materials to strengthen the roof: The proposed system combined the existing rubble retrieved from the debris, strengthened by a steel cage, in the profile of caternary to be able to withstand earthquake. Gutters to collect rainwater doubled up as the horizontal bands for earthquake resistant structures, thus integrating structural systems, environmental concerns and social patterns.

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HUDCO Housing: The competition was to design post-disaster housing, selecting a village in Kutch. Research revealed that much havoc resulted due to failure of walls because of missing key stones in the masonry. A cross-sectional model showing the material layers to provide strength to the roofs making innovative use of local resources was developed.

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Veeting Area

Driver’s Resting Area

↑ BRTS Control Centre, Naya Raipur: Set in a barren, flat landscape with no reference

around, the project seeks to create some undulations in the land. Maintenance spaces for transit facilities have not received the attention that other public architecture gets. For the Aryas, these spaces become potential laboratories to experiment with space and structure relationships.

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Corporate House for INSDAG, Kolkata: This design combines two methods of construction - insitu wet construction and pre-fabricated factory-made parts. The structural differences express the many dualities: inside and outside, mass and light-weight structure, served and servant spaces, etc. Taking the structural idea of suspension into this project, the main INSDAG offices are the bridge between the existing RCC method and a future in steel. This allows large open free spaces that can be changed, modulated and modified as per the requirements.

Service Road

↑ BRTS Workshop, Ahmedabad: Detailed studies of functions and their relationships

determined the plan organisation leading to an efficient diagram. The structure was worked out to avoid columns and provide a large, unobstructed space for buses to move and park.

↑ Corporate House for INSDAG, Kolkata: Aspects like environmental controls, passive

cooling, water harvesting are integrated into this system with tools like terrace gardens, water collection pools, double skins. A singular expression has deliberately been avoided in favour of expressing the multiple possibilities of the material; an expression of the pluralities of contemporary society. The skin is, thus, an animated changing layer wrapped around the functions and from it, emerges a building.

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Foot Path

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↑ BRTS BUS STATION, SURAT

IA&B: Your studio works on a diverse set of projects - public and private. Is there a ‘process’ or ‘method’ that is central to your work? How do you approach your work?

AA: All the projects in the practice are approached with the philosophical attitude of seeking the primary concern, of reprogramming and understanding the brief. The design emerges through dialogue between the principals. The partners alternate between the role of designer and critic, thereby creating within the office the studio process of design. Appropriateness is discussed and debated. We believe in the ability of architecture to touch the lives of people. As architects we are capable of and responsible for shaping the experiences of the people who inhabit those spaces. The focus of our work is due attention and acknowledgement of what the end user needs, albeit with intensive explorations to ensure and deliver the needful.

Unique to projects in the public realm, the user is distinctly different from the sponsor/patron. As architects, the firm plays a pivotal role in collating the requirement of both, one through direct interactions and other through research, observation and dialogue. Reprogramming is an essential aspect of this process, as the sponsors’ brief might not always suffice to ensure that the needs of the user have been met. It is here that we step in to bridge the gap between the two, making the whole act of designing more people-centric and meaningful. ↑ BRTS CONTROL CENTRE, SURAT

↑ BRTS BUS SHELTER, INDORE Indian Architect & Builder - October 2013

The studio participates regularly in competitions. New ideas are tested through research and learning. They become a way to negotiate the distance between the academic studio and the real projects, serving as a great base to explore innovative dimensions of architecture. Very often, the ideas explored in the competitions have become a basis of live projects. Some competitions that we have participated in are Kolkata Airport International Terminal, Jindal Bus Station design, HUDCO Affordable Housing, Kolkata Airport National Terminal, Freedom Park, etc. Often the competitions have served as morale boosters, bringing the office together as a cohesive whole, changing the dynamics, pace and infusing a positive energy in the office.

On one hand, the studio has moved on to digital formats for construction drawings and on the other hand, sketching, hand drawings are also used.

Effectively, any technology or method that is relevant and suitable to a better quality of project and which supports the thinking process is used. Iterations and alternatives are explored extensively, oscillating back and forth between various mediums. Physical models remain a preferred method of design exploration, irrespective of any other form of design development.

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Ahmedabad Football Stadium: Different projects call for explorations in different materials. Model of the Ahmedabad Football Stadium done in acrylic to show the internal structure and spaces.

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↑Bindiben House, Bharuch: The entire house is raised on a hollow plinth to access ↑

School at Prantij, Gujarat: The design gives emphasis to spaces outside the classroom where learning by experimenting, with a hands-on philosophy takes place.

views of river Narmada flowing near the site. Private spaces such as bedrooms are placed behind the curved wall. Living and dining areas are pulled out from the curved wall, which with large openings, frames views on the river side.

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↑ Domestic Airport Terminal, Kolkata: 2007 Finalists in limited invited competition for the Domestic Airport Terminal, Kolkata.

Structure worked out to create large open spaces for clear and easy movement of passengers through the terminal. Smaller structures and kiosks would float under this bigger structural canopy.

integral to each other, where the two are not defined as distinct but are an interconnected whole.

IA&B: Please tell us about a project that represents your practice – your most important work(s).

AA: Three projects have shaped our work so far. These projects are important for two reasons – in these projects important ideas were explored which became the basis of later works and they also brought recognition to the office through awards.

↑ Domestic Airport Terminal, Kolkata: The built form was worked out to ease the

transition of travellers moving in and exiting through the building. The spaces are defined by the structure and allow for a functionally clear plan.

IA&B: Could you tell us about people and things that inspire your work? Masters and/or mentors, principles, etc … What informs and influences your work?

AA: Traditional Indian architecture is a reservoir of knowledge and the rich legacy immensely drives our pursuit of congruous design solutions.

Our work is deeply rooted to the sensibilities of the past, while simultaneously striking a balance with the contemporary. In the quest to create a deep and intrinsic relationship between the inside and the outside, the built and the unbuilt, we constantly draw references to and borrow from the traditional architecture where transition zones like 'verandahs' and 'otlas' constituted the in-between realm. Traditional elements and systems are understood to identify their intrinsic quality, and reinterpreted to respond to current issues.

The work of Finnish architect Alvar Aalto remains a source of inspiration as does the work of architects like Dieste. We are constantly inspired by the works of those who endeavour to raise architecture from the pragmatic to the sublime, to the evocative. Of particular interest is when, in any project, there is an exploration of architecture and structure as Indian Architect & Builder - October 2013

One is the Jindal Award – a competition for the design of a bus station which we won. Here, we explored the use of stainless steel and that exploration initiated a journey with steel that has remained with us all through. It was also the point where structure, functional requirements and architectural explorations of form were merged into each other.

It began the journey of a way of approaching design which has been consistent. The competition entry worked on the principles of a kit of parts which were factory produced and assembled onsite. The entry based itself on the creation of an identity for a bus station to encourage more people to ride the bus, to bring dignity to riding a bus which in India remains a challenge as it is an issue of status. It is an idea which was to come to the forefront in the subsequent bus station designs.

Reconstruction at Samakhiali – The project began as an initiative of an NGO to adopt Samakhiali, a village in Kutch for post-earthquake reconstruction. The client brief was to start rebuilding the houses.

Discussions with the 'Sarpanch' and villagers revealed that funds were not sufficient to provide houses for all. We felt that the limited houses would be appropriated by the ‘fittest’. Rather than creating divisions of 'haves' and 'have-nots' it was important for the townspeople to come together as a community for the healing to start. A community centre as a resource place shared by all was proposed along with other institutions like animal husbandry centre supporting the main vocation of the people. A series of buildings thus took shape, including a girls’ school, a pre-primary school, a 'panchayat', an overhead tank, a crematorium, a 'gaushala' and a water supply network. The choice of the programme was embedded wholly in the life of the village and accessible across all socio-economic segments. Architecturally, simple thematic spaces like courtyards, 'verandahs', and pavilions drove the design. Without resorting to imagery and pastiche, we were looking for an architecture that belonged. What emerged was easy to use and maintain, vibrant, full of natural ventilation, balancing the harsh sunlight space – a

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↑ PANACEA CAFETERIA, BADDI, HIMACHAL PRADESH

↑ Farmhouse for Bhargav Pandya, Gujarat

The farmhouse was strategicaly located in the landscape, and the design was born out of the site and natural context. Strongly rooted to the landscape on one edge, it rises and subsequently slopes over the edge of the river, with a deck cantilevering over the coutours, and wide open living spaces that take advantage of the views across.

↑ SKETCH: EXPLORATION FOR BUS SHELTER

common-sense-architecture which gave us the J K Cement Award and the IIA Award for Public Architecture. This project was an important exercise in appropriate programme-building and to identify our passion to design places of everyday life.

The Mewar Complex near Udaipur is a series of memorial and tourism facilities built to commemorate the life of Rana Pratap, the legendary king of Rajasthan. Most of his time being spent in jungles, on battlefields, he did not have a legacy of buildings like palaces, 'havelis', etc. His was a life of frugality, hardships, and also full of strengths. While the brief of the government was to make battle scenes, 'chattris', walls with crenellations in line with the traditional architecture; for us the buildings had to resonate with the context and the life of the 'Maharana' rather than some fixed imagery. The projects were about the landscape and the tension between bringing the landscape into the buildings and taking the buildings out. They were about crafting the architecture out of local materials and raw textures into the landscape, marking a point and then leaving it to the forces of nature. The built form is thus, an outcome of strong concepts manifested in simple, fluid spaces that form the experience - an experience that oscillates between rough and smooth, inside and outside, man-made and natural, along with all the textures in-between. It brings the architecture into an ambiguous middle ground.

The project is a direct experience of nature; the sky in the form of rising walls reaching up and open to sky spaces, the earth from which the project rises, the wind as it is funnelled into the building, the sun as it plays a drama of light, shadow and texture and water as it flows. Nature and building unite together to form a weave of experiences recalling the battles of the great warrior whose memorial this building is.

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Vijay Smarak at Mewar Complex, Udaipur.

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The striking geometry of the project emerged from a design strategy to integrate the sloping roofs with the geometry of the apartments. This gave a large semi-open space between the apartments providing for the common social space. For us, the value of the public social space has always been of high significance, often articulated as a semi-open space that accepts with ease and comfort the varied and diverse needs of the inhabitants.

IA&B: How do you see your practice a decade from now? What are the objectives you wish your studio to achieve?

↑ The highly contoured land on the periphery of Margao, overlooking landscape and

the climate posed challenges resulting in the sloping roof determining the form. It is constructed with an RCC structural frame and laterite & brick infill in the walls.

Long horizontal louvers on the external face of the building take the brunt of the rain protecting the windows and balconies.

AA: Dealing with people at myriad levels and scales marks the point at which we are right now. We seek to constantly challenge ourselves by analysing and assimilating their needs and offering people-friendly design solutions to meet the growing demands of architecture in the public realm. Our work stems from specific concerns and we tend to work bottom up, thus, not coming from a specific language of architecture. Whether that should happen or not, is a question.

Our work has always exemplified our belief that architecture is not an elitist profession, and how design can be used to dignify the common man. We hope to continue working in this manner, as being able to reach out to a large number of people; making some small difference in their lives gives us immense satisfaction.

↑ The challenge posed by the level difference in the site (about 3.5m) was dealt with

and used to advantage to tuck in the parking without making a basement.

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As of now, the office is largely driven by the partners as principal designers and the others in the office as developers of the design. In the future, over time, we would like to see the office as a co-operative of young architects, each bringing their own strengths and vision, making the practice truly inclusive in line with our philosophy of architecture.

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Jindal Bus Shelter: Arya Architects won the Jindal Stainless Steel Award for a ‘highly innovative’ design of a bus shelter in stainless steel. The bus shelter category was chosen as it was exciting as an idea, small in scale and yet had the potential to explore design in steel. They worked with the idea of movement in the form, looking at it as a dynamic entity in the city. The solution, a slab hung from a central steel pylon, made it feel like a floating entity.

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Jindal Bus Shelter: The structure integrates in it signage, light, advertisement, a kiosk.

The form also explores the idea of kit of parts – high quality, factory made components could be transported to the site and assembled quickly ensuring speed and quality.

In the work of Arya Architects, one finds a consistent reaction to the urban. Through a structured process, architecture is explored as a medium to negotiate changing paradigms – of modernity, development and resilience. A consistent research into the patterns and ideas central to the architecture of India forms their conceptual structure. Contemporary materials and construction processes are employed in an exacting and patient design discourse to arrive at relevant, viable, practical and progressive solutions. Their work is also informed by a strong understanding of the Indian conditions; its structures and contexts.

As the city becomes the primary source of content, Arya Architects also draws from an intuitive understanding of the purpose – a process that is assimilative and internal. Architecture becomes a resource and a medium to understand human interactions and there is a considerable stress on this responsibility in practice. They invariably question and restate the brief to include causes that are central to working in India. Their buildings have a sense of integrity that comes from attention to detail, honesty in use of materials and accountable employment of technology. Here, complexity is a function of layering of thought.

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ksa Architects and Planners Pvt Ltd

MUMBAI

“What would it be like to doubt now whether I have two hands?

Why can’t I imagine it at all? What would I believe if I didn’t believe that? So far, I have no system at all within which this doubt might exist.” - on Certainty, Ludwig Wittgenstien.

P

erhaps our identity lies in the fact that we do not have a style, in the way in which we interpret architecture. It lies, maybe in the way we respond – to the requirements of a project, to its programme, to its context, to the absurd conditions that a client lays down, to their history and to our own; to all of that and more, in ways that are sometimes consistent and sometimes different, depending on either our moods, our current fantasies or predilections or sometimes, very rarely, what can be considered as an extended period (of something, an inspiration, an idea or a shape, etc) in our work. For example, the colour red – it resurfaces itself now and then and again and again; or a shape which stays with us for a while and then vanishes.

Perhaps, as Isaiah Berlin says, 'the timber is always crooked'. Of everything about us humans, same is it with architecture. It is really not a straight line. There are jumps, cuts, and sprints and suddenly, the terrain changes and we do not know what to do anymore. There is a new challenge, something we have never done before and we have absolutely no clue how to go ahead. That is when we look back. Try to stand on the shoulders of others before.

We see, study, understand and hopefully learn. We invent.

What we learn somewhere can and will be applied elsewhere, in a place least expected. What we learn in college, what we learn while teaching in a college, what is told to us, by a client, a user, a carpenter or a mason – everything helps, accumulates and one day becomes something useful. And that is something we believe in.

What we realise is that, the way we think about architecture, we also think about the world in the same way. We realise that it is a world-view. It is not a two year stint somewhere. It is something

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we live with, day in and day out. And that is true. The way we practice, the way we teach, the way we behave in this world - it is all connected. It is one and the same. Our ethics are the same everywhere. As architects, we make aesthetical and ethical choices every day. As human beings we do the same every day.

And the rules by which we make them are the same in our office as in our houses.

There is a certain intangibility in architecture that we seem unable to define. It is that ambiguity, that elusiveness, that quality which cannot be described rationally, which is what we look for. So much of architecture is self-conscious (the solving of practical problems, either of planning, of services, or of construction etc., all of which we have to deal with and solve, no matter what) that the un-self-conscious can easily be left out. We look for that tension between the pragmatics of architecture and the realm of the unconscious, where invention occurs and the results exceed expectations. And we like it when, ideas pop up again, changed in their meaning and substance, taking us by surprise and new -ideas appear suddenly and take over everything else. We keep discovering things again and again.

The above does not predicate a style. In fact the contrary, although less plausible, is true. And this, above all, is most important. To think like this is to eschew the props of a style, a singular way of seeing and sculpting things. It is to thwart architectural rigidity and blur formal boundaries. It is to be free from all shackles. From the pretensions of the moral authority of architecture to those of technology, software and other such things.

The inhabitant is primary. Emotions are primary. Change is always a constant. The building starts living once the architect finishes.

We go along and do what we like to do, or want to do and then other things will happen.

- Nemish Shah + Kumarpal Kothari + Jinalee Shah

ksa

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Drawings, Images and Writings: courtesy Nemish Shah, KSAAPPL

Army Rowing Node, Admin Building, Phase I.

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KSA: KSA Architects Pvt Ltd - Nemish + Kumarpal + Jinalee IA&B: Inform us on the beginnings of your practice. How did KSA become a studio? What were the initial years like?

