Tuesday, 31 October 2017
Monday, 30 October 2017
101 Things I learned in Architecture School
6
Space planning is the organization or arranging of spaces to accommodate functional needs.
Space planning is a crucial skill for an architect, but arranging spaces to meet functional requirements explains only a little of what architects do. A space planner addresses the functional problem of fitting a building on its site; an architect is also concerned with the meaning of a site and its buildings. A space planner creates functional square footage for office workers; an architect considers the nature of the work performed in the office environment, its meaning to the workers, and its value to society. A space planner provides spaces for playing basketball, performing laboratory experiment, manufacturing widgets, or staging theatrical productions; an architect imbues the experience of these places with poignancy, richness, fun, beauty and irony.
101 Things I learned in Architecture School
7
Architecture begins with an idea.
Good design solution are not merely physically interesting but are driven by underlying ideas. An idea is a specific mental structure by which we organize, understand and give meaning to external experiences and information. Without underlying ideas informing their buildings, architects are merely space planners. Space planning with decoration applied to "dress it up" is not architecture; architecture resides in the DNA of a building, in an embedded sensibility that infuses its whole.
Sunday, 29 October 2017
Two world-class, self-taught medicine men, confident they had the talent to do it all
"I've always wanted to design a building- tell me, is it very difficult?", Picasso said to which Corbusier replied: "No! It's easy! Come to my atelier tomorrow and I will show you how."
Although Corbusier saw himself primarily as a painter, no one of his statures had ever designed to visit one of his painting exhibitions. So he went up to Picasso and they started this extraordinary conversation.
Corbusier's confidence is understandable. After all, hadn't he taught himself architecture-and become the most celebrated and influential architect of the century? And rightly so- for his natural gifts for architecture were so sensational, he could understand effortlessly what needed to be done. That is to say, he was a great sculptor who understood that architecture is sculpture, but with the gestures of human occupation as an integral part of the abstraction.
Although Corbusier saw himself primarily as a painter, no one of his statures had ever designed to visit one of his painting exhibitions. So he went up to Picasso and they started this extraordinary conversation.
Corbusier's confidence is understandable. After all, hadn't he taught himself architecture-and become the most celebrated and influential architect of the century? And rightly so- for his natural gifts for architecture were so sensational, he could understand effortlessly what needed to be done. That is to say, he was a great sculptor who understood that architecture is sculpture, but with the gestures of human occupation as an integral part of the abstraction.
'Celebrating Chandigarh' symposium, Chandigarh, 2002
Unfortunately, Corbusier did not possess the same God-given gifts when it came to city planning- as perhaps he himself finally realized. So when Chandigarh came along, he reverted back to what he understood best: Architecture! for the next few years, he devoted himself to the Capitol complex (always sketched against the foothills of the Himalayas, so that his life comes full cycle back to the paradigm of the Parthenon). The rest of the city he left to the lesser mortals, viz., Jeanneret, Fry and Drew.
But when you look at the great iconic drawing of the master plan of Chandigarh that adorned so many architectural and planning offices during that period, you don't sense any of this. Because you get the scale wrong! Each sector looks like a delightful miniature world, brilliantly interconnected with the rest of the tapestry- east-west through the shopping street, and north-south through the generous greens. Nothing could be further from the truth. Each sector lives in sad isolation, cut off from its neighbours on all four sides by the V.3 roads, and by the high brick walls that run along the periphery. The result is a city of very separate rooms, a zenana city, lacking the interaction- and the synergy- that we love about our city.
Obviously, if Chandigarh was just the city itself, nobody would ever have bothered to go there. It is the buildings of Corbusier that have attracted architects from all over the world. And rightly so. Although more than fifty years of imitation should have irrevocably devalued its architecture, a visit to the Capitol Complex is still a stunning experience.
But when you look at the great iconic drawing of the master plan of Chandigarh that adorned so many architectural and planning offices during that period, you don't sense any of this. Because you get the scale wrong! Each sector looks like a delightful miniature world, brilliantly interconnected with the rest of the tapestry- east-west through the shopping street, and north-south through the generous greens. Nothing could be further from the truth. Each sector lives in sad isolation, cut off from its neighbours on all four sides by the V.3 roads, and by the high brick walls that run along the periphery. The result is a city of very separate rooms, a zenana city, lacking the interaction- and the synergy- that we love about our city.
Obviously, if Chandigarh was just the city itself, nobody would ever have bothered to go there. It is the buildings of Corbusier that have attracted architects from all over the world. And rightly so. Although more than fifty years of imitation should have irrevocably devalued its architecture, a visit to the Capitol Complex is still a stunning experience.
