Educating Architecture

Architecture is the noblest of all professions. The architects of bygone era were considered closer to God, because they built and sculpted the places of worships like temples and palaces for the kings. They had the direct influence on the State treasury and the ruler of the time. But today architects and their role has drastically changed to suit the needs of the contemporary society.

Evolution of modern architecture as a profession is a relatively new phenomenon particularly in India, demanding a different educational approach and pedagogy. Today the profession is pro-western in approach because our education system lays less importance to the cultural identity. Hence the underlying tension between modern and tradition remains to be resolved through aspirations integrally woven into the education philosophy. Most schools in India have not come to grips with this problem and the pedagogical structure that arrived here from the West, more or less continues to dominate architectural education.

A few decades back there were hardly a few institutions imparting education in architecture. These institutions were mostly committed and a selected few interested candidates would join the profession. The primary criteria would be to possess an ability to sketch and draw. Drawing as the language of the architect was essential to express ideas and visions. If one sees the original drawings of Frank Lloyd Wright who was referred as the father of Modern architecture one would be amazed to see the detailing in a simple pencil sketch.

It so happened that Wright got a commission from his favorite client Edgar J Kaufmann Sr. in Pennsylvania, 50 miles south of Pittsburgh. Kaufmann had commissioned the work to Wright and almost forgot about it, and so did Wright. One fine day Kaufmann called Wright and enquired about his project and Wright promptly replied that the designs are ready. Mr. Kaufmann said he would be there in 30 minutes and Wright agreed;the sketches and drawings that Wright made in that 30 minutes became history in the creation of what was called the “Falling Water”, the Kaufmann House. Architects like Wright were not just architects but creative genius ; they had hands-on experience in art, painting, sculpture, music and literature. Le Corbusier another eminent French architect who was responsible in designing modern Chandigarh is well known for creating one building and writing ten books on projects whether built or unbuilt.

"I call architecture frozen music." said Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe.

His description of architecture has been one of the most lasting. It is a quote with many interpretations, most directly reflecting the predominant style of Goethe’s time-Baroque style of architecture.

Today, the advent of a variety of software have changed the world we see and live today. We can’t live without them but one must know that even human beings have limitations of innovation. Frank O Gehry a well known contemporary iconic architect draws inspirations from his nightmares and translates his nightmares into iconic designs taking advantage of the softwares which support his ideas and visions.

When I started my profession as a teacher in the School of Architecture and Planning in the year 1983 and especially took interest to teach the 1^st year B.Arch students on the subjects like Basic Design and Theory of Architecture. That year I can recall was the most exciting year in my life. I was not just a teacher but a student among student. Every day was an innovation and the quest and hunger to do something different and interesting. I taught also geometry and the extrapolation and interpolation of geometry based on the principles and theories by Prof. Arthur Loeb of MIT Harvard. With no internet I used the American Consulate and the British Council Libraries very extensively to source information to build experimental projects for students. It was “hard work” and the final result was amazing. I had the finest of the students in my class and they still remember the one year they spent in the school with me. From then on there was no looking back, I have lectured on invitation in some of the best schools around the world. Hence the basics matter the most and the first two years are crucial in the education process.

The architectural education in India is monitored and controlled by the Council of Architecture (COA) under the purview of The Architects Act of India 1972. There are about 180 schools as independent institutions and as departments in engineering colleges all over India. Due to the surge in real estate market from the early 90s’ the architecture schools have mushroomed all over the country. It has become a difficult task for the institutions to find a suitable faculty. The faculty in any architecture school play a significant role in building a strong base and platform of learning architecture. The faulty should possess ability to understand, develop and execute good teaching practice, to continuously learn; and to continuously renew one’s professional knowledge. Together with the ability to share and communicate such learning, the faculty can construct and implement an inspirational vision of architectural education, which will encourage, support and nurture talent. Thus this ability to harness talent will make the school a place of innovation in architecture.

Educating architecture is not so simple as many may think, but needs continuous innovation and experimentation in the subject. The students need to be exposed to an intellectually vibrant environment with extraordinary infrastructure where talent could be nurtured and leadership could be inculcated. Most importantly the faculty should “practice and have ability to earn a teaching position by producing innovative work and such work should be publishable works of design, theory, history or criticism”.

