Sthapati 2009

With thanks to Mr J P Agarwalla Mr Pradip Sen Mr Malay Kumar Ghosh Mr Dibyendu Chakravorthy Mr Akhil Sarkar Mr Arghya Majumdar

S tha p a ti 2 0 0 9 SSAP COUNCIL President : Neha Singh President Designee : Gagandeep Singh Gujral Vice President : Nitin Kumar Srivastava Treasurer : Sandeep Kumar Kumawat Treasurer Designee : Arif Ateeque Nezami General Secretary : Konda Sri Harsha Social and Cultural : Kaustubh Khare Secretary Magazine Secretary : Somanath Vinay Kumar Wallpaper Secretary : Fakhruddin Dairkee Web Secretaries : Ujjwal kumar, Akanksha Shrivastava

NASA REPRESENTATIVES

S p e c ia ls

contents

Chai?

- Vishal Charles

08 An Interview with Architect

Anna Heringer

10 Focus: Student of the year - Neelakshi Joshi

Unit Secretary : Abhishek Singh Unit Secretary : Krush Dattani Designee

MAGAZINE TEAM Editing : Ranjitha S Pradipta Banerjee Somnath Meher Kumar Tushar Aaron David Mendonca Somanath Vinay Kumar

21 IGBC ‘09 - A Report - Ar Gita Balakrishnan So, You are Aspiring to be an Architect - Akhil Sarkar

Cover Page :Kaustubh Khare Layout and Composition : Fakhruddin Dairkee Ujjwal Kumar Somanath Vinay Kumar Kaustubh Khare Aditya Agarwal

About Representation - Ar Nisha Nair

52

39 41

contents

U p d a te s

P a p e rs

ASHRAE - IIT Kgp, A Collaboration - Jyotika Gupta

Role of Environmental Ethics in the National Product Design Policy - Prof. Amit Ray

12 45

Manage Water, at all Levels of Urban Planning - Prof. Somnath Sen

09

23

LEED, LEED and Keep on Leading...

- Rakshit Sharma Internship Rendezvous

44

E x p e r ie n c e s The Master Builder - Himadri Mayank

06

Skywalks Emerging As The New Face Of Pedestrianisation In Mumbai - Nidhi Sharma

Revisiting the 'Aryan Myth’ - An architect's viewpoint - Prof. Joy Sen

24 17

Systematic Approach to Cost Effectiveness in Architecture; Some Thoughts - Prof. Abraham George

54 To Sir, With Love. . .

- Thumu Karthik A Visit to China Town - Roshmi Sen

20 59

ZoNASA ‘09 -Abhirajika

30 62

Experiencing Ahmedabad -Alok Kumar

Requalifying Urban Environments of Asian Cities - A case study of Fort Precinct, Mumbai - Neha Singh

63

FROM THE HOD’S DESK The new academic session has started with our students being recognised for the performances both in academics as well as professional placement of our students in India and abroad. The Department of Architecture and Regional Planning, IIT Kharagpur has been awarded the "No-1" position amongst all professional colleges in India (Outlook, June 22, 2009).In this process, students, faculty and staff have been effective partners to our achievements & success.

Performance of our students in NASA, ZONASA and other academic competitions has kept the department vibrant throughout the year.

We have become effective partners of the socio - economic changing scenario of the country. I look forward to further accomplishment of our incoming students.

Efforts of the students and their views are reflected in this journal. On behalf of myself and my colleagues of this Department, I thank all the contributors and sponsors of this magazine and congratulate the editorial team for this commendable task.

I sincerely hope that the Department continues to play a significant role in the emerging concepts and concerns and planned development of the built environment of the country.

Prof. B. K. Sengupta Professor and Head of the Department

Sthapati | 2009 | 01

FROM THE DESK OF SSAP ADVISOR This magazine is an encouraging platform for new and developing student writers, and contains exemplary writing by students and professionals on architecture in the broadest sense. This year the magazine attains a new high and includes an interview of Anna Herringer (Aga Khan Award Winner) and articles on green buildings and energy conscious design.

The year 2009 was a very successful one and our students, were the overall winners in zonal NASA, where they were bagged winners trophies in the culturals, main design and product design events. In the zonal ARCHUMEN quiz competition, both the teams from our department were among the top three teams. This year, three entries are among the 47 shortlisted entries, in the ANDC competition. The students also interacted with Architect B. V. Doshi in an event sponsored by the Chamber of Commerce and Industries, W.B. Congratulations to the editorial team who worked tirelessly to make this edition a reality and the students whose works have been selected. They can be justifiably proud of having their work chosen for publication, and we are happy to acknowledge their achievement. We would also like to thank the companies for sponsoring this magazine.

Prof. S. K. Paul SSAP Advisor

Sthapati | 2009 | 02

THE PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE As a child, I loved to read. If I would fall short of books, I would re-read them. The same interest drove me to my school library during my free hours, and it was then that I discovered books which spoke of architecture. It fascinated me to see people travelling around and discovering new spaces, places so beautiful and places so difficult but still making the world a better place to live in. I particularly remember reading the very famous “S,M,L,XL� by Architect Rem Koolhaas and Bruce Mau, which was a collection of essays, travelogues, diary excerpts and photographs from a world that seemed elsewhere. Deciphering the architectural drawings seemed a little difficult then, but the fascination worked magic. I must have skimmed, browsed and then eventually read the book several times over.

So when we sat down for bringing out this new issue of Sthapati, we had an inspiration and a motivation, to recreate that magic. The magazine has needed a new breath of life for several years now, and hence we decided to attempt a make-over, rejuvenation, if you will. A number of new features have been added and few revised. Since there were too many ideas floating in the air, we caught a few and worked along the horse latitudes, refraining from being so ambitious as being impractical. I sincerely believe this issue of Sthapati will set a standard for the future issues and will give us a direction for refinement and an inspiration to aim for excellence.

We approached our alumni, the Class of 2006, who showed an overwhelming response and support in every possible way and encouraged us throughout the process. We thank the Professors of the Department and Prof. Amit Ray, senior ex-faculty at IIT Kanpur and all other people who contributed for the magazine, and set the ball rolling. I also take this opportunity to express our sincere gratitude for all the generous contributions made by the architects and sponsors, without whom the quality and the quantity of the volume desired would have been impossible. I also sincerely thank Architect Anna Heringer (Winner of Aga Khan Award, 2007) for her generous and humble acceptance of contributing for the student community and for sharing her life with us.

With this issue, for the first time, we attempt to reach our alumni all over the world, bringing them back along the memory lane, and reconnecting with them all over again, for years to come. We sincerely hope everyone will appreciate the revival and cherish reading. We also welcome suggestions, criticism and contributions from our readers in future. Sthapati will reach you in several different ways, and will surprise you today as well as in the years to come.

Best wishes Neha Singh President, SSAP

Sthapati | 2009 | 03

THE GENERAL SECRETARY SPEAKS My best wishes to this edition of Sthapati. I congratulate the people who have worked tirelessly to make this issue possible.

The last few have been the golden years for the Students' Society of Architects & Planners. We have improved drastically in all aspects, be it the ANDC,or the Zonasa People have worked with their heart and soul put in to it. There have been many healthy competitions at a departmental as well as the national level.

Students from all batches took the initiative to participate and were successful in their endeavours. We have always strung together like a family, and will always be like one.

I sincerely hope that the days to come will be even better.

Konda Sri Harsha General Secretary, SSAP

THE UNIT SECRETARY SPEAKS

As a member of the 'archi' family here in A&RP, I have witnessed, along with my seniors and batchmates, the transition which the department has experienced since my 1st year. From a strength of 80 to 125 students, from only participating in zonals to emerging as overall champions, from a single entry to 5 entries in ANDC, from participating in choreo to making it a trend of winning gold every year .

The Department is buzzing with activities and this definitely is not an outcome of a night's miracle. The trends and examples set by the seniors are the driving forces that help us to steer towards excellence with every passing year. This year, we are aiming to make it big at national convention by participating in prestigious trophies like HUDCO, Analysis trophy, Product Design with full tempo. Winning trophies at Annual Conventions surely is not a distant dream.

I take this opportunity to congratulate the SSAP council for its dedication & hard work throughout the year and of course the 1st year junta for winning their first ever ZONASA. Do not let your awesome tempo end here! I wish the new issue of Sthapati all the very best and hope its rejuvenation transforms into excellence in the years to come.

Abhishek Singh Unit Secretary

Sthapati | 2009 ||04 02

FROM THE MAGAZINE SECRETARY’S DESK Changes are a part of a life and so are for this magazine. This issue of Sthapati, thus, is a witness to many changes including the ones in the size, the quality, etc. It wasn't a smooth journey, especially considering so many changes that had to be incorporated in the magazine. But ultimately we managed to pull through.

I am extremely grateful to every single person who helped breathe life into this magazine right from the students to the professors and the sponsors, without their support this issue of Sthapati would have remained a distant dream of ours. Behind this mammoth magazine are the small things I will cherish...The sponsorship trips, the department night outs, 4am coffee’s and the bonds of friendship that have bloomed during the process of completing this magazine.

I hope everybody enjoys reading this issue of Sthapati.

Somanath Vinay Kumar Magazine Secretary

Sthapati | 2009 | 05

THE MASTER BUILDERS! HIMADRI MAYANK

L

ast night, I was going through one of the Los Angeles Business Journals online, where I found an interview of Praful Kulkarni, batch of XXXX. He was talking about how he started with GKK works, one of the largest construction and architectural firms in California.

Kulkarni has opted to do something almost unheard of in the world of architecture and design: establish a division devoted to construction management.

“It's either, 'I want to be an architect' or 'I want to go into construction design,'" Kulkarni said in the 100-year-old Pasadena livery stable the firm renovated for its newest office. "I wanted to be a master builder. I wanted to take a project from Day One: design it, manage the construction, be a true master builder.”

Chapter 1: GREENER PASTURES BEYOND This brings me to the biggest question an architectural student from IIT faces - what should I do? Should I become an architect, a construction manager, a trader, an analyst, an oil rigger, an investment banker or a student again? Most of us are undecided about what we want to do in our lives and hence do not press the student button. We either become an architect, a construction With seemingly greener pastures manager, a trader, an analyst, an oil rigger or an beyond, we feel that the real investment banker. And then, think that we are in the excitement would be to try roles of a wrong profession. different kind!!

An architect wants to become an analyst and an analyst wants to become an architect. With seemingly greener pastures beyond, we feel that the real excitement would be To shrug off responsibility in order to to try roles of a different kind. We are satisfied till we don't create an unblemished reputation is know what we have to do. The day we know what we are good. But to take responsibility in doing, our interest in the job starts diminishing. We love order to create a successful product challenges and they are very much present on the other is better. side, which excites us.

Be intelligent and create a product which is efficient and profitable for owner, occupier, investor and in the process, you.

There is a triple bottom line to design people, planets and profits. “People” for the social benefit; “Planets” for the ecological benefit; and “Profits” for the economic benefit. And a master builder is one who understands the three triads well.

Chapter 2: THE MISCONCEPTION One of the biggest misconceptions among architects today is that their domain is providing services pertaining to architectural design. In reality, the umbrella is bigger.

Architects are now realizing that their skills need to be augmented to an extent that they understand and appreciate various spheres of the design-build process; as a designer, as a construction manager, as an owner and as a seller.

Successful architects are ones who perceive a project not only as an architectural challenge, but as a challenge to create a real estate product which is successful. It is important to get into the shoes of a real estate agent who is supposed to market the anchor of a retail mall. It is important to know whether the cash flows generated in the property could actually justify the costs of development.

Since it is the architect who starts it, all his errors in

judgment affect the fate of a project.

I would say that architects are the keystones of the arches and people rely on them to articulate success.

Build your knowledge, train yourself and advise others. To shrug off responsibility in order to create an unblemished reputation is good. But to take responsibility in order to create a successful product is better.

Chapter 3: I SAW THIS BEAUTIFUL PROJECT Well I saw it too. It is known as the Taj Mahal. Some people do visit the Taj to see the architectural masterpiece. Others sit in their offices and work.The successful projects are not the ones which are only architecturally beautiful but the ones which are functionally intelligent too. You can be the architect of an Sthapati | 2009 | 06

owner's success or doom. An occupier will lease your office, if it has got 6 high speed elevators and large foot plates, with an efficiency of 80%. Large terraces and lavish atriums are pictures of luxury, appreciated during the crests but banned during the troughs. Be intelligent and create a product which is efficient and profitable for owner, occupier, investor and in the process, you.

One day my boss came to me and said, “I saw this beautiful project at Bangalore, Windmills of your mind. It looks efficient too.” And I knew it was Kamal Sagar, founder of Total Environment, and batch of XXXX. He usually names his projects after classics; the projects which he designs and builds.

Chapter 4: THE RESPONSIBLE

MASTER

BUILDER With a stated shortage of 20 million houses in India, there is a greater need of master builders today than ever before. The country needs designers who are compassionate and builders who are efficient. Developers have long held a belief that there exists a floor effect to construction cost, below which one can't construct a grade quality building. I think necessary research into disruptive innovation for lowering the costs is warranted, wherein we can lower the costs to such a level that it becomes affordable to masses.

So who is a master builder? I believe design is not only profitability or aesthetics or function. There is a triple bottom line to design people, planets and profits. “People” for the social benefit; “Planets” for the ecological benefit; and “Profits” for the economic benefit. And a master builder is one who understands the three triads well.

Himadri is an alumnus of class of 2007, currently a Senior Research Analyst with Jones Lang LaSalle, Meghraj, Mumbai.

To my professors who are my source of inspiration, my batchmates who continue to be my source of perspiration and my juniors…

Sthapati | 2009 | 07

CHAI Vishal Charles

“

After I left Kharagpur in the summer of 1999, the desire to keep the conversation going made me explore ways to stay connected. It took some time and a few failed attempts to hit Archisage, which is an attempt towards social media with a purpose.

?

Some of the best times I remember from college were the bhaat (chat) sessions in the middle of the night, when we were supposed to be working on an impending submission.

The exchange of ideas that take place over a cup of sweet tea and tinku at an ungodly hour on a cold night can't be beaten. Architecture students are always an odd lot, living in their own time zone with fellow studio dwellers. With all that time spent together on presentations, models and (mostly) talking, we leave college with lifelong buddies.

It's been a long time and I don't remember everything we talked and argued about in those late night sessions, but it seldom used to be about architecture. It was about our lives and things we liked and food and future and crushes and - in a way - it was about architecture.

Architecture is creativity rooted firmly in the ground, literally. What we build has to follow the laws of gravity, cycles of economy and whims of clients. Architecture is about people.

It touches our lives everyday. It gives us something to be proud of, to love, to hate and complain about. It protects us and connects us to the outside world. Architecture is about exploring new ideas and constantly refining them before hitting the ground with a final design. It's a collaborative process. It takes time. It takes a lively discussion and few beers on a Friday evening with a bunch of friends to realize that there is a better way to resolve what you have been working on for a week, and you are excited (or not!) to start over all again.

After I left Kharagpur in the summer of 1999, the desire to keep the conversation going made me explore ways to stay connected. It took some time and a few failed attempts to hit Archisage, which is an attempt towards social media with a purpose. The main idea behind the site is simple - bring together architects and architecture students from around the world and see what happens!

The advent of social media or networking has opened a whole new level of interaction and cooperation. The useless discussion in the middle of the night, which was limited to that jobless gang, could now be extended to different corners of the world! Jokes aside; social media is an area worth exploring in architecture. The opportunities it presents are enormous. It will not replace the lively discussions or the happy hours or the late night outings in the middle of a submission. It does, however, open doors to situations not otherwise available. It's exciting to see what a student is working on in the design studio half way around the world and finding that many of them share common hopes and aspirations. To share ideas and learn about different ways people are trying to conserve energy and use resources responsibly. To share the travel stories and photographs of places you want to visit some day. It connects us in ways that we could only imagine a few years back.

It's an empty canvas out there. The future is unknown and exciting and I invite all of you to explore and join the discussion.

Vishal Charles is an IIT Kharagpur alumnus. He graduated in 1999 with a bunch of 10 awesome guys (yes, no girls). Vishal currently works in Washington, D. C and hangs out on archisage in his free time. www.archisage.net.

Sthapati | 2009 | 08

“

ASHRAE IIT Kharagpur Collaboration Jyotika Gupta, a 3rd year B. Arch student, also a General Secretary of the Student section of IIT Kharagpur chapter of ASHRAE, writes about the advantages of a collaboration with ASHRAE and its benefits to the student community.

T

he American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers is the prime institution for green building technology and thermodynamics in the world. With an endeavour to promote a sustainable world, ASHRAE has sponsored research studies in universities and research firms which has developed uniform methods of testing for rating purposes of green buildings, and describing recommended practices in designing in broad areas such as indoor air quality, thermal comfort energy conservation, and designation and safety classification of refrigerants.

major renovation projects all over the world. These standards address energy efficiency, buildings impact on atmosphere, sustainable site development, water efficiency, innovative materials, and indoor environment quality.

India is a country where the concept of green energy seems to be the most viable keeping in mind the present scenario and the immense human capital.

ASHRAE IIT Kharagpur Student Section is an initiative by ASHRAE to promote the most talented people in the country to contribute in one of the most globally developing sectors.

Through various journals and publications, ASHRAE

India is a country where the concept of green energy seems to be the most viable keeping in mind the present scenario and the immense human capital.

provides an approach to achieve advanced levels of energy savings without resorting to detailed calculations or analysis. These guides have been developed with the collaboration of ASHRAE, the American Institute of Architects (AIA), the Illuminating Engineering Society of North America (IES), and the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), with support from the Department of Energy (DOE). A target of energy savings up to 30% is one essential step towards achieving a net-zero energy building, which is a building that on an annual basis, draws equal or less energy frrom otside resources than it provides using on-site renewable energy sources. ASHRAE is working towards a building energy labeling program - the Building EQ label. The new Building Energy Quotient program provides metrics for measuring the energy the building is designed to use as well as the energy actually being consumed. The ASHRAE program is being designed to close the gaps between intention and operation. With a view to design sustainable buildings standards to define Green Buildings, which are applicable to new commercial buildings and

ASHRAE India Chapter has been an industrial platform for Mechanical Engineers and Architects to showcase their talents and collaborate for a better future. With leading multinationals like TRANE, Carrier, DLF and Indian organizations like BlueStar and Voltas as members of ASHRAE, the industrial exposure to developing experts in leading technical institutions is huge.

The IIT Kharagpur co-ordinators for the Student section will be Prof. Souvik Bhattacharya and Prof.

Kanchan Choudhary. The aim of the Student Section would be to inculcate a sense of changing the environmental situation by intellectual contemplation.

