Gestalt and Architecture December 15, 2009
Posted by ArchitectureLive! in Design.Tags: Architecture, composition, continuity, figure and ground, Gestalt, proximity, similarity, visual
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Gestalt, is a German word meaning ’shape’ or it may als0 be referred to ‘whole’. Gestalt emphasizes upon tendencies of people to simplify the visuals or organise the elements in groups, or look at these as ‘one whole’. Gestalt uses simple principles to explain these human tendencies of perceiving the objects or visual elements.
Similarity, proximity, figure and ground, closure and continuity are the principles that Gestalt theory talks about. I will catch with all these one by one. Starting with similarity in this post,
1. Similarity
This occurs when objects in a group have similar qualities like similar shapes, similar sizes or similar colours. The similarity within these objects make the composition look one or whole. Look at the example below:
Similarity by shape:
The elements in the picture have similar shapes, but different colours and sizes. This similarity in shapes make the composition look one.
Similarity by size:
The elements in the picture below have varying colours and shapes, but sizes (of many elements) are similar. This similarity in sizes of the elements creates a strong bond within the group and thus making the composition look one.
Similarity by colour:
In the picture below, the principle of similarity has been aceived by keeping the colours similar (not same). These colours belong to one family (of red). This helps me creating a visual connection between the objects and making the composition look one and whole.
Next week we shall look at Proximity.
Hope you enjoyed the post. Do feel free to post your comments and feedback.
Free MSOFFICE 2010 book from microsoft. December 15, 2009
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Laurie Baker’s Design Principles November 22, 2009
Posted by ArchitectureLive! in Architecture, Education, ideas, students.Tags: Architecture, architecture principles, design principles, laurie baker
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Laurie Baker, his Architectural Design Principles are not only worth following but I understand that many who truly believe in sustainable design practices can remodel these and use it locally, anywhere in the world.
Picture source: www.lauriebaker.net
Daryaganj, Delhi November 20, 2009
Posted by ArchitectureLive! in Architecture.Tags: books, daryaganj, delhi, kitaab bazaar, reading, space
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I clicked this photograph at Daryaganj, Delhi. Daryaganj hosts a ‘kitaab bazaar’ (Book Market) on every Sunday , where one can feast upon books for all ages, all professions, casual reading, magazines etc new and old.
What one must experience is the character of this space with the Bazzar ON! I did not buy any books, but I did raom around a lot, clicked many photographs and some videos.
Construction and Design Portal in India November 19, 2009
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Construction Guru, is all set to announce India’s first Portal where people from construction industry in India can participate to search, network and engage themselves in virtual learning.
You can access the Portal here: www.constructionguru.in
Get updates on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Construction-Guru/118633523753
and Twitter: http://twitter.com/constructguru
Architectural connections! May 14, 2009
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How many new Architects did you connect to in last one month? If the answer is less than ten, may be its time socialize a bit. Anyway, recession has given many of us a great amount of spare time so why not connect?
The best professional networking website that I have come across in Linkedin. LinkedIN has much more serious interface and less of fun, and particularly targeted to professional industry. Build up your profile, connect, get recommended, ask and get answers and join the tribes that you are interested in.
Social networking, isn’t only about making friends with those who are already your friends but have moved to a distance. Its more about connecting to people who share some common interest with you and you may not know each other otherwise. But how do you find them? Use people finder tools on various SN websites, check the profiles, browse through groups they are associated with and decide if you want to make a new connection.
To be continued…., till then check my profile on LinkedIN.
Technorati Tags: Architecture, Social networking
Architecture, basic design and past experiences July 26, 2008
Posted by ArchitectureLive! in Architecture, Design, Education, exercise, ideas, students.Tags: Architecture, association, basic design, color, colour, Education, emotions, exercises, forms, past experience, students, teachers
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When discussing basic design with the students of first year, I often experimented a lot by changing and developing new exercises to keep the mood alive in classroom. Discussions on past experiences are very common in any basic design sessions, to keep the content simple and easy to understand its better to place the examples from daily life in discussions. Following is one of the exercises I experimented with the students.
The students are asked to draw a rose in just 10 seconds and color it ‘appropriately’.
The result: most of the students only draw red (or pink) coloured roses.
And I try to find it from students themselves on why this happened. Haven’t you ever seen yellow rose? or white rose? Red rose or pink rose has been the common experience and is widely seen as compared to any other colour. In the short duration of 10 seconds, students would do the things spontaneously rather than trying to apply any external thought.
Second exercise is a short story which I generally tell to students and ask one question at the end, here it goes:
There lived a lady with about two years old kid in a small house little away from the crowded city. In the absence of lady, her full time maid would look after the baby. One fine day her maid did not turn up and it was little difficult for lady to leave the child alone at home and go out. Alternatively, she could have taken child along, but somehow she didn’t want to do so. She decided to go in the afternoon when child sleeps for almost two hours, and complete some necessary shopping and be back within two hours.
And in the afternoon lady quietly left the house after she covered her sleeping baby with a shawl. She rushed for the shopping, but while returning she got stuck up in the crowd. She with some difficulty managed to reach her colony in almost two hours and fifteen minutes if not exactly in two hours. She rushed to her home and opened the door hurriedly.
But The visual at home left her eyes wide open and herself in shocked mode. She could not resist screaming after what she saw inside. She saw her baby had fallen from the bed and crying loudly, all over baby’s body was red colour and baby was holding something very sharp in her hand.