Govt of Karnataka rejects a brilliant scheme by JDS Architects in favour of a mediocre proposal

Goverment of Karnataka rejected a brilliant scheme presented by Jaffer AA Khan of JDS Architects to a mediocre scheme.

It is unfortunate that a brilliant scheme based on Surah 2 Verse 197 of the Holy Quran, which incorporates the concept of Grand Courtayrd, Folding Umbrellas and the moving domes did not find favour with the Hajj Ministry which preferred a much more traditional scheme incorporating Domes and Arches.

Mr Khan argues that Islam is an Intelligent religion and for intelligent people. A centre representing such a people should be an intelligent centre, which has a subtle mix of Art and Mathematics. He explained how the Buzjani Squares has had a great influence on the scheme where "Geometrical patterns" play an important aesthetic elements of the scheme. It is unfortunate that our community does not recognise intelligence even in 21st century, he said.

Jaffer AA Khan's Projects-Set 1

Jaffer AA Khan's architectural design projects

CHENNAI-

A LIVABLE CITY ?

Coovam

Chennai is one of the fastest growing cities in India today. With the ever-growing urbanization and the policies, which cannot check it – the state of the city’s living conditions are bad to worse. The elite civil society of the city has hardly taken any concrete initiative to put pressure on the civic authorities to improve the situation.

Chepauk Palace

The city is simply too big to handle and the wherewithal is absent with the local self-government.

Presently, the city can boast of possessing the “Seven Wonders” of pathetic modern urban living.

Chaotic Traffic

Overflowing sewers

Increasing temperature

Chocked rain water drains

Constant power cuts

Stinking river

&

A haven for mosquitoes

The government of the day and the city resembles more like the Roman Empire and the city of Rome. The Coliseum kept the citizens away from the affairs of the state , but atleast the city of Rome had a character. Chennai, which used to be the exemplar of “Indo-Saracen” style of architecture, has lost its character and the most recently added mega buildings to the cityscape contribute not to the benefit of the city but to the deterioration of the urban environment and character.

It is pathetic to note that there was no debate or discussion on such additions, which has completely destroyed the very cultural fabric of the city. One should understand that architecture and urban design plays a vital role in development of the city and the psyche of the citizen who lives there. Cultural identity through architecture has influence on generations and becomes part of life. The destruction of any cultural edifice is the feeling of a loss of a part of the human body. These are the elements, which remind us of the roots and establish the link, which provide the emotional satisfaction. Take the case of Chepauk Palace, once a residence of the Nawab of Arcot has been completely defaced and desecration of the skyline by constructing the horrible looking “Ezilagam” a few decades back.

If the buildings become an emotional content then the aspects of environment becomes equally important for a healthy living. In Chennai we see that once the “Waterways” Coovum and the Buckingham canal are eyesores now and the filth that they collect everyday is the breeding centre for mosquitoes. Take the case of Han river in Seoul. The once polluted river is now a place of public gathering with gardens and promenades with cafes and is a place of cultural activity. When can one see such a change in Chennai?.

The Chennai like most of the cities in India has overgrown and has constantly evolving like a mighty octopus when our own breed of planners and architects were dozing off, not realizing the fact that evolution has the capacity to grow faster than the very aspect of physical development. The city is a living organism and it reacts exactly like any living creature. The monuments we create, the river that flows and the flora and fauna of the city with its citizens create an ecosystem, which are mutually complimentary to each other. But it is unfortunate that the relationship hardly exists today. The morality to respect the immediate surroundings is missing. Hence the citizen is highly undisciplined and lost the moral character to question himself, his actions and the happenings around him. The result is the deterioration of the city and its environment. It is high time that the one dozen odd schools, which impart architectural education in the city, start a campaign to create a common platform to address the issues. It would be appropriate at this time to initiate a strong citizen movement to save Chennai from the brink of disaster otherwise living on stilts will become a common way of life.

Remember ….the planet earth is gift to mankind and the creator entrusted the responsibility to man to take care of it. Man as the ultimate of creation had the wherewithal to take care of it, but greed took over him to engulf the planet. Hence the mother earth has no other option but to revolt against his actions, in order to maintain the balance. So the man need not complain about the fury of the planet in the recent decades or the ones coming very soon.