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KSA: The initial years were a bit rough. The first few commissions, like most architects starting out, were just that – commissions which never really turned around into projects. Our first project was a small three room sound recording studio. It was designed by three different individuals sitting in different places, as if they were separate projects, but it gave us the first taste of how a collaborative practice could work and what our own strengths and weaknesses were. Along the way, we kept bumping around here and there with different people, old acquaintances, friends and other partners, and eventually the two of us were left and KSA Architects was formed. However, they were the crucial formative years. The battle for survival was great, but so was the intellectual debate. We tried to figure out the kind of practice we wanted, then and in the future, and based on that idea, formulated the model that the practice would grow on.

Spiretec Competition Entry.

Nemish was always interested in academics, and has been teaching since the last 13 years, while Kumar is the more pragmatic one; his sense of ethics and integrity is the paramount guiding force in the practice.

IA&B: As a young studio with a broad body of work, what is your philosophical foundation? What are the ideas that form your DNA? KSA: One of the most important, atleast for us, characteristic of our practice is our sense of integrity. This is paramount to us. Our ethics, which come from our own roots within our society, our personal histories and traditions, inform and permeate every aspect of our practice.

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Philosophically, we are not bound to any one particular way of thinking. Like we said before, we hop, skip and jump from one thing to another. If we do believe in something, we believe in the dogma of not having a dogma.

SKETCH - MANDAR HOUSE

Oswal Hospital, Lonavala, 2012.

Bhavnagar House (1995).

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Bhuse House 2013.

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IA&B: You have designed and worked at multiple scales. What can we understand as the ‘method’ or the ‘process’ that is central to all your work? How do you approach all your work?

KSA: Well, maybe, there is a method to the madness, but if it is there, we have not really uncovered it. We are particular about certain things. Budgets, costs, time limits – the pragmatics that is, but everything else is game.

Sometimes, we realise that we become each other’s clients. We have our own strengths and each project goes through all of us for those strengths. The minute a particular project is in any one of our courts, the others become his clients and he has to do what he does, but at the same time fulfil everyone else’s requirements. No project is designed, or gets built in isolation. All of us, at some time or the other work on it, and at crucial points the whole team works together to find solutions.

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DIAGRAM - RC ADMINISTRATION BUILDING

Army Rowing Node, Phase II.

MN Office, Alang, Bhavnagar 2011.

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DIAGRAM: HOUSE EXTENSION AT LONAVALA

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House Extension, Lonavala 2011.

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IA&B: What informs your work? What influences it? Could you tell us about people and things that inspire your work? Your masters and your mentors . . .

KSA: Hmmm...Let us see, Mies, Aalto, Shinkel, Scharoun, Kahn. As a student, I spent almost two and a half years in Crown Hall, and obviously, that had a deep impact on me. The actual list is quite long.

From contemporary architects it would be Siza, Piano and Moneo.

Koolhaas, though not for the architecture but his conceptual brilliance.

Non-architectural influences are equally important. Wittgenstien, Isaiah Berlin, Gombrich, Coomaraswamy, Popper, Kuhn are some of our teachers. Also certain writers, movie makers, photographers - we learn from them all.

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In the end, those who showed us how to question ourselves, doubt what we do and to continuously reinvent ourselves are those who have taught us the most.

Bhuse House, 2013 (© Ira Gosalia).

UDRI Meeting Space, 2009.

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Omya India, Taloja, 2008.

House Extension, Lonavala 2011.

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MN Office, Alang, Bhavnagar - Construction Process.

ARMY ROWING NODE PHASE II - CONCEPT SKETCHES

Army Rowing Node, Phase II. Indian Architect & Builder - October 2013

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ATE Exhibition Space, 2004 (with Rohan Shivkumar).

FACADE STUDIES

JKE Office, 2013.

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ATE, Delhi Office, 2008.

Army Rowing Node, Phase II.

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Army Rowing Node, Admin Building, Phase I.

Apoorva Deshpande, Nemish Shah, Jinalee Shah, Kumarpal Kothari, Ira Gosalia, Nikita Choksi. © Chandrashekhar Kharat

IA&B: For a contemporary practice in the context of India, what are your key ‘objectives’? How do you see your studio a decade from now?

KSA: We think architecture remains the same anywhere in the world.

The ideals, objectives, the things that architects want to achieve within their creation remain the same.

The idea is to practice architecture to the best of our own abilities and build good buildings. I do not know if we can imagine our studio in a decade. We do not have a sense of that. We only know that we will keep learning, growing and evolving. Change is the biggest constant.

Only we do not know what the change will be like.

Science Laboratory Building, Oni.

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FREEDOM PARK, BENGALURU, SHORTLISTED ENTRY

MN Office, Alang, Bhavnagar, 2012.

Waterford Residence.

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IA&B: Lastly, tell us about one landmark project of KSA – a work that represents your practice.

KSA: I do not know if we can separate out one landmark project that represents our practice. None of our projects are a complete whole.

Without what came before and what comes after, most of them would seem incomplete. We have never really seen a project in totality in that sense. So, for example, although the Army Rowing Node project is very different from the small office in Bhavnagar, both share similar concerns of the roof, the texture of the facade and the way they sit on the ground, but are dramatically different from each other on their treatment and manifestation. Compared to this, the early house in Bhavnagar which had an idea of permeability, a sort of a 'briese soliel', you could see the similarity of approach, and yet, there was a strong sense of sculpture evident in its form - something we were really concerned with at that time, which for some reason we have never tried or achieved afterwards.

So, we do not know what is that one landmark project for us. In fact, some of our unbuilt work has informed us far more than those which have been built.

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DETAIL: BOAT HOUSE, ARMY ROWING NODE

Army Rowing Node, Boat House.

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Sound Recording Studio, 2002 (with Altaf Khan).

Waterford Residence Light Panel, 2007.

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Army Rowing Node, Viewing Gallery and Finish Tower.

As a practice based in Mumbai, KSA’s work develops from a continuous process of sketching, model-making, drawing and material explorations. Pragmatic and multilayered, their buildings are finely detailed and have substantial clarity of structure. As a studio, they constantly work with new materials and explore new ideas which render a certain variance to their body of work. There is a lot of newness and individuality in their built work. Through a conscious use of building technology, KSA’s work imbibes an honesty, as everything is given an opportunity to retain its identity.

Devoid of specific stylistic assumptions, their work includes a level of engagement and multeity. As each project is approached differently the commitment is towards the way one negotiates with the programme in the process of design and making. There are recurring patterns in their work and these come from an intuitive process of responding to stimulus – things they like, colours that occupy their imagination and details that keep evolving. There exists a paramount sense of optimism in the way they do things.

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DUSTUDIO AUROVILLE

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DUSTUDIO

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Images: Andreas Deffner, Sebastian Cortes, Gopinath Sricandane, Ravikiran Rangaswamy, & DUSTUDIO Team Drawings & Writings: courtesy DUSTUDIO

A Fine Blending Of Opposites

A

s Indian architecture emerges through its challenges of identity and contemporary relevance, we see our practice at DUSTUDIO (formerly Buildaur) in Auroville as ever evolving in the international context of community life while respecting & learning from traditions that keep you rooted in your context. DUSTUDIO is a collaborative practice that takes its inspiration from ancient Indian wisdom and art of building where form is the creation of the spirit and draws all its meaning and value from the infinite spirit. It is an attempt to achieve a synthesis between traditional ways of designing and building while responding to the contemporary context that is climatically appropriate, energy efficient and creates a conscious space for artisans to participate in this process of creation.

Our practice strives to work joyfully together with a team of professionals, dedicated to the ideal of unending education by various ways of learning, acquiring and sharing knowledge through research, interactions and enquiry. We consciously work with like-minded organisations to create an aesthetic, holistic living environment through a rigorous participatory design process with our clients and collaborators, learning from each other’s expertise and widening the base of our knowledge.

Extensively exploring and innovating with materials like stabilised rammed earth, terracotta, etc, DUSTUDIO attempts to create a contemporary identity for these materials while being rooted in its local context. Working in various parts of the country, this practice has evolved over last two decades with several collaborations and challenges of working in the context of Auroville. Our explorations have taken us deeper into the issues of sustainability, resilience and restraint in design, redefining minimalism in architecture that is culturally, socially, economically and environmentally sustainable and not just a by-product of a lifestyle statement. We see networking and collaborating as an enriching experience where sharing knowledge builds long lasting working relationships and innovative ways of working together for a larger cause. We believe in India’s possibilities of leading the world of architecture by finding new expressions of its ancient cultural ethos and spirit, while creating new forms that are a blend of its cultural identity as well as contemporary relevance that can create a living culture of sustainability.

- Dharmesh Jadeja + Dhruv Bhasker + Gang

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DJ: Dharmesh Jadeja; DB: Dhruv Bhasker IA&B: Tell us about the origins of Buildaur <DUSTUDIO>. Being an engineer, was it difficult to initiate architectural work in India? What prompted you to choose this work?

DJ: India somehow lacks the multidisciplinary approach in its education and an engineering degree comes with its own set of misconceptions by the larger community of architects about one's ability to conform to standards of architecture expected; I had equipped myself with necessary skills like sketching, calligraphy and design in general while I decided to skip formal architectural education. Also, my interest in architecture developed while growing up in the beautifully planned and built town of Porbandar, where building traditions are not necessarily architect-centric. My early travels to study Laurie Bakerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s works and other building traditions in different parts of India did play a vital role in this journey. After all, in any profession one's work says it all; one's qualifications do not matter in todayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s world; contemporary landscape of our profession is full of such examples of excellence in the world of architecture.

When I moved to Auroville, 20 years ago, it did provide a challenging field to practice architecture in India with its innovative approach to holistic life, diversity, international flavour and attitudes, where one can get deeper into the issues of sustainability in life. I made the choice of continuing an architectural practice combined with my practice of calligraphy and interest in the development of the world, where Auroville is the right platform to collaborate and network. Ideals of Auroville obviously are our guiding light for all that we do in our practice today.

DB: With an intuitive liking for Auroville, and the search for exploring contemporary ways of revival of traditional knowledge systems, I ended up joining Dharmeshbhai in his endeavours. The aim of reducing embodied energy of a building and its functioning, directs us towards exploring

â&#x2020;&#x2018;

A house in Auroville.

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more challenging solutions and a better understanding of materials and techniques. This becomes a never-ending learning process giving us the sensation of being alive in the profession.

IA&B: As a studio practising from Auroville and in the Indian context, what are your core concerns? What are those crucial ideas that form your philosophical foundation?

DJ: One cannot ignore the strength of our traditional building systems in the world of architecture and my initiation into architecture was through a lot of travels and enquiry into the identity of Indian way of design. I have tried to follow a path of restraint and resilience in architecture; our work is an attempt to create an identity for these traditional materials in contemporary architectural landscape; to infuse an aesthetic, aspirational and minimalistic appeal into traditional wisdom for contemporary users.

In an ever evolving world, learning through collaborations and networking is important; the foundation of our work is to grow within a tradition while exploring new avenues of aesthetics, minimalism, innovation and sustainability in local context.

DB: India needs a resurgence of its lost and ignored practices with the understanding of change and modernity in the light of a deeper understanding of their origin. Ours is a context of present day version of Faith. Faith where one does not question the practices nor is probe acknowledged as a part of evolution. To break these boundaries, one needs to establish an architectural practice that probes possibilities - of experimentation and of revival.

A domain wrongly neglected in the profession of architecture, is that of inclusion and exchange. One needs to include the diversity available in the process of creation, through the participants, ranging from the client, the context, and its resources - human and otherwise.

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Reincarnating elements.

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The 'craft' of making.

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IA&B: Your work has an incredible investment in ‘skill’ – from craft to building technology. How do you approach a project? What is the ‘method’ or ‘process’ intrinsic to your work?

DJ: Our work is very intuitive in nature. A lot is decided by the local context and explorations into the possibilities of innovations within local building systems. Our clients are actively involved in the evolution of design that makes the whole process participatory at its core. At times, this may not be the best way but it surely is a satisfying way for users of our spaces. Somewhere it also humbles the architect in us who is not the sole owner of the whole creative process but one of the many who creates these spaces.

Our collaborators are independent teams of building artisans, who are an intrinsic part of this process of design and they grow along with us.

It is a joyful learning process with a sprinkle of challenges but overall very satisfying.

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Drawing from inspirations - the infinite.

The palette.

Art, Skill, Creation, Meditation.

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DB: A deep understanding of the client, beyond the domain of the project, Brain storming sessions with the client and within our team, Involvement of the skilled workers in design and detailing, and a constantly evolving design with an understanding that change is the only constant.

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DRAWING - TRACING HISTORY

Perceptions of space, scale and human-'ness'.

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â&#x2020;&#x2018;

Materiality & making.

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IA&B: What informs your work? What influences it? Who were and are your masters and mentors?

DJ: Enquiry into our resilient culture has been a great learning. While innovative colonisation by the consumerist industrial world and senseless apathy of our generation has managed to destroy a large part of our heritage, there is a certain resilience which is built in our socio-cultural systems that empowers us to bounce back in difficult times; some of this is visible in the world of fashion, art, films, etc that defines contemporary India and the worldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s increasing interest in our culture. I am very optimistic that deeper understanding of strength of our traditional systems and issues of sustainability in architecture will bring about a change in our attitudes that will define Indiaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s leading role in the world of architecture. When I read major world publications in architecture now opening up to the need of integral approach and rethink of our lifestyles, I am hopeful.

My close interactions with some of the masters in various fields have shaped my path in the field of art, architecture, design and calligraphy; though I was not lucky enough to have worked directly under most of them, I have maintained a very close contact with them & their inspirational works which keep me going. Simplicity, spontaneity and humility of these masters have been very inspirational and a great learning in life.

DB: Influence, to me, is a non-consideration. Learning is not about information; it is about the capacity building of learning itself. The preparation of oneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s own vessel to contain knowledge in is the part I believe one can play a role in. The more evolved the vessel, the more advanced the knowledge.

I largely admire the works of Nari Gandhi and Geoffery Bawa amongst others.

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IA&B: For DUSTUDIO what are the ‘crucial’ agendas or ‘objectives’ that you wish to accomplish personally and in the larger domain of practising in India?

IA&B: Lastly, tell us about one landmark project of yours that represents Buildaur’s <DUSTUDIO’s> ideal.

DJ: India needs to take herself seriously at this juncture of history; Indian design and architecture is no exception; it is high time we realise that all that we strive for in the contemporary space of world architecture is intrinsic to our traditional systems. While we need to redefine its forms, the spirit of Indian architecture can be rooted. Be it beauty, aesthetics, sustainability in all its avatars, ecology, climate responsiveness, minimalism, disaster resilience, etc, one can explore & create an identity of one’s own practice, by looking deeper and closer into our traditions.

DJ: It is not easy to define but we try and do some meaningful work.

After all, good work is good work & bad work is bad work; I still do not know if we have created anything that is worth mentioning. Only time will tell whether we have lived up to our traditions and if we manage to contribute anything worthwhile, to take these traditions forward through our architecture.

I believe that collaborative working, sharing knowledge and demystifying some of our sustainable building technologies in Indian context and making them freely available in mainstream is the only way we can create our own identity in the world of architecture. One can always explore various ways of innovative use of these technologies while contributing to creation of a unique identity for India’s contemporary architecture.

DB: On a personal level: Respect for the elements of nature, equanimity between the built and the unbuilt, an understanding of building systems with an intention of using it for the profession, with an aim to achieve the least ‘designed’ outcome.

On a professional level: Promotion and spreading of vernacular knowledge, experimentation and implementation of sustainable building practices and technologies, exchange and sharing of information and to create forums for these movements.

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True tradition with contemporary expressions.

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DUSTUDIO is an idea. Their work originates from a pursuit to understand the Indian aesthetic with an intrinsic grasp of materiality and processes inherent to the building practices in India. They invest in understanding and improvising on the existing building potential continually looking for new ways of working with context. Their architecture is structured on the contemporary idiom while it conceptually deals with the ‘Indianness’ of things – visual and experiencial.

Through their work, DUSTUDIO attempts to encourage culturally relevant methods of construction, reinterpret the role of crafts and workmanship in contemporary architecture and question the ideas of modern living largely based on a culture of accumulation. Their buildings have a sense of restraint and frugality that comes from elimination of the unnecessary. Although their way of working is quite pragmatic, their conceptual processes form a deep structure which informs their designs. The architecture of DUSTUDIO is enriched by care and regard. Here, the perception of quality lies in the beauty of making.