Student Co-ordinators President: Abhinav Shashank Vice President: Prateek Singhal General Secretary: Jyotika Gupta

Sthapati | 2009 | 09

AN

INTERVIEW WITH

ARCHITECT

ANNA HERINGER

B

orn in October 1977 in Germany, Anna studied architecture at the University of Art in Linz, Austria from where she graduated with her diploma thesis: “School hand made in Bangladesh.” Together with Eike Roswag and a team of craftsmen she realised the “Handmade” school in Rudrapur, Bangladesh. The project won several awards, amongst them the Aga Khan Award for Architecture. She is working as an architect and consultant mainly in developing countries such as Africa and Asia. Anna is also teaching at the university in Linz (studio BASE habitat) and more recently at the Technical University in Stuttgart as a visiting professor.

Q

You started out as a social services volunteer and worked in Bangladesh. Tell us about the incidents that led to this, and how this trip to Bangladesh affected your life just after your return.

That was a mix of curiosity, sense of adventure and good coincidents. I learned a lot there, one thing that I learned from the local NGO Dipshikha, who was my host, was that the most sustainable strategy is to use existing potentials and to improve them rather than to import ideas/ resources from outside that only makes us dependent. – I had a great time there!

Q

What inspired you into becoming an architect?

The responsibility that you have as an architect in terms of ecology, fair economics and the society linked with the ability of being creative.

Q

You started out very early with independent projects. Did you face any trouble in the beginning?

Of course it was an exciting process with lots of trial and errors but we were a great team. And I also had good mentors from whom I learned that you have to be brave and risk things in order to achieve development. Altogether I have a lot of trust in life and I believe that somehow everything will be good in the end - not necessarily as you plan it but if you are open for surprises than you are flexible enough to find solutions for every problem. For example the bamboo that we used was extremely curved plus not as thick in diameter as we expected. It was a big problem for us in the beginning but then we figured out that we can use the curved calms to build a slightly curved ceiling that became even with the load of the earth filling.

Q

The Aga Khan Award Winner and internationally acclaimed METI School in

Rudrapur, Bangladesh was your first big project. Tell us about the design evolution and metamorphosis during the 6 months of the Project.

The school was part of my diploma thesis at the University of Art in Linz. I got a B-grade for this... :) I just tried to remember what kind of spaces I liked when I was a child. Spaces to hide like tents, bushes, caves... that`s why I incorporated the cave rooms where there is space to retread. But I also liked open spaces with lots of overview, trees, towers... I often was on scout camps and it was always my biggest pleasure to build towers with only lashings. The aims was primarily to show the potentials of the traditional building materials earth and bamboo to change their image.

Q

What were your model conclusions and learnings from this project and how did you incorporate and reflect them in your projects that followed it?

I personally learned how to build, not only by creating nice drawings but also physically. I think it is very important for architects to learn to use their hands again to understand craftsmanship. It is so easy to design a 12 storey building with a few mouse clicks but we don`t have any sense of how much energy it requires to build it. I think this is one reason of the irresponsible use of energy. When you have built a wall using your own hands and feel the muscles aching and then you sweat, you know what energy really means. Regarding the new buildings, we improved them not only in terms of thermal comfort but also technically - the bamboo was treated with Borax salt and the foundation was done in rammed earth and Ferro Cement...

Q

The Home for handicapped children built in Tebogo, South Africa allowed students to design, plan and construct the solar passive energy house. What major challenges were Sthapati | 2009 | 10

Faced by these students in light of the degree of independence for decision-making and involvement in the whole design and construction process as demanded by the project?

The biggest challenge was to be flexible and not to insist on the planning they did in Austria. When you are at site in a foreign country you find that a lot of design ideas does’nt fit anymore into the actual context. Sometimes it was real trouble to let the original ideas behind and react on the existing situation. And for me as one of the supervisors it was difficult to find a balance between democratic decisions and participation and not to hamper the quality of the architecture to just compromise and make everyone happy. It was also hard work and incredible hot and nearly no time out to relax. But in the end you forget it when you see what you did in only few weeks, especially when you see the happy users.

Q

materials again and I hope that someone finds an ecological material that replaces the C.I. sheet for me...

Q

As a Professor, how do you see the opportunity in light of new approaches to teach young minds?

It`s a great chance to work with “young minds”. In Stuttgart for example they had some architects doing research on using still growing plants in their structures. The students incorporated these ideas in a project at Mozambique where the bamboo used was not cut but still left to grow in order to solve the problem in the foundation detail. I liked that a lot and hope to test this idea in some projects.

Q

What are your other interests and hobbies?

Music, I play several instruments and it`s a great inspiration for architecture as well (that`s why I like rhythmic facades...)

Tell us more about the Paraboloid Hyperbolique. Is it inspired from the 1958 World’s Fair at Brussels?

No, that was also a tradition at the scout camps that we learned from our French friends to build “PH”s on our camp sites, at the entrances, the meeting places etc.

Your projects always involve students’ community as a part of your action team.

How do you see the build and learn method for students in Architecture?

To me that is absolutely vital if you want to become a good architect to learn building yourself.

Q

Q

Is there any other particular issue that you are wishing to address and working on to resolve through your research and development.

I hope that more and more architects start building with earth, bamboo or other traditional building

Q

Words of advice for the students...

Be humble, honest, courageous, trustful, curious, flexible, practical, cooperative, visionary, passionate, in love (with the planet and its inhabitants) and responsible.

METI school, Rudrapur, Bangladesh

Sthapati | 2009 | 11

ROLE OF ENVIRONMENTAL ETHICS IN THE NATIONAL PRODUCT DESIGN POLICY Prof. Amit Ray, Ph.D. Emeritus Fellow Indian Institute of Information Technology, Design & Manufacturing Jabalpur

In the recent years the question of environmental degradation made us to think seriously the future of our beautiful earth and its environment. The over use of our limited natural resources and disposed nonbiodegradable material have appeared to be the greatest danger for the future. Industrial Revolution in Europe generated the momentum of rapid technological growth with the help mass transportation, mass communication and mass production. Francis Bacon the renowned philosopher statesman is blamed for his strong support for such unnatural technological growth. Francis Bacon's New Atlantis gave birth to a new philosophy of technology's supremacy over nature. In this connection Ian Barbour (1980) writes in his book on Technology, Environment, and Human Values, "To Francis Bacon, the conquest of nature is the goal of science, for 'knowledge is power'. Let the human race recover the right over nature which belongs to it by divine bequest'."(p.15) Number of philosophers and technocrats during and after the Industrial revolution promoted such philosophy in Europe.

George P. Marsh is one of the first persons who raised an important issue of man and nature relationship.

Marsh's Man and Nature (1864) for the first time showed a systematic study of the destructive influence of people on their environment. I. Barbour (1980) writes in his book (ibid.), "He (G.P. Marsh) provided careful documentation of the fragility of the environment and the disruptive and often irreversible effects of civilization in disturbing the natural equilibrium"(p.22).

In 1930's Aldo Leopold, one of first scientists, who pointed out the impact of technology on non human life and land. Leopold proposed in his book entitled A Sand County Almanac (1982), first published in 1949, the role of ethics should be extended to land and other non human beings. Leopold writes, "An ethic, ecologically, is a limitation on freedom of action in the struggle for existence. An ethic, philosophically, is a differentiation of social from anti-social conduct."(p.238) Leopold finds, without having a sense of cooperation no community can survive. He goes on to write, " All ethics so far evolved rest upon a single premise: that the individual is a member of a community of interdependent parts. His instinct prompts him to compete for his place in the community, but his ethics prompt him also to cooperative-operate (perhaps in order that there may be a place to compete for)."(p.239) Leopold's land ethics proposes to include soils, waters, plants, and animals, or the entire land. A land ethics does not deny the alteration but accepts the right of various elements of lands in continued existence at their respective places. Thus Leopold wanted to change the role of Homosapiens ' from conqueror of the land-community to plain member and citizen of it'. Thus, each member of the community expects respect from each other and right to continue in living at their respective places.

Some of the philosophers, scientists, sociologists were raising the issues relating to human beings and environmental relationships. The deterioration of harmonious relationship of man and nature was due to the rapid advancement of technology applied for the benefit of human beings without considering the Sthapati | 2009 | 12

Papers environmental changes. The adventure of the newly born industrial revolution through science and technology gave birth to a new generation of socio-political concept- 'right to have equal share of wealth', which was to be derived from the mother nature. Due to the craving for the pleasure of comfort and material possessiveness, enjoyed by a few people. The late eighteenth century and early nineteenth century, common man forgot the limitation of natural resources, which was reflected in World War I and II in the mass production. This resulted in the faith of enormous growth of in the production through ever developing technology. Though there were a few philosophers, scientists and sociologists anticipated the adverse effect of this practice. The society forgot the role of stewardship toward nature instead they, tried to become the conqueror. The community feeling had become a distant relationship with the environment. Thus, until the sad experience of environmental degradation threatened our own existence we did not want to take care of the wound caused by us.

Leopold, one of the first modern time ecologist conceived the philosophy of Land Ethics based on Environmental Ethics. He had anticipated the unnatural growth of technology for the benefit of mankind, which may cause unrepairable damage to our environment. 'A limitation on freedom of action in the struggle for existence' was his advice to the rest of the mankind. The philosophy of environmental ethics has the necessary potential to help us in forming the policy in wide range of fields including Product Design.

Environmental Ethics has not been introduced in India as an effective method of policy making.

Unfortunately, the role of the environmental ethics is not yet introduced in the education system of India.

Hence, the author had to take time to explain and elaborate the background history of the value of environmental ethics.

The field of Product Design directly or indirectly has to depend on the natural resources. The vast consumer market is flooded with the wide range of products to attract huge population in term of comfort, which will be inexpensive and easily available. The product designers without having a clear mental- framework based on ethical considerations (to be precise on the basis of Land Ethics) from the conceptual stage may considerably damage our environment and the future generation. Hence, it is proposed that the ethical considerations in designing of consumer products, from the conceptual stage to practice in product development, should be introduced through the Industrial Design policy.

Environmental Ethics - in building an attitude of cooperative-operation: In product design there are two very basic aspects- functionality and expressiveness. Functionality of a product depends on various manufacturing process, material considerations, ergonomics etc. Where as expressiveness deals with our emotion, satisfaction, pleasure etc. Building the attitude of 'cooperation' would emerge out of our capability in synthesizing expressiveness. For example, a terra-cotta tea cup is undoubtedly hundred percent eco-friendly compare to plastic cups. Depending on the taste and the place, the same cup may be designed(in terra-cotta ceramics) in such a way so that its intrinsic value is duly recognized. The use of plastics in other fields may have much more usefulness than making tea-cups. The attitude of cooperation or understanding between the function and expressiveness would make the world much happier. Otherwise, the products may bring immediate profits without having any consideration for the others.

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Papers Therefore, environmental ethics would help us in understanding the meaning of cooperation through a philosophical reasoning. The sound reasoning (ethical) of cooperative attitude through give and take must start at the very beginning of conceptual stage of designing. It is the nature which has given us the sanctuary from the beginning of mankind. And we have not made any obligatory compulsion on our own citizen; instead we expected the environment to tolerate us. Leopold (1982) writes in this connection, "No important change in ethics was ever accomplished without an internal change in our intellectual emphasis, loyalties, affections, and convictions"(p.246). Hence, the design process from its conceptual stage requires such conviction and understanding for a socially useful purpose. The formative stage would naturally be more healthy and successful once the conceptual stage has integrated the above aspects.

The Effect of Liberal Economic Policy on Product Design: The recent global economic liberalization policy has created a considerable impact on a number of developing countries. The increasing competition in a much larger market has forced us to develop attractive designs to capture the consumer market. The liberalization policy has prompted us to explore possible ways to compete with others. Such competition for a place in the global society is quite natural process. But not forgetting the sense of cooperation. As Leopold mentioned that it is natural that a person would compete for a place in the community. At the same time the ethics would prompt him to cooperate so that he has a fair chance to compete with others.

India being the largest democratic country is experiencing complex economic changes due to the new trade policy. At this juncture the economic policy may create tremendous opportunities for the huge consumer product market. Obviously the new technology, material, manufacturing process and aesthetics would excite the designers to produce endless number of products. Due to the increasing competition and constant change in design the exploration of new material is quite obvious. The said policy has created a competitive consumer product market. At this point the competition based on ethics would motivate designers to design considering various other factors related to environment. Complex economic structure of India would be tempted to move toward faster profit overlooking important environmental considerations. Therefore, policy makers in industrial products would have to be extremely careful in maintaining the man and nature harmonious relationship. It has to be part of their philosophy in building such attitude in the policy. The new trade policy has given us chance to compete. But at the same time it is necessary to maintain cooperation and abide by the factors related to environment. Thus, a policy of cooperative attitude would build a healthy economy for the future generation. Otherwise the immediate profit and excitement of new product design may eventually be a short time success story.

Industrial Design Movement and Its Effect on Environment England at the advent of the Industrial Revolution in eighteenth-century England became first nation in the industrial technology. It was based on availability of coal as a new source of energy replacing water and wind power and on iron as the strategic material. The invention of Watt's steam engine (1769) changed the concept of industrial growth. The influence of technological advancement made distinctive characteristics in the United Sates. Ian Barbour (1980) writes, "Technology also was seen as a means of achieving democratic objectives, including new forms of freedom to act and greater equality through improvement in the lot of the Sthapati | 2009 | 14

Papers poor."

After the World War II, a number of western countries had experienced the sudden demand for consumer products. The concept of open competitive market economy in western countries introduced a new direction in industrial design. But due to the rapid development in mass production, mass transportation and mass communication the possibility of capturing larger market at distance places became easier. The open market economy introduced competitiveness among large number of products of similar nature.

Naturally, using various attractive packaging designs and packaging materials from the available resources was necessary. Due to the excitement of unlimited opportunity to compete mankind forgot the limitation of our resource material. After the World War, the world community was carried away by the philosophy of 'freedom' in every possible sphere of our life. The use of unlimited natural wealth as a mean to enjoy the freedom became one of the major fall out of the new enthusiasm. The environmental impact due to the usage of natural resources and the huge consumer product wastes was not considered seriously, until recently. The world wide conscious effort in changing the anthropocentric attitude of the people has become one of the most important agendas of the present world community.

Methodological Outline: Based on the above philosophy the author proposes for implementation of a harmonious relationship between environment and product design. Such policy may help the new generation designers from the conceptual stage to practice in sustaining the ecological balance. Thus, it is expected that the industrial design oriented policies would emerge out of a philosophy where environmental ethics would play an important role. Otherwise, through the new liberalization policy may bring immediate profits but in the long run it would adversely affect the ecological balance of India which is already in jeopardy.

Product Design Policy

 An agency (like ISI) should act as the watch-dog on behalf of the policy maker  Product Design Policy should insist on such documents which would support the above information  Product Design should pass through the agency norms based on the above philosophy  The agency should not consider the operation and material durability only, it should consider all the above criteria to fulfill the national interest

Essential Aspects of Product Design Process

 Any consumer product material should be as close as possible bio-degradable  Possible recycle material and technique should be used  Material which may cause health hazard or damage to the environment should be clearly written on the product

 Incorporate India's rich culture of traditional craft to enrich the modern design concept  Incorporate the traditional eco-friendly design concept- available material, manufacturing process, etc.  Ergonomic consideration of Indian standard and habit should be considered  Should not borrow the foreign product design as it is unless it is unique Sthapati | 2009 | 15

Papers ď Ž Any foreign product design before introducing in Indian market must be evaluated with our tradition, culture, aesthetics and ergonomics point of view.

Conclusion Ethics as a subject of study is considered more close to philosophy. The philosophy of Environmental ethics emerged out off the practical field study. The synthesis of philosophical reasoning through the application in our life has made an unique blending and balance between humanities and technology. In recent years there is a drive in many western countries to include environmental ethics as part of curriculum in science technology education. It is felt that without understanding the value of any applied field of study through ethical reasoning the result may harm in the long term. Thus, environmental ethics can duly play an active role in developing a policy in product design for a healthier nation for the future generation of India and the rest of the world.

References Barbour, Ian G. (1980), Technology, Environment, and Human Values, Pub: New York, Praeger Publishers, 521 Fifth Avenue Leopold, Aldo (1982), A Sand County Almanac, Pub: New York, Ballantine Books (Edits) Elliot, Robert and Gare, Arran (1983), Environmental Philosophy, Pub: U.S.A. The Penn State University Presss

Prof. Amit Ray was an ex-faculty and Head of Design Programme at IIT Kanpur and presently Emeritus Fellow at Design Program, IIITDM Jabalpur.

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SKYWALKS EMERGING AS THE NEW FACE OF PEDESTRIANISATION IN MUMBAI. - A Comprehensive Solution or Localised Urban Interventions‌?

Nidhi Sharma 5th year B.Arch.

Life in Mumbai means a regular and unavoidable consumption of suburban railway services or local trains. And with this comes the much talked about Mumbai railway stations, congested streets, blaring horns, hawkers and crazy traffic jams. But inspite of this, the city still runs like none other in India.

Throughout my stay in Bombay I was amused by this. I was enthralled to see how the crumbling and ramshackled railway stations on the verge of collapse are still catering to millions of daily passengers and are still working, if not efficiently.

I was searching for a topic for my academic field observation, while I had a chance to use the newly built Bandra skywalk. Also , during the same time there were regular clips in newspapers about the upcoming new sky walks. Some of them were about local residents protesting against them and others talked of their efficiency. This essay ends only in a question, if we really need a comprehensive solution which can be taken up as a prototype or do we need a localized architectural/urban intervention?

In an urban setting, Skywalk is a type of pedway consisting of an enclosed or covered bridge between two buildings.

Besides pedestrian safety and convenience, the chief reasons assigned by urban planners for skywalk development are decrease of traffic congestion, reduction in vehicular air pollution and separation of people from vehicular noise.

The Mumbai Skywalk Project is a series of skywalks in and around the metropolitan region of Mumbai.

The project was initiated by the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA). Currently, 50 projects are planned at a total estimated cost of about Rs.600 crores under this scheme. The Bandra-Kurla Skywalk, the first to be built among the Mumbai Skywalks, is 1.3 kilometres long and connects the suburban regions of Bandra and Kurla.

Bandra is one of the most prominent and bustling suburbs of Mumbai. It is estimated that on an average more than 5 lakh commuters use this station. The factors which are contributing to more commuter traffic on the eastern side of Bandra are the existence of Bandra-Kurla Complex (one of the largest office space complex in Mumbai) and the location of Bandra-Kurla Railway Terminus on the eastern side, which sees both inbound and outbound commuter traffic.