Jaffer AA Khan RIBA

Feedback: Jaffer@sify.com

Buckingham Canal-One wishes that the British Empire should have continued to rule over us!!

MOMA-Museum of Muslim Art India

MOMA is a non profit institution with a aim to disseminate knowledge on the Muslim Art and Architecture of India. Interested persons may contact momaindia@gmail.com.

Comfort in Public Housing

Jaffer AA Khan Architect

India is the second highest populated country in the world with nearly 1.3 billion populations contributing to 17% percent of world population. It is expected that the trend if continues will exceed China in 2030 with an estimated 1.53 billion people living on this motherland. This is really scary as the resources to support this population are not growing at the pace expected and scarier is the urban population will be almost 50% by 2050. Presently though the urban population is at 27.8% the rate of urbanization is overshooting the predictions of our so-called planners and social scientists. With this growth scenario the demand for housing in urban areas also has grown considerably and since six decades the urban development policies by the various governments in power have hardly taken any initiative to bridge the gap between “Demand and Supply”. Hence one may say that the housing sector; particularly public housing in India has not delivered and the deficit still keeps growing in millions and presently if the calculations are right it stands at 24.7 million units. If numbers do not tally then the quality and comfort aspects of the housing units delivered so far is equally alarming. In a hurry to satisfy numbers we forget or sideline the quality of living and the conditions of comfort where a person can bet at optimum both psychologically and physiologically. Traditionally in India the vernacular architecture provides a variety of architecture as a response to the micro and macro climatic and socio-cultural situations. For instance in south Tamil Nadu, the coastal houses have “kattuppandal” as a significant feature of architecture which is the “Wind Catcher” facilitating air movement required as comfort criteria for a Warm Humid Condition.

In the year 1984 I had joined the Bartlett School of Architecture and Planning, UCL London for my post graduation in Architecture with a specialization in Environmental Design. The first few weeks of the course was only about Human Psychology and Physiology. We had to read “Sensations and Perceptions” by Stanley Coren, Lawrence M Ward, James T Enns. My professor at that time was Dr Ron. Hawks a renowned name in the field of Space Psychology in Built Environment. We were experimenting extensively on human body and the function of “Hypothalamus” in the brain in relation to human comfort. At some point I thought I had joined a wrong course and I wanted to quit. However I pursued further and by the first quarter I realized the connection between human comfort and architecture. Architecture is a unique phenomenon that has a delicate connection between the people and the space that they occupy. A Danish professor P Ole Fanger at the Technical University of Denmark who defined comfort not only on qualitative terms but also with an equation involving various parameters to assess the level of comfort quantitatively developed the concept of Comfort and more importantly “Thermal Comfort”. Hence comfort according to him was “ A state at which a human being feels both psychologically and physiologically at equilibrium so as to perform at optimum level”.

This complicated comfort equation is the most commonly adopted. It is based on experiments involving humans exposed to a uniform environment under steady state conditions. The comfort equation establishes the relationship among the environment variables, clothing type and activity levels. Hence, the equation gives information on how to predict Predicted Mean Vote (PMV) which is the mean vote expected to arise from averaging the thermal sensation vote of a large group of people in a given environment. The aspects of PPD- Percentage People Dissatisfied and LPPD-Lowest Percentage People Dissatisfied was evolved. He went on to experiment and say that LPPD was 5% given a perfect environment. Hence whatever environment one creates or assumes perfect there seems to be a dissatisfaction level of 5%.

The thesis on “Thermal Comfort in Housing” submitted by me at the University of London in 1985 experimented some of the public housing schemes in Chennai and also the computer model developed by HUDCO for the sites and services schemes which were quite popular those days. The thesis results alarmingly showed how the very aspect of bio-climatic and comfort criteria were hardly applied to these housing schemes. The results further predicted the discomfort level as very high encouraging psychological and physiological stress and other health complications.

The public housing programmes today talk about “Sustainable Development” and the housing policy 2007 document stresses the need for conservation of natural resources and formulation of regulations & bye-laws that are environment friendly, investment-friendly and revenue-generating. This seems to be a good trend and quite a departure from the early eighties. But the question is how far these regulations and environmental friendly policies are implemented, monitored and enforced.