So guys, just quickly tell me, What do you think the reason must for which baby was crying? What was the red color and the sharp thing in her hand?
The spontaneous answers are generally:
Baby was holding a knife (or something similar, which she accidently might have pierced in her body and she was crying. So the red colour on her body might be blood and nothing else.
Anyway, answers do not matter here. What matters here is that students strongly associated red with blood, Sharp with Knife and crying with pain.
And we all associate colours, forms and emotions with something or other.
What do you feel of these exercises? have suggestions and feedback to make?
Web 2.0 for Architecture education. July 26, 2008
Posted by ArchitectureLive! in Architecture, Education, ideas, students.Tags: Architecture, blog, blogger, collaborative learing, commoncraft, community, educatio, participatory learning, web 2.0, wordpress
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I recently completed my first ever workshop on web 2.0 applications for Architecture education. During my talk at Goa college of Architecture, I stressed on the importance of e learning and collaborative learning. Though many of the participants were aware of basic applications on internet and they were also comfortably engaged with social networking websites, my job was not very difficult.
I touched upon following topics in my workshop:
- What is participatory learning?
- Traditional learning systems vs new learning systems.
- Web.1 vs Web 2.0
- GoogleDocs
- Slideshare
- Scribd
- Blogs
- Forums
- Social Networking websites
- Wikis
- RSS
- Flickr – more than just sharing photographs
The workshop concluded with creating a community website for Goa College of Architecture, which College intends to use for e learning in near future. Many students also registered for blogs using wordpress, blogger and blog utilities.
I plan to extend this workshop exclusively for teachers in Architecture Institutes in india very soon.
Special thanks to commoncraft for wonderful ‘plain English’ videos, only my request would be to provide these videos offiline at no cost for educational purposes.
Some feedback I received for the workshop:
I THINK IT WAS ONE OF ITS KIND IN THE WEDNESDAY LECTURE SERIES AND IT
OPENED A LOT OF NEW VISTA INTO E-EDUCATION. WONDERFUL INSIGHT INTO
SHARING INFORMATION ONLINE THRU FORUMS BLOGS SOCIAL NETWORKING WIKIS
RSS ETC.
IM A REGULAR NET-SURFUR BUT IT WAS
QUITE AN AWE-INSPIRING PRESENTATION ON VARIOUS THINGS I WAS UNAWARE OF
LIKE RSS AND THE LIKES.
I THOUROUGLY ENJOYED ALLTHE WONDERFUL VIDEO CLIPPINGS ILLUSTRATING VARIOUS ASPECTS OF YOUR PRESENTATION
IM SURE WE ALL REALISE THAT ITS HIGH TIME WE GEAR UP OURSELVES TO GET WIRED TO THE WORLD AND PART OF THIS WONDERFUL WORLD.
THANKS RAJESH YOU ROCK
Visha Signapurkar, Faculty
Yesterday’s talk was very informative. i esp liked the way u told but
didn’t tell us to switch off our phones wt the $$ making idea..it would
have been really helpful if all our teachers had chosen to learn to
make blogs as well….. considering that i’m very e-illiterate.. i
learnt quite a lot… thanks
carrissa Silveria
It was interesting and well thought of. Have always been curious to
learn about blogs and make better and much more informative use of the
internet.
Tanvi Fulari
It was amazing, videos were great:
Amaro
“You should not encourage our students to scribble on walls”
Faculty
Presentation was really good.We got to know many new things about
internet which we din’t knew. And now after yesterdays presentation we
can make maximum use of internet to find any information without
wasting our time.
Sapna Kush
Its already very difficult to control, what students are doing on internet. This workshop might add to the existing nuisance.
faculty
I used to always wonder what a blog means, this word used to frequently
appear in the readers digest. After attending your workshop all my
doubts are cleared as to what is ,and what are its functions. i loved
the experience of learning to create our own web page. thanks a lot i
loved the workshop.
Noah Fernandes
It was a good experience as we learned about new sites to actually
discuss with people around the world regarding various topics trough
blogs and making communities. many things we didn’t know about sources
of the world wide web have come across us trough your session.there are
some things we can’t really talk about without display of information
and pictures and it is hardly possible to meet up on one single
computer to discuss on topics and projects. formation of communities
will help us upload content individually and also help us visit other
blogs to receive additional info. the videos you showed us were
amazing. they were inspiring and it was a pleasure watching them. we
all want to thank you Sir for sparing your time teaching us all that
you have for the past three days and sharing your thoughts and ideas..
we shall look forward to make the best use of all that we have learned.
thanking you once again..
Kester
The Art of Looking Sideways July 21, 2008
Posted by ArchitectureLive! in Architecture, ideas.Tags: alan fletcher, creativity books, graphic design, the art of looking sideways
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“The person you love is 75% water”, says the book “The art of looking Sideways”. Or “Have you seen a purple Cow?” is just one another pick from this huge compilation. Author Alan Fletcher, who is a graphic designer has compiled this book with anecdotes, quotes images and description on various facets of Art. Content is beautiful and more beautiful is the way its written or better call it designed. Grab it if you are a designer, and if not its a must read for you too.
The Art of Looking sideways is sure to keep you busy through long/short road/rail/water/air journeys. I must recommend this to all Institutes where word “creativity” is uttered at least once a day. A must have for all schools, which believe in overall development of children.
A must to show off!