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Hunnarshala BHUJ

H

unnarshala Foundation, built after the 2001 earthquake in Kutch, Gujarat, with an objective to capacitate people for reconstruction of their habitat, has evolved itself as a socio-technical institution through its built form practice.

Natural calamities can displace and shatter the lives of the people affected by it. The lives of these people could be improved if one is ready to develop an understanding towards their problems and provide solutions that they are seeking. With this approach of understanding communities and their problems, Hunnarshala has been able to demonstrate, how through its practice, various housing and livelihood problems can be addressed to obtain solutions with consensus.

There has been tremendous change in the methods, materials and techniques of construction due to technological advancements that has been taking place. At Hunnarshala, we noticed a gap between the traditional and the modern way of construction. In the country like India these gaps have broadened due to ineffective communication, lack of adequate educational programmes and media disparities. In todayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s scenario, artisans having traditional building knowledge have to adapt to the conventional building techniques for their livelihood.

We felt a strong urge to address this issue and therefore, we developed a socio-technical approach to tackle it.

For this we took the direction of - understanding cultural and traditional requirements of communities with a focus on housing, validating the existing traditional knowledge, and developing eco-friendly technologies using locally available materials to mainstream them.

The artisans, having deeper understanding of the traditional way of building habitats, possess a certain knowledge base which could be useful for innovating new engineering techniques using a minimalistic approach. At the same time, these artisans need to be exposed to the contemporary ways of construction to develop new skills.

Empowering such artisan communities by providing them exposure and training in eco-friendly technologies and promoting their skills through engagement in relevant projects has been the main focus of our work.

Further few artisans having enterprising qualities are encouraged to float companies that provide specialised building services. These companies are linked to the market and provided technical and administrative guidance

by Hunnarshala.

Traditional knowledge is rare these days as very few people are practising it, making the knowledge very precious.

To transfer and retain the traditional knowledge, a need was felt to involve young boys and girls from the artisan community. This initialised the formation of the artisan school in Hunnarshala where students are being taught by master artisans who have practised traditional building crafts. This has been a new dimension in Hunnarshalaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s approach of empowering the artisan community.

Along with addressing disaster-affected communities, the long-term programmes that Hunnarshala focuses on, is to help the urban poor community of Bhuj city to live a dignified life. Hunnarshala is addressing this need through an integrated programme that covers housing and services in slums, water management, solid waste management, recycling of sewerage and governance.

To conclude, Hunnarshalaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s activities revolve around people, be it artisans, professionals, students, etc always with an effort to create a platform where exchange of knowledge happens through collective participation.

- Team Hunnarshala

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Hunnarshala

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Drawings, Images and Writings: courtesy Hunnarshala

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↑ Koshi flood 2008 - Rehabilitation Process.

↑ Bamboo structures for rebuilding.

↑ Improvising on the local.

↑ House types for Koshi, Bihar.

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↑ Made of Bamboo - a house for Koshi, Bihar.

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↑ Junavada, Gujarat - rehabilitation post-earthquake.

↑ Discussing with the community - an inclusive act.

HF: Hunnarshala Foundation IA&B: Tell us about the beginnings of Hunnarshala. How did the collective happen? What triggered this initiative and institution?

↑ Sardar Nagar Awas - a community.

HF: Hunnarshala emerged as an organisation two years after the massive earthquake struck the Kutch region of Gujarat in the year 2001. Architects, engineers, master artisans and social professionals contributed towards the post-earthquake rehabilitation process. A team of technical professionals formed a shelter cell within 'Abhiyan', the NGO addressing the rehabilitation process from a larger perspective. This shelter cell provided housing solutions to victims of the earthquake. In the reconstruction process, the approach was to involve communities to discuss their housing needs by understanding their culture and traditional building knowledge. These discussions with the active participation of the beneficiary community enabled to create designs that gelled well with their living and were also safe alternatives for an earthquake-prone region. While the rehabilitation work was in progress, the professionals involved in the shelter cell felt that the community driven approach of reconstruction while addressing housing requirements of disaster-affected communities needs to be promoted. In the process, incorporating eco-friendly construction practices that are safe and region specific through locally available artisans also made a firm ground to form a separate entity.

Collaboration with communities, acknowledging the existing environment, sensitive traditional building knowledge within the community and promoting the practising artisans' skills is the purpose of forming the institution.

Hunnarshala was incorporated in 2003 after working on the rehabilitation of the projects affected by the earthquake in Gujarat. It has been set up with participation from NGO’s like Kutch Nav Nirman Abhiyan, educational and scientific institutions like CEPT, IIS, CSR Auroville and companies like HDFC, Gruh Finance and Transmetal Industries. Hunnarshala has evolved as an organisation that addresses situations/problems from the technological as well as social perspective.

↑ Rehabilitation units at Rudramata.

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IA&B: Hunnarshala comprises of and works with a diverse group of individuals: Professionals, Artisans, Government Bodies and Trusts. Is there a designated ‘Method’ or ‘Process’ to your approach? What is the DNA of your work?

HF: Hunnarshala’s journey started in a village in the grasslands of Banni.

As the traditional home of the Meghwal community, the master builders for the region, built circular 'Earthen Bhungas'. Their construction withstood the earthquake due to its circular form. Taking this sound concept forward, we worked with the master builders of the region to adapt it, retaining its circular form. The region built 1200 'bhungas' using stabilised earth construction with a six-sided cone roof. This, in essence, demonstrates our design methodology.

We have since worked with Kashmiri cultures and their wooden structures in the Himalayas. Here, we retained their base isolation foundations to help the government build 7000 interim shelters after the earthquake; in Bihar, we made a series of adaptations to the 'Mithalanchal' bamboo home to withstand multiple hazards including floods, earthquakes and high winds; and so on. We were able to help governments build several thousand homes using this design approach.

To convince them of the materials and technologies we need to validate them with research and technical data that we generate in our laboratory.

We involve the best technical experts to validate these technologies as official technical bulletins endorsed by the governments.

Given that trained engineers are not familiar with these materials or technologies, and our own confidence is enhanced by the master artisans who are the repositories of this cultural wisdom, we try to convince policy makers of the importance of these grassroots technical experts that their housing and building programme's are safe, in fact safer in their hands than 'educated' engineers. We give them place in official programmes as the drivers of implementation of programmes; they also partner with our engineers and architects in the development of re-engineered prototypes.

↑ A rammed - earth wall by 'Layers' - a company of Artisans that Hunnarshala helped form.

These master artisans are now encouraged to form teams and provide building services outside their cultures to the present building industry in the cities. Their knowledge in these sustainable building practices is becoming much sought after, but few service providers are available.

Hunnarshala adapts their knowledge in these materials for urban use.

This takes us back to the drawing board and the laboratory.

We recast these traditional skills along with industrial wastes and modern design needs to bring a package of services to urban India.

This includes wooden building products like intermediate floors, doors, windows, etc made with waste wood, walls made with waste from China clay factories, etc. Groups of traditional building artisans, armed with these new skills and an understanding of business and modern design needs are made available to 'green' architects and their clients. There are more than 200 artisans with thatch, wood and walling skills today.

To re-establish the position of artisans in a rather exploitative building industry that only treats them as labour; besides the entrepreneurs, we have built a school for young artisans, for one year's training in skills, design, business and social values. They are then incubated for a couple of years in a business organisation called 'Ozari' where they learn on the job and take collective risks and advantage of their business orders.

↑ Vocational training for construction craftsmen.

The community empowerment programmes of Hunnarshala now also work in the cities, on an integrated programme that covers housing and services in slums, water management, solid waste management, recycling of sewerage and governance.

Our methods and processes start with addressing the problem collectively with the community. This follows with advocacy, preparing guidelines, mainstreaming the knowledge with the involvement of artisans and dissemination of the knowledge through our school.

Women working for 'Matha Chhaj' - a roof-making collective.

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IA&B: What informs your work? What influences it? Could you tell us about people and things that inspire your work?

HF: Communities inspire as well as influence us. The communities have performing values (not theoretical) in life, which inspire us. The communities get the inspiration from the environment they live in. They choose one geographical environment and region to live in. To sustain, through generations they learn how to be part of the environment and the landscape. So all the sustainability related answers lead towards the community and their traditions.

↑ Roof in wood by 'Woodgrain'.

Communities have the ability to live with their ecosystem without harming it, without introducing destructive construction practices that is not in harmony with nature. Then the question one asks is how do they build?

Communities for more than 100 years have adapted sustainable ways of building, their approach while building is to solve problems, which is very inspiring. Communities built forms are precise, beautiful and aesthetically evolved. This is what we want to learn and apply in our contemporary situation in our cities by using waste materials. We try to imbibe the same philosophy.

↑ Craft as a process.

↑ A space-frame by 'Span''.

↑ Working on the material.

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↑ Hunnarshala campus, Bhuj.

↑ Working on a mural at Hunnarshala campus.

IA&B: For Hunnarshala, what are the crucial agendas or objectives that the foundation can accomplish within and in the larger domain of working in India?

HF: We can articulate Hunnarshala’s working paradigm this way: The first objective is to understand the traditional knowledge and scientifically validate them through research initiatives and link it with the contemporary application through the local artisans.

The second objective is to promote eco-friendly, cost effective and low energy building designs, materials and techniques, which have glimpses of local culture and aesthetics.

The third objective of Hunnarshala is to work towards community empowerment through their own knowledge systems of environmentally sustainable towns and villages, which promote local management and control, empowerment of the local community and ensure dignified living for citizens by providing basic housing and services.

The fourth objective is to respond immediately and appropriately to disasters by providing guidance to the affected communities through owner driven construction approaches.

Hunnarshala has evolved as an institution that provides an open platform to artisans, students, artists, professionals, etc who collaborate for contributing, learning or developing ideas/technologies, thus becoming a part of its movement. Through these collaborations and interdisciplinary synergies, Hunnarshala has been able to demonstrate the way towards sustainability. Hunnarshala’s efforts are and will be focused towards involving like-minded people to spread awareness of its work.

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↑ The Hunnarshala campus.

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↑ The Khamir Crafts Park - a collaborative project with Neelkanth Chhaya.

IA&B: Tell us about one landmark project of Hunnarshala that represents the collective’s ideal – your most important work.

HF: In Hunnarshala, we run programmes that fulfil the objectives of the organisation. Projects are undertaken within the umbrella of these programmes.

Some of the critical projects that define our work are as follows: a) Our own office building: It is designed using technologies that we have learned and developed over the years. It demonstrates all the technologies we promote viz: • Walling systems made out of rammed earth, stone, adobe, construction waste and CSEB. • The roofing systems made out of thatch, country tiles and Mangalore tiles.

• Roof under structures made out of wood and space frame.

• Floor Boards -Intermediate floors made out of waste material generated from saw mills.

• Display of techniques learned and adapted from regions globally.

↑ The Khamir context and campus.

b) The Kosi River Flood Rehabilitation Project in Bihar: Traditionally, this region uses bamboo as a construction material. In this project Hunnarshala along with other stakeholders evolved housing with bamboo and mainstreamed it by developing a guideline in bamboo construction. c) Green Belt: The Decentralised Waste Water Treatment System We have been able to introduce recycling technologies, which have been implemented in public space and managed by the public. d) Artisan School: In 2011, the seed of education was sown in Hunnarshala in the form of 'artisan school'. The dream of all at Hunnarshala to start a school for the younger generation of the 'karigar' community was fulfilled.

The artisan school started with the purpose to: • Create a platform for young boys and girls, school dropouts who have discontinued their education either to support their families or due to lack of proper guidance.

Materials & Finesse at the Crafts Park.

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• Provide education to the students so that they learn specific trade and develop technical skills to interact with the professional world.

• Create awareness within the rural society to encourage young students to join the school.

The team involved in this programme ensures that education for these students means providing an overall exposure to become accomplished 'karigars' and future entrepreneurs of specific trade.

The initial process of starting an artisan school involved an intense planning exercise which included developing the course, preparing the curriculum, finalising the duration of the course, number of students to be inducted, etc. Experts from the field of education were involved and with joint efforts, the first carpentry course was designed. For the induction of students, various ways of communication with the students and the community was tried out. Information regarding the school was given through network NGOs, newsprints and interaction with the community in villages to explain them about Hunnarshala and its objectives towards formation of the school, word of mouth awareness among friends and families was also opted for.

↑ Sham-e-Sarhad - alternative tourism.

On 15 th November 2011, Hunnarshala’s artisan school started offering its first one-year course in carpentry. 10 students from different communities and background enrolled for the course. The carpentry course is a combination of theory and practical classes. In the theory class, basic mathematics, material science and drafting are taught to the students.

These classes are being conducted by experienced personnels working in Hunnarshala. For the practicals, in-house master carpenters involve the students to learn basic and advanced skills in carpentry. From time to time students are reviewed internally as well as externally to assess the progress.

The artisan school provides an environment where the students get an opportunity to interact with visiting students of architecture, engineering, fine arts, etc as well as experienced individuals from the field of architecture and engineering. Joint workshops with the students and individuals provide a great exposure and create confidence within the school students to think beyond. The school students also go on exposure trips that are related to their field of study. They share a cordial relationship with the staff of Hunnarshala and often get involved with some office work to understand its importance and functioning.

The first batch of the carpentry course was a pilot course to test artisan schools' potential, effectiveness and success. The students and their performance during the course have provided immense confidence and encouragement for Hunnarshala’s team to start a second batch of carpentry course and a new batch in walling systems.

Some of the students who have passed out from either of the courses are either self-employed or employed, but majority of the students have joined the incubator company called 'Ozari' and 'Kamerai', partnership firms formed by students for carpentry and walling system respectively.

Hunnarshala provides these students with the required infrastructure, support and market linkages.

IA&B: As an NGO with an investment in many initiatives, what becomes the core philosophy of Hunnarshala? What is the manifesto?

The retreat built by the people, for the people.

Indian Architect & Builder - October 2013

HF: Organisations are formed and managed by people. Each individual who is part of an organisation has some qualities/skills that help the organisation for specific as well as collective functionality. To enhance (qualities and skills of) an individual, an organisation has to create a platform where it gives back the pride to an individual of his own skills and knowledge system. This philosophy boosts the confidence and energises an individual who craves to deliver to the best of his/her ability. Along with energy, being humble and compassionate is also very important. Hence, the combination of confidence, energy, humbleness and being compassionate empowers an individual. With this core philosophy, we as a team address situations and problems. This philosophy can be found in all fields viz education, business, etc. We have tried to establish this philosophy through our built forms.

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Hunnarshala is essentially a collective. From a campus in Bhuj, they involve themselves at the absolute grassroots to respond to situations that are central to the social, cultural and economic landscape of India. Here, architecture is seen as a medium to address and negotiate issues of habitat and human occupation. By working with carpenters, masons, smiths and people in the building trade, they invest in vocational training, skill development and research on tacit and traditional systems of knowledge. They consistently work with communities with an idea of inclusive development, contributory planning and resilience against natural disasters.

By innovating at the grassroots, Hunnarshala has helped artisans form collectives and their campus serves as an institutional space for informal learning. They facilitate a slow osmosis of vernacular crafts and skills all the while training individuals and supporting livelihoods. Their projects respond to their contexts and sustain these communities by generating equity and ownership, and fostering pride. Hunnarshala has helped build housing and civic infrastructure, design cultural facilities and community spaces and are involved in restoration and conservation of historic layers of our living heritage.

There is great humility in their work.

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Lotus NEW DELHI

L

otus is a multidisciplinary design practice whose work seamlessly weaves interior and exterior spaces, from large architectural ideas to the smallest of furniture details.

The 45 member team at Lotus, from diverse disciplines of Architecture, Interior Design, Exhibition Design, Furniture Design, and Graphic Design, helps the firm explore its core belief that design is dynamic and needs to be inclusive.

Sustainability is a key concern, and the Lotus' design process looks at it through the multiple lenses of cultural, social and environmental impact.

