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How Architects Learn

I recently finished reading a book called “The Architect’s Apprentice” by Elif Shafak. It is a work of fiction set in the historical period of the Mimar Sinan, the chief architect of the Ottoman Empire in the 15 th century. The book contains some real gems for architects, and gives some really good food for thought. One of the things struck me as particularly timeless and relevant. Sinan used to encourage his apprentices to go and study and document great works of other architects. Though they never met, Sinan and Michelangelo shared mutual respect and admiration. In order to gain knowledge, learn and grow, Sinan talks about three “fountains of wisdom” – books, works and roads. “there were three fountains of wisdom from which every artisan should drink abundantly: books, work and roads. Reading, practising and travelling.”  Reading not only about architecture and construction, but allied arts like painting, sculpture, and music, and sciences – astronomy, physics, chemi
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Sustainability of the Architectural Profession

A few days back I was having a conversation with some of my fellow architects. At one point the discussion moved towards the availability of good architectural staff, especially at the junior level. The complaint was that the entry level architects were not industry-ready, and a majority of them lacked the most basic of design and drawing skills. That this lack of availability of required skills in the youngest generation architects is affecting the design and delivery of projects. This is a problem faced by many architecture firms. My argument was, “How much time and energy are architecture firms investing in training and teaching their junior architects? How many architecture firms today have a culture of mentoring?” The counter-argument to that was, “We don’t have the time to train, teach and mentor.” Well then can you guess who’s losing out here? For the benefit of the profession, and for the firms themselves, architectural firms should rethink the way they operate and create a
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Mass Production for Mass Housing

For everyone, their home is their palace, and they are the kings and queens of their own little palaces. But if we start making palaces for everyone, we will only be building castles in the air. The urgent need of the hour is to build more houses, with fewer resources, in the quickest time, for the many seeking a pucca house. We will need to create a paradigm shift in the way we design, engineer and construct social housing in India. If we continue to construct our houses and apartment buildings like we have being doing since the past three decades, it will be impossible to reach our intended target anytime in the foreseeable future. There can be much learned product design and manufacture, including car manufacture. Some of the key aspects that can be directly transferred to house construction are: Modularity: Modularity is a design approach that sub-divides a system into smaller components that can be replicated, scaled, and used in groups or independently. Modularity
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Low Cost, not Low Design

(image source: www.urbanland.uli.org) Housing is one of the most important elements of urban development. The current focus on affordable housing in India presents numerous challenges and opportunities at the same time. The housing shortage is growing at more than 6%, and is projected to reach 34 million units by 2022. With high demand, limited resources and time running out, the challenges are obvious. It also cannot be denied that great challenges come with great opportunities. The opportunities and challenges of affordable housing demand innovative solutions from everyone involved – architects, engineers, contractors, developers, and the government. This also presents a unique opportunity to Architects in India to develop design solutions that are unique to the current Indian context. The Architecture fraternity should not miss out on this opportunity to create an impact. There is a generally accepted assumption that affordability is a policy issue, and not a design issue
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Affordable Housing in India

There is fresh new opportunity for developers, architects, engineers and contractors in India, in the form of Affordable Housing. With a 1.9 Crore (19 million) shortage in urban housing, there is a huge gap that needs to be bridged. The market demand for affordable housing had already existed, but due to absence of an enabling regulatory framework and policies, developers shied away from the sector. The present Central government has formulated several changes in the form of incentives and tax breaks in the Union budget to address the bottlenecks. The primary changes are: 1.      Infrastructure status to the affordable housing sector – This allows the developers to raise funds at lower interest rates. 2.      The maximum permissible size of the apartments was increased to 60 sq.m. of carpet area. 3.      The time limit for completing the projects was increased from three years to five years. 4.      100% deduction of income tax from profits from affordable housin
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Water Sensitive Urban Design

(source: CIRIA) Water has been integral to the evolution of cities. Yet, today water does not find a central place in the planning and design of our cities. Many Indian cities are facing a water crisis in some form or the other. Development and urbanization disturbs the natural water cycle, and creates a stress on the supply-demand equilibrium. In terms of water, cities are grappling with the issues of water shortage, flooding and water course pollution. In spite some areas being flooded every year claiming loss of life and property in urban areas, numerous other villages face drought, forcing many farmers towards destitution and suicide. Water has become a risk to be managed rather than an asset and opportunity. To bring back the focus on water in Indian cities, the need of the hour is for urban planners, urban designers, architects, engineers, landscape designers, hydrologists, environmentalists and ecologists to come together to develop strategies and plans to conserve
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Smart Cities and the Mango People

The Government is making massive efforts to set the ball rolling on the Smart Cities program in India. ULBs are gearing up and creating SPVs and hiring consultants to make their pitch, and access the funds. Much seems to be happening in the background. Self-proclaimed "Smart City Gurus" seem to have sprung out of nowhere, and others are clamoring to get into the scene. International consultants, IT companies and Management wallahs have all jumped onto the bandwagon to make Indian cities "Smart". But if you ask the man on the street about "Smart Cities", he will either give you a blank stare or utter something which is merely an aspect of the concept of Smart Cities. And you will experience the same reaction when conversing with a qualified Architect, Urban Planner or Urban Designer. That, or you might end up in an endless, pointless debate. The point is, in all this brouhaha where does the common-man-on-the-street fit in? Is he a part of this wav
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