Five lessons

Snehal Shah

As part of the riBA Part three examination in London in 1985, i was required to write an essay on why i wanted to become an architect. i recall vividly what i wrote, after some soul-searching to express an honest answer. that essay informed my later distillation of the basis for practice to five lessons.

these lessons are crucial and integral to our practice.

the essay began with a confession: i had not heard of the riBA before completing Part One as a student in Ahmedabad.

i passed the Part three exam to become a registered architect.

one: learnIng from maSterS and gUrUS

Ahmedabad is dominant on the world map of architecture only because Le corbusier and Louis Kahn built fine buildings here, and Frank Lloyd Wright designed a project that was not built. As a boy, i remember seeing these buildings, not knowing who designed them yet wondering how those forms were dreamed up.

My father gave me a Meccano set and i began spending more time constructing things than playing in the street. Unfortunately, i could not exclusively keep the set for very long as my younger sister had other plans for it.

then when i was about seven our local architect entered my life. My father engaged him to build an institute. he always arrived with beautifully rendered perspective drawings, but one day to my surprise he left behind a clutch pencil, which i had not encountered before. to me it was a pen only for drawing that never needs sharpening.

the prayer hall of my secondary school was also significant. i would look at the hall, convinced that it was the space and the light that made this time of morning prayer interesting. to my friends it was simply a hall resembling a corridor, yet i resolved to build a hall like this one day.

So those images of the buildings by Kahn and corbu, my Meccano constructions, the local architect’s models and especially his clutch pencil, and the prayer hall of my school all drew me towards the decision to become an architect.

i did not realise then that although being an architect has many satisfactions and pleasures, it is extremely difficult to make good architecture. As interesting a profession as it is, architecture is equally painful; it is tough to continue for years maintaining zeal and energy in the face of many obstacles and disappointments. When a building is completed, it leaves you even greedier to achieve still better architecture. But no matter how hard you work, the result seems fragmented rather than whole, always falling short of your original ideas. even after 25 years, i am still learning and do not yet understand enough. Knowledge of making still seems only rudimentary. With each new project, i experience pain when first putting pencil to paper: what should be the appropriate mode of thinking? Perhaps this pain is the reason we develop several alternatives for every project, even after we already have a good sound concept that matches the brief. We examine alternative concepts and work up developed schemes with drawings and models. in the initial discussions with clients and later with consultants, many things crop up, both anticipated and unexpected. having already analysed several design propositions, we can be flexible, lateral and incorporate new criteria as the project progresses.

On learning from masters, the work of Mario Botta has been fundamentally inspiring. in the studio, Botta often discussed the design process. he demonstrated the strength of negative and positive, and how one carves form from singular mass. When carved, the solid, geometrical mass becomes even more powerful, fragmented yet at the same time complete.

Botta reinvented the crucial element of the brise-soleil, used widely by Le corbusier, in the tcS building at Noida (on which we worked as associate architects). he developed an innovative way to deal with the indian climate.

Another inspiration, Balkrishna Doshi, designs both strict and informal works, a rich and paradoxical formal expressive palette.

My professor, Anant raje, showed me how to look critically at architecture and to see how the masters achieved their designs.

i am always learning, and lessons are always available. Making architecture requires more than intellect and experience; it depends on imagination too. imagination must be fed and nurtured, and often inspiration comes from masters and gurus, past and present. each project is a journey of discovery.

facing: Brise-soleil cut south light and form planting boxes that help ensure the studio is free of glare. Behind the fins, the open facade admids light and ventilation.

tWo: learnIng from hIStory

there are not textbooks for architecture like there are for medicine and accountancy. two plus two always makes four; but architecture entails inspiration and synergy, meaning that a resolution can be either minus or plus but never exactly four. Why so?

