Virtual and the Real

There is something happening in the urban Indian environment, which is taking the previous generations by surprise and destabilizing the status quo about the idea of Indian culture. Summarily, this can be termed as a transition period for people, accelerated by the digital revolution. The chosen topic is extremely broad and I choose to limit my observation to my domain - architecture.

Since the time I have been involved actively in academics, I am having the opportunity to interact with students on subjects like Architectural Design, Dissertation, History of Architecture among others.

Ideas required for the conception of architectural space require synthesis (or consideration) of parameters related to climate, culture (or people), materials and technology – to suggest a few. History of architecture, too, concerns with the act of creating architectural spaces and understanding the ‘context’ for that activity. Both of these subjects are related with climate, people, resources and time. Or, fundamentally, they are concerned with the idea of perception and conception of spaces.

The central question to be considered by people involved with architectural practice or academics is – what is the inspiration for the perception and conception of architectural spaces? With the study of history of architecture and as our own experiences in practice will indicate to us, our inspiration for conceiving architectural spaces comes through our interactions with the physical + real place. We exist in some place, at some point of time and interact with some people and must respond to available resources at our disposal to create architecture. This entire phenomenon takes place in “real time” that is to say that our ideas are formed by our interactions with our surroundings that we perceive in “real time”. Therefore the entire discussion on what seems relevant, appropriate, contextual, affordable and flexible has connections with being rooted to a “real time” experience.

This connection with the “real time” place itself is changing with the increasing penetration of digital/ virtual environment in the minds of younger generation. The younger generation, with unlimited access to the virtual environment, is bound to be heavily influenced or informed by the ideas that keep circulating in the “virtual place/space/time” nexus. There are a lot of issues tied with the aspect of virtual penetration. What the students see in the virtual environment, they can’t or don’t know what is relevant. By faster replacement of images and the fluid nature of virtual environment, the students’ minds do not entertain any thought for a long time. They are unable to stretch their imagination or focus on a thought, pursue it and come to some conclusion.

It is time for us to accept that the young generation’s  ideas are now going to be strongly influenced by the “virtual reality” and the perception + conception of architectural spaces is going to take place through the interaction of “virtual” + “real-time” environments. This should be seen as an opportunity for us as well, since this situation is going to make us face the following questions:

1.       The idea of “place”: Should all ideas come only from a fixed geographical bounded place through our modes of perception (where we exist) or can they be influenced by ideas which had been implemented at some other location and at some other point of time? Thus, what needs to change is the definition of the “experience of place” that is simultaneously local and “virtual-global”. With this, we need to further refine ideas pertaining to relevance or appropriateness of a design solution. Thus, the meaning of “context” is no longer strictly real time or real place specific, but can exist anywhere in between the real and the virtual. Thus, our roles as guides or mentors to the students have to be increased manifold times.

2.       The idea of local - How much to emphasize on hand skills, local employment, local skill sets, local empowerment, displacement and replacement of known systems of knowledge with newer systems, displacement of time tested methods with fast track methods of execution – all these become important to be considered.

3.       What happens about the idea of history, culture, tradition, ethics, memory, heritage, conservation (anything that is related to the notion of the Past) may be subjected to open debate. Perhaps the Past may be seen with fresh perspectives. Perhaps what should have been discarded long time ago, will be concluded. What has stood the test of Time, will be evident again and may offer a glimpse of eternal concerns of humanity. Perhaps a new awareness of the Past may develop.

4.       Idea of self – Idea of ‘self’ has seen a significant change. As more and more of our time is consumed by digital environments, we seem to be losing touch with “real time” interactions with people that happen in “real time” places – streets, courtyards, staircases, passages, gardens, maidans and so on. This will prompt us to reconsider the importance of public spaces and any experience that is born out of “real time” interaction with people. Should public spaces be designed and for what purpose? What do you call “public”? Should all spaces be privatized? All these are hard questions to be confronted. Been on International Soil for some time and having experienced what can extremely privatized space can do to the entire society, I suggest that this issue needs to be looked at very critically.

5.       Idea of social constructs – How do we perceive life? How do we deal with people because of age, gender, caste, religion, nationality, language and so on? This is a phenomenon evident in our behavior – whether one likes it or not. Most of these social constructs are embedded in geographical and historical perception of place. And if the virtual environment is going to blur the rigid boundaries of geographical place and if it is going to generally increase our exposure to newer environments, how would we perceive ‘people’? Would it be more inclusive or more divisive? Would this newer, fluid, virtual environment offer us an idea regarding what are people’s fundamental concerns and would that lead us to design spaces that respond to such fundamental concerns of humanity? Shouldn’t we guide our students to such understandings?

6.       Idea of affordability – This concern is tied up with the emphasis of generating a “local” response – accommodating local culture, material palette, local skill sets of construction, local climate and so on. Should this discussion be kept aside? Should the relevance of technology, local concerns be continued to be voiced to the students?

Above were some of the issues that we seem to face today. The journey ahead is to be done together – mentor + students and need not be done in the traditional hierarchical manner, where whatever the mentor says is right and what the student says need not be entertained.  The current situation has a lot of learning to offer for both.