Questions from students

The students of Sinhgad College of Architecture, Pune asked me a few questions to answer. Here are my responses:

1. How do you see your journey in your eyes? How did you evolve as an architect and a human being? Did these 2 facts complement each other?

BSB: I know I grew up as a human being first and then as an architect. I chose to do what interested me and I stumbled into architecture. I was fortunate enough to find kinds of work which interest me, and that I enjoyed doing it. That made me evolve as a person as I am. First decade and a half of my career was that of teacher and researcher rather tangential to architecture learning social sciences relevant to planning and architecture. Later, I returned to do things which were different from that yet continuing to be a teacher. It helped me to develop as a human architect, perhaps. However, my trajectory of career is in architecture is not normal. I believe that, a lot of things are chance happening, but lot depends on one’s attitude to work and life. All professions and all works have their own attractiveness. One has to have an attitude to enjoy what one does. To me, all work has been basically ‘serious fun’. Once it stops to be fun, it turns out drudgery, and it can warp one’s development as a human as well. I never wanted to be a professional on a safe and beaten track, but never a self-centered maverick just for the heck of it. That defines my work as an architect.

2. How do your philosophies translate into designs?

BSB: I don’t know. Lot of things is given to us without our own conscious knowledge. We don’t choose your parents for example or where you are born. And who happens to be your clients and what kind of work environment and design context one is thrown into. Designs emerge out of context. Context does not mean the physical setting, the site, climate, functions, surroundings, the buildings around etc, as commonly thought. Context is defined mostly by unseen parameters like budget, economy, social values, the political and social environment, the industrial and technological set up in which one works etc. When the design develops as a group effort, not just as thought product from a maverick individualist architect alone, metaphors and ideas to shape architecture emerge unselfconsciously. When we limit our parameters, the emerging architecture also will have limited valance. I believe that architecture is not experiential alone, nor just cerebral, it is a product of multivalent process. It gives a physical concrete experience as an object and also is a social construct as a metaphor or idea, which in turn may help make and further ‘social construction’ of meaning of concrete object.

3. How many design processes do you adhere to? Describe them briefly.

BSB: I am not sure. Life is a big and complex process, difficult to put it neatly. So is architecture meant to support life? Architecture can delight like art, has to be cost effective, and needs to interface with technology and culture. Thus our design ideology and methods attempt to circumscribe innovation in formal, technological and cultural realms. With its multi-valent agendas, our architecture has been collaborative -the client, the builders, contractors, the site engineers and the workmen are partners in the process.

Technology, in both its dimensions of material and technique, has been at the core of our work. The attempt has been to be at the cutting edge of contemporary technology albeit in a manner suited to the prevalent local conditions and ecology. Technology has never been an end to itself with us, but a means towards catering to the physical, psychological, fiscal, social and cultural needs of the client and the project. This view led us to pioneer the use of various materials, including stabilised mud blocks, and extensively develop and use various construction methods including brick vaulting, brick domes, skin domes and doubly curved forms, prefabrication, 3D windows etc.

4. Recent construction materials and techniques that have a bright future according to you?

Materials and technology are tools to make architecture happen. They keep evolving. They per se do not determine quality of architecture, though some materials could adversely or positively affect well being and environment. The essence of architecture remains same always. To be sensible, sensitive and safe. And to delight.

5. Your favorite historical monument and how does it reflect in your design (if it does)?

None. I have no favorites in any period of history, including present. I refuse to put anything to neat categories.

6. What are the important aspects that you will keep in mind while designing in India? Would it be the same for structures outside India?

The idea of India exists only as much as an idea of an Indian culture. So tempting an idea yet so nebulous and foggy. To make architecture it does not help. Architecture, I believe, is tied to a place and also simultaneously one cannot escape the global forces as well. Architecture is primarily a social act and phenomenon. As spatial culture it mirrors the cultural trends. A “conscious” architecture needs to be ‘located’ in a place and its culture and history. The global forces of today also cannot be discounted and need to be addressed and mended. This should inform our work. Two aspects are seen as prime foci:

1. Architecture as interpretation of the cultural text that makes the place. That text is not static but evolving.

2. Architecture as construction. This means concerns of ‘green’: impact of the place on buildings and the buildings on the place and its ecology, which also means response to climate.

This principle will work anywhere in India or elsewhere.

7. Comment on LEED and Green Buildings.

There is a lot of controversy on the subject. Green building idea as much as it is a concern for ecology and energy consciousness goes it is valid and important premise, but if it becomes an apology to support architecture which fails in all other aspects and use it as a support argument for poor design, it cannot be accepted as architecture. They could be just ‘green buildings’.

LEED like many other rating systems make sense as much as its parameters. The parameters of rating systems are many times insensitive to real local issues and priorities. They could be misused for promoting certain business interest alone. They also expect formalizing and professionalizing building industry way beyond many societies can accept and accommodate. Thus they become tools for elites to feel less guilty and to project a new champion social status. This makes little impact on the large scale really. That is why the controversies arise. An inclusive system which can address the issue from a more holistic point of view, economically, politically and socially is lacking.

8. Who are the architects who have influenced you and to what degree?

No one particularly. I have liked the works of many in different ways. I value any work which has serious thought behind. One may disagree. But one has to accept sincerity and deep thoughts as great virtues. Many, including my colleagues, my clients and my students influence my work. I am ‘influenceable even now.

9. Core skills that we as students should develop as future architects.

Skill to discern depth of content from surface sheen. Skill to question any fashion trends, past or present. Honesty to work. Skill to work in a team and to lead. Skill to synthesise ideas given by others. Skill to analyse an idea and convert it into a building. Skill to continue learning. An open, not a closed, mind. Other technical skills are secondary and that can be learned any time.