Hence, the firm actively engages in integrating localised skills and resources, with state-of-the-art materials and technologies. This is built on the foundation of the clientâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s programmatic needs with a strong focus on the tactile and sensory qualities of the space that translate into spaces that are a celebration of design through their context and purpose. â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;We believe that a sustainable experience is seldom about a first 'wow' and hence, we do not believe in a single 'big idea' approach. We explore ways to engage people; the way they move through the space and interact with it. We like the fact that designing a space offers the opportunity to build in layers which unfold differently for different peopleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;.

- Lotus

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Lotus

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Images: Andre J Fanthome and Lotus Drawings & Writings: courtesy Lotus

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↑ SCHEMATIC SKETCH – PATIALA CRAFTS MELA

IA&B: Could you inform us on the initial years of your practice? How did Lotus begin and develop as a practice? What were your initial years like?

↑ SKETCH

Lotus: Before we started Lotus, Siddharth, Ankur and Ambrish, we were working in this firm called ‘Design Habit’. That is how we met. Ambrish was a partner there. It was founded by Amardeep Behl. Ambrish actually got initiated into the world of design through him, because no institution would accept him - he was overaged, underqualified, and Amardeep is really the person under whom Ambrish learnt. We did our first interior project out of Design Habit - it was a small office. A friend of Ambrish contacted him; we did it and really enjoyed the experience. We did another interior project and we enjoyed that as well. What was fulfilling was, there was no story telling or narrative, it was about the space, it was about material. We kind of chose to jump on without any idea of how we would get work and how we would sustain ourselves. That is how it started. We got our first couple of team members together. The first person before anyone else was Amarjeet. He is our chef.

INTACH was doing a crafts fair in Punjab and the people who were designing it backed out at the last minute. They were looking out for someone who was young and stupid and who would just do it in twenty days. We got a call saying, “Will you be interested in doing this?” and we said, “Yes yes, of course” - that saved us. We made a couple of lacs there. We had money for the next three months and after that we got the Mehrangarh Museum shop.

Colours at the mela.

Indian Architect & Builder - October 2013

↑ Frames of fabric.

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↑ Mehrangarh Museum Shop: before and in transition.

↑ SECTION - REFURBISHMENT AND RENOVATION

↑ SKETCH: THE SCENE

IA&B: What are the key ideas that are at the core of your practice? If you were to define a set of values that are very crucial to you as Lotus, what would those be?

Lotus: We think that people matter for everything. It is not about the performance so much, as it is really about the people. You could be a very talented architect with much experience or you could be an office boy or a helper or a draftsman - everybody is on the same level. Another important thing for Lotus is that we are democratic. That, for us, is certainly very important. Here everyone speaks freely. We also think in that framework - the work that we do here and the way we practice, is with integrity and to us, that is something that keeps our conscience clean - you feel good about the work. It is a very warm place to be in, you feel safe.

↑ Museum Shop after intervention.

everything we do, whether it is a bar we design, whether it is a luxury shop we do, whether it is a master plan that we are doing, the way we run our office, or the way we go and conduct ourselves in our lives, has an impact on the society.

So a lot of our conversations are about how we conduct ourselves, who we are as individuals, who we are as people and how will design and architecture shape the society, and we think that is one of the values.

Also, honesty is important to us in how we operate. We are all just trying to do the best of what we can do and we all love what we do - we just managed to get together a bunch of people who love to slave. For us, it is critical to essentially say things the way they are. So if you have screwed up, say you have screwed up, tell the client you have screwed up – transparency is something we constantly attempt to achieve. It is essential for us to respect that there are many people who know the craft better than we do, who know the intricacies of the trade and we intend to give them the space to be able to truly collaborate with us. We think that a partnership that happens at every level is really valuable. For Lotus, it is also important to know what impact we have on our society. Having an impact is also not just about being socially relevant. We recognise Indian Architect & Builder - October 2013

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↑ IDEA - A CONCEPTUAL SKETCH

↑ The interactive wall at the store.

Indian Architect & Builder - October 2013

↑ THE SCHEME OF THE STORE - RIVET

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↑ GOOD EARTH: THE PROCESS OF INSERTING A GRID IN THE LAYOUT

IA&B: You have designed and worked at multiple scales. What can we understand as the ‘method’ or the ‘process’ that is central to all your work? How does the studio work?

Lotus: When the work is on the table, there is no preconceived notion of what it can be which is extremely liberating. We have a fairly standard work flow but a major differentiator would be that every person who is involved in the process has a sense of ownership to it. We do schematic designs first, then we go to detail design, tender drawings and so on – there is a set flow. It is a very conventional format but it is the involvement of the people which is probably a lot more. If we feel any of the values is being compromised then we will relook at the process. A key difference, we think, between Lotus and the traditional form of practice is that for a traditional formal practice the process is much defined. For us, people come and they become co-owners in a project. So if you are an outsider or if you have not been through the system, then you always feel that it is organic. It is very structured, but we think, it is not about the structure.

Most people here have come from extremely different backgrounds. I think one of the important things is that since we do not have prior experience, we do not know where to draw the line. Therefore, many things inform our work. Indeed, the urban fabric is one of the parameters that inform it but we start at the very core why the client has come to us, what he wants to achieve, how will he be successful in his business, understanding the business plan and so on. We are also very conscious about the context of our practice, not from the point of view of identity, but from the perspective of India as a philosophy. We require numbers but that is not what drives the practice. That is like a hygiene factor. We all know that we need to make a certain amount of money to sustain the practice and over time, you forget about cost, you forget about time, but one thing that never leaves you and comes back to haunt you is quality. Quality of thinking and quality of execution.

Aarushi - construction photographs: The elements and materials.

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152 HAVELI (Villa) BARADARI (Pavilion)

DARIKHANA (Stables)

ENTRANCE GATE

↑ RAAS: The site from the fort.

Indian Architect & Builder - October 2013

↑ THE EXISTING AND THE NEW - INSERTS ON THE SCHEME

↑ The stone 'jaalis' - movable screens.

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↑ Prototype - scissors for Rajesh Pratap Singh.

IA&B: Could you tell us about people and things that inspire your work? What informs and influences your work?

Lotus: There are two questions here. One is – as a practice who do we look up to and the second is - maybe as individuals. We do not think it has to be an architect. I have huge regard for Bijoy Jain’s thought process and I think there is a lot to be learnt there - his attention to detail, the precision of the vernacular, and the palette of materials. We always draw a huge inspiration from Geoffrey Bawa’s relationship to space and place-making in the context of landscape; the humility of the architecture.

Peter Zumthor, especially his early projects - the strength of his idea, the commitment and kind of ability to carry through one idea from experiential to the experience of architecture and that has been a huge inspiration to look out for. Also, the Japanese philosophy of the respect for materials.

Amongst our contemporaries, we always look at Sandeep Khosla’s work for there is always something interesting. SPASM’s work in the context of carrying the process through. What we find missing is an unabashed, fearless expression of a belief - especially in the Indian context which is probably there in some South American or Mexican architecture or even South African architecture. Peter Buchanan gave a lecture at WAF where he said that as architects, we are so disconnected with the reality of the world; with what is happening with the society, what is happening with it culturally, and what is happening with anthropology. For us, finding the role of design as an artistic expression is not what drives us. It is really finding meaningful expressions or interactions, creating meaningful interactions and I think that is why we are all here.

↑ Dismantling a sewing machine.

The store - a box in a box.

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154 private semi-public public covered / open areas building 1

building 2

private semi-public public covered / open areas event entrance

main entrance

↑ KHOJ - THE TRANSITION FROM OLD (ABOVE-TOP) TO NEW (ABOVE) – RESTATING

THE PROGRAMME

↑ SECTION: A JUXTAPOSITION OF THE OLD AND THE NEW

↑ Khoj: Before Intervention.

Indian Architect & Builder - October 2013

IA&B: For Lotus, what is the way forward? What are the ‘objectives’ you wish your studio to achieve? What is growth for you?

Lotus: Nothing speaks like work. The reason for our practice scaling up is because more and more people have risen up to the challenge of taking more and more responsibility. The moment you take more responsibility you want to work with more people yourself. For us, vocational training is a very powerful thought at the moment. We have spoken about education, and education is an area we definitely want to get into: design education, vocational training, working with crafts and with artisans and having a conscious investment in improving the way the trade is practised.

We really shy away from the ‘alternate’ practice and we do hard core commercial work. For us, it is very important to realise that we are in a business, in a profession, and to practice it as such, we are not like a do-good organisation, but contributing to the discipline and ethical conduct are a part of what we do. Two years from now, if we have executed four buildings of a lac square feet, or a nine acre project where from a thousand square foot shop, we follow the same philosophy and adhere to the same set of values, we would have grown. Suddenly there is a lot more conviction when you go and then present. For us, growth is when we will have people willing to take more responsibility and when we will have a set of values that are common to all that we do in terms of scale and diversity of work.

↑ Khoj: After Intervention: the facade as a canvas.

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National Police Memorial - Proposal.

Lotus is a collaborative practice. From a studio in Delhi, they work on a multitude of programmes through a process that in truly multidisciplinary and inclusive. Being a collective of individuals from diverse backgrounds, their practice is informed by many creative perspectives and domains of work. They work with people at the core of the making in building trade and improvise on their processes. Their work has a strong affinity towards phenomenon: the experience of things. Owing to a method of restating the brief and parameters of the project, Lotusâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; strength lies in the absence of preconceptions as they â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;curateâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; designs. Their eclectic aesthetic sensibilities are informed by Indian ways of perception.

Led by making, their designs are driven by identifying and encouraging potential in existing building practices and techniques.

For Lotus, technology is a medium to orchestrate experiences that are unique, specific and purposeful. Their concerns address the rationale of work, aspirations of the user and position of design in society. Consistently introspecting on their contribution to the discipline, they venture beyond the confines of their studio and its interests to facilitate individual concerns of the people who collaborate with them, the contexts where they work and build and the consequence of their work.

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Nagaraj Vastarey BENGALURU

W

e are a small studio, generally a group of six to seven architects, pursuing design endeavours in Bengaluru for more than a decade. The work we do is a generous mix of all categories of architecture that make the city. Though the making of urban houses dominates our drawing boards, we are also associated with institutional, commercial, industrial, recreational and interior design projects. We have architected a variety of projects of wide range and scale.

Sketches, models and drawings are integral to the notion of our design ideation and drawing as a design tool has always emphasised the making of a project, at all levels.

The idea of detail plays a pivotal role in the realisation of a design idea and is a direct indicator of the larger creative intent.

Every commission is an opportunity to define and redefine the otherwise bland brief by the clients towards a better cause and consequence. Projects often come with riders; time, cost and unsure intents. The programme we write is to clarify such intents. First cut is often used to generate a discussion and it gives a chance to the client to voice what not he intends and wants! We then rephrase the programme, and graduate the same through the annals of ideation.

The site is often treated as a crucible of possibilities. Implanting our design on to an existing condition, we contemplate a possibility that the graft shall assimilate the surroundings and be one with the whole. An â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;architecture of inclusionâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; is our belief and our projects attempt to include and evolve `the prevalentâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; into a newer possibility of holistic accommodation. Operating on sites with no context or baggage of historicity, we work towards inventing an appropriate viewpoint that creates responsible perspectives.

No material is underrated by us; be it plastered masonry or plastered concrete, which are common in the city or glass and steel of the new age. We include it all with an overriding idea to devise newer forms and details. Detailing the design intent to the maximum limits by zoomimg in and out, thereon, to seek a cohesive whole is our uniqueness. Detailing for us, is an incredible device to transcend the mundane and reinterpret an otherwise boring narrative.

If anything beyond the earth is the sky, buildings are similar to human postures that stand on the ground and operate in sky. Our buildings are judiciously crafted to establish appropriate anchors on the ground with an equally appropriate unveiling in the sky.

Ground and sky relationships are extremely important to us, as the design in itself. The setting in which our buildings get cited are planned in such a way that, they form the very manner of land and skyscapes.

All the oddities and human conditions are what make a city,in our opinion. The goal is to operate in all such absurdities and strike a chord. If we are found worthy of a second look on a busy and bizarre urbanscape, we feel proud that we have done something!

- Nagaraj Vastarey

Indian Architect & Builder - October 2013

Nagaraj Vastarey

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Drawings, Images & Writings: courtesy Nagaraj Vastarey

Acharya Institute of Technology: Thro' Cube.Š Aneesh Vidyashankar Indian Architect & Builder - October 2013

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NV: Nagaraj Vastarey IA&B: Could you tell us about the beginnings of your practice? What were the formative years of your studio?

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Acharya Institute of Technology - Initiation Block. © Nagaraj Vastarey

NV: Almost fifteen odd years in practice, our formative years were indeed a struggle. The very idea of living depended entirely on the idea of practice. Having studied in a school that did not have a strong theoretical base or a school of thought per se, the work in fact was a self devised methodology of learning; and still continues to be. School blessed us with some skills, particularly drawing and model making.

The idea of design and architecture that the school imparted was blatantly an idea of mere building and the notion that architecture could be practised as art and philosophy with profound theoretical backing was a realisation that dawned later.

Being a well published, acknowledged poet and fictionist in Kannada, my mother tongue and I often understand to believe that the construct of a poem, and that of any design share many a thing in common. If design is all about form-ing a thought or an idea, so is a poem.

Our entire design endeavour often seeks to pursue this idea, that design can be a practice of poetry. Not that we are always successful, but we try. In this sense we are still in formation, continually striving for newer metaphors.

thro' cube - section

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thro' cube - an aspect

SKETCH: ARTICULATION - THRO' CUBE

© Nagaraj Vastarey

Indian Architect & Builder - October 2013

© Raksha Bharadhwaj

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© Nagaraj Vastarey

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PROCESS DRAWING: VIEW TUBE

View Tube at Acharya Institute of Technology. © Nagaraj Vastarey

Model and Image: Water Tank. © Aneesh Vidyashankar Indian Architect & Builder - October 2013

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Skyful Being: Architect's Residence & Studio. © Raksha Bharadhwaj

© Aneesh Vidyashankar Indian Architect & Builder - October 2013

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SECTIONAL IDEAS - DRAWINGS

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Landscape: Avanya Gardenwalk. © Nagaraj Vastarey

© Raksha Bharadhwaj

IA&B: You have been practising since a decade. Could you inform us about the philosophical foundation of your studio? What makes the idea base of all your work?

NV: All that we build is not architecture and this awareness has increased over the years. Often we try to transcend the idea of `an ordinary construct’ with an intellectual zeal to propel our creative cause. However, we do not forget the fact that there is a client, who is the actual cause and we are mere means for the project. The reality is that there is a vague brief by the client, which we have furthered as a programme for architecture and that the project seeks to be installed on ground, but to operate in the sky.

Idea of structure is central to our idea of architecture and we contend the first principle of structure to evolve newer forms. In a way this is indulgence by choice. We indulge and seek alternatives for Newton and to devise one!

Detailing is our strength and it indeed drives most of our projects.

IA&B: Your studio works on a diverse set of projects. Is there a ‘Process’ or a ‘Method’ that is central to your work? How do you approach your work?

NV: Work is approached on self-devised terms. There is a `device’ for every project that sets the normative principle. This is in fact a creative norm devised based upon the conditions that prevail at site and it also largely depends upon the programme. This shall form a rider to govern the entire making of the project.

The conceptual design, its representation as a drawing and design development thereon till the execution drawings and details, in all, shall respect this very central idea. The appropriateness of the basic idea is checked through a number of models, which are the process and not the mere end. All the details are also done through scaled models.

↑

Human Cascade. © Raksha Bharadhwaj

We accommodate changes, and these changes are carefully examined with respect to overall creative norm and revised, thus making every project a process of learning.

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IA&B: Could you tell us about people and things that inspire your work? Your masters and your mentors . . . What informs and influences your work?

NV: There are many if to be listed, but no specific people or objects in particular.

The notion of `being’ often offers speculations about existence.

Being active in literature helps me probe the language and its nuances. Contemporary living and lifestyle looks at day-to-day life in componential digits. Today we design spaces with specific functions and purposes and spatial attributes are more to do with human `doings’ and not the very being. The quest in our practice always has been to emphasise this aspect `being’ irrespective of the typology we deal with.

Towns and settlements of the past, offer immense clues for such `being’ spaces. The in-between threshold spaces that are inherent in traditional towns, influence our work. Be it an individual dwelling or an institution, we look for suggestions from there.

Kahn, Doshi and Correa offered a lot during our formative years and there have been many as we grew. There are special friends with whom we learn and relearn the skills even to this day.