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These Skywalks will help in improvement of the flow of passengers and vehicles in and around selected stations, reduction in traffic congestion and increase in vehicular speed on roads, thus resulting in safe and smooth flow of vehicular and pedestrian traffic.

The Bandra Skywalk Project has been a success in terms of giving pedestrians more leg space to move and avoiding vehicular traffic. Walking on this 1.3 Km long skywalk enjoying the sea breeze is quite a pleasant experience; however it comes with its own shortcomings, which are as follows •Lack of exits at significant points. People have to walk back from terminal point over long distances.

•Water drips through gaps during rain from roof.

•Skywalk vibrates when heavy vehicles pass under it.

•Number of guards is limited.

•Once the hawkers are rehabilitated, they will occupy most of the space.

This skywalk, also called “yellow caterpillar” by some architects, has become a distinct feature of Bandra suburb, as well as of entire Mumbai to some extent.

MMRDA has already planned construction of 50 Sky-Walks in and around Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR).

The next part of the article briefly discusses various proposed/ constructed skywalks in different parts of Mumbai, following the Bandra skywalk model and the prototype design failing to solve the local issues and requirements.

PROPOSED SKYWALK BETWEEN CHURCHGATE AND CHHATRAPATI SHIVAJI TERMINUS

The MMRDA had planned to construct four elevated walkways along the Golden Mile - the D.N. Road.

The proposed skywalk would be 2.5 km long, crossing art deco buildings like Eros cinema hall in front of Church Gate and places of historical importance like Oval Maidan. This proposal was vehemently opposed by architects and conservationists throughout the city. As the yellow caterpillar ,as some people call it, was

Inappropriate for a heritage site for it would mar the skyline and obstruct the view of the old architecture, maidans and precincts, as they say.

The proposal for four skywalks in South Mumbai has been cancelled after the Mumbai Heritage Conservation Committee (MHCC) raised questions over the bridges spoiling the area's art deco aesthetics.

SKYWALK AT KANJURMARG STATION

The 500 m long Kanjurmarg Skywalk is not being used by as many users as MMRDA had planned. It starts with the foot over bridge ,passing adjacent to SRA scheme buildings and terminates at a slum pocket. It is an example of wrong planning as it fails to attract pedestrians owing to its location and the community it serves. Shops planned at ground floor

of these buildings under SRA scheme are suffering because of construction of this skywalk. The skywalk passes right in front of all these buildings violating the privacy of local residents. Repair of old foot over bridge and its extension rather than construction of a new skywalk would have been a good a solution for MMRDA. Sthapati | 2009 | 18

SKYWALK AT DAHISAR AND VIRAR WEST, NORTH MUMBAI SUBURBS

Stretching from Bharucha Road to S.V. Road, the skywalk is constructed at Dahisar East. Instead of solving any problems, it has increased the congestion on narrow roads of Dahisar. Total cost 12.02 crores, Length 477 metres.

Says Virar resident Vidhya Madhse, “I have been living in Virar for almost six years now. Seeing the traffic and pedestrian congestion here, I really don't feel there is any need for the skywalk. They have dug up the place for almost six months now and it only serves to add to our woes.” Total Cost Rs 9.15 crores, Length 589 metres .

"The construction of the skywalk has exacerbated the existing problem of congestion outside Borivali station. During evenings, the congestion gets worse.

The state agency must complete the project on time.”

--Traffic police constable, Station Road

The functional aspect of such Skywalks can be reimagined. Many old overhead bridges work as small markets and hawker zones.

It is Mumbai's character to spill over everywhere and pedestrianisation never functions alone in this city.

Such elevated spaces can be tapped as a public space of certain manner. If not made into organized spaces, they'll be taken over by hawkers in some time anyway.

There are always mixed uses of places and objects and each locality itself is different. Planting the same unmodified prototype everywhere may not turn out to be a solution at all. Like this skywalk works in Bandra but did not work in Dahisar. .What we need is a study of micro-environments before planning any such services.

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To Sir, With Love...  Thumu karthik “I have already informed you, there isn't any work for incompetents in my office. I have already prescribed you to my clients. So don't call me anymore”. Those must have been the worst-ever introductory words to a trainee. The person who spoke the words was Rajeev, and may Gods pacify the soul on the other end. He was furious and I was perplexed. The only thought lingering in my mind was 'Apni toh lag gayi Boss'. He spears me a look and adds, with a twinkle in his eyes, “Hey, you must be Karthik.” Amazed by the cadence in his tone, like a Soordas after Metallica, “Yes Sir”, I replied. Thus commenced the 'Voyage of Designhaaus', as captained by Ar. Rajeev Kumar Sharma.

‘

Rajeev passed out from Kharagpur in 2002. He did get a campus placement but never got a job 9/11 did impact a few lives!! So he went to Mumbai and attempted t u t o r i n g mathematics to CAT aspirants but it turned out to be an ephemeral stint. He searched for a c a r e e r i n Architecture which brought him to southern India.

Rajeev passed out from Kharagpur in 2002. He did get a campus placement but never got a job - 9/11 did impact a few lives!! So he went to Mumbai and attempted tutoring mathematics to CAT aspirants but it turned out to be an ephemeral stint. He searched for a career in Architecture which brought him to southern India. He tried being the bourgeoisies till 2005 but his physic intolerance grew to obnoxious levels leading to the origin of Designhaaus Pvt. Ltd. Some of his batch mates inspired by his intrepidity championed his cause. A 100 square foot small scale single employee firm grew to a 1500 square foot middle scale multi city headquarter. During the primitive years, a small residence was not that 'small'; but today, you have to be a large scale builder professionally involved with the office for a consideration to residence design. Designhaaus has been consulted for projects worth more than 2000 cr and have ongoing projects worth more than 400 cr. For many its end of the tunnel, but for Rajeev it's - “Abhi toh shuru hua hain yaar”.

You must have read about a character like this on every fifth page of economic times and that he must have been a much more successful entrepreneur. So what makes Rajeev so special? First of all, he's from Kharagpur!! Secondly, he has achieved everything without any patrimony and he's just a twenty nine year old bachelor. Next is his vision, to ameliorate the whole natural and built design environment. Thus, the immediate question that ensues- what makes up Rajeev? He's ardent passion and workaholic idiosyncrasy. He is at office when the morning clock is setting up its alarm and who knows when he is out - never risked to wait for him. His acumen is incredulous; he can estimate the feasibility of large scale project with a glimpse of the site layout and at the same time can give you a tutorial on miniscule architectural details. He's an apotheosis of Archiscience, if there exists one. He's a 'chalta-phirta' inspiration for all budding architects and entrepreneurs. Lastly, I wish his competitors all the luck, they surely need it!!

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‘

FOCUS: STUDENT OF THE YEAR Neelakshi Joshi

N

eelakshi Joshi, a student at BIT Mesra, Ranchi is the finalist of the eleventh annual Berkeley-Prize Undergraduate Prize for Architectural Design Excellence 2009. From the pool of essay proposals received, approximately 25 are selected by the Prize Committee as particularly promising. These Semifinalists are invited to submit a 2,500-word essay expanding on their proposals. A jury of international academics and architects to select the winners among the semifinalists. Neelakshi was the chosen one for the year of 2009.

Here is Neelakshi's introduction in her own words: “I was born into a family and culture that has its vast mesh of roots embedded deep in history. Parents and grandparents in India constantly instill us with a respect for nature and the virtue of frugality in everyday acts of life . This is their greatest gift to us and our only hope if we wish to sustain ourselves on this planet. Being an army brat, shifting base every two years and living in ancient forts, old stone houses and thatched huts had its unique thrill as a child.However, looking back , with the perspective of an architecture student, it helps in undestandingthe diverse and intricate relationship between climate, culture and the built environment.

In college, I enjoy the constant debate with professors who encourage us to seek local solutions towards a sustainable future and to look beyond the green wash the movement has faced in the recent past. After four years of architectural education, I am currently training with a firm that specializes in respecting local climate, material and temprament. It has greatly helped me to understand the translation of traditions in a contemporary scenario and seek a solution to the problems of cultural erosion, climate change and material depletion. Banaras has been my home for the last seven years. Its antiquity, lifestyle, festivity and vigour has left a lasting impression on me. I hope to carry forward the research that started with this essay and give it a more tangible form in the future as an architect and also a proactive citizen.”

Here’s Neelakshi’s final report: Translating Traditions- a report Introduction The idea for the design competition “Translating Traditions" came from the comment made on my essay proposal by on of the jury members. He wanted me to explore 'HOW" and "WHY" traditional practices should be revived. Understanding traditions is not enough. Their translation into the current vocabulary is necessary.

The idea was to document the various vernacular practices students see around them, understand their simple yet effective ways and ultimately come up with their own schemes on implementing them. The idea often comes up in conversations among students but the thought was to bring it out to debate in the zonal annual students' meet and see how different people feel about their heritage. Whether it encourages something more than mere nostalgia?

Initial Preparations A blog (translatingtraditions.blogspot.com) was set up at the onset of the competition. It was also popularized

by Ethos(www.ethosindia.in) a popular competition website and word was spread through student associations and social networking groups. The jury for the competition was1. Ar. Chitra Vishwanath (www.biome-solutions.com) is a Bangalore based architect whose firm Biome Environmental Solutions specializes in creating indigenously green buildings.

2. Ar. Gita Balakrishnan is the lady behind Ethos (www.ethosindia.in) and very popular among students.

She is at the forefront of organizing various green design competitions.

3. Dr. Satyaki Sarkar , Senior Lecturer,Department of Architecture, Birla Institute of Technology, Mesra, Ranchi has special interest in urban conservation and has done a lot of work in Calcutta along the same lines.

We received 90 registrations from across India at the end of this period.

Traditions (June 15th-July 30th) We received a total of 40 entries for the first round- from earthquake resistant housing in Srinagar to detailed study of Chettinad houses in south India. We were delighted to see the varied nature of buildings studied and the interest of students in their local ingenious styles of architecture. Acoustic treatment in old theaters was of special interest.

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Two factors that I had not ascertained in the beginning were how to establish the authenticity of the work and to ask for references. This was pointed out by the jury and was rectified in the next round.

Translation (August 5th -September 10th, 2009) Sixteen studies from the first round one advanced to the next stage. Judges were impressed by the tangible solutions offered by students and also by use of local technology for addressing local issues of floods and earthquakes.

SeminarA seminar was conducted in the seminar hall of B.I.T Mesra on 3rd October 2009 as a part of Zonasa'09.

Three eminent people working with vernacular architecture and conservation were invited for the same.

1. Mr. Bulu Imam Director, Sanskriti Kendra Research Center, Hazaribagh, Convener INTACH (Indian National Trust for Art and Culture) and campaigner against coal mining in Karanpura valley (www.karanpuracampaign.com).

2. Dr. Ajay Khare- Director School of Planning and Architecture Bhopal and an active conservationist working with DRONAH (www.dronah.com) 3. Mr. S. D Singh- State Convener, INTACH Jharkhand and an alumnus of B.I.T Mesra.

Mr. Bulu Imam presented a lecture on 'Post Architectural Habitat in a globally Warming World'. It made students think of a fast approaching world where there will be fights over water and not oil, where coasts will be flooded and when high rise buildings will be rendered useless because there will be no electricity. He implored the need to explore the simple solutions of a mud hut, a leaf dwelling and the self sustaining and simple life of villages when we design in a radically altered world.

Dr. Khare shared his experiences as a young conservationist in Jaisalmer. He talked of pragmatism in conservation ('we should not be conservative while conserving') and why certain structures need to be retained for the knowledge they contain for future generations.

Mr. S. D Singh presented his attempts of conserving the Rajmahal area with a group of students.

Audio-visual presentation made by winning students were played and discussed by the panel. It was widely agreed that that simple and passive techniques of yesterdays make more sense. The challenge to the modern day architect remains to make right choices over market driven sensibilities. Copies of the competition brief and prints of the lectures delivered were circulated among students.

The seminar was successful and Bulu Imam's talk inspired many. It was also an interesting introduction to next year's easy on conservation. We even made it to the local newspaper!!!

The Experience The entire experience of conducting the competition 'Translating Traditions' was very enriching. It was heartening to see the variety of structures studied. It put me in contact with a lot of students from across India as well as a number of architects and individuals who work towards upholding indigenous architecture. The aim of this entire exercise was to create awareness and inculcate pride in the future generation of architects about the wealth of indigenous knowledge that is slowly disappearing unsung and I feel it was met successfully.

Inauguration ceremony of Zonasa '09

Dr. Khare talking about conservation as other panelists look on.

Architects discussing displayed sheets Sthapati | 2009 | 22

LEED, LEED…… and keep on leading. 

Rakshit Sharma, LEED AP (USGBC) Final yr, B.Arch.

T

he race to go 'green' has kick started and how.

Today everyone wants to be green, look green, talk greener, and think greenest! . So, let's skip the “green” issue, and instead talk about the method to prove oneself green.

LEED--- Leadership in energy and environmental design, is an internationally recognized green building certification system, it provides verification that a building or community was designed and built considering strategies aimed at improving performance across all the dimensions that are most vital: energy savings, water efficiency, CO2 emissions reduction, improved indoor environmental quality, and attention to resources and sensitivity to their consequences.

Developed by the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), LEED is a tool which helps owners and operators to brief a framework for identifying and implementing practical and measurable green building design, construction, operations and maintenance elucidations.

Scope of LEED: There are different LEED rating systems for different types of projects as: New Construction, Existing Building: Operation and Maintenance, Core and Shell, Schools, Retail, Commercial Interiors, Health care, Home, and Neighborhood development.

LEED is flexible enough to apply to all building types commercial as well as residential. It works throughout the building lifecycle design and construction, operations and maintenance, tenant fitout, and significant retrofit. And LEED for Neighborhood Development extends the benefits of LEED beyond the building footprint into the neighborhood it serves.

So, what's the deal?

In one simple line the story is “Prove your building up to the mark over the norms set by USGBC and get your building certified “ LEED is a voluntary certification program that can be applied to any building type and any building lifecycle phase. It promotes a whole-building approach to sustainability by recognizing performance in key areas, these areas are: Sustainable Sites Water Efficiency Energy and Atmosphere Material and Resources. Indoor Environment Quality Innovation in Design

produce environmental impacts. These issues are termed as credits. Except for water efficiency and innovation, in each of these key areas there are one or more issues that must be dealt as per the standards set by USGBC, in order to get certified.

These issues are termed as prerequisites.

Rating System LEED points are awarded on a 100-point scale, and credits are weighted to reflect their potential environmental impacts. Additionally, 10 bonus credits are available, four of which address regionally specific environmental issues. A project must satisfy all prerequisites and earn a minimum number of points to be certified .

Certification: 40+ points, Silver: 50+ points, Gold: 60+ points, Platinum: 80+ point.

LEEDs certification obtained in the United States is valid anywhere in the USA, however there are also international initiatives for energy efficiently and environmental sustainability in most other developed countries. Canada, United Kingdom, India, Australia etc, have their own version of the LEEDs rating scales, and have a set of qualifications for professionals to certify the buildings to the standards.

Professional Accreditation A LEED accredited Professionals (LEED AP) can facilitate the rating of buildings with the various LEED systems. The Green Building Certification Institute has been administering professional accreditation since January 2008.LEED accreditation initially required a candidate to only pass one exam to earn their LEED Accredited Professional designation. June 2009 saw changes in the system. LEED accreditation now has three tiers and requires candidates to pass a series of LEED exams. The changes were made to mirror the various LEED Building Certification Rating Systems. The first tier exam is called LEED Green Associate. The second tier exam is called LEED Accredited Professional with specialty and has five separate exams to allow for individual specialization. The third tier standards have yet to be determined. An education provider program held by The Green Building Certification Institute provides seminars and lectures to prepare candidates to take and pass the LEED Exams.

LEED certification has become the canonical for showing that a building project meets environmentally friendly, sustainable protocols.

Such a building has lower operating costs, along with measures to conserve energy and water resources on a consistent basis, less waste sent to landfills, fewer greenhouse gas emissions, and an overall conducive environment for occupants.

Each of these areas deals with the issues that could Sthapati | 2009 | 23

REVISITING THE 'ARYAN MYTH' - An architect's viewpoint Prof. Dr. Joy Sen Associate Professor ARP, IIT Kharagpur

1.0 Introduction The discovery of the 'Indo-European language linkage' had led to a world-wide controversy of the 'Aryan myth'. Researchers had first observed that the earliest surviving form of Indian Sanskrit bears a relation to the classical tongue as does Homeric to classical Greek. The verb is of great complexity rivaling Greek.

Another striking feature of Vedic Sanskrit is the tonic accent and every important word had an accented syllable, which was not necessarily stressed, but on which the voice raised in pitch, as in classical Greek. The tonic accent of Sanskrit, with some minor exceptions, is almost the same as in old Greek language systems[1].

1.1 Indo-European Language Systems The early proposals of a common origin of various languages (Asian and European) had come from the Dutch linguist and scholar Marcus Zuerius van Boxhorn in 1647. Boxhorn discovered the similarity among Indo-European languages, and supposed the existence of a primitive common language which he called 'Scythian'. He included in his hypothesis Dutch, Greek, Latin, Persian, and German, later adding Slavic, Celtic and Baltic languages. However, the suggestions of van Boxhorn did not become widely known and did not stimulate further research.

Initially, basic social words were noted, like 'Matri' and 'Pitri' that corresponded to 'Mother' and 'Pater or Father' of the European languages. Next there had been a set of bio-anthropometric words like 'anga' and 'pada' corresponding to 'wing' and 'podium or foot' of the European equivalence. Additionally, there were language-based words like 'artha' and 'vaka' in line with words like 'worth' and 'vocae' of the European tongue. Finally, there were critically important technical words like 'Arka' and 'Takkhana' in Sanskrit comparable to 'Archaic' and 'Techno'. That led to several match points at different levels of culture social, biobehavioral, linguistic, and technical. That seems truly comprehensive!

The hypothesis re-appeared in 1786 when Sir William Jones first lectured on similarities between four of the oldest languages known in his time: Latin, Greek, Sanskrit, and Persian. Systematic comparison of these and other old languages conducted by Franz Bopp supported this theory, and Bopp's Comparative Grammar, appearing between 1833 and 1852 counts as the starting-point of Indo-European studies as an academic discipline. Since then many scholarships have come in‌ 1.2 Important questions Since the discovery of different Indo-European languages ranging from the Indo-Iranian, the east Asian Tocharian, the east European Slavonic and Armenian, the south European archaic Greek and Romance (Italic), the north European Germanic, Baltic and Celtic and the Anatolian Hittite, the scholars of language systems have faced major linguistic and cultural controversies in confirming the direction of linkages and dissemination. Today, scholarships on 'patterns of world language systems' are facing major questions like: 1. Which is the mother stock from where the people of Europe and Asia have descended?

