Horizontal v/s Vertical March 13, 2007
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Before modernism, Architecture was revolving around history and it has strong links with traditional details in buildings. It was felt by Architects that, its important to cut all the links to history if we have to think of future. Creative energy inside Architects was finding its way to ooze out. New materials, Structural innovations and engineering techniques helped Architects think “tall”.
And this tall must have been the solution to save precious land use also. 15 -16 storyed building gave new dimension too the cityscape. Everything looked modern and futuristic.
But like me do you also feel much more human and comfortable in villages than on urban streets? Lets try and find out why?
Scale makes the difference! Human mind is comfortable with horizontal. Horizontal supplements the gravitational force of earth as opposite to vertical which goes against the gravitational force. Horizontal also symbolises “resting position”. You usually comfortably interact (this interaction may not be verbal always) with things which are at your eye level or below eye level.
I am not against vertical, I may be against difficulty in interacting with vertical and difficulty in able to appreciate vertical and tall.
But then what is the solution to this “imposed verticality on society”? Articulate verticality in human way. So again what is articulation?
Wait for next post…
Design: Image of the week March 10, 2007
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This south Indian mini thali, is a wonderful example of organisation. Many of us would surely not like casually organised “thalis”. This organisation of elements (katories) in the given frame (Thali), boosts your hunger, you feel tempted. Ultimately, enjoy your meal.
Intention of any design is to satisfy the hunger (need) of the user. Same applies to an Architectural space too.
Design exists everywhere! yes it may be unintentional or intentional.
basic design and architecture October 9, 2006
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In Basic Design (BD. henceforth) subject, there has been lot of talk about BD principles (like, balance, alignment, repetetion, symmetry etc.) and BD elements (like lines, points, shapes etc.). Subject has been compartmentalised and not much efforts were taken to relate it to other subjects in Architecture. Yes, recently the change in curriculum and teaching methodology at CANS, saw some positive changes in BD teaching.
I personally always felt that, BD is the first encounter of students with design. Students came from the usual RUT system and different backgrounds, for years together they only saw 2+2=4. So major role of BD teachers was to “open up students’ mind” for new ideas and introduce them to something called “subjectivity”.
BD, essentially comprised of “sketching, visualising, representing and composition skills”. Lot of time was devoted in just designing the exercise (say usually a team of 5/6 members would sit for six hours, discusing what exercise shall be done, how it shall proceed and what shall be the format of submission and assessment? Our efforts saw lot of failures, some exercises didnt work, but we continued with them to atleast understand the “process”.
“i was anyway, not much interested in final output”.
BD, as a subject can be directly related to architecture, its not difficult at all. But, do we really need to relate it to architecture at foundation years? i think, no. we dont need to start talking about architecture and basic of design right from first day.
Students, once they have understood the existence of “subjectivity”, its importance in design and analysing the design, they can be exposed to architectyral design.
the art of looking sideways October 9, 2006
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currently i am busy browsing thru “the art of looking sideways”, by Alan Fletcher. This book is collection of images, anecdotes, quotes and useless/ful information about deisgn.
i liked the design of coverpage of this book and also the way author has presented his ideas on inner pages.
i strongly recommend this book to entire design faternity.