IA&B: For Nagaraj Vastarey, what is the way forward? How do you see your practice a decade from now? What are the ‘objectives’ you wish your studio to achieve?

NV: Work gives us an enormous `high’ that no other stimulant of life shall offer. We feel that there is a greater need to train the younger minds for a better cause.

↑

↑

Models: The Entertainorium. © Nagaraj Vastarey

Indian Architect & Builder - October 2013

View (above-top) and Composition (above): East-West Event.

© Nagaraj Vastarey

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SKETCH: AMIDST THE COCONUT WOODS

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Views: Amidst the Coconut Woods. © Nagaraj Vastarey

© Nagaraj Vastarey Indian Architect & Builder - October 2013

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DRAWING: THE ARCH

IA&B: Lastly, tell us about a project that represents your practice – your most important work(s)?

NV: Being associated with an institution in the city for the past thirteen years, we are a party in its inception and have grown with it. With sprawing 120 acres of campus, it is possibly the only one in the country conceived and architected by a young practice like ours. The project is dear to us and we are immensely fortunate to have morphed such an endeavour, where the client is involved only with design brief and not totally in its making. This reposes an incredible responsibility, as in its scale and intent this project is a miniature sample of the city at large in itself.

If we have to cite another work, it is definitely our own studio and residence. Defined as a `skyful being’ in its creative intent, the project tactfully handles the notion of `being’ that we spoke in one of our previous answers. The challenge here was to key in a couple of `being’ spaces in tight urban situation, that is dense and tall, in terms of voids and gardens in air - that hold the sky in all.

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The work of Nagaraj Vastarey goes through a rigorous process of analysis and evaluation. It is through this process that it gains the complexity and layering that his architecture generally has. There is an enormous stress on detail â&#x20AC;&#x201C; stress on finding unique and specific solutions for each situation. At multiple scales, his work deals with the way architecture extends from the ground and the way we interact with our built spaces. The stress is on the way one moves through the space and the way the eye examines this movement.

All inquiries into architecture are articulated through sketching, drawing and making models. In a way, it is a reflective model of practice that gives one to pause and observe the process of design from many vantage points. Nagarajâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s work has a keen sense of the nature of materials. Intense in its conceptual grounding, Nagarajâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s architecture essentially deviates from the given notions of space and puts an onus on the experience of movement, comfort, familiarity, uncanniness, surprise and delight.

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sP+a Sameep Padora and Associates

MUMBAI

The consequences of practice:

T

his assemblage of projects underscores the consequence of a particular model of practice rather than the presumed position of influence that this publication takes, which is one of extreme optimism.

Any act of design or construction in our time is not as much a cause as much as it is an effect.

These fragments of projects document our process of disengagement with the specificity of authorship and an acceptance of, amongst other things, a negotiation of the temporal simultaneity of our context. A context; where past, present and futures exist simultaneously; where abstraction and the metaphoric are so much a part of our everyday that our aspirations are for tangible mediocrity.

We are not interested in the appropriate but are rather in search for methods to appropriate, for transforming this commodification of culture around us or its other extreme; the ascetic veneration to a static material craft.

- Sameep Padora

Indian Architect & Builder - October 2013

sP + a

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Drawings, Images and Writings: courtesy Diane Athiade, Aparna Dhareshwar, Mythili Shetty, VInay Mathias, Vami Koticha, Nupoor Monani, Aanoshka Choksi, Vipul Verma, Viresh Mhatre, Sudarshan Venkatraman, Harsha Nalwaya, Sagar Padwal, Archita Banerjee, Sameep Padora

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Inner Courtyard (Family Room) Inner Courtyard (Entertainment) Outer Courtyard and Pool

BEDROOM

SLATE SHINGLES

DINING AREA BEHIND

CONCRETE ROOF LIVING ROOM

KITCHEN

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Roddam House, Hyderabad The courtyard in tradition and its structure hybridised and manifested through dynamics between privacy, climatic control and changing lifestyles.

House of Parts, Panchagani A fragmentation of a large house into its subsequent parts in an effort to dematerialise its presence with the fabric of its context.

LIFT

DINING AREA

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ENTRANCE PORCH

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House of Grills, Jammu A commentary on issues of safety in our cities and how the ubiquitous security grill structures the design of the house.

Temple, Madhya Pradesh A purely religious building is situated within a CSR programme, by creating a water harvesting structure referenced with the idea of a 'ghat'. The Temple and Ghat become literally...inseparable.

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Holy Writ School, Badlapur Reviving a waterfront while structuring incremental growth avenues linked to the water.

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Indiabulls Terraces, Kalina, Mumbai The villa is a dream home in the city. This project looks at reconfiguring the model of the ‘villa’ in the urban context, generating a system of staggered terrace gardens which create porosity in the building mass and facilitate social interaction between neighbours.

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BET Home for the girl child, Srinagar The project is defined by the building process as means to engage community and a vertical circulation of stack of donated books to create the infrastructure of transformation, encouraging the chance encounter with a book which in turn has the capacity to change a life.

Manas, Tardeo A 40 storey tower designed as a two tier structural system; one is the primary that attempts to connect diagonally across the circulation cores and the secondary one besides being load bearing, is a sun and wind breaker.

The ‘perforated skin’ arising from the overlap, is a grid of apertures that responds as a structural solution and frees up internal spaces for reconfiguration at will.

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↑

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Veneer Cloud, Mumbai Manufacturing a hybrid material using the rigidity of wooden veneer and the flexibility of canvas to augment and define a dining space for Indigo Deli.

HEX 01 HEX 02 HEX 03

↑

HEX 05

↑

Welspun HQ, Mumbai Offices that are planned to allow for spontaneous interaction. A setting to encourage discussion and debate.

PROGRAMME

Area

Ground Floor (circulation included)

243sqft ROOF

First Floor (circulation included)

22sqft

Total

463sqft

PROPOSED HOUSE PROGRAMME

Area

Kitchen + Living

206.55sqft

Gr Floor Bathroom

25sqft

Bedroom-1

58sqft

Attached Bathroom

15.8sqft

Bedroom-2

117sqft

Sleeping Loft

65sqft

Bedroom-3

115sqft

Circulation

45.61sqft

Total

648sqft

(In) Formal House, Dharavi with URBZ An application of Sou Fujimoto’s Primitive Future House to increase square footage in a standard volume for residents of a house in Dharavi.

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EXISTING HOUSE

Bridge Across Forever, Khopoli An office building bridges a stream combining two programmatically linked buildings on its opposite banks within an industrial master plan.

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SP: Sameep Padora IA&B: Tells us about the beginnings of your practice. How did sP+a evolve into a practice?

of a project’s many possibilities is a very important part of a design project. The method is therefore really more a dynamic framework of processes and tools...one that is constantly being added to or subtracted from.

SP: A practice to me implies a certain way of doing things that coalesces into a systematic method over time to process ideas into projects. For the time that we have been in practice every project we have worked on seems to demand a new way of examining its potential and if it is a repetition of a project type then in some way forgetting it, in its past avatar. So in a sense every project is about setting out anew, a kind of informed beginning. These beginnings happen within a loose framework but methods of project resolution evolve with the processing of the project.

IA&B: What informs your work? What influences it?

IA&B: You have and continue to work on programmes of diverse scale and type. What ‘ideas’ bind these in a conceptual whole? What are your core concerns?

We are very interested in feedback from other fields and have instituted interactions with other creative individuals to seek synergy and experience from their work. A synopsis of some of these sessions can be found on the studio blog www.rough--cut.blogspot.in.

SP: There isn’t a common formal idea or processing language, but more and more we are interested in situating of a project in response to its hidden dynamic whether of ambition, context or history. A second link might be a rigor in the design process that allows the design process of the project to become open enough to allow for active engagement.

In the studio, we call this idea ‘self-becoming’, where through design processes we are able to peel back layers of the project's explicit programme in an attempt to find its ‘genius loci’. For eg ‘materiality’ then might find a role as core structure in a project and not merely pastiche.

IA&B: Technology and process: the two identifiable aspects of your work. How do you approach a project? Is there a specific ‘method’ unique to your practice?

SP: We do not believe in method as a framework of investigation, it for me, implies a somewhat limited state of mind. What we are interested in is tools that the project needs for us to uncover its potential. So these might be tools connected with drawing, prototyping, model making, even conversing. Many times these are catalysts to advance our understanding of what our project should not be. Hence, negation Indian Architect & Builder - October 2013

SP: We are influenced by the contradictions that result from the simultaneity of working in our society where traditional rituals co-exist with our technologically networked everyday lives. Our projects attempt to occupy a space in-between these disparate worlds; a very literal example would be the usage of extreme craft and industrialised material processing as a mode of production, sometimes on the same project.

IA&B: As a recognised studio, what are the ‘crucial’ agendas or objectives that you wish to accomplish in the larger domain of practising in India?

SP: Architecture and architects play marginal roles in the urbanisation of the country. We are currently merely documenters of the larger forces that fashion built fabric and hence, are unable to radically influence built form.

For architecture to be relevant as a discipline in India, it would entail a different mode of practice one that takes architects out of a specialist’s role. This could be for eg; through a design-build mode of practice or participation in the front-end strategic positioning of a project, which would let its ambition affect its manifestation.

Hence, for this transformation of architects as marginal actors to occur, and in the interest of more appropriate building, it is imperative that we ‘will’ put more responsibility on to ourselves, besides what lies within the paradigms of our traditional training.

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Sameep Padoraâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s architecture resists convention. Through a process of critical thinking, his work evaluates the notions of form, typology, programme and material while experimenting with technique and technology. His work has a tactile character and there is a lot of onus on understanding architecture as an experience and not just as an object.

It deals with memory, experience and content. Sameep consistently looks for reinterpreting existing and dominant notions of space to find new forms and new meanings within those notions. His reading of context is intuitive and experiential. The complexity in his work comes from a juxtaposition of multiple layers of perceptions. Through his command on graphics, his concepts of space and process are communicated and developed. There is a constant experimentation with structures and an evolution of non-conventional details. As a firm, they do not subscribe to any rigidity in thinking and their convictions lie in the process. Their work has significant conceptual content and is pedagogical.

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SRDA

Samira Rathod Design Associates

MUMBAI

Manifesto on the Practice

A

t SRDA the options for design are without restraint to encourage the most bizarre of ideas. The underlining purpose of doing so is to avoid all that is mundane and delve into the depths of the subconscious mind to embrace the dynamism of imagery. The architecture is not an innate bystander; instead it is an interactive organism of experiences and memories. Every project is treated with fervour for exploration and innovation and tested for relevance in physical and social contexts against the land which will cradle it and against the man it is meant for.

The language at SRDA is without affectations or contrived for the purpose of conciliating with an ideology. We do not subscribe to any of the 'isms' of architecture. Instead, we strive to deliver designs that are relevant to the context where the context has a larger definition in terms of what and how it will impact. Every building endeavour must be a responsible solution in structure, services infrastructure, cost and function. It must have a purpose, and above all, dare its own consequences in the environment; but in all of the above, if there is poetry, then perhaps it becomes architecture.

Beauty manifests as a derivative of the sustainable approach and recycling. The local workmen and their skills are put to use in achieving a unique and indigenous construct. Small equals optimum where the design is able to build a relation with the human scale.

More importantly design must be cognizant of the differentiation between needs and wants, which it must address in the most responsible way, carefully monitoring its violence on the planet. We believe that every project is an opportunity to understand this world better. The world, that is, the relationship of people with other people, and of people with their environment. Projects must strive to be the study and response to this very world and if nothing else, act as the lens through which this world can look upon itself.

- Samira Rathod

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SRDA

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Drawings, Images and Writings: courtesy Samira Rathod Design Associates

â&#x2020;&#x2018; Pin-up board of the office displays all the drawings and sketches made by the office.

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↑ '3 Objects'.

SR: Samira Rathod IA&B: Could you tell us about the beginnings of your practice? What were the formative years of your studio?

SR: Like many Mumbai based architects, I too began my practice with a small bathroom for an apartment. After marriage, I joined the office of Ratan Batliboi where I had the opportunity to design a beach house. It was four years later when I decided to venture out on my own and found myself without work that I began designing my own furniture pieces.

This was very well received at the ‘Liaison de Formes’ exhibition that led to a collaboration with Transform Designs. From there I diversified into architecture projects and eventually established SRDA in the year 2000.

In the formative period as an architect it is often believed that one must accept without question any and every project that comes your way.

Instead I chose the path less travelled, refused several commissions only to preserve the pillars of value and ethics the practice stands on today.

↑ CONCEPT FOR THE 'CHENNAI VILLAS' Indian Architect & Builder - October 2013

↑ CONCEPT: '3 OBJECTS'

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â&#x2020;&#x2018; 'Camera House'.

CONCEPT: 'CAMERA HOUSE'

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↑ SKETCH OF 'CHENNAI VILLAS'

IA&B: You have been practising since a decade. Could you inform us about the philosophical foundation of your studio? What are the fundamental ideas that outline your practice?

SR: All of my projects are contextual and extremely site responsive. It is important to me that the built form is not an imposition on its site, rather it accentuates it. The spaces within are designed as an experiential labyrinth of dreams. They entwine to offer a sense of newness which presents an opportunity to explore every space. There is a certain 'Joie de Vivre' that is depicted through the quirky sense of semantics. The collage is evident in both materiality and form. Light. is made tactile and is a predominant factor in the architecture of a building, to the extent of being able to reach out and touch it. Over a period of time SRDA today has been able to render an acronym, BLIRS, to its philosophy of design – Beautiful, Local, Indigenous, Recyclable and Small.

↑ Rendered view of 'Chennai Villas'.

↑ 'Kolkata Realty' and its various elevations.

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We believe the essence of design lies in bringing poetry into the building through the surreal ideas of the esoteric. Poetry draws the distinction between a piece of architecture and a mere building. Local indigenous people, their cultivated techniques and traditions and ancient mastery of material tectonics, are core to the execution and inspiration of projects at SRDA. We also undertake and promote research in design at urban and rural scales. From documenting heritage and monumental structures in India to confronting new ways of perceiving space, we believe that only through a strong culture of investigation; and exploration of the liberal arts, can the discipline be enhanced to the benefit of all.

181

IA&B: Your studio works on a diverse set of projects. Is there a ‘process’ or a ‘method’ that is central to your work? How do you approach your work?

↑ '3 Objects'.

SR: All designs at SRDA go through a rigorous process of lateral thinking, group discussions and extensive research. Functions, programmes, user needs, site conditions, and climate responsive designs are understood to be pre-requisite factors that direct the course of design. In addition to this, all designs have a strong foundation of a 'concept'. We first approach our work with a thought or a non-manifesto which is then sought to manifest into reality. The initial concept is translated to the final product through exhaustive processes of research, drawings, models, iteration, details, mocks and samples.

↑ 'Bhadran School'.

↑ 'Bhadran School' Elevations: This one used coloured glass in it.

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182

↑ Roof study for the 'Caterpillar House'.

IA&B: Could you tell us about people and things that inspire your work? Your masters and your mentors…What informs and influences your work?

SR: I have always been fascinated by the work of Carlo Scarpa and E F Schumacher, the author of ‘Small is beautiful’, both of who reinforced my belief in small and the significance of detail. I am also fascinated by machines in the way that different parts end up functioning as a singular gesture. Basic mechanical systems like the pulley, gears, pistons and the bicycles have always intrigued me.

We often underestimate the importance of a dreamer but time and again, history has proved that thinking alone leads to innovation, and new paths in instilling living ideologies and even philosophies in time. Even as a child I was a daydreamer and constantly looked for means to manifest the unreal into the real. I remember organising a play in which we were to depict a river on stage and I assembled a few volunteers to crawl beneath a blue 'khadi' which gave the illusion of movement in water. One must be open to uninhibited experimentation of ideas without relying on the necessity of it.

I did not have any mentor. I am my own mentor. ↑ Conceptual of the 'Caterpillar House'.

STUDY

CHILDREN BEDROOM

STUDY

STUDY FUTURE ROOM / GARDEN MASTER BEDROOM

0

1

3

6

10

↑ 'STEELY FIN': FIRST FLOOR PLAN

STAFF ROOM

N

GARDEN STORE

COURT TOILET STORE UTILITY

PANTRY POWDER TOILET

GRASS DINING VERANDAH

ENTRANCE COURT

BAR

GARDEN

LOUNGE

EXISTING DVD ROOM

0

'Caterpillar House'.