2. Do most of the modern European languages derive their source from a single Indo-European origin?

3. Given any explanation to the two above questions, how can the role of the early language carriers be historically accommodated to explain language migration? Particularly the following: - Evidences of trade linkages between settlements of Indus valley, Mesopotamia and the ancient Mediterranean (from the earliest times 3500 BC trade linkages between Indian Harappa and Kish, a city next to Ur where corresponding seals and artifacts have been cross-discovered).

- The presence of Hittites and Mittanis (inhabiting Ancient near east Assyria to Anatolia) venerating various forms of Indian lore and Indian deities (1700 1400 BC). The Hittites are mentioned in the Old Testament (book of Genesis).

- The earliest marine carriers called the Phoenicians, who traded all the way from the Persian Gulf (even earlier to / from 3000 BC 500 BC) to the Middle East, and furthering introducing phonetics to Eastern Europe and northern Africa. Who could be the Phoenicians? The Sthapati | 2009 | 24

Papers Phoenicians are found in the Old Testament helping Kings like Solomon and David building their temples with the aid of Hiram, who ruled over the maritime settlements in Palestine.

- The land carriers called 'Romany' or 'Rum' or Gypsies, whose language systems have been traced to Eastern Persia and Pakuisthan (Turan, Khorasan, Quetta-Pishin) and India. The entire Eastern European language system is largely influenced by these carriers. Say, a word like 'Santa' in Sanskrit corresponds to 'Saint' in Europe. Gypsy settlements can be historically traced to times of Emperor Alexander, who had encountered them on his journey to India, and incidentally, he finally had a 'gypsy' wife! (350 BC) - Much later, the Moors of Arabia (1100 AD onwards to Iberia) who further brought in Indian and Persian knowledge systems like mathematics and astronomy, and language and cultural systems (culinary and dress materials) into extreme Western Europe (Iberia], while the rest of Europe was still in the Dark Ages (470 AD -1300 AD ).

2.0 A common station point recent researches Professor Colin Renfrew of Cambridge University in his recent book named 'Archaeology and Language: The Puzzle of Indo-European Language' (Penguin, 1987) have stationed the search among the first settled farmers of Anatolia. As a probable period he arrives at a very early one of 7000 B.C and further proposes that the whole family of new languages probably evolved from that point in history.

His research is exhaustive involving his own works in relation to that of other 100 reputed scholars from all over the world. In conclusion, he points out a further dissipation of language from Western Asia (Persia to Anatolia) to Europe at around 6000 B.C. This had direct connections with the Celtic-Gaulish (GalatianGaelic) civilizations, a cultural movement that stretched Europe to Ireland preceding the legacy of Rome and Greece by a thousand years or more.

3.0 The arrival of the colonial Aryan myth When European scholarship had realized the 'Indo-European' language system and the intertwined 'Aryan legacy', they had no other option but to render a 'colonial imperial' version of that myth. European th Scholarship of the 19 century have had tried to organize and consolidate a maneuvered standpoint promoting a one-way traffic of flows of culture and sciences through the medium of language. Obviously, they pointed out a desirable direction from Europe to Asia!

The one-way traffic have had been theorized to be a historical event and also a movement of civilized people coming from Europe called the 'Aryans'. Myths concerning the Aryans were theorized to posit their origin in Western Europe and propose their subsequent migration to Asia i.e. Persia and India.

A one-way journey as contemplated by the colonial preachers asserted earliest movements from a place beyond the upper Balkans and the Germanic Black forests or Norwegian mountains were designated as their original homes. From there they had moved further eastward through the mountainous valleys of the Caucasus, Turkmen and the Zagros of Persia to reach the Indo-Gangetic plains. There they composed the earliest gospels of universal truths, cosmology and humanity seen as manifestations (atman) of a single reality, which they called 'Brahman'. This culture and religion formed in India are believed to have been a pure or an extended import from Europe, where at present there are very little or possibly no traces of an origin!!

On the contrary, in India, since the original and ancient Vedic scriptures, whenever they were realized and composed, the continuity of that grand cosmic, spiritual and humanitarian heritage and its practice are sustained right through to our present times. Little of that remains in material Europe today supposedly contemplated to be its origin!

If we apply simple logic earmarking areas of origins as areas of concentrations as against the areas of present dilutions or dispersions, we logically arrive at a different picture. The regions of continuity and concentrations over time are the possible origins. Evidences from ancient, medieval and modern India provide such indicators. On the other hand, way of life and present evidences in Modern Europe is a negation to that continuity.

The colonial preachers however were not interested in that kind of simple logic!! So at source, the most probable forefathers of the mighty Anatolian Hittites; of the ancient Median worshippers of the Persia called the Zoroastrian 'Atar-Baharam'; and that of the inspirations of an Indian Vedic Rishihood were traced to Europe ! A Myth - indeed!

4.0 The Aryan Movement: Asia to Europe or vice-versa, which way?

The proponents of this 'Aryan myth' were many. They were Professor Max Muller, Nietzsche, and Schopenhauer and lately, a military authority organized by the Nazis in Germany. Their intentions were clear.

In the treasure house of the Library of Alexandria the ancient knowledge and theories of original Greek homelands could be traceable in Asiatic Anatolia, African Egypt, Asiatic Media and the Indian-Saraswati valley. In that Library the earliest Egyptians stored all of that ancient knowledge - the probable source to a Sthapati | 2009 | 25

Papers Later knowledge of Euclid, Pythagoras, Heraclitus, Hippocratus, Protogoras, Socrates, Plato and Plotinus.

This was unacceptable by the European rulers!!

The colonial legacy had to block the 'Aryan Myth' and reverse its source in the bounds of Western Europe.

The Asiatic character and heritage of Eastern Europe was seen as an intermediate deterrent! So there had to be other plans!

We know the unfortunate event of the destruction of the ancient Alexandrian Library. The destruction was deliberately organized by the northern European invaders who overtook the ancient Etruscan Empire of Italy.

The northern invasions continued to wage the war of anti-semiticism[2] - the battle against Mediterranean and East European races.

Defying the spirit of a humanitarian intent the so called European 'Aryan' invaders had managed to wage many wars and inquisitions, including the Middle Ages, and in and through the 100 years of Anglo-Saxon wars, and of late, the latest horrors of the two great World wars (1914-1942) and, the wars in the Balkans (1993-97). The intentions were to re-establish the colonial one-way myth and sustain, preserve and motivate the 'supremacy of a particular racial standpoint': Is this 'Aryan' in spirit?

Let us search.

5.0 The turning of the tide During the colonial rule, and unfortunately, even today, to an extent, a reverse picture of the Aryan cultural migration from Asia to Europe was never considered. It was therefore important that honest protests backed up by in-depth researches were to be initiated.

As imperialism began to take a back seat following the great World Wars (1916-45), colonized countries in the underdeveloped world had started to become independent one by one. New and reinvigorated researches were encouraged. Consequentially the voice and aspirations of the many suppressed for centuries had begun to resurface. In India particularly, it had taken a very important turn. It was the turning of the tide. Here are the first and most important ones: - The earliest pointers: It began with Dayananda Saraswati, the founder of the 'Arya Samaj' in India. Then it was Swami Vivekananda, who renewed a voice of confidence in true spirituality and its probable origin in India through his impact on the Parliament of Religions in Chicago in 1893. But the real and deeper textual insights had begun with Shri Aurobindo[3], presenting to the world the first scientific foundations of the Indo-European connection from India to the rest of the world. Then emerged subsequent scholarly researches by R. Swaminatha Aiyar, B. R. Ambedkar, A. L. Basham, Micheal Danino[4], Sujata Nahar, David Frawley[5], Georg Feurerstein[6] and of late, many others.

- Archaeological, art-anthropological and semantic-phonetic evidences: Further discoveries have strengthened the foundations of Indian spirituality. Of them six most important are: 1) The discovery of the Indus Valley civilization taking Indian history a few thousand years prior to the Buddha and also prior to the archaic beginnings of a European Greece at around 600 B.C. Of late, new discoveries of Indus valley sites namely Mehrgarh[7] I and II have pushed Indian civilization back to 7000 B.C. 2) The recent satellite imagery reconfirms[8] the Indus-Saraswati concentration of ancient settlements and associated evidences have strengthened the possibility of an Indian Vedic civilization pre-dating the Indus Valley. Many scholars have contributed to that.

Some of them are V. S. Walankar (1987), S. R. Rao (1991-1999), V. N. Mishra (1993-1999), S. P. Gupta (1996), B. B. Lal (1999), B. P Radhakrishna and S. S. Mehr (1999), R. S. Bisht of A.S.I (1998) and lastly K. S. Valdiya (2002) of Indian Space Research organization. A striking observation is on the joint agglomeration of archaeological sites of the Indus valley, the settlements of the Indus-Saraswati plains and the probabale settlements of Dwaraka and Prabhas of the Mahabharatas confirming a continuous and an inseparable system of settlements[9] (which have been augmented by further evidences of offshore location of under-water settlements in the Gulf of Kutch[10] (possible Dwaraka).

3) Recent evidences of prehistoric horses in Paleolithic upper Sampo-Tibetian zone[11](north-east India) have challenged an earlier theory of 'horse import' from Europe.

The discovery of Riwoche species of horses in these regions abutting Indo-China borders has opened up new areas of research. French anthropologist Dr. Michel Piessel and his team had initiated the work on pre-historic Stone Age paintings of horses found in this part of Tibet (reported by Time Magazine, November 27, 1995).

4) Observations on textual and iconic similarities of Tamil and Greek script have been earlier noted. Similar alphabets are like ď ? (pi) and ď ™ (psi or Russian Zhi) and ď ˇ (double-u syllables found in ancient traditions of Yahweh[12] and that of ancient Dionysian Thrace).

Alphabets of ancient India have similar phonetic and semantic patterns of European Sthapati | 2009 | 26

Papers phonetic counterparts (say 'Ka' in India and K in Celtic-English) (refer Table 5.1).

5) Common origins of European and Egyptian Gypsies are evident in north-western India (South central Asia). The movements of the Indo-European Gypsies to Anatolia and Egypt further confirm that they were the forefathers of eastern Europeans in Trans-Sylvania comprising of Romania (Crisana), Austria (Vienna or Vindobana), Anatolia (Ankora), Hungary, Bohemia, Bulgaria and probably all areas in Mediterranean Cyclades and mainland Greece.

6) A recent work of Professor Colin Renfrew[13], researching the puzzle of the IndoEuropean origins has confirmed a possible hub of the earliest concentrations of IndoEuropean cultures not in Europe but in western Asia i.e. Anatolia. He has dated the hub at 7000 B.C. and this matches similar farmstead community settlements of Mehrgarh in Indus of a similar period. Renfrew pointed out Eastern Anatolia (present day Turkmenistan or eastern Turkey) as the first cradle. Here the Asiatic forefathers (around 6000 B.C.) formed the folk-anthropological, linguistic and socio-cultural beginnings that led to further dissemination of Indo-European culture in lands further west. The last part of this section has forwarded these evidences.

In the end, we forward a final pointer, which is an architect's viewpoint: 6.0 Conclusions: in view of evidences from India - Unity of one Indian race - Aryans and Dravidians An important understanding lies in the linkages between the etymology of the two words 'Arya' and 'Dravida', that stands against the colonial racial proposition of an European Aryan invading India from north when the rest of India was inhabited by aboriginals, who were culturally inferior and mostly a backward Indian Dravidian race! In original Indian literature, the term 'Arya' and 'Dravida' are in fact the opposites of a unified principle constituting the cosmic thermodynamic cycle.

6.1 The linguistic and the etymologic The term 'Arya' means the movement of the fire, perhaps the inner fire or 'urge', the rhythm of a sacrificial temperament of life fostered by an inner divine principle guiding an aspiring Sage-like mind.

The inner principle is 'agni' the inner fire and it was later symbolized by the outer fire of Vedic yggna(sacrificial altar). The famous sacrifice of the 'cosmic Horse' (asswamedha) is based on this fire theme and its journey around the empire (or the universe) represented by the first phase of a cyclic movement of the sun in the ascendant. It is called the uttarayana. In this half-circle the horse of cosmic fire is put to sacrifice (Subhash Kak, 2002)[14].

The term 'Arya' stands for an increasing heat of an aspiring mind. It is based on the root: 'wri' or 'ri' from where other words like 'Riksha' (the Great Bear or the bearing capacity (spiritual conception) of the seven Sages); 'Rik' (the hymn to the sacred fire signifying the name 'Rig' Veda); 'Rita' the rhythm of truth; 'Ritu' the dynamic nature of seasonal change augmented by the heat of sun; 'Ribhu' the increasing inner heat (divinity) of man and finally 'Rishi' the great man established in a perpetual standpoint of increasing heat or 'tapasya' (the heat of austerity) are all founded.

The word 'Arya' has always meant intent of 'sacrifice' and not barbaric invasion. It means increasing heat, rarefaction an inner 'urge' or a spiritual movement from a state of the mind infatuated in the gross material world to the subtle humane world and to even beyond or higher worlds.

On the other hand, the term 'Dravida' means the descendent. The other component of the thermodynamic couple is signified by the descendent 'Dakshinayana' (meaning the movement of sun to Dakshina or the Deccan). As the sun looses heat by going down to the tropic of Capricorn, it is first characterized by increasing rains, then by autumn and winter. It comes from the root word 'dravi' (Rig Veda: 10.72.2; 9.112.2 and particularly 6.3.4) which means 'composition', 'condensation' and the art of forming the 'gross, the 'sculptured' and the 'tangible' out of the intangible. This is the other part.

6.2 The climatic and the architectonic Geo-climatically, the northern half of India and its southern half, even today corresponds to this ancient science. It is portrayed through a visible medium of design and expression of the science of 'builtenvironment' called 'Architecture'. It is evident in the 'spirit' and display of Indian architecture. 'North' and 'south' Indian temple-forms present this principle of the complementary opposites.

In the North Indian form, the journey is characterized by an increasing height (aswa-darwaza or the gate of the fire-horse) of the temple form as the user moves from outside to the inner sanctum (garba-griha). The increasing height stands for expansion and rarefaction of the 'Aryan seer mind'.

The South Indian form is just the opposite. It starts from great heights (gopuram signifying the tower of the Sthapati | 2009 | 27

Papers milking cow, as opposed to the horse of fury) and comes down to a small inner sanctum representing condensation, liquefaction - the 'principle of Dravidian Sage mind', who is even higher and descending from that height.

The two together i.e., 'Arya' and 'Dravida' represent the corresponding journey of the human mind from matter to spirit and from spirit to matter.

They are: - Rarefaction by fire - 'Arya' (principle of aswa-kranta or Uttarayana): It is a movement from earth - to water - (through fire) - to air (life) - to space and beyond.

- Condensation by the life-giving waters - 'Dravida' (principle of Go-kranta or dakshinayana): It is a movement from beyond - through space - into the creation of the five principles in the descendent (involution) and through 'life giving waters' (soma).

It is shown in the following art-plate:

Unity of the principle of 'Arya' and 'Dravida' (Based on original art-work of the exhibition entitled 'Madhu Vidya') Source: Department of Architecture and Regional Planning (1999-2002), IIT Kharagpur Sthapati | 2009 | 28

Papers To conclude, one may recollect the ancient Chinese saying (by Lao Tzu): “Returning is the motion of the TAO; going far is returning�

The two dimensions of North-Indian and South-Indian architectures are not different and conflicting; instead they are complementary and parts of a larger cyclic whole the TAO. It is in this light of Indian Architecture the 'Aryan Myth' can be re-visited and re-positioned to revive our lost national heritage and its continental foundation in the Asian perspective.

[1] Notes taken from Page 388-389, Chapter IX of 'The Wonder that was India' (1989) by A. L. Basham, Rupa & Co. [2] A racial discrimination posed on all Semitic races - mainly Jews including all east European races.

[3] The major works are 'Hymns to the Mystic Fire' and 'Secret of the Vedas'.

[4] Based on the book: 'The Invasion that never was' (with Sujata Nahar): Auroville Press, Mira Aditi (1996) [5] Based on his book: 'The Myth of the Aryan Invasion of India' (New Delhi; 1994) [6] Based on a book entitled 'In search of the Cradle of Civilization' with Prof. Subhas Kak and David Frawley, Quest Books (1995). Readers are requested to read the 21 researched arguments against the 'one-way Myth' in this book.

[7]Courtesy: page 114, National Geographic: Vol 197, no.6, June 2000 in 'Indus: Clues to an ancient civilization' [8] Courtesy: page 38, imageries of US Satellite 'Land Sat' and French 'Spot' imagery in: 'Desh' (A Bengali Magazine, July 8, 2000), ABP Ltd. [9] Refer Chapter 7 in 'Saraswati: the river that disappeared' (2002) by Prof. K. S. Valdiya, ISRO publications, Orient Longman Private Limited.

[10] Courtesy: page 39, India Today: 'The Lost Civilization' February 11, 2002 (a fortnightly magazine) [11] Courtesy: 'Secrets of the Unicorn' in Metro: The Telegraph, July 24, 2000, in article by Jayanta Basu.

[12] This is the earliest name of monotheistic syllabic God (based on vowels like the Vedic AUM) in the Old Testament. In this light, we have to remember the beginnings of the Mosaic (Moses) traditions in Egypt.

[13] The book entitled 'Archaeology and Language The puzzle of Indo-European Origins', Penguin, 1987.

[14] From his book 'The Asswamedha: the rite and Logic' by Motilal Banarsidass, India. The theme forms the beginnings of the great Upanishad the Vrihad Aranyak and formed the end of last chapter contained the Black school of the Yadjur Veda. Therefore, the 'horse' symbolism stands between the Black and the White traditions.

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ZoNASA ‘09 

Abhirajika B Arch, 3rd Year

The annual Zonasa is certainly the most anticipated event in the calendar of any architecture student at IIT KGP. Zonasa, for us is not just about bringing back home the coveted trophy, but also about treasuring the unforgettable time we spend preparing and the timeless memories thus created. Srijaamyaham, 2009, successfully concluded at BIT, Mesra on 3rd of October is a success story etched forever in our minds as we marched our way to victory yet again.

Inaugurated by the world famous Architect Dulal Mukherjee, who is known to profess vernacular architecture through the medium of local folksy arts and crafts and by employing locally available natural materials in his architecture, this three day long inter-collegiate fest was marked by enthusiasm as about 250 high spirited budding architects from the 8 guest architecture colleges of eastern zone, namely Jadavpur University, Kolkata, BESU Shibpur , CET Bhubaneswar, ABIT Cuttack, GCA Guwahati, NIT Patna , AUCE Vishakhapatnam and IIT Kharagpur competed with each other in various events showcasing their creative mettle.