The Public, The Private
We live in the world of manifest phenomena. Yet, since the beginning of time, man has intuitively sensed the existence of another world: a non-manifest world whose presence underlies-and makes endurable-the one he experiences every day. The principal vehicles through which we explore and communicate our notions of this non-manifest world are religion, philosophy and the arts. Like these, architecture is generated by mythic beliefs, expressing the presence of a reality more profound than the manifest world in which it exists.
In India, these beliefs are all-pervading, They surface everywhere since they are not confined to formal art and philosophy but thrive in popular incarnations as well.
In India, these beliefs are all-pervading, They surface everywhere since they are not confined to formal art and philosophy but thrive in popular incarnations as well.
And the Sacred
When we look at human society across history and around the planet, the Sacred is perhaps the most important realm of all, for it expresses the invisible passions that move us. Although there is much discussion among social theorists, architects, planners, and others, about the public and the private realms that constitute our habitat, there is hardly any attention paid to, the Sacred Realm.
The chocolates are delicious, the scenery is beautiful, but it is not quite the same. To the Japanese, Mount Fuji is sacred; to the Swiss, Mont Blanc is just a very high mountain. This difference is of decisive importance to their architecture and to their lives.
Of course, by sacred, one does not mean only the religious but the primordial as well. Religion is perhaps the most facile path to the world of the non-manifest, but it is not the only one. In fact, as Europe has increasingly distanced itself from religion over the last two centuries, the primordial has become a fecund source of mythic. This is why Picasso and Matisse in their painting, Stravinsky in his music and Le Corbusier in his architecture, intuitively searched out the primitive. They wanted to find the Sacred.
The chocolates are delicious, the scenery is beautiful, but it is not quite the same. To the Japanese, Mount Fuji is sacred; to the Swiss, Mont Blanc is just a very high mountain. This difference is of decisive importance to their architecture and to their lives.
Of course, by sacred, one does not mean only the religious but the primordial as well. Religion is perhaps the most facile path to the world of the non-manifest, but it is not the only one. In fact, as Europe has increasingly distanced itself from religion over the last two centuries, the primordial has become a fecund source of mythic. This is why Picasso and Matisse in their painting, Stravinsky in his music and Le Corbusier in his architecture, intuitively searched out the primitive. They wanted to find the Sacred.
Another fertile breeding ground for sacred is Nature. There is something intrinsically awesome in mountain ranges like the Himalayas, and in great seas and oceans, that triggers the metaphysical in us, and turn our thoughts toward the non-manifest. Certainly, the love of the English for their landscape and their sensitivity to itis arguably one of the most mythic and sacred of their values. And in Scandinavia, the wellspring of the metaphysical is not only the landscape but also climate- hence the dark winters of Sweden reflected in the brooding film of Ingmar Bergman, with their epic struggles of good and evil. So also for us here in India, the word 'Akash' conveys much more than just 'sky'. To walk on a seashore in the evening, or to cross a dessert and arrive at a house built around a courtyard, is an extraordinary experience. At such a moment, subtle responses are set off in our minds, responses conditioned by thousands of generations of life on this planet. Perhaps they are the half-forgotten memories of a primordial landscape, of a paradise, lost.
In any event, these spaces, open to the sky, condition to our perceptions very powerfully, bringing a sense of the ineffable into our lives. Thus while the symbol of education in North America is the little red school house, in India it is the Guru sitting under the peepal tree. Not only is the image of Lord Buddha under the peepal tree more sensible than the idea of sitting in a stuffy room, it is also far more conducive to enlightenment.
In any event, these spaces, open to the sky, condition to our perceptions very powerfully, bringing a sense of the ineffable into our lives. Thus while the symbol of education in North America is the little red school house, in India it is the Guru sitting under the peepal tree. Not only is the image of Lord Buddha under the peepal tree more sensible than the idea of sitting in a stuffy room, it is also far more conducive to enlightenment.
iNViSiBiLiA
Mankind has always been fascinated with the invisible, the unknown, the unknowable. Perhaps, as the economist E.F Schumacher has pointed out, this reflects hierarchy we experience in the very process of living, as we move along the natural progression from stone to plant to animal to a human being.
Stones are, by our definition, no more than the material they comprise. Plants, consist of physical materials, with a new entity added- life!- and the journey towards the invisible has begun. Animal consist of materials, plus life, plus motivation. With humankind, there is yet another entity- self-awareness- which puts us in the world of unseen. For everything essential in our fellow human beings- their thoughts, emotions, aspirations, fantasies- are invisible to us. These 'invisibilia' are of infinitely greater power and significance than the visibilia of everyday life.