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↑ 'STEELY FIN': GROUND FLOOR PLAN

1

ENTRY

3

6

10 N

183

↑ Pigmented concrete wall of 'Steely Fin'.

↑ 'Steely Fin'. + 8.075 M LVL ms c channel fixed to ceiling

135 mm thk grey concrete wall

5.33

3.51 3.40

copper partition

3" x ½" size wooden section forming railing

2.32

concealed detail to be given by the structural consultant

2.17

3.60

clear gap of 0.34m between the copper partition wall and rcc wall

ms metal folded plate +0.225 M LVL GROUND LVL SECTION

0.48 x 0.66 m size RCC wall to be cladded with 3mm thick copper

concealed detail to be given by the structural consultant of fixing folded plate with the floor

↑

'STEELY FIN': DETAIL DRAWING OF THE STAIRCASE

↑

↑ 'Steely Fin': Staircase.

↑ Steel facade looks similar to a fish fin.

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↑ Design process through models.

IA&B: For SRDA, what is the way forward? How do you see your practice a decade from now?

What are the objectives you wish your studio to achieve?

SR: We have introduced certain initiatives creating a more multifaceted practice by involving ourselves in research and documentation. India lacks a platform for one to freely critique the various issues that plague the profession which is why we have started an annual magazine called SPADE that aims at provoking thought, invoke introspection, explore ideas and inspire an aspiration for fine architecture. We also conduct constant research programmes under SIRCLE (Spade India Research Cell), an offshoot of SPADE, where we invite experts to conduct, guide and direct the research not only for archival purpose but also to have a direct influence on the practice. SIRCLE supports studies and explorations in ideas and interests that have the potential to influence design thinking.

IA&B: Lastly, tell us about a project that represents your practice – your most important work(s)?

↑ 'Rocking Chair' - furniture design.

↑ 'Dining' - furniture design.

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SR: I cannot pinpoint any one in particular. All my works, right from furniture to design projects, are all equally important. I have given my best in every project and will continue to do so.

185

↑ Free standing lamp series in furniture design.

For SRDA, architecture is a critical tool to react and comment on the otherwise monotonous built landscape.

Samira Rathod’s work has a strong defiance towards notions of convention and tradition. Instead, its reading of context and programme is independent from norm and image. It is due to this breaking away that SRDA’s architecture succeeds in transcending boundaries of prescribed methodologies and dwells in the true potential of things. While they are excited by the possibilities offered by contemporary materials and technology, this understanding informs their work rather than driving it. They invest in pedagogical discussions through their work and publications and evaluate their practice consistently.

SRDA experiments with conceptions of space, light, environment, context, material, detail, function and experience as their designs are enriched by indomitable thought. By delineating the domains of practice, writing, criticism and academics, Samira Rathod attempts to reflect on her practice and allows thought to permeate in form of associated pursuits. This diversity in process then renders versatility in SRDA’s architecture.

↑ 'SPADE' publication.

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S+PS MUMBAI

architects

A Reflective Practice

I

n their 16 years of architectural practice Shilpa and Pinkish have shown that their unique prowess as architects lies not in showing restraint on the myriad ideas that inform each of their projects but in convincingly using each and every one of those ideas to construct a meticulous spatial experience. In that sense, their practice gives immense investment of time and thought on the production of new ideas which may seem naive during inception but are carefully nursed to become great inventions over time. Their range of influences and experiences have helped them to constantly improvise with a range of seemingly conflicting yet highly potent themes.

Having had the opportunity to study architecture during the times of massive change from Modern to Post-Modern ideologies and a constant flux of shifting architectural identities, they have been able to absorb and marry seemingly conflicting positions in architecture. Rather than a self-referential style, their projects are highly successful in capturing both the attitude of the designers as well as the manifested personalities of their clients. Their constant back and forth with the design brief and the concept allows for a rigorous exchange of ideas. Architecture it seems is not the goal in itself; the goal seems to be the change new architecture creates â&#x20AC;&#x201C; buildings that revolve around people and are not merely an architectonic shape.

In their work, every project has to contain a new thought, a new experience, and a new challenge. Generic assumptions and standards are challenged and new methods are established sometimes informed by abstract aspirations and sometimes by real world ambitions. Pragmatic concerns as well as poetic themes are constantly engaged with in their work, and small and big concerns are always present and resolved in each project with panache.

Their practice reminds one of the Ignatian Pedagogical Paradigm, a paradigm rooted in self-reflection as the basis of practice. The three main elements of which are Experience, Reflection, and Action, and a pre-learning element, Context, and a post-learning element, Evaluation, are also necessary for the method's success, bringing the total to five elements. Those who have worked with them know that there is a tacit intuition, a certain uncanny vision at work that meanders through the project assimilating all the experiences while clearly knowing where it needs to go.

Their insistence on running a niche studio is their assertion of quality over quantity. At any moment in time, the studio is

Indian Architect & Builder - October 2013

working on multiple projects and constantly testing out the limits of the concept. Slowness is an asset here and allows for a well meditated environment that concludes hours and years of thinking on every single project. This is unlike any of the requirements asked of architects today and requires an immense belief system in the long drawn out process which is shared with the clients. In that Shilpa and Pinkish have had the pleasure to work with equally passionate clients who have shown immense confidence and belief in their work.

S+PS is in no hurry to reach a destination. The architects are process oriented and in many ways their positive attitude towards a meditated slowness is a tactical construct which allows immense experience to be gained through a meticulous process. Having worked with them during their formative years, it is immensely gratifying to see the outcome of the rigor and continuous thinking and rethinking of ideas in their work. What has enriched this process considerably is their interest in Pedagogy along with Practice. It has helped them to develop a tolerance for ambiguity, and the idea that the question may be more interesting than the answer, has been a whole new way of thinking for them. It is their continuous patience and reluctance to indulge in easy outcomes that will prove to be their most invaluable resource for the future. Their assets have been to constantly rely on the fundamentals of space making, to tirelessly ask relevant questions, to systematically bridge the experience of the end user to the designer and to resist stylistic temptations.

Architecture in recent times, being represented more and more via images finds itself as a part of a visual world; the spatial aspect has been appropriated increasingly by historians, geographers, sociologists and theorists rather than architects themselves.

While architectural practice and attitudes have changed quite dramatically over the last decade with the advent of global flows and easily accessible technology, I believe it is practices like S+PS that will constantly steer back the discourse to relevant shores.

- Amit Arya Amit Arya is an architect graduated from Pillaiâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s College of Architecture, who has worked with S+PS Architects for more than three years. He was also involved as the lead designer of the Exhibition, 'Roots and Trajectories', of the work of S+PS Architects along with four other practices that travelled to several universities in the USA. He is currently employed with a multinational design firm in Mumbai.

S+PS architects

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Drawings, Images and Writings: courtesy S+PS architects, Sebastian Zachariah, B S Kumar, Vinesh Gandhi

Detail view of walk up apartments in Lonavala.

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↑

EARLY SKETCH OF STREET EXPLORING DIVERSITY IN HOUSING UNITS

↑

↑

↑

IDEA OF A UNIT

UNITS FORMING STREET

1:25 scale model showing bridge unit and pedestrian walkway through.

View of street showing diversity and individuation of units through windows, railings, screens and colours.

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Upper garden loft unit.

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SGS & PS: Shilpa Gore Shah & Pinkish Shah IA&B: Could you tell us about the beginnings of your practice? What were the formative years of your studio? What prompted you to formalise your practice?

SGS & PS: Charged with all our rich experiences of study and travel in the USA and Europe after our Masters Degree we returned to Mumbai.

Confronted with working in an office that dealt with developer projects, we soon realised that the imperatives driving that kind of work clashed with our raw idealism at the time. After months of struggle and agony, we were reminded of Corbusier’s advice to students - when you go to a train station there are many trains going to many places - board the train that is going to where you want to go. It was then that we decided to jump off this moving train and start our own practice. We were lucky to start off with a very interesting architectural project that involved the renovation and addition to an existing building to convert it into a diverse mixed-use programme. Looking back what has really stood us in good stead is that we did not rush into trying to do too many things. We were learning, discovering and slowly assimilating how to build and build well – with exactitude of purpose and in process and product. We noted where we had stumbled and fallen and tried to set up systems within the office that were not necessarily efficient but worked for us and our methods. When we started, we did not have an agenda or a manifesto or a theory. We wanted to simply build good architecture (the build was important then and remains such today as well). We have discovered through our work what we enjoy most and how to go about achieving it and through that discovered what we are about.

IA&B: You have been working and teaching since more than a decade. Can you inform us about your experiences in teaching and how they have influenced your practice?

↑

SGS & PS: On our return from the USA after our Masters, Sen Kapadia, the then Director of KRVIA invited us to join the Institute to teach. It took us a good seven years before we finally joined – focussing first on setting up our practice - understanding both the practicalities of the profession but also to get a sense of what it meant to practice in Mumbai/India.

Shilpa joined initially and two years later Pinkish also took the plunge.

Once in, we were hooked! It took us back to our heady student days – not House in Bardoli, Gujarat.

↑

Traditional techniques used for insulation of roof slab.

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Kitchen and dining opens out seamlessly on to upper level garden.

Brick wall opens to connect the house to the street.

CONCEPT SKETCHES AND EARLY MODEL.

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MULTIPLE AGE GROUP

↑

ENG SECONDARY

D. ED

ENG PRIMARY

B. ED

JR KG

SCIENCE

MAR SECONDARY

COM. & ARTS

MAR PRIMARY

LAW

COURSE SCHEDULE

TIME SHARE PROGRAMS

MULTIPLE STREAMS

ANALYSIS OF PROGRAM DIVERSITY

↑

View of large multilevel foyers carved out in educational complex at Airoli, Navi Mumbai.

PEDESTRIAN ACCESS FROM STREET CONNECTION TO HIGHER GROUND OF SCHOOL

MULTIPURPOSE HALL SPORTS BUILDING EXISTING RECREATION GARDEN

MAIN ENTRY TO SCHOOL

PEDESTRIAN ACCESS TO PLAYGROUND COMMON PLAYGROUND COMMUNITY SPACE FOR SURROUNDING PUBLIC ACTIVITIES

Schematic section showing two interconnected courts with transparent central library block.

Sectional study model in three parts at 1:50.

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Relationship of educational complex to immediate context.

EXISTING TEMPLE

EXISTING COMMUNITY HALL

191

↑ Corporate Office for Auto Leasing Company built in three phases.

↑

↑

EXPLODED AXONOMETRIC OF BUILDING COMPONENTS

↑

Industrial vocabulary inside the old factory building.

↑

Detail of staircase.

ISKCON educational complex courtyard view.

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↑

↑

↑

↑

Stockbrokers' office interior.

Attribute plan evolved out of interactions with the client.

↑

SECTION THROUGH SKYLIGHT AND RESEARCH CELL.

Dealing room ‘in flux’.

Transformation in conference room from four parts to a single space.

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'Out of the box' research cell.

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nostalgically - but in some sense by making us students again, opening up the possibility to learn again and keep learning. The varied faculty there, each with their interests and points of view became a resource from whom you learnt, discussed, debated and argued with but which also eventually became a support group in a sense for the very mundane to the existential. One did not seem alone and felt part of something larger.

The emphasis on the city/urban issues and context at KRVIA has helped us retain our interest in the same and counterbalance what was going on within the S+PS studio.

The discussions from our studios have invariably got dragged into the office and have proved to be rich fodder for reassessing our own methods and transforming our functionalist training to an extent. Shedding that is proving to be more difficult than one can imagine. Meeting new people, interacting with other disciplines and varied streams of thought have helped retain the broader understanding of the cultural milieu of which architecture is only a part. Over time as there was a closer understanding of the Institute and its concerns, the types of questions for us personally moved from 'what is architecture' to 'how does one teach architecture'.

Pedagogy of architecture - in Mumbai, and in the broader context of architectural education in India and its relationship to architectural practice is something we have been grappling with since the past few years now. Answers are not easy to come by, especially given the complex animal India is, but we continue to learn and strive to find balance between Pedagogy and Practice.

IA&B: Your studio works on a diverse set of projects. Is there a ‘Process’ or a ‘Method’ that is central to your work? How do you approach your work?

SGS & PS: As a studio we tend to dedicate ourselves to quite complex situations and unusual ones. We are not doing every day work and we always seem to end up with these rather unusual projects, which are problematic to crack. What links our projects is our resolute belief that things can be done in a new way….to re-invent. Jean Luc Godard once said “It's not where you take things from - it is where you take them to”.

We believe that every project is unique, and that the design should evolve through the particular characteristics of each project. We believe that it is the responsibility of the architect to create diverse, innovative and

↑

exciting environments. Each project should add a humane and desirable environment to the world, resulting in a continuous improvement of the constructed environment.

Our strategy is to study the various desire lines on a site. Through negotiating the conflicting requirements of site, climate, technologies, client, authorities, end users and consultants, an idea is evolved that incorporates all these forces. This concept is then used to develop the design at all levels and scales, creating a unique architectural language for the project. Architectural styles are avoided, as they limit the options available, and stifle exploration and creativity. However, precedents from all times and cultures are studied to gain experience and knowledge from the past. The firm believes that good design is produced from this careful study and research, combined with technical knowledge and artistic judgment. Random and unforeseen events are examined for the possibility of adding richness and new possibilities to the design. Attention to detail, proportions and scale, together with common sense ensure that the end-result fully develops the potential within the concept.

We prefer projects with a 'slow gestation' and ample time to absorb site conditions, programme particulars, and the client’s needs. Progress of design is thus slow & incremental and an uneven accumulation of steps.

IA&B: Could you tell us about people and things that inspire your work? Your masters and your mentors . . . What informs and influences your work?

SGS & PS: We think there have been too many, over a period of time, to enumerate here and they keep changing as you learn from each and mature over time. It is not only people but things, objects, events and encounters that have influenced us both as human beings and architects, and subsequently our work.

Besides these, it is Family – providing statis, anchoring, values, ethics and Travel – with its ability to let loose, the varied exposure to people, cultures, places - have taught us to have an open mind – but critically sieving and filtering everything it receives. As we reflect on our time since we were born in this city, we think that Mumbai somehow subconsciously and consciously has been a great influence in our work.

Redline drawing of staircase design in existing rowhouse.

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ROOF

LOOSE FURNITURE

BRACKET

FLOOR

SHELL

↑

Outside the 'bracket' - meeting space in the office.

↑

Inside the 'bracket' - office in an industrial unit.

↑

Elements.

As a studio, S+PS has a significant investment in design discourse. Their way of making architecture is conducive to the patient process of thinking, drawing, modelling, evaluating and detailing. Anchored in the fundamentals, they develop their designs by critically questioning the cause and effect of all their work. They experiment with materials – industrial and local and improvise on the way things are crafted. Colour, light and transparency are consistent themes.

As a process, S+PS attributes a lot of time to examine the position of design in contemporary life. This theoretical standpoint helps them evaluate the content of their work and reassess the validity of their experiments. Between teaching and working, many concepts permeate from one domain to another and this osmosis of thought enriches their architecture conceptually. Working on a diverse set of programmes, their preoccupation also lies in understanding the city and the interaction of architecture with its forces. They are often excited by building technology and they employ it as a means in space-making. Since there are no stylistic judgements and ideological reservations in their work, there is a regenerative school of thought in all their projects. This authenticity is liberating and renders their architecture as an element of play.

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Playbox - a new loft addition in an existing shell for an eight year old girl.

IA&B: How do you see the way forward for S+PS? What would be an ideal future for your practice a decade from now? What are the ‘objectives’ you wish your studio to achieve?

SGS & PS: Our belief in 'thinking by doing' has meant a keen interest in seeing our work built since the inception of the firm. In the context of Mumbai that has meant years of finely honed and crafted conceptual interiors built in the city and beyond and much architectural work stored in our 'spiritual savings account' (or stated another way - unbuilt!).

↑

SKETCH OF COMPONENTS AND ASSEMBLY OF THE PLAYBOX

Even though the last few years have seen a shift to more architectural projects seeing the light of the day, we are keen to engage more closely where design can make a bigger difference to many more - with the rural space, mass housing, public space in the city and spaces for learning.