The annual Zonasa meet, which we all know, serves as a meeting ground for students from various schools of architecture to compare and share their architectural know-how and very successfully demonstrates and amalgamates the multifaceted socio-cultural aspects of architecture, which is reflected in the meticulously designed events that span 3 days. Events, broadly classified as Formal, the core architecture design competitions, Informal, architectural events with a tinge of fun and interesting twists and Fun events, mostly musical, literary, dramatic and sporty in nature were interestingly premeditated to be challenging and Thought-provoking. Interestingly, in some of the events, inter-college teams were formed to contest amongst each other, which played a very instrumental role in building “The dance rendition by IIT cross-college friendships in the student community.

Kharagpur, in particular, was

spectacular and was declared the best.” – Hindustan Times , Sunday, October 4, 2009.

Our month long perspiration, anticipation, innumerable temposhouts, spouts of excitement and energy bursts well paid off when we clinched away most of the major trophies including Main design and product design besides earning the second spot in the very prestigious Reuben’s cup.

Extending the KGP legacy of Dance Choreos, we left the audience and judges speechless after a stunning flawless performance for the Cultural. Kudos to the first years who stayed back for Durga Puja vacations to fine tune their Zonasa preparations along with some seniors to assist and direct. Owing to the strict time regulations of BIT Mesra campus, we couldn’t have possibly met for the last choreo touch-ups and run-through anywhere, but in spite of all odds, we even managed to practice along a roadside in the wee hours of the morning, when the other contingents were perhaps dreaming in their deep slumber. Moreover, the final years engrossed in preparation for CAT and GRE, took time out and taking an 8 hour journey all the way to Mesra, made it just in time for the choreo to cheer and encourage the team which went onto win the gold.

Despite an outstanding performance in the previous edition, a very small margin had pushed us to the second spot. However, Making no mistakes, this time, standing tall with a grand total of 252, bagging a total of 15 golds, 12 silver and 5 bronze, we emerged as the most deserving champions, followed by CET Bhubaneswar and JU, Kolkata taking the second and third stand respectively.

After minting gold in this championship, With Hopes to keep up the good work, let us now brace ourselves to host the next Zonasa and make it a big success like never before.

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4th YEARS

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4th YEARS

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IGBC ‘09 -A Report Ar Gita Balakrishnan The IGBC Green Design Competition 09, in the words of a student “created quite a stir” in colleges because of the emotional connect that one could make with the theme of building - “A Tree House.” It allowed the participants to travel back to their childhood and explore a tree through the process of designing.

577 registrations! 177 entries!

109 colleges that registered and 54 colleges who sent in entries! These numbers, although overwhelming do not do enough justice to the enthusiasm of the students that seemed to be pouring out of their designs. Almost all designs showed a remarkable sensitivity to the tree and its surroundings. The competition brief called for the design of “A Tree House with a Zero-energy approach” where no structural supports except the access ways were grounded. This posed a challenge and the teams responded with some ingenious solutions. In the words of one of the jury members “The students also seem to relate with the living dynamics of the tree and in many designs there seems to be an effort to incorporate the experience of climbing and exploring a tree.”

A graduate from the School of Planning and Architecture, New Delhi , Gita Balakrishnan completed practical training at the Centre for Building Performance and Diagnostics at the Carnegie Mellon University , Pittsburgh , USA . She is the founder of Ethos,which was started 5 years ago with the intention of making the architectural community, with a particular emphasis on students alive to the changes happening globally and in our country in the field of architecture and construction. Ethos reaches out to students of architecture and civil engineering through its flagship events Archumen and Bending Moment and design competitions such as Transparence and IGBC Green Design Competition.

As in the past three years, this year's competition was promoted by The Indian Green Building Council actively supported by Ethos and Mistry Architects. The jury was a well-equipped and experienced one and could feel the pulse of the students. The jury comprised of the following members: 1. Ar.Rohit Marol Landscape Architect 2. Ar.Shirish Beri Architect 3. Ar.Tony Joseph Architect 4. Dr.Prem Jain - Chairman IGBC 5. Mr.Thiagarajan - President, Channel Business Group, Blue Star 6. Ar.Vinay Parelkar President Indian Institute of Architects 7. Ms.Gita Narayan - Director-Shristi School of Design, Bangalore 8. Mr.Jackson Poretta - Natural builder 9. Ar.Nithya Srinivasan - Architect It was heartening that almost all the entries for The IGBC Competition 09 were original. Teams had done a thorough job of their pre-design stage research and case studies, but sensibly had not borrowed from these for their designing. The practicality, simplicity and feasibility of the designs also seemed to be an underlying feature of most of the designs. Any of these designs could be picked, worked upon and constructed with ease. The designs also displayed a great level of maturity and understanding of embodied energy of different materials.

Bomching Maiao and Shashank Gautam of SPA Delhi were unanimously chosen the Champions for their gently guidance of a bamboo cluster into growing into their Tree House The team that came in second demonstrated their consistency since they were the winners of last year's competition too - Hashim Shaik Meera Mohideen. R, Deepak. S from SAP Chennai. The third prize had the jury all excited with some of them actually explaining the pros and cons of the entry that they felt deserved to win. Eventually, it was decided to award two teams with the second runner-up prize. Anuj Rathi, Varun Kumar Deorha from SPA Delhi and Shoma Mathew, Saumitra Sinha also from SPA Delhi shared the third prize. There were ten more teams that were awarded jury commendations.

In all, it is evident that the participants had fun and thouroughly enjoyed themselves during the process of research and design, discovering along the way hence justifying the objective of the objective of The IGBC Green Design Competition. All those who made the effort would have learnt the following - “Do not do unto trees what humans have done to land.”

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amup te r e n a k. S t run e firs n. R, Deep h t y b e nted ohide prese Meera M s t e She m Shaik i Hash

s inner am the w ank Gaut y b d h e s t esen o and Sha ts pr Shee hing Maia c Bom

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....... So You Are Aspiring to be an

Architect Ar. Akhil Sarkar

Dear Friend, even if we do not look beyond the boundary of Bharat or India we have got a population of more than 1000 million to serve. Architects have been a very prominent member of the society creating very tangible and visible edifices with a strong statement on culture and civilization of a group, tribe, clan, kingdom, empire or nation.

Architects have every reason to be a 'proud' lot of people while toying with the objects offered by God or Nature, caring the elements, the air, light and climatological considerations. We always mention 'God is the architect of the world' while you engineer a plot against someone (with due apology to our engineer friends!).

Architects appear in a formidable position in the pursuit of 'Roti, Kapda aur Makan' (Bread, Garments and Shelter). Beyond, Percy Brown's commentary on Hindu, Buddhist and Islamic Architecture in India there is some lean period for the so called Architect-the Master Builder. As a natural corollary there was the advent of 'colonial architecture' with Portuguese adaptation in a hot-humid tropical country in the cities of Bombay, Surat, Madras, Calcutta, Calicut with administrative tutelage to the 'Corps of Engineers' of Military and Railways and subsequently Thomson College (Roorkee/1855) and Bengal Engineering College for (some time named as Civil Engineering College) (Shibpur/1856) started preparing engineers for the assignments.

In 1929 came the Indian Institute of Architects down the line formation of the Architectural Students Association by the past students of Sir J. J. School of Arts (Bombay) and Bombay Architectural Association (1922-29) obtaining affiliation to the Royal Institute of British Architects (1925) and the Council of Architecture came into being in May 1974 by virtue of Architects Act 1972 and created 'Architects' compatible to contemporary world of professionals educated and trained for distinguished and prestigious services in creating spaces, mostly in built forms, in different shapes, volumes, sizes, textures, designs, colours, patterns, imagery, delineation, prototype for plants, avians, marine life, animals, human beings even warehouses, hangers for the non-living.

The profession in the present context is quite young so it invites tremendous possibilities to us of course through initial trials and tribulations in its eventful journey.In 1949, first formal 5 years regular degree course in the discipline of Architecture was started in the Department of Architecture and Town Planning of Bengal Engineering College, Shibpur steered by Professor J.A. Stein and his able colleagues as faculty members under the University of Calcutta (estd. 1856) offering B.Arch.

In 1947 India won freedom and soon became a republic leaving behind the dominion status and it became imperative that architects rise to the occasion and participate in building a new India and evolve a new line of Indian Architecture, leaving behind the colonial hangover.

During NASA (1957) one student shaking a copy of DESIGN (ed. Patwant Sing) wanted to make a statement that the 'box' of 'Vigyan Bhavan' got an entrance from Buddhist Chaitya courtesy CPWD with a nationalist fervour.There was Chandigarh and several new townships came Rourkela, Bhilai, Durgapur, Dispur (Guwahati), Bhubaneshwar, Gandhinagar (Ahmedabad). Cities started flaunting their cube high-rises negotiating the tricky byelaws and sanctioning procedures.

Experiments were galore on plotted developments, housing, institutional buildings new seats of learning, healthcare, hotels, and industrial units through allocations and visions of several Five Year Plans.Apart from Le Corbusier there were Jeanneret couple, Louis Kahn, Jane B. Drew, L. Baker and others from foreign shores started putting on their signatures on the Indian soil. Things were 'happening' all around. There is 'Steinabad' in New Delhi with India International Centre, Ford Foundation, WWF, INTACH, India Habitat Centre from Prof. Stein's office. An array of experiments started in and around 'Auroville’ Several architects of Indian origin like A.P. Kanvinde, B.V. Doshi, Raj Rewal initiated newer statements in the profession apart from the established offices like GBK in Bombay and BTM in Calcutta. Professionals through Ford Foundation assistance took up planning rejuvenation for Delhi and subsequently Calcutta.

Several Development Authorities started functioning; architects were summoned to contribute in the cauldron.

Many of the Architects went for education abroad, and many more for higher studies in foreign land. The first

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recognised multi-storeyed in India came up as the West Bengal Government New Secretariat on Strand Road by the River Hooghly from H. Rahman an Engineer turned Architect in his U.S. study days and could bring so many changes in CPWD design setup. His Gandhighat Memorial at Barrackpore is still a piece of sculpture to evoke praise when seen from a country boat in the mid-course of river Hooghly.

Then came 'globalisation' with universal appeal in design and designers from other countries were liberally consulted by the big houses of the 'developers'.One very unsavoury fact is emerging that each one of us is so unsure of ourselves that we are trying to copy the 'faรงade' of the other while 'planning' takes a backseat neglecting the most important one the 'user' caring only for 'viewer'. Newer and costlier materials are being incorporated in a competitive bid for 'finish' and 'ACP' without any 'thought' or 'character'.Plenty of sporadic 'ideas' are gushing out of the printers, Photoshop images are pouring in from various sources without an iota of rationality.

There are N.D. Arch., G.D. Arch., Dipl. In Arch., AIIA and some other apart from B.Arch holders are in the fold of the profession in India with registration with the Council of Architecture, New Delhi.Geographically there is good concentration of Architects in Western India and Northern India with more than 100 schools churning out 'architects' every year.It is not a very happy state of affair that Architects both as individual and as a group and as professional body have not yet been quite successful to assert their value and position in the society in general and prospective clients in particular.

Most citizens all around us carry the impression that only the rich should engage architects for decorative beauty treatment of their buildings and only they can afford this 'additional' expenditure on Architects; contrary to an Architect's training and ability to maximise the usability and ambience where financial resources are not in abundance.By virtue of our training our attitude is rather urban oriented, leaving behind about 70% of vast population in non-urban localities inspite of fast pace of urbanisation in the developing world.

All the architectural principles are glaringly evident in the 'jhuggi-jhopris' (shanties) of the poverty laden people all over the world with the least exploitation of natural resources/materials, utilisation of idle labour and random use of recycled materials with commendable innovations and indigenous methods.There is a wide spread perception in tune with the natural phenomena, quality suffers with a sudden increase in quantity this is applicable for student intake, faculty selection and infrastructure facilities offered by the institutions.

Job prospects and remuneration will continue to be the prime consideration universally for the entrants, their parents, guardians, relatives and friends. Architects in the garb of fierce competition are 'getting' less and 'offering' the associates a 'pittance'.'Small' offices are with a missing link of the middle level, the 'leader' is busy with the clients, no one to mend the 'gaps' of the 'junior'. 'Big' offices often keep the 'recruits' in their 'slots' avoiding the task of preparing the next generation.

There are All India Level Entrance Examinations, State Level Entrance Examination and some Institutes are following their own norms both for qualifying and for aptitude evaluation of the candidates. In recent past there are certain ambiguities and differences on the admission process for architectural students creating worried enquires and confusion. Several regulatory conditions are applicable for opening a new 'school' or running the schools.Quite often it is rued by the faculty members that they get students mostly from the lees.

Many of the students enter after being denied other 'choices' and many do not have clear idea of the course and its demand on the students' ability. Some are reluctant entrants; some are with under equipped aptitude.

Many come with the advantages of ethnic group, family background, urban orientation, fiscal strength etc..

Faculty members at times find it difficult to make the whole bunch compatible for both evaluation and encouragement.

Some students are lazy enough to exert themselves beyond the statutory requirements of examinations and mark sheets. Over sensitive students at times are strongly discouraged. Some show inclination to craftsmanship and patterns, some are vocal architects with high sounding and lofty philosophical utterances.

Students also find some faculty members inducted directly with graduation, post graduation, doctorate lacking in professional experience or field exposure. Sometime students perceive that some faculty members are there as a retreat, unable to withstand the pressure and hurdles of the 'outside'. Some may be from 'failed' attempts in 'practice' either in the matter of netting 'clients' and retaining them for repeat order or failure to manage the collection of due 'fees'. At times, some after joining the faculty, riding on the adulation of public about teacher and their liberal use of the facilities of the 'school' are busy in promoting their professional practice literally neglecting the prime duty to the students beyond obligatory periods and not keeping them open for interaction' with the students expanding their horizons.

Sthapati | 2009 | 42

It is of no use brooding over the follies and foibles of the faculty members. On the contrary it is better to emulate the qualities and wisdom of those teachers.Many 'schools' are not with desired ambient space and physical facilities not to speak of infrastructure facilities for such a highly creative pursuit and training.

In the name of introducing newer subjects, design periods and construction classes are reduced, making the budding architects really weak.Utility, stability and beauty have long been an oft repeated jargon in the initial year at a 'school'. Several maxims are thrown to the students: 'ars est celare artem' (It is true art to conceal art), 'ars longa, vita brevis (Art is long, life is short), 'Zeitgeist (Spirit of the age).

Sometimes 'spirit of freedom', is curtailed by 'experienced' faculty or the old ideas are repeated or imposed with insular uniformity.Many a time, schools are established at remote and isolated places making it difficult for the students to experience 'actual built forms in their true scale' and 'exposure' with professionals, their work and their office proceedings however occasional or short it may be, when the students are in an urban centre of good size.

The facilities to stay together and intermixing of the students of different years and continuous interaction and friendly criticism are missing in most of the 'schools'. Submission of sessionals and other allied things need much more hours of working together than other branches of engineering classes.If we dare to jump into the profession under-equipped or ill-equipped, we will continue to remain handicapped throughout our life as the saying goes 'one can deceive some people for sometime but not all the people at all times'.

Post graduation is available in so many specialised directions, viz, urban design, town planning, interior design, town planning, urban planning, regional planning, housing, traffic/transportation planning, environmental planning, conservation, landscaping, construction management, project management' etc..One would do better if the decision is made after gaining some maturity.

Nothing stated here is with any rancour or malevolence. By virtue of good fortune to react with the students, guardians and faculty members in the Department of Architecture, Jadavpur University (Kolkata), Department of Conservation, School of Planning and Architecture (New Delhi), Department of Interior Design and Department of Planning, C.E.P.T., Ahmedabad for prolonged years apart from the studentship days in Department of ATP in Bengal Engineering College (Shibpur) and in Department of ARP in IIT (Kharagpur) and fifty long years of sauntering the periphery of architecture these, are shared with young 'dreamers'. “The architectural profession feels deeply concerned towards national priority in the fields of energy conservation, ecology, environmental pollution, protection and preservation of architectural heritage and their precincts, low-cost housing, urban renewal, rural upliftment, economic development at local and district levels etc., in the interest of quality of life both in rural and urban settlements".

Are we trying our best as an architect to uphold this statement?

IF ARCHITECTURE IS NOT RESPECTED, ARCHITECTS WILL NOT BE HONOURED Bringing our education and training to the 'perception' or 'attitude' level to that of the all pervasive 'client' is not praiseworthy under any circumstance or compulsion, throwing away 'freedom of expression' for which we cried hoarse when we were interrupted by our revered faculty.It is of no use to offer typical excuses while compromising on mundane considerations for immediate material gains.Are we to produce the prototypes under the influence of the manufacturer of the materials and their publicity 'blitz'.

After all its your life - LIFE IS A GREAT TEACHER. So let us face the adversaries with all our armours. It is well understood that if the nation faces crisis of identity, architects cannot work in isolation. We need to sweat and sacrifice a little.The more the merrier.

Healthy competitions will help us thrive.It is apparent that 'Lion's courage, Hawk's eye and Mother's heart' is needed to be a successful architect to a project or an assignment.Are we fully prepared to honour the rights and privileges of our co-professionals at all times?

One is supposed to sail through all the adversaries and difficulties created by system or lack of system, one who runs steadfastly is bound to win.

Cheers for him!

Carry on the flag !

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Internship Rendezvous

RAVIKANTH PAMIDIMUKKALA, 3rd Year Planet 3 Studios Architecture Pvt. Ltd., Mumbai I was under a project for Jammu & Kashmir University – re-designing a convention centre. Meeting deadlines and making sure about the design’s feasibility – cost effectiveness, time, etc was something new. After all, it was a first time working experience. I also worked on restaurant interiors and residential projects. The interaction with senior architects and co-interns was amazing. This experience brought a new dimension in my understanding of architecture.

ALOK KUMAR, 4th year Shama Dalvi Architects, Auroville The blissful biking journey to work was a great start to the day. I worked on interior designs and other architectural services – decision making and design process.

The brainstorming sessions about various design options were encouraging. It was during this time that I appreciated architecture. Being part of designs, actually getting built, was exciting.

