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.

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

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?

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

E-learning

The new way: Web 2.0

Workshop at NIASA, Pune

Objective Summary

With the advent of PCs and internet and its ubiquity, we spend our quality time searching, mailing, browsing and downloading. Look closely, Internet is much beyond all these activities we have been performing. Didn’t get it? Now peep into some student’s computer screen and don’t be surprised if he is found ‘wasting‘ his time on Orkut. Another student you will find has just finished commenting on someone’s Blog. Right, you guessed it. There has been phenomenal rise in the users of social networking websites (orkut, facebook etc.), blogs, forums, Wikis because these websites allow much more than browsing and just downloading the information. What’s unique with the Internet today? Today Internet allows equal participation by the user by means of discussions, comments, editing and posting of information. That’s the difference between being online and going online.

This new revolution is called web 2.0. And yes, I am fully aware that teachers are using word processors, presentation software and worksheets for delivering lectures and they also know how to fix LCD projector when it refuses to work.

Our focus here would be on making teaching a conversation rather than a lecture, sharing information and ideas rather than delivering them, making learning a user driven, social and making the discussion writable also instead of only readable.

So now we know the era of Web 1.0 has already passed and we could do very less about it. Contrary to earlier web practice, which was “read only”, Web 2.0 is participatory, discussion based, highly flexible and shareable.

The younger lot seems to be taking advantage of this very efficiently, and they have found themselves “involved and growing with it”. The younger lot also finds it comfortable to understand the interface and knows the ways in which to respond. We now only need to channelize this energy and knowledge to build up larger community of people which can share information over the Internet.

The workshop will focus at various ways in which e-learning can be implemented in education and how one can get most out of the presence of Internet in their premises. The workshop will also focus at Internet jargon and may wash away myths if any about use of Internet in education.

Workshop will in depth or in brief cover the efficient use of blogs, social networking websites, public forums, wikis and all that web 2.0 is all about, collaboration, teamwork and syndicating information on the Internet.

During these five days, our focus will be on collaborative learning, implementing participatory systems and creating a flexible, rewindable, forwardable, stoppable, creative and enjoyable education systems.

Since the birth of this three letter God in AEC industry, I have come across not less than 100 blogs, surveys, opinions and articles, and these are growing in leaps and bounds.

Even Architecture Institutes as usual seem to be pulling up socks for adopting this new technology, but with do’s and dont’s there are many how’s still to be answered.

The first question before why BIM is what is BIM?
Its “Building Information Modeling”, which is here to make the whole experience of teaching and learning much simpler. I am not going to go in depth of what BIM is all about, as it has already been discussed in length by many experts on various occasions and websites. Alternatively, Google a bit!

An Integrated model in BIM software.

This blog is an effort to find answers to many how’s, that have come from heads of the Institutes, faculty and even students. First, let’s dive deep into Architecture curriculum to understand how it is spread over entire course of Architecture education. In Indian scenerio, its like a five storied building, students get in into it at the bottom storey and jump out from the top after acquiring many skills.

During this rigorous training, students get exposed to many different subjects and syllabus. From my experience I can share that, the core subjects include Architectural design, construction technology and Architectural Graphics and these are generally buttressed by other subjects like climatology, humanities, art and culture, drawing and sketching, presentation skills, even some exposure to professional practice.

Big question is where (which storey) should BIM be introduced?

I think right at first year level, as it will ensure better grip on using or exploiting the potentials of BIM at higher levels. At first year level, BIM can be used for visualizing simple platonic forms or even small scale spaces like security cabins or telephone booths. Importantly, use of computers does not mean killing or compromising on manual sketching skills. Its equally important to know, where not to allow use of computers in Architecture education.

At, first year level faculty can even make use of parametric nature of BIM software and use it for construction technology. For e.g. wouldn’t it be easier to explain timber roof construction with BIM, where even making frequent changes to model is easier and very explanatory? (Due apologies to Mckay and Chudley, authors of various Construction technology books). Or for that instance, cutting horizontally and vertically through rat trap bond, or Flemish bond is much easily explained with BIM than drawing it on white board.

Timber roof explained through BIM.

Further ahead, it would be advisable for students and faculty to use BIM for avoiding repetitive and monotonous process of creating multiple views manually and redoing the entire process over and over again.

For subject Architectural Design I have already talked to various faculty on several occasions about use of BIM. The funniest reaction that I have ever got is “I agree it saves time, but what will students and faculty do in the saved and spare time?” Well, I have answer for that too, but later. First let’s look at how BIM can save students’ and faculties’ time and make the whole process of design enjoyable and productive.