Man, since the very beginning of time, has always sensed the presence of the invisible- and has used the most materialistic elements, like stone and earth, steel and the concrete, to express the invisible- and paradoxically has used compulsive myths that obsess him. In India, the mythic beliefs that generate the deep structure of built-form go back thousand of years. Since according to Vedic thoughts, the world we see is only part of our existence, the forms and events we perceive are significant merely to the extent that they help us understand the non-manifest layers that lie beneath.
Stones are, by our definition, no more than the material they comprise. Plants, consist of physical materials, with a new entity added- life!- and the journey towards the invisible has begun. Animal consist of materials, plus life, plus motivation. With humankind, there is yet another entity- self-awareness- which puts us in the world of unseen. For everything essential in our fellow human beings- their thoughts, emotions, aspirations, fantasies- are invisible to us. These 'invisibilia' are of infinitely greater power and significance than the visibilia of everyday life.
Man, since the very beginning of time, has always sensed the presence of the invisible- and has used the most materialistic elements, like stone and earth, steel and the concrete, to express the invisible- and paradoxically has used compulsive myths that obsess him. In India, the mythic beliefs that generate the deep structure of built-form go back thousand of years. Since according to Vedic thoughts, the world we see is only part of our existence, the forms and events we perceive are significant merely to the extent that they help us understand the non-manifest layers that lie beneath.
SECRET OF SUCCESS
Millions of people look at the achievement of HENRY FORD, after he has arrived, and envy him, because of his good fortune, or luck, or genius, or whatever it is that they credit for Ford's fortune. perhaps one person in every hundred thousand knows the secret of Ford's success, and those who do know are too modest, or too reluctant, to speak of it, because of its simplicity.
A few years back, Ford decides to produce his now famous V-8 motor. He chose to build an engine with the entire eight cylinders cast in one block and instructed his engineers to produce a design for the engine. The design was placed on the paper, but the engineers agreed, to a man, that it was simply impossible to cast an eight cylinder gas engine block in one piece.
Ford said, "Produce it anyway."
"But," they replied, "it's impossible!"
"Go ahead," Ford commanded, "and stay on the job until you succeed no matter how much time is required."
The engineers went ahead. There was nothing else for them to do if they were to remain on the ford staff. Six months went by, nothing happened. Another six months passed, and still, nothing happened. The engineers tried every conceivable plan to carry out the orders, but the thing seemed out of the question; "impossible!"
At the end of the year, Ford checked with his engineers, and again they informed him they had found no way to carry out his orders.
"Go right ahead," said Ford, "I want it, and I'll have it."
They went ahead, and then as if by a stroke of magic, the secret was discovered.
The Ford DETERMINATION had won once more!
Henry Ford is a success, Because he understands, and applies the principles of success. One of these is DESIRE: knowing what one wants.
A few years back, Ford decides to produce his now famous V-8 motor. He chose to build an engine with the entire eight cylinders cast in one block and instructed his engineers to produce a design for the engine. The design was placed on the paper, but the engineers agreed, to a man, that it was simply impossible to cast an eight cylinder gas engine block in one piece.
Ford said, "Produce it anyway."
"But," they replied, "it's impossible!"
"Go ahead," Ford commanded, "and stay on the job until you succeed no matter how much time is required."
The engineers went ahead. There was nothing else for them to do if they were to remain on the ford staff. Six months went by, nothing happened. Another six months passed, and still, nothing happened. The engineers tried every conceivable plan to carry out the orders, but the thing seemed out of the question; "impossible!"
At the end of the year, Ford checked with his engineers, and again they informed him they had found no way to carry out his orders.
"Go right ahead," said Ford, "I want it, and I'll have it."
They went ahead, and then as if by a stroke of magic, the secret was discovered.
The Ford DETERMINATION had won once more!
Henry Ford is a success, Because he understands, and applies the principles of success. One of these is DESIRE: knowing what one wants.
_Napoleon Hill
"I bargained with Life for a penny,
And Life would pay no more,
However, I begged at evening
When I counted my scanty store.
For Life is just employer,
He gives you what you ask,
But once you have set the wages,
Why you bear the task.
I worked for a menial's hire,
Only to learn dismayed,
That any wage I had asked of Life,
Life would have willingly paid."
THREE FEET FROM GOLD
An uncle of R.U.Darby was caught by the "gold fever" in the gold-rush days, and went west to DIG AND GROW RICH. He had never heard that more gold has been mined from the brains of men than has ever been taken from the earth. He staked a claim and went to work with pick and shovel. The going was hard, but his lust for gold was definite.