We all know that the building sector accounts for a significant and increasing part of the worldwide energy consumption and is responsible for important greenhouse gas emissions. This is why rational use of energy and development of renewable energy sources appear as strategic solutions considering the significant resources available. In this context, energy efficiency in the building sector and particularly the Housing sector will be more and more considered as a key issue of the future and will be a challenging task for the state sponsored housing agencies whose deficit goes in millions by every year.

Feedback: Jaffer@sify.com

Architecture is…….

Renowned architect Jaffer AA Khan gave a lecture on “Architecture is….” Recently in Chennai. Attended by practicing architects and students of architecture in Chennai the lecture started with the concept of five elements of nature as mentioned in Vedas and their significance and relationship with architecture. He said, architecture is like a living organism just like the planet earth and that the planet itself is a unique gift from the creator and under the trusteeship of man. And what man has done to this planet, is just destroying it in every way he could. He said architects have special significance and responsibility in terms of preserving the environment and build to compliment nature and not contradict. Ultimately , architects have a social responsibility like Winston Churchill once said” We shape the buildings and the buildings shape us”.

His lecture continued with the IGNCA competition project which he did in 1986 as soon as he came back from London after completing his post graduation from the Bartlett, UCL. The project was unique in many ways as it talks about the “Theory of Evolution and Involution”. He reiterated that a center representing Indian arts need to posses the spirit of Indian culture and that is where he worked on BINDU-NADA- MOOLA TIUKONA-PAREMEYA-SWASTIKA idea evolved from Sri Yantra which represents the beautiful abstraction of balance and unification of nature and consciousness in its unique posture. This is what our culture teaches us, the balance of positive and negative forces in nature and the harmony of creative phenomenon.

He applied this philosophy in many of his projects but said that he is still looking for a suitable client to express this idea in its fullest form and that will be his ultimate mission.

The second half of the lecture was very interesting as he spellbound the audience with his works for the past 25 years. His home town Vellore Fort and the Jalakandeswarar Temple inside has had a lasting impact on him and his practice. He recalled as a kid visiting the fort very often and the monumentality of its form always was deep in his mind. He remembered how a study of this fort and temple in 1980 as part of national competition won Loius-I-Kahn Award instituted by The Vastu Shilpa Foundation, Ahmedabad by world renowed master architect Shri, BV Doshi and from then on there was no looking back he said.

Having established a small one room office in 1985 in Vellore he has come a long way from joint family Hameed House in 1985 until his own home in Bangalore in 2005. he showcased a variety of projects with many of them nominated for International awards and nominations. He also said the period between 1993 to 1999 was a period of intellectual enrichment with several international projects and winning of the International Academy of Architecture Award in 1993 for his work on “Urban Ecology of Maisons Alfort Charenton, Paris”. He said this project was interesting because it was an example of how a city should not be developed in hurry as happened in the case of Paris after WWII. The cities will continue to grow and will pose a greater threat to human survival in the future as the human concentration keeps growing here. This is the case of all cities in the world and Chennai is no different. Among the other award winning projects is the Periagraharam Mosque in Erode built by the Periagrahama Muslim Community. This was nominated for the Aga Khan Award for Architecture in 1995 and listed as a significant contribution to the 20^th century contemporary islamic architecture and is part of the MIT Harvard archives.

His lecture continued with the latest project inBangalore a 937 unit housing project which he jointly developed the design with his UK associates and was singularly involved in developing the design brief for the project. “The Gardens” as it is called is a botanist’s delight with 300 trees and some of them more than 100 years old. The foot print of the building is dictated by the location of the trees and hence the evolution of elliptical design of tower blocks and free flowing form of the podium and basements. This is one of its kind projects in India he said as it was the third project in the country certified by MOEF in 2005 under the new regulations on environment. This project a unique private development as the flora and fauna is well preserved with the architecture itself responding well to the bioclimatic conditions of Bangalore. Apart from this the project incorporates, Solar Energy for hot water and common lighting, Water management, Rain water harvesting and recharging and solid waste management. This is probably first time a private developer has attempted on a multi-family dwelling units in a massive scale. A tough design to execute, the developers a well reputed group had the wherewithal to complete the project which will go into occupancy soon. One can see the marriage of nature and the man - made in this project, he said.

He concluded his talk by telling his architect friends and the students that planet is under trusteeship by the creator and let us all join hands to save it by atleast creating a responsible and responsive architecture.