Use of BIM means an integrated model of entire scheme. May be till date we have worked in individual compartments of sections, plans. elevations and models. where there is high risk of inconsistent drawings and uncoordinated data. BIM, will ensure best co-ordination and consistency throughout the process of design development. That means, any change anywhere in the project will result into updation of related drawings and documents. Now, if faculty demands a small change in a project, students don’t need to take a week long leave to make changes everywhere in the scheme. Make the change at one place and rest is taken care of by BIM.

Working with BIM means an integrated model.
You don’t need to update all the drawings manually after changes.

Along with the above, BIM saves tremendous time of students which goes into manually creating meta data (non-geometric information) on the sheets. For. e.g, list of materials used, Bill of quantities, doors and windows schedule etc. (I mean it). BIM on its own generates all meta data which can be used directly for reports without cross-verification.

Sustainability with BIM

I remember faculty for environmental science had endless list of difficult terms. Daylight factor, Sun-paths, Sun study are only few of them and these were rarely applied in our Architectural design subject. Though BIMs today cannot meet the expertise of energy simulation software, but one can surely check for simple sustainability right in BIM software. Sun-studies can be directly carried out within the BIM software. right from the early stage of design. This makes developing your designs based on Uncle Sun’s behavior which ultimately results into energy saving.

Sun study of projects can be easily created with BIM
right from the conceptual design level.

History can be fun with BIM

Remember eastern and western domes? Pendentives? Yes, most of us will never forget those sleepless nights, where we had to draw each layer of domes number of times and entire sheets would be redone for even smaller errors? This continued till faculty felt, that our sheets were of ‘acceptable quality’. I also remember history faculty in 1990’s drawing section/s of giant monuments on board, slowly it was replaced by transparencies and currently with the ubiquity of internet, it is Power point and similar software which keep students awake in sessions.

Can BIM also be adpoted for teaching history of Architecture? Yes, it can be. Though faculty needs to do lot of ground work before they enter into classrooms. This ground work will involve creating models in parts of Architectural examples, and demonstrating them to students in class. The BIM model of even complex model can make it easier for student to understand the proportions, materials, climatic aspects and many more things which may not be possible with conventional CAD software.

Though I am still brainstorming on how to make this job of creating models simpler, I am sure Institutes will have to come together and share the responsibility.

MODELit! with BIM

Another subject where students spend considerable amount of time is Graphics, acquiring presentation skills, drafting skills, visualization and some compositional skills. it will be interesting to know the role of BIM in this subject. In one of the workshops at NIASA, we did discuss this. Although everybody agreed to  “limitations of current teaching methodology” Some faculty had a great objection in allowing students to use computers for this subject for the simple reason that they felt “this will take away sketching skills”. Everybody wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die. As already said above, faculty needs to decide “where to stop the use of computers”, keeping in mind that ultimately everything should result into overall growth of the student and when students go out, they should be ready to face the world with confidence.

Image courtesy: architectsjury.com. Students can use BIM for
creating simple and complex geometry.

In this subject, BIM should help students visualize complex derivatives and geometry. This can be achieved by, creating complex models using BIM, cutting sections at various levels and studying the nature of object. Secondly, complex objects can be derived from simple platonic forms by making smaller changes to it. The entire process can be documented through BIM.

There are many ways, in which BIM can be implemented in Architecture education with ease. The productivity and efficiency of students will soar for sure. There are still many thoughts cooking up in my mind, but this is just beginning of many discussions that I plan to carry out with Architecture Institutes in India.

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Now after more than a decade has passed, Architects somehow have been convinced that computers have replaced the drawing boards to greater extent, worldwide. Still today in India, computers have to enter into Architectural education through back doors only. One has to be optimistic enough to believe that, computers will be at forefront of Architecture education soon. T-Squares, and drawing sheet containers, will hang only on walls and would be obsolete technology soon, very soon. Do not get confused between a drawing board and a sketch book. Laptop sacks would definitely have a compartment for sketch books, after all hand to mind co-ordination cannot be challenged. Pencils are still loved over mice by Architects and Architecture students.

With the advent of technology, Architects’ offices have seen a drastic change in office layout and systems. I remember, in year 1994, when one of the senior Architects bought a first computer after so many tantrums and foolish excuses. He created a separate room for that 286 or 386 machine and made sure nobody except ‘computer operator’ entered the ‘computer room’. The concept of computer room vanished very soon, and drawing boards were found lying in the corners and used as dining tables for the staff.

Even though computers have been entering through back doors in the Architecture institutes since last decade, the faculty and bosses in the institutes are still not being able to or even not ready to accept this change comfortably, students seem to have been accept this change with no troubles at all. In fact, in some institutes, students have taken a lead role in maintaining and upgrading the computer labs and systems.