After weeks of labor, he was rewarded by the discovery of the shining ore. He needed machinery to bring the ore to the surface. Quietly, he covered up the mine, retraced his footsteps to his home in Williamsburg, Maryland, told his relatives and few neighbors of the 'strike'. They got together money for the needed machinery, had it shipped. The uncle and Darby went back to work the mine.
The first car of ore was mined, and shipped to a smelter. The returns proved they had one of the richest mines in Colorado! A few more cars of that ore would clear the debts. Then would come the big killing in profits.
Down went the drills! Up went the hopes of Darby and Uncle! Then something happened! The vein of the gold ore disappeared! They had come to the end of rainbow, and the pot of the gold was no longer there! They drilled on,desperately trying to pick up the vein again-all to no avail. Finally they decided to QUIT. They sold the machinery to the junk man for a few hundred dollars, and took the train back home. Some junk men are dumb, but not this one! He called in a mining engineer to look at the mine and do a little calculating. The engineer advised that the project had failed, because the owners were not familiar with the "fault lines". His calculations showed that the vein would be found just three feet from where the Darby's had stopped drilling! That is exactly where it was found.
After weeks of labor, he was rewarded by the discovery of the shining ore. He needed machinery to bring the ore to the surface. Quietly, he covered up the mine, retraced his footsteps to his home in Williamsburg, Maryland, told his relatives and few neighbors of the 'strike'. They got together money for the needed machinery, had it shipped. The uncle and Darby went back to work the mine.
The first car of ore was mined, and shipped to a smelter. The returns proved they had one of the richest mines in Colorado! A few more cars of that ore would clear the debts. Then would come the big killing in profits.
Down went the drills! Up went the hopes of Darby and Uncle! Then something happened! The vein of the gold ore disappeared! They had come to the end of rainbow, and the pot of the gold was no longer there! They drilled on,desperately trying to pick up the vein again-all to no avail. Finally they decided to QUIT. They sold the machinery to the junk man for a few hundred dollars, and took the train back home. Some junk men are dumb, but not this one! He called in a mining engineer to look at the mine and do a little calculating. The engineer advised that the project had failed, because the owners were not familiar with the "fault lines". His calculations showed that the vein would be found just three feet from where the Darby's had stopped drilling! That is exactly where it was found.
Saturday, 28 October 2017
SPATIAL NARRATIVES
Architecture is a celebration of life. The manifestation of an idea, it encodes messages and emotes feelings. Architecture communicates through spatial tools, whether they be the space sequence and their organization; elements of space making and their scale and form; or the symbolism of surface articulation.The effectivity of the communication depends as much on the easy comprehension of the encoded messages as their appropriate compliance in built form.
Communication takes place at three levels - sensorial, experiential and associational. Sensorial perception refers primarily to the physiological comfort accrued from physical resolution
Experiential aspect of communication is also universal, but the perception through this experience differs vastly as this aspect deals critically with the mental and emotional status of the perceiver.
The associational communication is a locale-specific perception requiring pre-conditioning and familiarity with the context. It creates spiritual bonds and succeeds through in-depth understanding of cultural connotations.
Communication takes place at three levels - sensorial, experiential and associational. Sensorial perception refers primarily to the physiological comfort accrued from physical resolution
Experiential aspect of communication is also universal, but the perception through this experience differs vastly as this aspect deals critically with the mental and emotional status of the perceiver.
The associational communication is a locale-specific perception requiring pre-conditioning and familiarity with the context. It creates spiritual bonds and succeeds through in-depth understanding of cultural connotations.
Architecture is magnificent because it deals with the recessions of the mind...with that which is not yet said,and which is not yet made.
Architecture is not a queue in which we all have to line up, with perhaps Americans ahead, or Chinese behind. No, each of us have the opportunity to be on the cutting-edge of where we live. No one else can do that. It's up to us to understand that opportunity.
Architecture is not a queue in which we all have to line up, with perhaps Americans ahead, or Chinese behind. No, each of us have the opportunity to be on the cutting-edge of where we live. No one else can do that. It's up to us to understand that opportunity.
In Architecture, vision is the primary sense of perception. The inferred messages through perceived visual frames can guide and dictate behaviour
Space is conceived and perceived on the basis of movement through it. The journey, the process of moving through space, in itself becomes the event. The time gap required for the deconditioning of the previous and the preconditioning for the next is taken care of within the dimensions of the current space. This gradual unfolding of spaces creates a sense of curiosity within the visitors and involves them in process.
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