Lack of Studio Space

Jay Murthy | UBD20065

Potential Reasons behind this Issue

Being a Faculty of Design Student, I can think of one reason applying to us:

The FD building was built years ago only for the Bach of Interior Design Program However since the past 4 years, the university has introduced another program (Bach. in Design) which falls under FD. This means while the building was design for Interior Programmes, it is being used by students of two programmes.

The introduction of the new programme led to the intake of 30-40% more students in FD, while the addition of more courses meant there are more teachers fighting for an empty classroom. This is why spaces meant for a single class are being divided for two classes simultaneously

Gathering a force behind the cause

From the knowledge gained from our creative leadership classes, I realized that a group of 4 students will go nowhere in solving such a wide issue in a huge institution like CEPT. Thus, we needed a way to reach out to students and see if the problems we identified resonate with them - so we can take the initiative forward.

To achieve this, I have created a Google Survey which we will send out to as many students as possible, which will give us valuable insights on what they think about this issue and if they’re willing to get behind this cause.

Survey results till date

Potential Solution

Since studios and electives/mandates are not held in the same classes, various studios can have alternating “studio” days so they both don’t clash in classrooms on the same day. As one studio will be doing the elective/mandate on that day. As increasing the building size and infrastructure is very costly, long term and will involve several high level stakeholders, a slight shift in schedules seems like a quick and effect solution

Challenges faced

• Initial understanding of nature of the task - our group started forming and storming individually and not as a team which led to decreased effectiveness of work and progress.

• In the early weeks, communication was a challenge as the team did not set norms of discussion sessions which led to lack of coordination.

• Getting adequate amounts of survey responses was a challenge as I was unable to plan of to effectively distribute it through various CEPT student communication channels.

Capturing the issue

Studio spaces are lacking an appropriate facility of lockers.

The tables do have lockers but some of them are locked anonymously and are inaccessible. On the other hand some of the tables do have a drawer to lock. In architect students have a lot of their belongings which are expensive and need to be taken care of.

Their daily work includes sheets of different sizes, sketchbooks, stationeries, digital essentials etc. These things require an adequate locker facility with safety.

Studio spaces are not enough for the students to keep their things with safety and security.