HIMANI KUMAR, 4th Year Ryerson University, Toronto, Canada Go Green!! That was the buzz around. I was part of Green Building research – roofs. I Also had a brush-up with building simulation and canopy structures. The ethics and college culture was inspiring – strict deadlines, no off hours, etc. I had to create a walkthrough of a building – Leed Gold Certified, to show the functionality at different places

AKANKSHA SINHA, 4th year Purdue University, Indianapolis I was under the Division of Construction Engineering and Management, working on Renewal of Urban Infrastructure - a profile on the impact of Flooding in Indiana Counties on Existing Infrastructure. It got selected for the Annual Paper Publication at University of Calgary. Research work included a brief survey of INDOT (Indiana Department of Transportation) and local authorities, Data Collection from FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) over recent Indiana floods and about existing infrastructure, local news authority and Indiana metrological department.

RANJITHA SHIVARAM, 4th year Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh I studied and documented the components of the Intelligent Workplace Energy Supply System to aid future integration of these components. Also proposed an initial design phase of a Photo-voltaic enabled hybrid car parking facility at CMU. Sthapati | 2009 | 44

MANAGE WATER, AT ALL LEVELS OF URBAN PLANNING A message to all future architects & planners Prof. Somnath Sen Professor, Dept. Of ARP, IIT Kharagpur

Almost half of the world's population currently lives in urban areas, and the United Nations has projected that by 2025, sixty percent of the world's population will live in city areas. With so many people living in and moving to urban areas, there would be reasonable local impacts of urbanization including changes in hydrology, modified rainfall pattern, change in landscape and above all, shortfall in access to adequate freshwater. In India too, shortage of water remains as one of the prime factors behind impeded urban development. That is why the twenty-first century has been declared as the Century of Freshwater Management. In response, citizens of the world need to make sure that water, one of the five elements in creation, is used with austerity and does not go waste in any form.

Indians, over centuries, developed a range of techniques to harvest every possible form of water - from rainwater to groundwater, stream to river water, and floodwater. Khadins, tanks and nadis in Rajasthan, bandharas and tals in Maharastra, bundhis in Madhyapradesh and Uttarpradesh, ahars and pynes in Bihar, Kuhls or Guhls in Himachal Pradesh, ponds in the Kandi belt of Jammu Region, and eris in Tamilnadu, Surangams in Kerala, and Kattas in Karnataka are some of the ancient water harvesting, including water conveyance, structures still in use today (Agarwal et.al. 1997).

Traditional water harvesting systems have passed the test of time which was usually suited to specific social, economical and political set-up in which they have evolved. Traditional water harvesting systems declined when the British took over control of India. The government took over the role of the main provider of water and replaced traditional decentralised systems with centralised ones. After the British had left, the Indian bureaucracy took over the self appointed role of supplying water. This marked the end of a glorious tradition. Moreover, there was growth of heavy and unsustainable dependence on surface and ground water sources and a gross neglect of the primary source of water -rain. (Agarwal et.al., 2001) In a country like India, where the monsoon gives us on an average about 100 hours of rain and then nothing for the remaining 8660 hours in a year, the only ways to capture this rain are Detention - creation of large reservoirs with large catchments by building large dams, which have been taken up so far in all government programmes. Retention - creation of small tanks ( on the rooftops) or small ponds within small catchments Infiltration - By storing water in a way that it percolates down in the ground and gets stored as ground water on site.

It was only in the year 2000 when global solutions for water resources and urban drainage shifted its focus towards “Integrated Catchment Management”( Ashton,1999), “Reuse Potential of Urban Stormwater and Waste Water” (Mitchell,1999), “Rooftop Rainwater Harvesting”(Rahman,2000), “Low-Impact-DevelopmentTechniques”(US Environmental Protection Agency, 2000), “Water Sensitive Urban Development” (Coombes, Argue & Kuczera,2000). Researchers and Hydrologists realized that with better on-site source controls, the quantity and quality problem for the off-site storm water runoff could be addressed to a large extent in all suburban areas (Stephens & Debo, 2003). Engineers and Planners all over the globe rediscovered nature through water sensitive urban designs for a sustainable development (Donovan, Coombes & Cameron, 2002). Paulet & Duhme (2000) established causal relationship between urban land cover (built-up and open space together) and urban hydrology (runoff and infiltration) while analyzing the ecology of urban system.

Water Sensitive Urban Design (WSUD) and its Significance Water Sensitive Urban Design (WSUD) as a concept and label started a little over ten years ago (Mouritz, 2000). Internationally, significant effort is being focused on finding more economical and environmentally appropriate ways of providing water and wastewater solutions (Vision-21, World Water Forum, 2000). More st broadly, urban policy makers in the 21 Century are recognising the need to make our cities more liveable, more efficient in terms of urban land and infrastructure, and more efficient in terms of energy and resource use. Traditional centralized water supply, stormwater and wastewater practices have major drawbacks such as inefficient use of water resources, environmental degradation, flooding and above all rising infrastructure cost. Such systems are increasingly recognised as being unsustainable on a variety of social, economic and environmental criteria. By contrast, WSUD provides a decentralized approach to urban water management that is more attuned to natural hydrological and ecological processes.

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Papers What Is WSUD? Of late professionals involved in water management have realised that it would be more efficient and costeffective to incorporate storm water issues early in the design stage than to address them later (Mouritz, M. 2000). Thus, water sensitive urban design describes a relatively new approach to urban planning that incorporates a chain of treatment elements to be undertaken in all catchment basins. In straightforward terms, it is about Optimising the use of rain that falls on the city catchment, Reducing the amount of potable water demand for the city, Optimising the urban water balance and managing floods, Improving the quality of storm water entering the waterways, and Incorporating water related social and ecological objectives into our design.

Elements of WSUD The WSUD approach has to address a series of simple hydrological responses at different levels in the urban hydrological system. Those are Source Control, to retain the small frequent rainfall events at the individual lot level. Conveyance Control, to detain the large events of rainfall at neighbourhood level. Discharge Control, for conveying the extreme rainfall events at the watershed level.

WSUD in Practice The process used to lay out a development is fundamental to achieving the principles of water sensitive urban design. The following describes three key areas where developers can incorporate these principles at the site planning stage.

Site analysis The purpose of a site analysis is to identify and explain graphically the natural features of the area that need to be taken into consideration during planning and design. These include the areas' topography, drainage patterns, soils, geology, ground cover and sensitive regions, along with significant natural attributes such as wetlands, waterways, remnant vegetation and wildlife corridors. There should also be an assessment of the areas, stormwater and drainage requirements and constraints. This should include flood control (for example the 100-year ARI flood limit), the potential maintenance of natural waterway corridors, and the provision of storm water management structures and treatment measures. As part of the drainage strategy required by the responsible drainage authority, developers need to demonstrate either that the proposed development will not affect the downstream systems, or that the proposed storm water treatment measures will sufficiently mitigate potential water quality and quantity impacts.

Land capability assessment Land capability assessment analyses the physical ability of the land to sustain specific uses. It determines the scale and arrangement of development that is most consistent with water sensitive urban design principles, based on the local site features identified in the site analysis.

Site Layout plans Site layout plans determine the scale and arrangement of development that is most consistent with water sensitive urban design principles for managing the water management system.

Using the site analysis and land capability assessment, areas of environmental significance and of developable land can be identified. Water sensitive site layout plans determine where development should occur within the site to produce the least impact on the ecosystem.

These plans should ensure there is adequate land area in appropriate locations designated for the purpose of storm water management. The assessment of potential areas for development should consider the site locations of storm water treatment measures such as wetlands, sediment traps and infiltration/retention basins.

At this stage, it is appropriate to determine recommendations and details of cost-effectiveness for practices that  Are most appropriate for retaining or detaining storm water locally, given the particular conditions of soil, geology and topography involved and the anticipated land-use;  Are needed to ensure that pollution mobilisation and conveyance within and from the site are minimised; and  Increase public amenity through landscaping and the provision of wetlands and wildlife habitats where possible and appropriate.  Planning & Design Tools A number of planning and design tools based on Best Planning Practices (BPP) principles have been developed (City of Melbourne, 2005) which relate to the following: Sthapati | 2009 | 46

Papers

Figure 1-2

Integration of housing with waterway corridor

Figure 1-3 Conventional versus water sensitive road layout

Figure 1-4 Conventional versus water sensitive road cross section

Figure 1-5 Verge design and management Sthapati | 2009 | 47

Papers

Figure 1-6

Figure 1-7

Lot/street interface

Streetscape layouts Sthapati | 2009 | 48

Papers  Public Open Space Networks  Housing Layout  Road Layout  Streetscape These tools are described and illustrated below.

1) Public Open Space Networks Water sensitive urban design often incorporates multipurpose drainage corridors in residential developments. These integrate public open space with conservation corridors, stormwater management systems and recreation facilities. This has both social and economic benefits. Consequently, open space becomes more useable because of the opportunity to link and share space for multiple activities. Vegetated drainage corridors can also provide buffer strip protection for natural water features within the development.

The development of active recreation areas next to drainage facilities can introduce some elements of public safety and health risk. This requires consideration during the design phase and can often be addressed using techniques such as safety signs and barriers. Figure 1-1 compares conventional design with a water sensitive design of a neighbourhood incorporating public open space.

2) Housing Layout A water sensitive housing layout integrates residential blocks with the surrounding drainage function and public open space. Such housing layouts often include a more compact form of development, which reduces impervious surfaces and helps protect the water quality and health of urban waterways. Figure 1-2 illustrates how housing layout can be adjusted to incorporate and highlight natural open space, waterway and drainage corridors.

3) Road Layout A water sensitive road layout incorporates the natural features and topography of a site. It implements the practice of locating roads beside public open spaces wherever possible. This enhances visual and recreational amenity, temporary storage, infiltration at or close to source and water quality. It also aims to minimise the extent of impervious road surfaces. As with all road design, road safety should not be compromised. Figure 1-3 to Figure 1-5 illustrate the application of water sensitive design in road layout.

4) Streetscape A water sensitive streetscape integrates the road layout and vehicular and pedestrian requirements with storm-water management needs. It uses design measures such as reduced frontages, zero lot-lines, local detention of storm-water in road reserves and managed landscaping. Figure 1-6 and Figure 1-7 illustrate the application of water sensitive design to streetscape layout and design.

Figure 1-1 Networked public open space incorporated in development Sthapati | 2009 | 49

Papers How to get WSUD to Happen Interdisciplinary Planning & Design Past urban water management planning and design has been predicated on the misconception of unlimited potable water supply and an unhealthy faith in techno-fix solutions as the means to solve all urban water management problems. Recreation, aesthetics, and other human values and amenities, once marginalised as afterthoughts, are instead important elements that need to be incorporated into the overall water sensitive planning and design from the very start. Good water sensitive planning and design connects many disciplines working together to find a common vocabulary, one that is understood by engineers, architects, landscape architects, planners, ecologists, economists, developers, contractors, and community.

Consequently good water sensitive planing and design will draw upon a wide range of techniques drawn from many disciplines. Unfortunately, past examples of project work have revealed that engineers, ecologists, landscape architects, planners and other professionals often adopt divergent approaches and standards. The water sensitive planning and design process will need these disciplines to integrate into a coherent team that will deliver the required outcome. To achieve this desired outcome, an inter-disciplinary team will need to be assembled. From experience, this team will need to be 'firmly' led. The appropriate team leader will depend upon the circumstances. In a regional plan or greenfield site, a planner may be the most appropriate person. In an inner city redevelopment or infill site, an architect may be better.

The procedure proposed for a WSUD to happen (Mouritz, Shepherd, Shelley, 2006) is a five-step process:  Identify design objectives and performance standards;  Analyse site characteristics in order to identify ecological constraints and opportunities;  Base development plans on stable land capable of sustaining specific urban uses;  Select appropriate technology (BMP's) applied in the best planning context (BPP's);  Prepare a sustainable layout plan and design.

Figure 1-8 Inter-disciplinary planning and design process

Ultimately, the most elegant water sensitive planning design solutions are successful at achieving multifunctionality with efficiency and value. Not unlike poetry, they condense multiple meanings and great significance into compact formats.

In pursuing sustainability; Planning must be applied to protect existing resources; Engineering, to validate and ensure performance; and Landscape Architecture, to deliver functionality rather than mere decoration.

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Papers Selected References AGARWAL,A.,NARAIN,S. and KHURANA,I.(2001) Eds., Making Water Everybody's Business, Centre for Science & Environment, New Delhi, In: Introduction, pp.vii-xxxi ASHTON, P. (1999) Integrated Catchment Management: Balancing Resource Utilisation, African Water Research Unit, Pretoria, South Africa City of Melbourne; 2005, Water Sensitive Urban Design, Technical Guidelines COOMBES, P.J., ARGUE, J. and KNEZERA, G. (2000) Figtree Place: a case study in water sensitive Urban Development, Urban water Journal, February, London DONOVAN,I., COOMBES,P. and CAMERON,C. (2002) Water Smart Model Planning Provisions for Lower Hunter Central Coast Regional Environmental Management Strategy, New Castle, Australia MITCHELL, G., MEIN, R. and MCMAHON, T. (1999) the Reuse Potential of Urban Storm Water and Waste Water, Industry Report, 99/14, CRC for Catchment Hydrology, Australia MOURITZ, M. (2000) Water Sensitive Urban Designwhere to now?, Keynote address, National Conf. on Water Sensitive Urban Design, Melbourne.

Mouritz, Mike; Shepherd, Shelley J (2006); Achieving Integrated Urban Water Management via the Planning System in WA, 4th International Conference on Water Sensitive Urban Design (Melbourne, Australia).

PAULEIT, S. and DUHME,F. (2000) Assessing the environmental performance of Land cover types for urban planning, Journal of Landscape and Urban Planning, 52,Elsevier Science RAHMAN, M. and YUSUF, F. (2000) Rainwater harvesting and the reliability concept, In: 8th Specialty conf. on Probabilistic Mechanics & Structural Reliability, 23-26 July, Notre Dame, Indiana STEPHENS,K.A. and DEBO,T.N. (2003) Reinventing Urban Hydrology Going Back to Basics to develop new tools, February, Fresh Outlook Magazine, British Columbia, Canada VISION-21(2000) A shared vision for hygiene, sanitation, water supply, framework of action, In: proceedings of second world water forum, The Hague, 17-22 March, Geneva

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About Representation Ar. Nisha Nair

T

he prologue to an intense space designing exercise is always a study of the various contexts in which the built space is imagined. We as architects muse ourselves to address issues, hence this exercise of information gathering is always given a very important role since the gathered information in many ways is an attempt to validate our intervention. Especially in the academic space, which is very utopian and free of real estate pressures What is the role of representation in a creative process? Be it the representation of the contexts studied or the final product.Is it an end in itself?

Where the representation becomes an artwork and robbing the audience of its content.Is the method of representation an important tool to explore?

Lets discuss the above in case of urban study exercises. Most of these exercises, as mentioned before, are forerunners to an urban /architectural /artistic /political /cultural intervention. The process we undergo is of meticulous site work of trying to gather all information (some which on a personal level interest us, some which don't) to build up a socio-cultural-economic context. In the process we

encounter many narratives-both tangible as well as intangible. And these build up our information/knowledge base.

The next step to any documentation process is making the hard copy, the representation of our knowledge base.Now arises the question- how do I represent my information?Information can be compartmentalized as 'data' and boxed up for its own individual essence.

This reflects in the manner this data is represented, often as a meticulous scientific process. The sociocultural aspects of the demographic study conducted, is attempted in representation as numbers, bar charts, cartographic maps and statistics. Whereas, the intangible essence of the experience, of the narratives, of human empathy, etc is reduced to 'words', which keep coming at intervals to shape the design. Because in most design processes- human always remains the scale! And ultimately human experience dictates.

An attempt to represent these complex webs of human experience in an urban scenario is very difficult. And the attempt is not just about the imagery.

This same context is being looked at by different practices. And they are successfully capturing the ethos and pathos of the same experience in different mediums. We have movies, writings, sculptures and paintings all around us having attempted to document the same subject. To understand the above, we take the help of a few paintings as examples- (the two dimensional medium which does closest to our bars and graphs-unless someone decides to make a movie) as cues to structuring these various urban experiences.

To begin with, Sudhir Patwardhan's paintings can be seen as chronicle of the urban metamorphosis of Mumbai as well as a documentation of the geography as an interpretation and analysis. He does a physical structuring of many observations and reflections of the city in a canvas space. And the audience understands while way 'the eye' travels over the painting. The paintings I would like to talk about are by the Ulhas River

Ulhas River essentially captures a panorama by a river, which over time with influx of urbanization and industrialization has decayed as a toxic outlet of this transforming suburb called Ulhasnagar, near the outskirts of Mumbai. The painting is composed as four panels and as our eyes travel from panel to panel, this transformation with respect to time (both in terms of the immediate i.e. morning to evening, as well as the projected time of the past present and future overlapping) are evident to the viewer through a very simple structuring process that is borrowed from the camera. And in an age where we are trying to build knowledge systems by use of camera, the painting is able to very successfully do something beyond just being realistic or documentary- it gives an interpretive image of the exact same information.

And the panorama is essentially held because of the detailing.

There is a very interesting Chinese tradition of painting landscape. Unlike the European tradition of perspective (being very rational and scientific), Sthapati | 2009 | 52

Landscape was perceived as a collection of events and views (owing to Zen philosophies). Hence the artist armed with his apprentices first went for a walk through the place a n d c o l l e c t e d 'experiences' and 'views'.

He came back and structured them in a single frame of a 'painting'. Thus the path is a very crucial connecting element in any of their paintings.

The painting of the landscape ceases to be a realistic depiction but an experiential/representati onal one. Similarly the tradition of scrolls, where as one keeps reading through the scroll, the same characters appear and re-appear, trying to build the narrative.

And end in itself?

If that is the case, then how much influence does such an exercise as a predecessor has on the act of designing?

We can always say a great influence- because to represent is to intensely involve oneself with the subject and communicate about the same to an audience from the chosen interpretative or analytical position.

As natural progression, can such an exercise flow into the main act of designing as well?

However we can also argue that architecture is purely formal exercise devoid of being subject to the above.

Or can we?Even if we cannot, shouldn't purely the act of attempting to represent the context have already modified the designer and have intensified various concerns in his mind?

Would the design reflect that?

And finally, how relevant are these questions in our present scenario of architectural practice?

In a similar manner, the Persian miniature paintings, were a carefully constructed stories where even use of colors held particular significance.

Coming back to the principal argument: the act of representation. Based on the above examples the questions that can be debated upon can be thus: Is structuring the experiences- the representation-

I would like to conclude with some responses to urban contexts following creative interpretation of contexts.

The works of OMA, under architect Rem Koolhaas are a recommended see. Representation in this case is not about an attractive visual, but a construction of experiences, about an interpretation of these experiences. The representation is build after careful assortment and manipulations. And they can be very easily be related to, since it makes use of popular imagery. In the process though at times it becomes an end in itself, it always gives a sense of direction towards an intervention. The film schooling Koolhaas had prior to architectural training may be the reason why the office is able to generate a Kunsthal and SMLXL as well as Content, underlining their varied concerns.