Currently our frame of mind is 'it is important to do the right things as opposed to only doing things right'.

Hand-drawn presentation panel of invited competition entry.

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Architecture Paradigm BENGALURU

O

ur work is about an engagement with landscapes, both natural and man-made. It is a continuous learning experience dealing with the incredible amount of visual, tactile and the virtual information we encounter on a day-to-day basis. Our cities today are dense and complex, simultaneously old and new, there is growth and decay, presence and absence, reality and fiction, and it is always in a transitory state of being. We are influenced by these temporal conditions as most of our projects stem from these conditions. As a practice we look to approach this indiscernible landscape with an open and progressive stance. We are unafraid to speculate and design projects that can express the latent realities of these emerging conditions.

We deliberate on the nature of inhabitation in these conditions, as it becomes one of the key points for idea generation. Here, the relationship between the inside and the outside gains a pivotal role. Tradition demonstrates that outdoors have been a crucial part of inhabitation in a climate like ours. It necessitates an inventiveness about living patterns and lifestyles. We explore this relationship in our work as we feel it has the potential to reflect time and place. There is a thorough engagement with the whole or part of a programme where they have the potential to influence each other to express new or latent possibilities. Flexibility and open-endedness are seen as important aspects of programming as they are more of a necessity in these conditions.

The landscape and the climate often offer clues and reveal prospects on how to inhabit or how to deal with earth, light, water, wind and other exigencies of the site. These clues are iterated to reveal how this information can become a source for sustainable strategies or a sensitive insertion generating a sense of belonging to the place. We look to build a participative and intimate environment that can bring people together while integrating the spaces with immediate context. Rather than style or form, we pursue spatial richness where a variety of experiences are threaded together to create a whole.

Architecture for us is not about instant gratification or an image, it is a function of time. We speculate on how a project would evolve through time as we believe this reveals the true nature of a project.

Through sketches, drawings and models, we contemplate on these conditions and anticipate experiences. Idea of structure, an abstracted notion of scale and materiality is informed by this process. We are interested in details as to how materials come together to generate surfaces, mass and form thereby inducing tactility to the experience. Resolving geometries and exercising restraint on how to use materials help us bring clarity to space making. This process invariably extends into the site where we constantly review the decisions made when we work closely with people executing the job i e, engineers, contractors, masons, carpenters and fabricators. This enables us to understand materials and the place better. Here, craftsmanship, procedure and technique become tools to bring ideas into the material.

The approach is to learn from experiences; it is about tinkering, crafting, accepting and rejecting to reach appropriate solutions.

It is rigorous and rooted in the tangible realities of its situation, but the intention is always to pursue the intangible, where experiences transcend immediate use. As Charles Correa puts it - 'Fiction,' said Cocteau, 'is primordial memory'. Perhaps, so is built form. Certainly architecture is concerned with much more than physical attributes. It is many layered thing. Beneath and beyond the strata of function and structure, materials and texture, lay the deepest and the most compulsive layer of all.

Today, working in these conditions require the ability to collaborate with different faculties. Our practice in this regard relies on many voices where consultants and clients become active parts of the process. Here, from ideas to execution, the process is subjected to critical views lending objectivity and depth to it. Underlying all this, is a sense of optimism that it is possible to make a difference. This collaborative structure enables us to reflect on our work, take risks and push boundaries. It is through such engagement that we are able to address various facets of the practice. Here, passion and pragmatic concerns go hand in hand.

Apart from designing projects we were also instrumental in the development of software for internal studio management called 'Documan' which is currently used by many studios in the country.

Quality takes precedence in all our pursuits and this is enabled by an open studio which allows for free exchange of views amongst people. Eventually it is the turnout of the project that fuels our love to create environments that people enjoy or identify with.

- Vimal Jain + Sandeep J + Manoj Ladhad

Indian Architect & Builder - October 2013

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Drawings, Images and Writings: courtesy Architecture Paradigm

House of Pavilions â&#x20AC;&#x201C; ANIL KUSH Residence, Bengaluru.

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↑ House of Pavilions.

AP: Architecture Paradigm IA&B: Tells us about the beginnings of your work. How did Architecture Paradigm evolve into a studio?

↑ House of Pavilions: Sketch.

AP: Three of us studied architecture together at BMS College of Engineering in Bengaluru. With shared interests we bonded over discussions, travel, working together in group works and competitions.

These early days set up the tone for the idea of a practice together.

Initially to test the waters, we came together for an interior project during the course of which we set up Architecture Paradigm in Bengaluru in 1996; this was almost immediately after graduation. Our experience of working in other offices were limited, but we were enthusiastic and relied on our own individual capacities to figure things out, be it to manage a studio, design projects or get them built. Nothing was more important to us than the project in hand and the interest in how it turned out. This has helped us grow and learn as a collaborative. Today, we have a bunch of motivated people as part of the team exploring this discipline along with us. The name was coined by a friend of ours but it stuck on and it has come to mean more than just architectural pattern or architectural model though we are interested in it. We look at our practice as an exploration of paradigms for inhabitation.

Programme is blocked

Two zones are connected by a movement spine

One of the spaces is taken to the upper level to explore the surroundings and also bring in a sense of personal space considering the requirements of his son. We considered lifting it above the conventional height of 5m to explore the surroundings and in the process generating multidimensional space which serves as studio, library and also a store

↑ House of Pavilions: Model.

Indian Architect & Builder - October 2013

The need for differing degrees of privacy is explored through two horizontal bars along the North-South separated by large open space in-between

Spine expands to accomodate spaces like the Family and the 'Pooja'. Adding to the experience of moving through the built and unbuilt around the existing trees enmeshing the house and the landscape

Water is introduced as a thermal regulator to cool the house naturally during the hot summers and also to accentuate the outside inside experience, as in three fourth of the house sits on a plate of water which weaves into the spaces and lends to the quality of experience

↑ Development: The idea attempts to explore the importance of inside outside

relationship in a sub tropical and sub urban setting.

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IA&B: You have and continue to work on programmes of diverse scale and type. What ‘ideas’ bind these in a conceptual whole? As a collective, what are your core concerns?

↑ Sheela Jain Residence: The house revolves around the multifunctional open to sky space.

AP: Our work, irrespective of scale, revolves around people; we are addressing their concerns both individually and as a society. It is about the nature of inhabitation in the context of evolving landscapes. Owing to the nature of the climate and emerging lifestyles here, there is an inherent potential in the exploration of relationship between the inside and the outside or the built and the unbuilt environments. We are also interested in how form can be an outcome of these spatial deliberations.

These aspects run as a common thread across projects. When it comes to variety of projects it works on two levels - firstly, it keeps us, as a firm, interested, as it is a richer experience where we learn through differences between various projects helping us understand the context better; secondly, there is also the aspect of cross fertilisation between projects where details or rejected ideas of one project could serve as a solution or influence for another problem on hand.

The screens are designed along the roadside offering privacy to the residence. This aspect adds to the idea which is a result of orienting the spaces towards the interior rather than the street or outside and critically acknowledges changing structure of the town and the loss of vibrancy generated in the earlier tightly knit streets

The central bay is seen as double height where the upper level spaces look into it furthering the idea of focusing internally

Two volumes are subtracted from this and is moved The programme when blocked occupies the entire lower to the upper level. One of the open space is seen as level and also a part of the upper level multipurpose space/car port. The other is an open to sky courtyard located towards to the rear; this space is seen as an anchor around which the organisation works

↑ SHEELA JAIN RESIDENCE: CONCEPTUAL SKETCHES

↑ Sheela Jain Residence, Gundlupet: Pete Mane.

↑ SECTION Indian Architect & Builder - October 2013

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↑ Centre for Indian Music Experience 'IME': Exterior View.

BASEMENT FLOOR ISO

SECOND FLOOR ISO

↑ Cafeteria spill out in the South-West corner showing the entry to the learning centre.

GROUND FLOOR ISO

FIRST FLOOR ISO

THIRD FLOOR ISO

TERRACE FLOOR ISO

↑ ISOMETRIC PLANS

↑ Entrance plaza/Sound garden. ↑ View from the gallery.

SKIN

IA&B: Your work can be identified with a balanced use of technology and material science in spatial thinking. How do you approach a project? Is there a specific ‘method’ unique to your practice?

AP: We do not start with notion of beautiful idea or align ourselves with a language or style. We are interested in the process of getting to the solution; we look at various paths before we get to the solution. The solution mostly comes by working around the issues, sketching, drawing, making models, deliberating, testing, discarding and finally leading to something that holds promise. This is further worked on to gain clarity.

The work is governed by the idea of spatial experiences; technology and material science enable us to bring the spatial quality into reality.

Resolving geometries and exercising restraint on how to use materials help us bring clarity to space making. This does not mean that they are always subservient to the spatial condition; they often become source for innovation enabling new spatial possibilities.

Indian Architect & Builder - October 2013

TEMPORARY GALLERY SPACE THIRD FLOOR GALLERY SPACE SECOND FLOOR GALLERY SPACE GALLERY + GENERAL THEATRE SOUND GARDEN MUSIC STORE

SOUND GARDEN CAFÉ SPILLOUT PLAZA

↑ DEVELOPMENT OF FORM

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↑ Stacked House: Before renovation.

↑ Stacked House: After renovation.

The plan of the existing building was stream lined into three bays to address privacy issues and also to respond to the immediate unbuilt spaces.

The footprint of the bays is extruded to upper levels. The internal volume is modulated to create links between floors through double heights, lower and the upper units are tied together while maintaining their identities.

One of the bays is subtracted to create a garden at the first level

The subtracted bay is then rotated and placed on top of the first level to create another terrace at this level.

The resulting volumetric diagram reveals series of terraces and gardens at each of the levels which effectively buffers the house from the neighbours, street and the climate

↑ STACKED HOUSE: CONCEPTUAL SKETCHES

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↑ MLR Convention Center.

↑ Myra - School of Business, Mysore.

↑ MLR Convention Center: Sketch.

IA&B: What informs your work? What influences it? Who were and are your masters and mentors?

AP: Everything that we do, see around or engage with has a bearing on our work. We like to share with others things that move us; it could be texture of a material, light filtering through the trees, movies, art etc.

This informality helps us maintain an atmosphere conducive for creativity.

Travel and good architecture have always been a source of inspiration.

When we were studying, Nagaraj Vastarey, our senior, influenced us; it is nice to know that we are being featured in this issue along with him.

During training, it was our stint in Ahmedabad at Sangath and Abhikram that inspired us. Practices that we were associated with, peers, family, friends, numerous to name, and also our city Bengaluru, have shaped our approach to work.

IA&B: As a recognised studio working in our context, what are the ‘crucial’ agendas or objectives that you wish to accomplish in the larger domain of practising in India?

AP: One of the agendas we persist with is about quality rather than quantum of work. We seek to maintain critical consistency across the scale of projects. The urban sphere has been our muse and we are constantly trying to see how to contribute to it, we have been associated with some pro bono urban initiatives and there are others on the anvil. We are also constantly engaging with the unorganised building construction sector in our country; here there is wealth of talent and skill which we are still to explore. All three of us and a couple of senior architects are visiting critics at design studios in different schools of architecture where we hope to contribute and learn, trying to bridge the gap between academics and profession. In view of these aspects our agenda in the larger context would be to engage with the various facets of the discipline in the hope of enriching the living environment.

IA&B: Lastly, tell us about one landmark project of yours that represents Architecture Paradigm’s ideal – your most important work(s).

AP: We like aspects of all our projects; honestly, we think that there is no one project that stands out for us. It is perhaps a constant craving to do better which brings about this feeling.

Indian Architect & Builder - October 2013

↑ Myra - School of Business: Executive Classroom.

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↑ Myra - School of Business: Model.

Two Bars

↑ The hard edged and protective external boulder like surfaces give way to light and

flexible spaces which provides for the nourishing needed for intellectual development and engagement.

Slide

Slide & Swivel

Datum

Classroom Wing Administrative Block

Auditorium/Seminar

Faculty Block Final Form

↑ CONCEPTUAL DIAGRAMS

Library

Executive Classroom

Scoop

We are interested in the process of getting to the solution, we look at various paths before we get to the solution. The solution mostly comes by working around the issues, sketching, drawing, making models, deliberating, testing, discarding and finally leading to something that holds promise.

↑ Myra School of Business: Sketches.

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â&#x2020;&#x2018; CHERIAN's Residence, Bengaluru.

The central space of the site is occupied by a 'jacaranda', mango, 'chikoo' and some teak trees. Our intention of retaining them resulted in the reading of the site as three longitudinal spaces.

â&#x2020;&#x2018; CONCEPTUAL DIAGRAMS Indian Architect & Builder - October 2013

The central space accommodating the existing trees was read as open spine which would help anchor the design to the site. Further programmatic bars were considered on either side of the open spine.

The connecting space seen as a pavilion between two bars expresses the intent of the project. The pavilion is edged by dark reflecting pool capturing the mango tree and the sky on one side while the other side it spills on to a deck sheltered by the 'jacaranda' tree.

The teak trees are allowed to penetrate through the structure space around it is used as deck for the bedrooms. Each of the unique trees along the spine gets an identity owing to the spatial organisation and the manipulation of surfaces and levels.

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↑ Negotiating with existing landscape.

Architecture Paradigm’s work has a quality of youth. With a strong affinity towards experimentation in formal and spatial ideas, their buildings use technology and contemporary materials to embody concepts. While the process is rational and structured, it is their skilful manipulation of elements – colour, light, ambience and scale that brings in the newness. Their buildings are finished with finely articulated details and justified use of technology supplements their architecture. There is a sense of energy in all their work.

↑

Manoj Ladhad, Vimal Jain and Sandeep J.

In terms of making architecture, they work with physical models and drawings, virtual models and building information systems as their buildings are finely engineered and finished with quality. It follows an inherent logic and clarity in its process as there is a consistent evolution in ideas. Each programme has a unique response. There is an intentional delayering of hierarchies in their work – from built to open, public to private. Geometries overlap, intersect and interact in revealing spatial experiences. There is a revitalising sense of the possible.

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DDIR BENGALURU

Architecture Studio

T

hough I was born in Canada, my visit to India about 19 years back, to work in Ahmedabad on invitation of architect B V Doshi, tempted me to settle in Bengaluru. Being in this profession for the past 30 years, has inspired as well as given me the opportunity to explore myself not only as an architect but also as an artist, a teacher and a painter too. Through these multifaceted roles, I have worked extensively in a whole lot of countries including Mexico, Thailand, Greece and France. Inge Rieck and I found DDIR in 2003. The vision of the studio is based on the integration of architecture and design with art (nature), technology (structure), life (light) and culture (spirit). I am extremely inspired by the creations one could make with concrete.

After graduating with the Bachelor of Architecture degree in 1980 from Montreal, the painter in me stayed alive due to my self-training in visual arts and I divided my passions for six months as a painter and six months as an architect. Back in Canada, I opened a small office with some of my colleagues which also led to a lot of travelling for the next ten years.

When in 1994, I planted my feet for the first time in India, there was no looking back after that. I fell in love with India. My visit to Auroville in 1996, reassured me that after years of travelling I had finally settled down. Recalling those years in Auroville, I remember my most important work in social and public architecture was the seven years I spent there. I admit that B V Doshi, with whom I worked for two years, was one of the most influential architects of my career.

The designer in me believes in minimalism, sophistication and elegance. I am not someone who believes in trends, and I find myself quite excited and curious about technology. My work might appear simpler because there is no clutter in my design. Neat lines and details which are well woven into the main design without overpowering the design, the strength of the space alone without any embellishments and implementation of Corbusier’s Modulor Grid, govern my design. But it is the shaping of the concrete which gives a stamp to all my projects. I have not yet gotten tired of it; I would still like to see more of concrete which I believe changes if you love it. Though I have been in India for the past 20 years, it is my sense of style which has stayed unique and in the essence influenced by the Indian culture, art and architecture.

My firm has garnered accolades too. We won the first international prize for a Low Cost Housing Development in Mexico. Then there was a second prize for the Museum of Modern Art in Montreal; there is a trophy for excellence in design, and a few more awards for residences. Our work has been featured in a lot of publications in Indian as well as international journals. Our work, as I would say, is directly connected with the close environment together with the communion with the world.