Now the big question, has there been any change in the working systems in an Architect’s office, or teaching and learning methodologies in the institutes?

Is it the high time that we need to formulate new systems for offices and Institutes?

In this note, I would look at some of the possibilities, which have either been adopted or can be adopted to create a better teaching and learning experience at Architectural Institutes. In second part, I would peep into an Architect’s office and discuss the change that technology has brought and more possible changes that can be adopted.

PART ONE STUDENTS

Computers have affected the education system at three different levels, one is system of the institute itself, second is the teaching methodology and third at the students’ level, the learning experience.

First things first, let me discuss the role of computers at the students’ level first. Like never before, technology has attracted youngsters to larger extent than the other ages.

After the use and exploitation of cellular phones, now it’s the turn of computers. In the observation made at our institute, IDEA, I discovered that the first thing that most of the students did to their computers was to customize the appearance and the interface. This continued till their laptops were powered with the Internet connectivity. The next moment, it was the turn of ‘orkut’, the use of which has grown phenomenally amongst all the age groups.

I bet, students know more than any faculty in the institute about the existence of cracked software or mp3 headquarters.

Our role as a faculty is to channelize this energy of students, so that we can help them also excel in Architecture academics. I would like to talk about the real life experience in teaching one of the subjects at CANS (College of Architecture, Nashik). I was discussing Gestalt with the students and at the end I threw an exercise like any other faculty would generally do. The exercise was to make a report on Gestalt, and its application in Architecture. Students were allowed to refer to any number of books, surf the Internet or even talk to psychologists if needed. One of the students did not only bring comprehensive information on Gestalt, but also brought additional information on other existing theories, which for some reason was skipped by me. Next bet, faculty needs to be afraid of the presence of Internet, anything said to students will be surely cross checked on the number of websites.

Students can be guided to become members of number of Architectural communities on the web, subscribe to the e-newsletters, visit blogs and also maintain blogs. Architecture always had more than one answer to the given problem, today computers have also opened out many options, may it be software or may it be presentation techniques or for that matter may it be language of Architecture.

PART ONE.ONE FACULTY

Faculty next, as said earlier faculty would need to channelize the creative energy of students in proper way. This is highly impossible unless faculty keeps itself updated and upgraded. Not only students, but faculty also needs to be an active part of the various communities to keep pace with the changing trends. Days have gone, when faculty almost read out notes in the class and every student created a 100% copy of building construction sheet manually.

Subjects at the Institutes have to be well integrated with each other; bridge has to be created between different subjects, so that we get rid of compartmentalized training system. This is not at all difficult with the advent of software in Architecture institutes.

Teaching schedules have to change, I remember faculty talking about meeting the deadlines and strict schedules, where we discussed Plans first, Elevations next, sections third and details last. Sounds funny to me now!

I never thought why our faculty was not asking us bring the entire scheme and discuss the development of scheme rather than developing the plans or sections in isolation. Modern software like BIMs (Building Information Modeling) shall be strictly incorporated in the teaching system, so that our designs are not treated differently for different subjects.

Again, it will not be right to say that faculty shall master all the available software; instead they can guide students in mastering the tools by using the power of internet efficiently.

The fear of being trailed by the technology can only be tackled by using it. One just cannot boycott the use of social networking sites out of the fear of being misused by students and public.

Implementing a system, where faculty appraisal is not only done on the basis of their presence in the campus or their control on students, but also their friendliness with technology is taken into consideration.

Statistics would say that, in India hardly 50% of faculty has email addresses, out of which only 20% access their mail accounts regularly, remaining may have forgotten either there user names or lost their passwords.

PART ONE.TWO INSTITUTES

The use of computers is not restricted to the administration or accounts department in the Institutes. The computers have been successful in penetrating well into education system also. May it be the exchange of data between a faculty and student, or to that extent may it be exchange of idea between institute and the rest of the world.

The need of the time is to understand and exploiting connectivity, connectivity with the rest of the world. This is possible by a simple gesture, creating an online community. An online community would be a wonderful idea of showcasing your work and at the same time inviting comments on the same. The community may not only be used as a showcase, but it can also be used for posting various views, tips and tricks, exercises or online competitions.

Next is implementing a Course management System (CMS) tools, for e.g. moodle, an open source CMS. Where the website does not only become the information provider but it can also become the hub of exercises, ideas and courseware.

The web has opened up the opportunity, of virtually inviting legendaries to become part of the institute. Institutes in India cannot afford to be conservative anymore.