Both Art and Science are trying to say various versions of the same truth, when science tries to invent theories to validate the truth; the artist shows it in a human way.

Is Architectur e science?

Or is it humanities ?

Nisha Nair, class of 2008, Kamla Raheja Vidyanidhi Institute for Architecture, Mumbai is currently practising as an independent architect in Mumbai.

Representation

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SYSTEMATIC APPROACH TO COST EFFECTIVENESS IN ARCHITECTURE; SOME THOUGHTS Dr. Abraham George M. Arch, AIIA, Fulbright Fellow INTRODUCTION In a world of diminishing resources and increasing need, catalyzed by global melt down in economy which is directly reflected in construction scenario, it is only natural to take a serious rethinking on cost effective constructions. Though, attempts by various agencies over the years have produced numerous techniques and systems in keeping the cost of construction low, recent years have witnessed alarming hike in construction cost and the increasing gap between haves and have-nots. Moreover, the economic boom of yester years took the attention of the researchers and designers alike to other directions like building up of corporate architecture, software parks and similar needs of the boom. Low cost and appropriate constructions had to almost give way to the over dominance of structural glazing, the masquerading of prefabricated panels and their exotic finish, with low response to the climate of the context. Style and icons of global trends superseded real needs, resulting in the loss of sensibility and sensitivity in architectural response. This applies very well to housing projects also, where the earlier attempts for cost reduction have been yielding some results.

Earlier days, various public and private agencies took genuine initiative and set-up research and manufacturing units to produce systems, technologies and products of lower cost. Attempts by the Government of India through HUDCO, NBO, SERC, CBRI etc are worth mentioning. State Governments too had their role played by setting-up Nirmiti Kendra, a research, consultancy and training organization, dedicated to appropriate and cost effective construction systems and technologies. Enthusiastic response from private intuitions and design firms followed. Costford and Habitat Technologies, inspired by Padmasree Laurie Baker are brilliant examples to this good response.

The Nation, today, witnesses perplexing situations generated by an amalgam of different factors such as high land price, material and construction costs, cost escalation in all fronts with increasing stringency in norms and standards that makes low-cost constructions almost difficult. Environmental concerns and responsibilities come in addition to these, and are important for making life sustained in the future. Climate changes are badly felt over the past decades and it is all set to worsen in future with increasing scarcity of water, power and ever increasing levels of pollution. Contemporary architects are faced with a heightened complexity of conditions while attempting to create appropriate designs and construction technologies in addressing the problem of cost reduction effectively. While it is important to achieve cost reduction, it is even more pivotal to understand various approaches adopted, in an effort to achieve cost effectiveness along with user satisfaction. There are basically four established approaches in achieving cost effectiveness namely; Low Cost approach, Cost reduction approach, Alternate approach and Creative approach.

Low Cost approach employs available low cost materials in and around or such available in the materials market. The quality of construction adopted due to the constraints in cost and the level of professional skill chosen are of lower end. Mostly, the choice of materials and finishes is a result of compromise between quality and cost; heavily swung to lower cost, sacrificing final quality in built form and resulting environment.

Though, the approach could be hailed for want of reduction in cost, generally this approach is a compromise of quality and finish which attracts lower preference by the end users, especially due to the unsatisfactory longterm performance. Et flooring, or even reduced proportion of cement in the mortar mix, achieved within safe xamples of this approach are the use of ordinary sun dried adobe brick wall, low quality cemenlimits.

Cost reduction approach is similar in spirit as Low cost approach, but for the difference that it seeks for cost reduction through improvements in the technique or specification adopted. These include cost saving by acceptable lower mix ratio for flooring, shallower excavation depth within permissible limits, single brick zigzag walls for improvement in overall strength by altering the wall geometry, rat-trap bonding for reduction in material consumption or forgoing plastering on select wall and ceiling etc.

Alternate approach on the contrary searches for alternatives for construction materials and techniques that are most suitable in an effort to achieve cost reduction and quality of resulting built form. Improved mud brick wall, Hollow blocks for walling and roofing, Coffer and filler slab for roof exploiting the utility of concrete below neutral axis etc, are examples for this approach.(Fig. 1 and 2) Sthapati | 2009 | 54

Papers This approach also adopts the oldest and simplest earth building techniques in the production of mud blocks since the degree to which earth materials are better, in comparison to traditional buildings of steel and concrete is an important concern. A review of traditional buildings in India, Egypt or in Europe would prove that buildings with earth are better in many ways over the conventional and modern materials. One has to bear in mind the wonderful mouldable properties of mud in generating plastic designs and the urgency for improved techniques of mud construction for the making of taller buildings. Therefore, it is important to continue research to improve the strength and finish of mud buildings that are important to gain wider acceptance to mud construction.

Creative approach on the contrary, attempts to generate creative solutions that do not normally come under any of the above mentioned three approaches. It employs creative search for materials and construction along with the application of systems approach and value analysis. In this method the systematic understanding along with component and cost modeling are done to find out how much cost saving could be achieved in each of the building components and in overall cost. Creative approach harps on the value concept to achieve the intended enhancement in built form.

Further, through a creative search alternative solutions are generated in achieving cost effectiveness, tapping the group potential and knowledge bank, through brain storming and system development. Thus, creative designs are generated systematically with higher performance efficiency and value addition. This is the best method where finest results could be arrived at, with a judicious combination of creative designing, value analysis and better management. Vaulted-fired house in brick, Integrated Nubian constructions, appropriate mud technology employing sustainable material and design solutions and Creative designs achieved by standardization and prefabrication in residential built forms come under this approach.

It is also important to include with the creative approach, project management solutions that bring in smooth flow and control of work which amount to cost reduction and better quality in built form. Generalized construction management model for apartment buildings developed by the author is an attempt to achieve cost effectiveness and improved built form quality through the standardization of work sequencing and flow are ensured through composite stage programming.

COST EFFECTIVENESS IN RESIDENTIAL PROJECTS

Low Cost approach

Alternate approach

Creative appro

Employs available low cost materials

Employs creative search for materials and construction

Eg. Adobe brick wall,

Eg. Brick vaulted- fired home, Nubian construction, Improved ach mud homes, Sustainable solutions, Creative designs

Cement flooring

Employs search for alternative materials and construction

Cost reduction approach

Traditional and Technical Eg. Cost saving by lower mix ratio for flooring, shallow excavation depth, single brick zigzag walls

Systems approach

Eg. Value analysis and Systems approach, Eg. Improved mud brick Standardization, wall, Hollow blocks.

Prefabrication and Rat-trap bond for walls, mass production, Coffer / filler slab for Project roof management Chart 1: Various approaches to cost reduction in residential projects

Sthapati | 2009 | 55

Papers Systems approach and value analysis method; a variation of Creative approach, adopts systematic understanding which along with component and cost modeling are done to find out how much cost saving could be achieved in each of the building components. In a residential building, its foundation, walls, doors and windows, floor and roof that are its most important components. These components can be analyzed individually based on the criteria laid down for each. Analysis as given below is done to achieve improved quality and speed of construction along with reduction in construction cost.

Foundations: Conventional methods using in-situ techniques are found to be economical and more practical for low rise, low cost housing projects. In seismic regions, special attention is required to make the foundations continuous using horizontal reinforcement with appropriate detailing. Prefabrication for foundation is an area worth exploring in normal residential projects. Light weight prefab foundation units for Low Income Group residential projects have been developed by the Author for cost effectiveness and improving the speed of construction.

Walls: Walls of rammed earth, normal bricks, soil cement blocks, hollow clay blocks, dense concrete blocks, and small and medium size panels considering the lift and handling capacity are recommended in spite of bricks being the backbone of building industry. Since the number of bricks broken at site into different sizes in order to fit into position is very large, causes wastage of material and lowered quality of construction. Increasing the size of wall blocks, therefore, will prove to be economical due to greater speed and less mortar consumption thanks to lowered number of joints. Low density bigger size wall blocks using industrial wastes like blast furnace slag or fly ash are worth considering.

Various prefabrication techniques have been developed and executed for walls. However, in Indian context, medium and large panel techniques have not proved economical for low rise buildings as compared to traditional brick work. Further work need to be done in this area to make the technique valid and meaningful.

Floors and Roofs: Since floor and roof slabs account for substantial cost of a building in normal situation, any saving achieved in these components amounts to overall cost reduction. Cast-in-situ concrete roof involving temporary shuttering add to the cost of construction and longer time for construction since it is a critical event in the sequence of the additive process of construction. Hence, standardized and optimized roofing components like coffer slabs or funicular shells, where shuttering is limited or even avoided would be economical, fast and provides better quality.

Examples of prefabricated flooring components suitable for low-cost housing projects: Precast RCC planks in combination with joists or beams. Precast hollow concrete panels in combination with joists or beams. Precast reinforced brick panels; flat, curved or vaulted. Precast thin concrete or Ferro cement panels and RCC channel units.(Fig. 3 and 4) ADVANTAGES AND LIMITATIONS OF PREFABRICATION Adoption of prefabrication techniques has many merits in Indian context with availability of materials, labour and technical skills. These include elimination of shuttering and scaffolding, re-use of mould for precast components, saving of time due to production of prefabricate elsewhere unaffected by weather and sequence, better quality control, shape and size of precast elements made under factory conditions, repetition and mass production benefits. However, its limitations include the need for skilled personnel for erection; additional reinforcement requirement to take care of handling and erection stresses, temporary props and chances of leakage through joints between prefabricates. These limitations are to be rectified through further research and development.

Fig 1: Agro waste Ferro cement Slab - 3035% economical as compared to conventional RCC slab. Courtesy: Council for Works and Housing Research

Fig 2: Interlocking Blocks

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Papers

Fig 3:

Pre-cast reinforced burnt clay brick waffle slab tiles for roofing

Fig 4: U-shaped channel blocks for lintels

Table 1: Comparative study of various approaches Approach

Description

Limitation

Employs available low cost materials.

Quality of work and professional skill is low. Compromise between quality and cost.

Unsatisfactory long-term performance.

Lower preference by endusers.

Cost reduction

Similar in spirit to Low cost approach.

Cost reduction through improvements in the technique or specification. cost saving by lower mix ratio, shallower excavation depth, single brick zigzag walls, rat-trap bonding or even by avoiding plastering on surfaces.

Lower preference by endusers. Eg. Avoidance of plastering on wall generates an impression of incompleteness.

Unsatisfactory long-term performance in hot-humid climate with fungal growth and harbouring of insects etc.

Alternate

Searches for alternatives for construction materials and techniques in an effort to achieve cost reduction and better quality of built form. Hollow blocks, Coffer and filler slab etc are examples. The degree to which earth materials are better, in comparison to traditional buildings of steel and concrete is an important concern.

Creative

Attempts to generate creative solutions.

Creative search for materials and construction along with the application of systems approach and value analysis.

Eg. Vaulted-fired home in brick, Integrated Nubian constructions, appropriate mud technology employing sustainable material and design solutions and Creative designs achieved by standardization and prefabrication.

Low Cost

Though, earth constructions are better, research is yet to see success in its implementation and popularity. Wonderful mouldable property of mud and its use in tall constructions are yet to be explored fully.

Creative designs are the best with judicious combination of creative designs, value analysis and better management. However, these solutions acquire standardized, typical image which lacks uniqueness and scope for customization.

Recommendation Improved performance and satisfactory built form are needed.

Scope for customization needed.

Improved performance and satisfactory built form are needed.

Scope for customization needed.

Concerted research needed to improve the strength and finish of mud construction and other viable alternatives required.

Scope for customization needed.

It is important to include project management solutions.

Potential for uniqueness and scope for customization to be made intrinsic in designs.

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Papers Future Need: Exhaustive research by various agencies have brought in methods, materials and technology which in a large way paved the way for the reduction in housing gap and to offer built forms at affordable cost. However, most of these approaches have produced built forms that acquire standardized, typical image which lacks uniqueness and scope for customization. The performance of these built forms, especially on the longer duration, is not found satisfactory.(Table 1) Further, the unitary attempt places almost no concern for the totality and the quality of the environment it generates in terms of landscape, pollution, drainage, and the total performance from climatic and environmental considerations. Hence, it is important to conduct research towards the development of creative alternative building systems that give acceptable performance over designated life span of built form, and shall facilitate adaptation and personalization, especially by the end users at lower initial and operational costs along with increased environmental responsibility. Such an alternative building systems would work more like building blocks allowing the user preferred images and better performance which generate user satisfaction and great ownership feeling rather than a compromise solution that is unwillingly accepted.

Conclusion: In a world of diminishing resources and increasing need and gap, it is only natural to take serious consideration of cost effective constructions, especially in the light of alarming hike in construction costs.

Contemporary architects are faced with a heightened complexity of conditions while attempting to create appropriate designs and construction technologies in addressing the problem of cost reduction in a meaningful way. A critical study on the four established approaches in achieving cost effectiveness reveals the disappointment of end users and the unsatisfactory long-term performance of traditional low cost built forms. Therefore, it is important to develop creative alternative building systems which give acceptable performance, adaptation and personalization; especially by the end users, at lower initial and operational costs. These alternative building systems would work as building blocks allowing for user preferences. They shall uphold higher environmental responsiveness and responsibility along with better performance, leading to user satisfaction and great ownership feeling. Such building systems alone will address the real problems of construction costs in an environmentally responsible manner.

References:

1.

Abraham, G., Work Breakdown Structure for Construction of Apartment Projects. Journal of Construction Management, NICMAR, 2000. Vol. XV(No. 4).

2.

Marcial Blondet, G.V.G.M., Adobe construction. Catholic University of Peru, Peru. 2005. 1-6.

3.

Ahmed, M., Fired House. 1990, Regional Engineering College Calicut: Calicut.

4.

Abraham, G., A Generalized Construction Management Model. Journal of Construction Management, NICMAR, 1997. Vol. XII. 5.

P K Adlakha, a.H.C.P., Prefabrication Building Methodologies for Low Cost Housing. Institution of Engineers (I) Journal.AR, 2002(November): p. 4-6.

6.

Abraham, G., Vaastu 2000: Prefabricated House for LIG, in Architecture and Regional Planning. 1988, Indian Institute of Technology Kgp: Kharagpur.

7.

Subrata, C., New essays on inclusive housing. XXXVI IAHS World Congress on Housing Science. 2009, New Delhi: Macmillan India Limited.

Sthapati | 2009 | 58

a visit to CHINA TOWN

- the unfolding of a lost legacy ROSHMI SEN, MCP 2nd Year

I

t is often during the lazy, un-happening and frustrating afternoons of my life that I ponder over those eventful hours spent last summer with two of my foreign friends inside the narrowed lanes and by lanes, squalid corners and sheds of half-closed tanneries of 'China Town' a Chinese neighbourhood in a place named Tangra situated in the heart of east Kolkata. For me, it was a college assignment to prepare a report on the topic and for them it was a research project in Kolkata on which a book was going to be published. They were here, to collect information for the book, that too in merely five days.Thus, each day of our expedition started off systematically and preplanned and ended in an exceedingly eventful and exciting manner.

The legacy of the Chinese settlement in Kolkata dates long back to the late18th century. It is said that the first Chinese man who landed in Bengal was a sailor named 'Atchew' carrying tea and sugar from China in his boat which eventually drowned. The man outwitted the British rulers, got land for his sugar mill and built an empire. He was gifted the land that he could cover on horseback in one day.

Though the Chinese community eventually shifted to Kolkata, the original settlement area, known as Achhipur, named after Atchew has still got its existence. As the Chinese brought tea to India, the English word 'tea' and the native Bengali word “cha” have been derived from two different dialects of the Chinese language.

In 1930s and 1940s there was a rush of migrants from China to India due to civil war in their country and the number of women and children in Bengal suddenly increased and changed the face of the bachelor society. By the independence the Chinese population in Kolkata rose to 10,000. For 15 years following the independence, the Chinese civilization was in bloom with 5 Chinese schools, two Chinese dailies, Chinese merchants and traders.

The Chinese settlement in Kolkata had its origin in Tiretta bazaar - a place situated in the heart of Kolkata where majority of Chinese lived and took up jobs in Indian establishments. However another community came up in Tangra where the Chinese were a self-sustaining business community running tanneries.

The Indo-Sino war of 1962 changed the face of Chinese community in India for ever. After the dilapidating relations between India and china, only

Roshmi Sen narrates her experiences of her visit to CHINA TOWN, a Chinese neighbourhood in a place called Tangra in Kolkata. She gists out the various points of her study of Chinese settlements in Kolkata which was a part of her research assignment.

the Chinese business community at Tangra known as the “Hakka Chinese” survived, while those at Tiretta bazaar had their jobs ceased, some were killed and others fled to other countries. Thus the Tiretta bazaar settlement got a permanent blow.

Thereafter, the China Town moved to the periphery of central Kolkata in Tangra.

In Tiretta bazaar, the original and the 'old China Town' only a few, around 8 to 10 Chinese families live today. The place is punctuated with a Chinese Hindu temple-named “the goddess of heaven temple”, a few Chinese carpentry shops and a Chinese breakfast market that sells cooked and half cooked aboriginal Chinese food every morning.

In Tangra, around only 1000 Chinese live today.

Most of them live in joint families along with their aged parents, the number of heads varying from 4 to 8. In well to do families, the number of heads is low, in most cases the siblings have migrated to other countries for better economy, never to return in future. The people mostly belong to the lowermiddle and middle income groups.

Religion in Chinese culture is characterized by 'pluralism'. The various places of worship for the Chinese community found in Tangra are a Chinese pagan temple above Pei May English School, a church above Grace Ling Lang Chinese School two schools of the locality - and a Chinese-Buddhist congregation hall.

The Grace Ling Lang English school has Chinese founder, but the number of Chinese students in this school at present is only 10 with the Chinese language taught as an elective subject. The school has a church with it. The Pei May Chinese school situated in China Town near the famous Kim Ling restaurant is a school only for the Chinese, where students are taught upto the 10th standard. The school has the temple at its roof. In the Pei May Chinese school we could find Chinese kids in totality lovely faces with typical small eyes, straight streaks of haircut and rose-tinted cheeks. It was break time and some were riding bicycles, while some were doing physical exercise taught by a Chinese teacher. The rest had left home for lunch. A peculiar trend of spatial planning may be noticed here -a place of worship is always clubbed with a school.

China town also has a Chinese kali temple where “kali”, an Indian deity is worshiped only by the Sthapati | 2009 | 59

The Chinese living in Tangra are a self sustaining business community who primarily own tanneries.