I believe it is the artist in me who gives my architectural work an interesting twist or who makes my architecture interesting – the kind of work one would like to see also for the sheer amount of curiosity and innovation one can expect in my designs. My biggest strength as an architect I admit lies in ‘proportions and equilibrium’. So when you ask me as to where I see my firm in the next ten years, you receive another enigmatic answer, ’the world and still happy’.

- Dominic Dube

Indian Architect & Builder - October 2013

DDIR

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Drawings and Writings: courtesy DDIR, Images: courtesy DDIR, Gurunath Chakrasali and Shibu Arakkal

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↑

↑

↑

SKETCH: ENTRANCE SIDE

The Studio.

La Tourette - Le Corbusier.

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â&#x2020;&#x2018;

SKETCH: POOL SIDE

DD: Dominic Dube IA&B: Could you tell us about the beginnings of your practice? You have worked at many centres and with many collaborators. What were your formative years like?

â&#x2020;&#x2018;

Vardharaj Residence - Construction of Porch slab.

DD: There was a great modern architect named Evans St-Gelais who, in the 1960s, was doing churches the way Le Corbusier has done La Chapelle de Ronchamps in France. I had the chance during my schooling in Quebec, Canada to work under him. Even today some of his churches are still standing to our great joy and all of them are in my native place...so to say the influence of St-Gelais on my beginnings...after that few architects, here and there, to acquire the tools and the mind. However, above all, my practice has been during travelling from South America to Europe and Asia...sketching, walking and meditating...then I met with B V Doshi...

Vardharaj Residence - From the upper deck.

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â&#x2020;&#x2018;

â&#x2020;&#x2018;

Vardharaj Residence - The Colonnade.

Vardharaj Residence - The Pool.

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â&#x2020;&#x2018;

â&#x2020;&#x2018;

Vardharaj Residence - The living area.

Vardharaj Residence - View of the bedroom.

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IA&B: You have been working on a variety of projects since a decade. Could you inform us about the philosophical foundation of your studio? What are the fundamental ideas that outline your practice?

DD: We all work on many projects at the same time and that is the beauty of our work, and the last project you have done has to carry what certain people call - 'your philosophy'. Same is the case with my last small project in Coimbatore. The complete outline of what I think in regard to life, beauty and plasticity is in there, when you walk and you receive emotion from your own work, at that very moment you know you are nothing but a medium to manifest. This cannot be more fundamental.

IA&B: Your studio works on a diverse set of issues – issues of design and making. Is there a ‘Process’ or a ‘Method’ that is central to your work? How do you approach your work?

DD: Since two years, I have been participating in a workshop at Kamala School in Mumbai on 'Cultural Influences' and there I could see that what motivates my work is, to live where I live fully, and in doing so, what I do is naturally influenced by the culture of the place. You do not need to copy style; modern or historic, you just need to feel confident and let the flow act on your work.

↑

SKETCH: VERTICAL TRANSITION

Vardharaj Residence - View of pool, bar and living spaces.

Indian Architect & Builder - October 2013

IA&B: Could you tell us about people and things that inspire your work? Masters and/or your mentors, principles etc…What informs and influences your work?

DD: They all influence at the moment when one is in touch with them - architects, designers, poets, artists, philosopher, gardeners and bartenders. The point to understand is that in the flow of life one is always under something/someone who has or will have an impact on one, therefore, that little bit of delicate influence will be visible, even in a very subtle way, in one's work as an architect, and if one does well what one needs to do one will know it as well.

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I could see that what motivates my work, is to live where I live fully, and in doing so what I do is naturally influenced by the culture of the place.

You do not need to copy style; modern or historic, you just need to feel confident and let the flow act on your work.

â&#x2020;&#x2018;

Vardharaj Residence - View from upper deck.

â&#x2020;&#x2018;

Paul-Emile Borduas.

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↑

Vardharaj Residence - Study model.

IA&B: Please tell us about a project that represents your practice – your most important work(s)?

DD: As I said, my last project is capable of showing what my practice is about...So these images and sketches that are of a small residence, where this 'Life Philosophy' has been well manifested in the complete art of architecture.

IA&B: How do you see your practice a decade from now? What are the ‘objectives’ you wish your studio to achieve?

DD: If this last project represents what I believe in, it can be the very last one of my career as well, but I can go ahead for 10 or 50 more years as all is a great chance and opportunity to bring Balance and Harmony to the world we temporarily live in. ↑

Vardharaj Residence - Exposed concrete columns.

Indian Architect & Builder - October 2013

Objectives are to realise that I am a part of it. Nothing more nothing less.

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↑

Vardharaj Residence - Column shuttering with Gurunath, the contractor and Venkhatesh, the fabricator.

Dominic’s work has a poetic quality. Conceptually minimal, it responds to the aesthetic potential of materials and departs from the modernist idiom. With a great command on the way architecture interacts with light, his work has a philosophical inclination towards art. Clean lines, clear and elegant forms, fine material articulations and coherent detailing render his work an idea of beauty. His understanding of materials, their nature and potential informs his architecture. By removing the unnecessary, he attempts to retain the essence of things and their inherent aesthetic.

Owing to a keen interest in art, Dominic’s conceptual drawings have an idea of abstraction – an intuitive grasp of the essential. He works with many mediums to develop his designs and there is a lot of thought to the making of the building.

Experimental methods, alternative materials and an alternative approach to technology validate his architecture. The composition of each project is intricate and there is a level of finesse in the way elements interact within the scheme. His buildings are minimal and expressive.

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vir.mueller architects NEW DELHI

F

ounded in 2003 by us as partners, the office of vir.mueller architects combines architectural research, education, and practice. After completing our professional degrees at Harvard (Mueller) and at Yale (Vir Gupta), we worked on residential and institutional projects in the United States.

Our very first project encompassed research on Golconde, a dormitory for the Sri Aurobindo Ashram in Pondicherry designed by Antonin Raymond and George Nakashima. An exemplary work of early modernist architecture in India, Golconde espouses the virtue of design economy and uncompromising construction standards, and proposes a mode of architectural practice where issues of technology and environment dictate the conception and tenor of the entire design process. We authored the first complete monograph published on this building. The ideal of Gesamtkunstwerk - a complete work of art - that is exemplified by Golconde has thus become the intellectual foundation of every project that our studio undertakes.

While we continue to speculate on the opportunities offered by architectural design, we are convinced that acts of spatial imagination must be tempered with equally seasoned aspirations for construction. Every component of architecture we imagine must then be drawn many times in order to evolve an articulate template for construction. In creating projects with locally available materials and crafted by mainstream construction workers, vir.mueller architects asserts the primacy of construction means and methods as the basis of a contemporary practice. Following stringent standards for drawing and detailing, we are eager to learn from our collaborators onsite - the brick mason, the carpenter and the general contractor. We believe in working closely with our consultants and in embracing sustainability as an engineering mandate in a manner that is inherently elemental. We have learnt that a well-considered and simple structural diagram may create provocative architecture.

We strive to create timeless aesthetic relationships, evoking the spirit of contemporary culture, ecology, and technology. According primacy to the process of design, our work evolves as a response to the particular character of each program, site and budget. At every scale, we emphasise the integrity of material and craftsmanship, establishing a fundamental relationship between the physical environment, and the art of making architecture. We seek to elevate the expectation of the ordinary and create an architecture capable of identity without bombast.

Indian Architect & Builder - October 2013

As humanists, the social and contextual background of our material choices is as important as their aesthetic value. Designing and building thoughtfully are vital to the sustenance of our practice, if only as an antidote to the indifference with which the average Indian regards architecture. We are fearless about adopting anachronistic tendencies whose long-term benefits are considerable; hence, our preference to build with materials expressed in their natural state. We take great pride when our designs empower daily-wage construction workers to consider themselves artisans. Rather than bemoaning rapidly vanishing craft traditions, we are energised by the prospect of elevating standards of construction across the building industry.

The ethos of our studio is to perpetuate to as wide an audience as possible, an alternative means of experiencing architecture.

We would rather design for many than for a select discerning few.

For vir.mueller architects, the act of architecture is also an act of resistance, a refusal to cater to the accepted praxis of design and construction as perceived across the vast landscape of India today.

The idea of citizen architects, who make themselves visible to the public as an educated and informed voice of design-related issues, remains critical to our identity as an architectural design studio.

This philosophy has guided our endeavours in our years of teaching and consulting for public and civic agencies.

We have been fortunate that our work has spanned a range of typologies, scale and context. This has allowed us to redefine for ourselves how the verb to live - encompassing to work, to think, to eat, to play - is actually enacted in space. Every project is an opportunity to explore the relationship between the culture of a place - both physical and material - and its craft traditions. The geographic context of our projects - Boston, Colorado, Udaipur, Delhi, Ahmedabad, Kolkata, and Chandigarh have offered us significant variations in the quality of light, the colour of foliage, the topography of landscape; making us aware of a more pliable sense of the elemental. Our architecture involves discovering the roots of a place through such cues, and routinely extends to galvanising or recharging this context.

A sense of intellectual curiosity and a single-minded belief in design excellence define our studio. We cherish our intimacy with all aspects of design and enjoy the discourse that our collaborations have engendered. Demanding clients, impassioned engineers and careful craftsmen continue to make us better architects.

- Pankaj Vir Gupta + Christine Mueller

vir.mueller architects

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Drawings, Images & Writings: courtesy vir.mueller architects

Front Elevation: Defence Colony Residence, New Delhi.

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↑ Library in Wellesley, Massachusetts.

“Berridge C-Lock standing seam metal roof w/ lead coat finish” over peel & stick self-adhesive, high temperature “Grace Vycor Ultra” roofing membrane over 5” Nailboard insulation over vapor barrier over 2 x Tongue & Groove decking

B.O. BEAM

Laminated beam; see structural dwgs. perfinished bamboo stairs beyond “Berridge Zinc-Coat Board & Batten” metal siding over 30 lb. felt over 5 8 “ plywood sheathing over 2x6 framing w/ R 19 Batt insulation over vapor barrier over 85 “painted G.W.B. insulated wood awning window per schedule T.O. CONC. T.O. FIN. FLOOR outdoor lighting; see electrical dwgs. concrete slab w/ radiant heat; see structural dwgs.

↑ SECTION: LIBRARY IN WELLESLEY, MASSACHUSETTS Indian Architect & Builder - October 2013

continuous vapor barrier (typ.) compacted gravel fill; see structural dwgs.

2” rigid insulation (typ.)

↑ Presentation Model: Library in Wellesley, Massachusetts.

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↑ Lake View: Nicco Park, Masterplan, Kolkata.

10m

25m

45m

↑ SITE PLAN: Nicco Park, Masterplan, Kolkata.

SECTION THROUGH SKY GARDEN: Nicco Park, Masterplan, Kolkata.

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↑ North-West view from the garden: Wolkem India Ltd, Udaipur.

VMA: vir.mueller architects IA&B: Could you tell us about the beginnings of your practice? What were the formative years like? How did your work evolve into a studio?

VMA: Our practice evolved from our interests in teaching and research.

We received a grant from the Graham Foundation in Chicago to research the making of Golconde, the first cast in place concrete building in India.

This was our first project, and our in-depth research of this seminal of modern architecture continues to influence our design practice. We were fortunate to begin building our works at the outset. Even our early works (Library in Wellesley, Townhouse in Boston) gave us direct exposure to the opportunities of construction and the deep relationship between thoughtful design and good building. Our studio has continued to experiment with various aspects of this relationship ever since.

IA&B: You have been working on a variety of projects since a decade. Could you elaborate on the philosophical foundation of your studio? What are the fundamental and core concerns that define your practice?

VMA: The philosophical foundation of vir.mueller architects stems from our desire to forge deep and abiding relationships between all protagonists of an architectural enterprise. For us, the client, the consulting engineers, the craftsmen and contractors at our sites, are all seminal influences in the evolutions of our designs.

IA&B: Your work addresses a multitude of issues – of design, method and thought. Is there a ‘process’ that is central to your work? How do you approach your work?

↑ Staircase: Wolkem India Ltd, Udaipur.

Indian Architect & Builder - October 2013

VMA: Our work reflects a slow process of accretion; in lieu of a single 'big idea', we prefer to elaborate several aspects of architectural design simultaneously. Hence, the orientation of a material in sunlight may be as generative in our design as the volumetric composition of programmatic elements in space.

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↑ View from Front Plaza: Delwara Community Toilets, Delwara.

SYSTEMS DIAGRAM

MATERIALS

Brick Masonry

Precast Screen

Beaten Tin Sheet Roofing

Concrete Frames

Bamboo Roof Truss

Bamboo Roof Mesh

Plastic Drum

↑ SYSTEMS DIAGRAM: Delwara Community Toilets, Delwara.

↑ Model: Delwara Community Toilets, Delwara.

Perhaps our most provocative designs remain unbuilt; the Delwara Public Toilets, Carona Estate in Goa, and the master plan for Nicco Park embody more potential energy than that realised in our built works.

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40mm brick tile coping 50mm brick paving waterproofing and insulation

exposed brick parapet wall

exposed brick masonry wall with silicone treatment double shutter door with glass and insect screen panels 18mm white marble floor exposed edge of balcony R.C.C. slab

20mm polished teak wood threshold wood skirting to match floor

425mm stone skirting exposed R.C.C. slab

engineered wood flooring ‘plaster of paris’ false ceiling with paint

exposed brick masonry wall with silicone treatment

18mm white marble floor

insulated glazing with roll up insect screen shutter in poly urethane coated teak wood frame

↑ Brick Screen Detail: Defence Colony Residence, New Delhi.

exposed brick masonry screen wall

50mm brick paving

exposed brick and R.C.C. retaining wall

85mm drop in R.C.C. slab R.C.C. foundation slab

↑ WALL SECTION: Defence Colony Residence, New Delhi

↑ Staircase: Defence Colony Residence, New Delhi.

Indian Architect & Builder - October 2013

↑ Bedroom: Defence, Colony Residence, New Delhi.

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↑ EAST ELEVATION: Institute of ICT, Ahmedabad.

IA&B: Could you tell us about people and things that inspire your work? Masters and/or your mentors, principles etc . . . What informs and influences your work?

VMA: Contextually appropriate architecture has always been an inspiration. The work of Joseph Allen Stein, Álvaro Siza and Geoffrey Bawa offers an articulate premise for rooting architecture within a cultural and material context.

IA&B: Please tell us about a project that represents your practice – your most important work(s)?

VMA: Perhaps our most provocative designs remain unbuilt; the Delwara Public Toilets, Carona Estate in Goa, and the masterplan for Nicco Park embody more potential energy than that realised in our built works.

IA&B: How do you see your practice a decade from now? What are the ‘objectives’ you wish your studio to achieve?

↑ STRUCTURE: Institute of ICT, Ahmedabad.

VMA: Being seriously engaged in the future of our urban environment remains a persistent preoccupation. We aspire to have much greater synergy with civic and municipal agencies in embedding good design in the DNA of their policy framework.

↑ Courtyard: Institute of ICT, Ahmedabad.

↑ South-East View: Institute of ICT, Ahmedabad.

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↑ EXPLODED AXONOMETRIC VIEW: WOODWALK SHOWROOM, NEW DELHI

↑

Interior View: Woodwalk Showroom, New Delhi.

Indian Architect & Builder - October 2013

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vir.muellerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s architecture draws from the rationale of contemporary means and nuances of the context of their practice.

Layered yet consistent, their designs rely on gradual and considerate processes of development. Through the use of modern materials and building technology, the architecture of vir.mueller is refined. There is a sense of elimination to their designs and subjectivity in the choices they make. The compositional clarity in their work comes from their understanding of structure and form.

Through drawings, visualisations, physical models, detailing and theoretical pursuits, they bring an amount of finesse to their work â&#x20AC;&#x201C; in conception and execution. The physical realisation of desires, forms and spaces are articulate in the way they negotiate material precision. The exploration relies on a simple and structured order of thoughts. Rooted in these fundamentals, it amalgamates all opportunities that come with a site and the programme to ascertain a strong conceptual framework. In their work, vir.mueller makes one very aware of the experience of the built environment. Their spaces reflect this concern as there is a sense of discovery and surprise in the way their architecture reveals itself. The richness is in the restraint.

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Wood Screen: Woodwalk Showroom, New Delhi.

Indian Architect & Builder - October 2013