While studying at cePt and the AA, i wondered about the temples, mosques and other buildings from the past i visited, initially unaware of their impact on me. even now, i am struck with awe by how amazing, wonderful and meaningful many historical structures are. the more i visit them, even though many are in a ruined state, the more i discover. they are like trees standing tall through the extremes of time and weather, giving shelter to all and lessons to anyone who enquires. i wonder too what it does to me when i occupy and move through the ruined spaces: i become charged, or i forget everything else. My wife jokes that i forget to eat, drink and sleep when i travel to visit these structures, which i do several times a year, just to marvel even if i do not always understand them. Visiting buildings of history has allowed me to see many things. One is an image of the ruin, which fascinated architects during the neoclassical period. however, for me the fragmented image is of something that looks complete yet is incomplete. it is a quality we try to invest our projects with: to make buildings like ruins. Unconsciously perhaps, our projects are imbued with making a building complete while maintaining a fragmented aesthetic.

the ruins of Palmyra and the temples of Kiradu – both in the middle of desert – look complete and yet they are in ruins. At the Kund vav of Dedadra, a stepwell with temples surrounding it, and in the courtyards of the Alhambra – both where architecture is composed around the central element of water – you wonder whether it is the water or the buildings that are primary.

Which historical building has taught me the most? they cannot be ranged in chronological or typological order. their influence come and go, making one initial impression, then often fading and returning with redoubled intensity.

facing: Lessons of repetition, rhythm and balance inform this perspective, finding completion in the reflections of the floor.

three: ClImate

Perhaps the most crucial lesson offered by history is response to climate. People now talk about green buildings and sustainable architecture and critical regionalism. Architecture, past and present, is validated by an appropriate response to climate and location, which amounts to all these things.

No one in past centuries while designing a building thought to themselves: i will only make a building that is climatically responsive. Yet historical and vernacular buildings have always adhered to practical and aesthetic architectural principles developed to answer the great implacable forces of climate, place and nature.

climate remains a constant primary design consideration. in designing buildings, architects need to develop imaginative responses to both the ordinary and extraordinary impacts of climate – and changing climate. Often they need to go no further than to look to the proven, refined architectural lessons of the past.

the multi-storeyed historical pol houses of Ahmedabad are a constant personal inspiration, built around a central courtyard atrium, giving light and ventilation to the interiors as well as comfortable sheltered external living places, and ensuring security and privacy. the colonial verandah also provides comfortable living spaces between indoors and outdoors, differently oriented yet climatically appropriate. these elements have their modern counterparts in our designs. A lesson in the importance of the sun is delivered by the differing orientations of two stepwells, both built in the 16th century at more or less at the same time and close to each other in Ahmedabad, one commissioned by a hindu queen and other by a Muslim courtly lady. the Bai harir stepwell is oriented north-south, while the rudabai stepwell is oriented east-west. At Bai harir, the north-facing deep well is almost never in shadow, direct sunlight penetrating the space and enhancing the exquisite well shaft with cheerful light. the rudabai stepwell is mostly experienced in shadow and thus the space is less vivid. So we learn that it is preferable to orient a long building north-south. An example is the tcS Garima Park building, where the quality of light of the main atrium and ancillary spaces is vivid and life-enhancing.

But if for some reason it is not possible to take advantage of the sun in this way, with a site that is oriented east-west, then we carve out spaces to make areas that face north and south, and use borrowed light.

Light takes many forms: direct, indirect, borrowed. it streams through sky lights, and clerestories, or is filtered by louvres, brise-soleil, screens and baffles. it is the foremost design concern.

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DADAHARI STEP WELL , AHMEDABAD PLAN above: the bold, abstracted tracery punched into a sinuous masonry wall ensures the interior is kept free of glare yet enjoys breezes and light. in hot, arid western india, stone is an appropriate material for the harsh climate. its durability speaks of architectural authority.

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foUr: learnIng throUgh empIrICISm

i have presented our work in Sri Lanka, israel, Switzerland, italy, hong Kong, china and the USA. in discussions afterwards, students often ask, how do you make money? Or perhaps, how do you become famous? My reply is, please do the work and the money will follow. the biggest reward is not the fee but the satisfaction of standing in front of a building when it is finished and the client says, i like it; and you also tell yourself, yes it works – even though, inevitably, it falls short of what you had envisaged. that is the biggest reward.

each work follows from the previous projects in an empirical chain of gathering knowledge, information, experience. there is often a desire to take an idea further in the next project, even though the site and program might be different. the essence of an idea is impartial and immortal: it never dies or becomes stale. it can develop, mature, transform. history shows that the different architectural styles – whether renaissance, Gothic, chalukyan, Kakatian or Moghul – distil an idea that produces buildings for decades and sometimes centuries.