However in recent days, the growing environmental awareness leading to the banning of tanneries has led to the forced conversion of some tanneries into Other than mythical gods, the Chinese worship their restaurants. There are around 55 to 60 tanneries ancestors. Chinese veneration of ancestors dates and 25 restaurants owned by the Chinese, in the back to prehistory. People generally offer prayers locality. Due to the presence of several restaurants, with food, candle, incense and clothes made of joss there has been the growth of a sauce processing paper which are burnt during the ritual. Ancestors factory in the neighborhood, owned by a Chinese veneration is conducted in the Chinese new year, owner. Neighbourhood services like rickshaw ceremonies like weddings, funerals etc. The pulling, tire pumping, grocery and Chinese clad entrance-doors of other stores etc are also sometimes houses with stickers of gods and seen to be rendered by the Chinese.

Chinese dragons. These are potent We went right inside symbols of auspicious power in those dark and shady Our trips around, in and out of those Chinese mythology. Red being an and filthy corners closed and half-closed (as they were auspicious colour is used in entrance where leather was banned due to environmental portals and doors of Chinese houses. processed in huge pollution) tannery sheds through circular press those narrowed and winding back There is no organized community machines. Each lanes and leather tanning grounds open space in the neighbourhood as tannery had a small was a thrilling experience in itself. We such, however, there are two club corner where a photo went right inside those dark and houses in the locality, and only one of of a Chinese god was shady and filthy corners where them is active at present. The worshipped under a leather was processed in huge Chinese Buddhist congregation hall red dim light. The circular press machines. Each acts as a community hall for Buddhist entrance gate was of tannery had a small corner where a marriage and death ceremonies. auspicious red photo of a Chinese god was colour. worshipped under a red dim light.

The Chinese language which forms The entrance gate was of auspicious an integral part of Chinese culture still red colour. survives in Kolkata. The language is taught in Pei May Chinese School up to 10th standard and also in My Swiss partner Lucas was taking careful Grace Ling Lang English medium school as an documentation photographs and videos of each optional subject for Chinese students. A Chinese and every activity going around us. In his eyes I newspaper Overseas Chinese Commerce in India, could find the vitality of exploration of the uncounted still survives in Kolkata, printing news from China, and undocumented domains of Kolkata where still though only 300 copies of it are printed daily. the open drains and garbage dumping grounds, primitive sewage disposal structure and footpath The Chinese follow a lunar calendar with a month less streets prevailed‌and how the rest of the consisting of 21 days. To keep pace with the solar metropolitan life of the city was segregated and calendar of the Christians with 30 days a month, a ignorant of the existence of the visible yet invisible new month is inserted whenever it lags behind the Chinese in the locality‌ Christian calendar in more than 21 days.

Chinese! This proves how the native culture has penetrated into the Chinese culture - the Chinese who are considered as an inert community.

Image of the Chinese overseas magazine published in china town

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Chinese god worshipped inside the tanneries

Inside kindergarten classroom of Pei May Chinese school

A scene inside a tannery

The above article is based on information collected in a summer project by the author along with two students Lukas Pauer and Adam Wilson from ETH studio Basel, Switzerland on china town. Please visit the website studio-basel.com for a book on China Town.

Breakfast market at tiretta bazar

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EXPERIENCING Alok Kumar B.Arch. 4th year

AHMEDABAD

B. Arch being a five year course has its own advantages. One gets the opportunity to taste the working culture of different firms, before even starting to think about his professional practice. And experiencing the working culture of a place has its own spin-offs. For me it has always been a sponsored tour where I explore the place around and try to taste the very air of the city I get to work in.

This summer, it was Ahmedabad. A small, bifurcated city, lapped by the Sabarmati River on both sides, Ahmedabad does not impress one at the first sight. But as one grows from being a tourist to a traveller, the city also changes its persona. Two months in the city and I had had a glimpse of yet another aspect of the Indian heritage. The Islamic architecture (no, by that I don't mean the Mughal one) and the pan Gujarat architecture, giving way to the contemporary world Architecture. Roaming inside the havelis of Ahmedabad and the strikingly huge step well of Adalaj, one feels the grandeur of the Indian Sultans, kings and queens, and one hour later, taking a spiritual bath in Sabarmati Ashram, one understands the worth of a simple life.

My stay in Ahmedabad was like an unguided tourist safari, with spaces to explore and buildings to talk to.

Corbusier's Mill Owners' association building, Correa's Sabarmati Ashram, Doshi's Gandhi Labor Institute‌ each one has something to be experienced. Each one tells you that the architectural profession is greater than merely a vocation. It's about a continuous and dynamic interface between built objects and alive souls. A special mention to the IIM campus couple here.

I was working with the architectural firm that's currently designing IIM Ahmedabad's new campus. And as an intern, I got to make frequent site visits out of my own curiosity. One hell of a hallowed institution, with two campuses separated by a busy road. Louis I. Kahn, the poet of light, and Dr. Bimal Patel, the alternative postmodernist giant of India, one on one. Anybody who visits both the campuses tends to commit the fallacy of comparing the two and telling you which one is better. I tried the same, but the meek architect inside refused to be judgmental. All I could think was: "The new IIM A campus has a factory architecture. A factory for the brains.

While the old IIM A campus has a temple architecture. A temple that celebrates human intelligence.

Just as an apple cannot be compared with an egg, you cannot compare the two and be judgmental about it, coz' each one is equally elegant in its own domain.�

It felt nice to see buildings and campuses arguing. Exposed brickwork fighting with exposed concrete. But as a whole they both complemented each other. The new campus was different from Kahn's in the same way as the Indian Parliament is from the Red Fort. Towards the end of my illuminating months in Ahmedabad, I also roamed around the architectural marvels of Delhi, but that's another story.

Ahmedabad's life style taught me how the Indian heritage thrives abreast with the world's evolving culture.

Gujaratis, though technologically very up to date, haven't compromised with their culture. With a sharp contrast between religions, cultures, history, architectural styles‌ one gets to know the difference between supplementation and complementation in Ahmedabad.

A nice place for the soul to feed on; give yourself the privilege sometime.

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REQUALIFYING URBAN ENVIRONMENTS OF ASIAN CITIES A case study of Fort Precinct, Mumbai Neha Singh 5th year undergraduate, B.Arch (Hons.)

Abstract Fort is the business district of Mumbai, India and is also designated as a conservation zone due to the presence of heritage buildings in its precinct. This paper explores the relationship between the environmental, social and cultural parameters associated with building adaptive reuse in organic and dense heritage Asian cities by the way of studying the Fort Precinct, Mumbai. It thus analyzes the key methodological issues and identification tools of adaptive reuse in the socially haphazard and culturally dynamic “maximum cities” of the Asian Subcontinent. In addition, it explores the potential of culture as a tool for quality adaptive reuse and its contribution towards generating reusable urban spaces. The study of Fort, Mumbai gives examples of successful positive intervention of Culture in redevelopment and adaptive reuse, thus providing a base pattern and structure for similar urban environments.

Keywords: Adaptive reuse, Fort Precinct, Urban- regeneration, Culture The urban environment of Fort Asia is a land of arts and culture and this helps its cities grow organically. Fort is the business district of Mumbai. It has been designated as a conservation zone for the presence of heritage buildings in its precinct.

Over the past few years, a number of significant old heritage buildings in this area have been restored and requalified for various new public and commercial uses as an answer to the city's struggle due to acute space crunch.

“Maximum Cities”, a term coined by writer Suketu Mehta, is used for third-world metropolises that are the hub of dynamic social, cultural, economic, environmental changes and at the same time, have a history deep rooted in time. Mumbai, where changes and transformations have occurred organically and as and when required, is going through a struggle for resources and acute space crunch due to the shooting requirements of the ever growing population.

The Fort Precinct of South Mumbai is one of the most expensive business areas and also a conservation zone for the presence of a large number of heritage buildings in its precinct. Since business grew drastically after the economic liberalization in India in the 1990s, there was an acute demand for new office spaces on large scale. Thus started the process of adaptive reuse in the Fort area because of lack of availability of new land in the region, and to preserve the existing heritage structures. Even though cultural activities have been regularly vibrant and not so as to serve the cause of reuse and adaptation of old spaces to the new environments, they have helped the same to a major extent. This has established the use of culture as a tool for helping re-qualify old spaces through culture based initiatives for urban revitalization and urban renewal and saving them from complete physical, economic, functional, technological, social and legal obsolescence. A number of non-governmental organizations have been coming up with a variety of initiatives and innovative solutions to the needs of the area.

Key arguments for use of culture as a tool Arts and culture have helped regeneration through initiatives such as street facade improvement, creating new spaces for community activity and interaction, greening and landscape art initiatives and at the same time spurring local economic growth and development. The “Kala Ghoda Arts Festival” in spring and the regular street theatre, shows and performance in dance, instruments, music, acting, literature, fine arts have helped create new public spaces for the same. They have also generated employment and helped in the maintenance of heritage spaces. According to Tully, refurbishment generates 25% more employment than new building construction per square meter of floor space as a result of the typical labor intensive activities involved in renovation. Reusability becomes more significant due to non-availability of sufficient funding and resources in third world countries. Reuse has also helped in creating spaces for the homeless in Mumbai.

They have also generated awareness and appreciation in the society for heritage buildings. The importance of the building heritage has been rediscovered through community gathering and interaction. Culture has helped the revitalization of urban landmarks and has hence promoted cultural tourism to the Fort Precinct on a large scale. This has eventually helped in the economic growth of the city.

Mumbai is the hub of Indian Film Industry and Television Industry. Some old spaces have been developed Sthapati | 2009 | 63

Papers as work spaces for artists and organizations, eventually also helping the surrounding community and has helped in adding to the aesthetic appeal of public spaces. The increase in need for space by artists has helped the infrastructural development. The heritage of Gothic and Victorian architecture in Fort has challenged the reuse and so led to innovative and creative solutions for the same.

The culture of street side eating, shopping, shoe polish, vehicle repair, religious praying, community festival celebrations and mid-day public gathering from offices during lunch hours and otherwise, is an Asian lifestyle, adding literal and figurative colour to the environment. The same has been vital in reuse of public spaces for such purposes, though not aesthetically and also, in some cases, helped in development and creation of new public spaces and maintenance. The presence of a variety of modes of transport like local trains, buses, taxis, cars, motorcycles, cycles, bullock-carts and hand-carts (in some internal areas), tongas (for local tours) requires huge parking spaces and hence the negative spaces in the area have been used for the same. Also, considering the high frequency of thefts, robbery and gray and negatively stereotyped areas developing in vacant or derelict building, occupancy and reuse make positive answers to this culture.

Adaptive reuse of buildings makes reuse of existing public infrastructure like water supply and drainage and sewerage, electricity, telecommunication, gas supply, hence relieving demands on the local public authorities to extend infrastructure and eventually reclaiming natural landscapes for sprawling urban redevelopment. It provides an opportunity to retain attractive streetscapes, adding character and providing status and image to an organization through the use of massive and highly crafted materials. Reuse of old buildings makes it easier to locate them in the otherwise haphazard and unplanned organic environments of the Asian cities.

Adaptive reuse has helped in reducing the carbon footprint of the buildings, decreased the demolition waste and hence reduced the requirements for large dumping grounds, helping the degrading environments by acting as a mine of raw materials for new projects- a concept described by Chusid as 'urban ore'. Atkinson's Sinking Stack Theory is well fitted in the Asian urban environments and can be used as a base for maintaining a balance between the new construction and revitalization and adaption of the old.

This study hence establishes both direct and indirect relationship between culture and adaptive reuse through examples of positive intervention and explores how it can be positively used for generating reusable urban spaces(,) thus providing a base pattern and structure for similar Asian urban environments .

References Chusid M, MarApr.1993, “Once is never enough” Building Renovation 1720 Seeley IH, 1983, “Building economics: appraisal and control of building design cost and efficiency” Macmillan Press 3rd ed.

Atkinson B, June 1988, “Urban ideals and the mechanism of renewal” in the Proceedings of RAIA conference, Sydney Tully E, 1993, “Construction employment multipliers to take account of price increases between 1983 and 1992” (Department of Industry, Science and Technology, Canberra) Langston C, Wong Francis K.W., Hui Eddie C.M., Shen Li-Yin, October 2008, “Strategic assessment of building adaptive reuse opportunities in Hong Kong” Building and Environment, Volume 43, Issue 10, 17091718

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A sketch by Krush Dattani, B Arch, 3rd Year

Sthapati | 2009 | 65

GOVINDA SOMANI Address: A21, First Floor, Ashok Vihar, Phase II, Delhi-110052 Phone: 27142812 Email: govinz.somani@gmail.com Future plans: aage aage dekho hota hain kya !!!

Punch line: aami kicho jani na…!!! , aama te aeta bhalo lagi na !!!, cholbe na !!!

Advice: No matter how much U may have to complain n be sad about!! U would NEVER EVER want to exchange Ur life with anybody else!!! Coz U know U are lucky!!!

SAURAV KUMAR TUNTUN Address: Govt. Middle School Bagsuma, Govindpur, Dhanbad, Jharkhand Phone: +91 92 3486 9426 Email: tsaurav.z@gmail.com Future plans: Job for at least two years… no long term plans Punch line: Koi nahi YAAR… Advice: Do things passionately and what you enjoy most… life will take care of others.

RAKSHIT SHARMA Address: C/O Mani Homeo Clinic , Near C.T.S Bus Stand , Jaipur , Raj-303902 Phone: 0141-2732054, +91-9735560286 Email: rash.kgp.23@gmail.com Future plans: getting a job Punch line: abe kal pahli class kitne baje hai ?

Advice: Show respect for anybody who works for a living, regardless of how trivial their job is.

ARUN KUMAR ALETI Address: Door No: 53-21-19/3, Chaitanya Nagar ,Maddilapelm , Visakhapatnam.

Phone: +919933792441 Email: arunaleti@gmail.com Future plans: Din't quite think of at the moment, but anything other than architecture will do…

Punch line: Thik hai yaar …peace hai…

Advice: Listen to nothing after you have decided on something.

ARUN KUMAR CHAUBEY Address: S-10,219/17,Hukulganj,Varanasi Cantt,U.P Phone: 09336239834(h) Email: copykitaab@gmail.com Future plans: To be a part of a creative field Punch line: kya be...

Advice: Tujh mein agar pyas hai, Barish ka ghar bhi paas hai...

SANDEEP KUMAR KUMAWAT Address: C/o Bhaskar Cement Agency, outside Rawan Gate, Dholi Mandi Chomu, Jaipur -303702 Phone: 01423 220548 Email: blaster548@gmail.com, skkumawat14@gmail.com Future plans: Architectural practice Punch line: - Advice: Do not let anyone control your life, everyone has something which you need in your life

NIDHI SHARMA Address: 1300/28, Ambica Colony, Bihari Ganj, Nasirabad Road, Ajmer- 305001 Phone: 01452660556 Email: nidhisharma.iitkgp@gmail.com Future plans: None Punch line: Seriously !!

Advice: Humour, Honesty, Humility

THUMU KARTHIK Address: Hyderabad Phone: 9849593694 Email: thumu2u@gmail.com Future plans: KGP--- Job---MBA---JOB---MY FIRM---PHD----BIGGER FIRM---PROF--RETIREMENT----------SECOND INNINGS---- DEATH Punch line: Silence is a virtue, world isn't a place for the virtuous.

Advice: The Optimist invents the Airplane. The Pessimist invents the Parachute.

The one in between will stay on the ground and talk about the faults of both.

P.S.- I don't like people influencing me nor I wish to influence others.

VIVEK KUMAR Address: Vivek Kumar, s/o Sri Baiju Sah, Siddharthapuram, Lane No. 2, Near Baalumandi, Ramdayalunagar, Muzaffarpur 842002, Bihar Phone: 0621-2272910, 09431439900 Email: iitkgp.vivekkumar@gmail.com Future plans: To own construction company.

Punch line: Sabu makahu hai.... [: P] Advice: Work hard... Enjoy life.

NEHA SINGH Address: House no. 3/283, Vishal Khand, Gomti Nagar, Lucknow 226010 Phone: +91 9734438175 (kgp), +91 9450659094 Email: nehasingh.iitkgp@gmail.com Future plans: Travelling and working :D Punch line: Seriously?

Advice: Never give up

ABHISHEK SRIVASTAVA Address: A 314 ,LLR hall Phone: 9735565769 Email: absiitkgp@gmail.com Future plans: pata nahi Punch line: kya karna hai?

Advice: Stay together,always...

AKANKSHA SINHA Address: H3/68 , Bengali Colony, Mahavir Enclave,Dwarka , New Delhi 45 Phone: 9818563704 Email: asinha.iitkgp@gmail.com Future plans: Higher Studies and then an Architect Punch line: Seriously Seriously..

Advice: Work hard, Smile always, keep talking and always maintain a database of all Hindi songs on your finger tips.

NIKHIL KUMAR Address: At+Post Harda, District- Purnea(Bihar), 854303 Phone: 9932326187 Email: iit.nikhil@gmail.com Future plans: To be successful entrepreneur Punch line: Do whatever you feel right with full devotion!

Advice: Try to earn something extra in your kgp life span that

KAILASH CHANDRA CHANDOLA Address: Village: Charayal Suyal Post Office :Manpur West, Haldwani , Nainital Uttarakhand Phone: 9647044187 Email: infinitekai@gmail.com Future plans: Don't have any idea about it....

Punch line: peace hai yaar...

Advice: Do whatever you want to -jo accha lage karna chaiye .

HARSH GUPTA Address: 17, Bikaneriya Bas, Near Laxmi Market, PALI ( Raj.) 306401 Phone: (02932)221258 Email: onlyhg@gmail.com Future plans: hmm...

Punch line: Are, Kal class kitne baje hai ??

Advice: Everybody's life has a goal, so what's yours???

GOPIKRISHNAN. V Address: Sreepadam, 14, Pooja Nagar, Temple Road, Kallekulangara P.O. Palakkad 678009 Phone: 0491 2556184 Email: ar.gopikrishnan@gmail.com Future plans: None.

Punch line: Try. Ho jaaega.

Advice: Guess I am too young and inexperienced to advice

SWAPNIL SAHU E-mail: swapn.iitkgp@gmail.com Punch line: kya load hai !!!??

Advice: Nothing is a waste of time if you use the experience wisely.

SIVVAM SUMITH Address: House No.- 40 -147/65/C, Pool Bagh, Bobbili - 535558 Phone: 09441568739(R) Email: sumith.sivvam@gmail.com Future plans: to work for a large MNC Punch line: Hi boss...What's up :) Advice: Stay calm and composed in tough times....always try to be a biggie in your career

Sthapati | 2009 | 40