We learn as we go along, from the first brickwork house to the latest house in stone, using the material without any surface treatment, simply as stone. We learn by doing, either working at the site or on the drawing board.

the courtyard at the centre of the single-family house is a crucial space. Somehow, we still have not been able to master the size, shape and proportioning of this element as gracefully as the pol houses of Ahmedabad. One hundred and fifty years ago, many were built, though we do not have information about who designed them and the circumstances in which they were built. What were the precise criteria governing the street patterns and the size and configuration of the courtyards open to the sky? With modern life, it is necessary to cover over this space to prevent rain from entering. We have designed covered courtyards but never to our complete satisfaction: a square plan in the centre of the house; one longer on the south side; one carved out aligning west-east (governed by site constraints) – yet none captures the essence of the pol house courtyard. this is an element we are still learning to master empirically.

above: As a designer, i seek to create spaces that are well lit and structurally meaningful. A consistent design strategy is carving into a volume, working with the material and exploiting its tectonic potential.

fIve: learnIng from mIStakeS

there are good mistakes and there are bad mistakes. the only way you can really judge which is which, is over time. Unfortunately, that time is not set; it can take three months or in one case for us, nine years.

We made a good mistake when designing interiors in having to stay with turnkey projects from initial design to completion, even though this meant giving up several large commissions. it was a question of integrity. At the time our failure to take on the larger projects and abandon a small work was seen by some colleagues as a mistake. But we found out that we must work and run the practice with integrity.

india is no different from other countries where developers and property manipulators work hand-in-glove with municipal building authorities to stack cities and suburbs with buildings copied from the West, with mirror-glass facades and imitation of American malls. Unfortunately, they make it very difficult for anyone to get buildings approved that present a different urban model based on climate and context using a wider palette of materials.

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D6 D9 D6 With a changing india, we had to work with multinational organisations and adopt their vocabulary (which we now know to be unnecessary): value engineering, sustainability, user-friendly, etc. in fact, these are mere words. ‘Sustainability’ is fundamental for every building. We know this from the study of vernacular architecture that has endured for hundreds of years. the great modernists of the 20th century – Le corbusier, Louis Kahn, carlo Scarpa or Alvar Aalto – never used these words.

We were carried away during one project and understood only later that what matter are space, light, structure.

Architecture is a permanent form of art. the strength and durability of stone allow this. it is important to learn – and to relearn from history – how to work with masonry. Our learning has also taken place in the quarry where we go to understand particular characteristics of stone we are thinking of using. We have made mistakes for not fully understanding stone. Perhaps it takes a lifetime of close observation of the ways stone is assembled to fully appreciate its physical, structural and aesthetic potential.

We use stone a lot. For a temple, we were able to make all the walls in solid stone.

For a shrine, we could only skin the surface with stone. On other buildings we have used stone for the entire cladding, or in combination with reinforced concrete as the base material. roofs and courtyards are other elements where persistent learning comes often UNFIN.TOP OF PARAPET LVL +29100 +27900 through making good mistakes, or at least by failing to fully realise an ideal – UNFIN.TERRACE LVL but grasping awareness nevertheless. in learning how best to make a sloping roof over a volume, a building that touched me is the Gandhi Ashram in Ahmedabad, the design surely inspired by Gandhi himself. We attempted to FIN.SIXTH FLOOR LVL +24000 recreate the slope and technically we succeeded; yet we did not capture the absolute essence of the Gandhi exemplar. it is an empirical process eventually perfected through making mistakes. FIN.FIFTH FLOOR LVL +20000

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above: the courtyard in a vernacular pol house is almost perfect. it operates as a central social space for the family. it is climatically tuned, mitigating heat and admitting light, and proportionally it is a pleasing space to occupy. We strive to emulate the lessons of the pol courtyard and fall short of achieving its effortless functionality and spatial character.

facing: Skylights and courtyards ranging in scale from domestic to institutional