The Door

Come in my child!

Why are you concerned about beyond?

The beyond is yet to come...so rejoice where you are.

I will remain where I should remain.

Whenever you see me, I will open – without your permission.

What I offer, may frighten you, disappoint you, frustrate you – I only give experiences.  

What I give you; I cannot take it back.

What I will tell you, is true only for you.

What I will give you, is given only at the right time.

What I share with you, is not what you had asked for.

What I have planned for, is not what you had expected.

Whom you will see, is not what you may have intended.

One day, I am bound to close.

When I close, the game is all over.

I close, so you can go beyond.

What I offer you now, is just space beyond – make it your own!

A Brave New World

Time has come wherein changes in our thoughts, actions and products are perceivable. Important it is, to understand the nature of this change – which is resulting in the transformation of our Society into something different than what we have been accustomed to think. This change needs to be deliberated from many angles so a direction can be envisioned in due course of time which should respond appropriately to India’s context. This article, like the previous ones, does not make tall claims – it is intended to initiate an enquiry and to suggest to the reader, that we pause to take a stock of where things seem to be heading.

A lot has been written for a couple of decades on effects of globalization on local cultures and I wish to pursue one theme that seems to alter our ways of perceptions – digitization and the increasing use of virtual media. I am building on my own experience of my life as a pupil, student, professional, academician and exposure to international academic environment in International University outside India. The intention is to understand the nature of change in our ways of thinking and how we seem to think of our place and people and how these in turn seem to influence our ways of thinking about architecture. A logical way to elaborate on the nature of ‘change’ may be to compare situations before and after the advent of digital environment. The focus is to understand a ‘lived’ experience rather than trying to apply a theory in practical world, so that most people may be able to relate to it. The narrative is generalized – by that I mean it may represent numerous lived experiences of everyday life – from making decisions, interacting with people, getting things done, cooking for the family, designing, handling labour, making judgments, understanding language, writing, and appraisal of music and so on. It is hoped that the Reader may relate to any of his/her incidences in life. Thus, how does one understand ‘change’?

In the previous article (Garde, 2016) it was pondered how we seem to view spaces around us and the factors on which our perceptions seem to depend. It was argued that our experience itself was contextual and revolved around the specifics of ‘place’ and ‘people’. These two words mean everything that come under the influence of climate, geography (or topography); local skills of handling technology and materials; ways in which people choose to live and optimize resources; and people’s relationship with themselves, community and Nature. Summarily, experiences born out of this situation, as far as Indian context is concerned, are ‘localized’ (or ‘grounded’ or ‘contextual’). To be involved in the act of creating ‘spaces’ means to generate an appropriate response stemming from in-depth understanding of local climate, people’s culture and aspirations and appropriateness of technology. The idea of architecture is not purely architectonics (or a straight forward process of ‘form’ making). It means to be aware of the relationship of self with community and Nature and to acknowledge the interdependence of all systems of which, architecture is a part. How do we understand the constituents of ‘experience’ (towards people and space) created in this context? The key ingredient is wholesomeness and the need to think about a response (social or spatial) as a set of relationships. Simply put, the need is to think about everything that may lead to sustenance of life rather than the individual alone. This means to be aware of the influence of culture or history or past or memory to determine our ‘actions’. It should also be elaborated here for the sake of clarity, that perceptions of people, notions of privacy and the community, aspects of hierarchy, gender relations, biases, belief systems, myths were also very different from the way of life we experience in urban India nowadays. In a nutshell, the entire perception of social reality (and therefore spatial perception) was different. Thus, thought might not have been purely rational – rather, the understanding of local history, evolution of culture or memory may have tended to make our experience towards ourselves and architecture emotional/ intuitive/ experiential/ philosophical. And in delving in such thought processes, the architecture that we may have created, may have expressed the Intangible and the Profound. Does this make ‘thought’ too much burdensome by the consideration of the Past? Does this stifle newness and creativity? Does this retard ‘change’ or progress?  What constitutes ‘development’? Such questions are bound to occur and each of us is required to explore these questions.

In ‘modern’ rational perspective, such integrated approach of thinking about the interrelationship of different systems for generating an appropriate response may seem challenging to many of us, especially in the era of acute shortage of time and super specialization of domains of knowledge. It will be worthwhile to then ponder about what is exactly creating the so called “complex” contemporary situation?  Why is everything perceived to be complicated and what is the cause of such complexities and contradictions? The answer may lie in the nature of thought itself. The nature of thought creates the experience of reality. It will be pertinent to ask ourselves, how are we changing and what kinds of realities and relationships we seem to create for us, in the process?

Let’s try to understand the above question by contrasting the above experience with what I observe today, because of rise in our contact with virtual reality and increasing interface of digitization.

Let me summarize what most of us might be experiencing in contemporary situations in our actions, thoughts, workplaces, relationships and other dimensions of our lives:

The digital media and the internet seem to have exposed the phenomenal ‘alternatives’ of realities of existences across the globe and the ‘choices’ one requires to make to propose a line of action. Not that we were not aware of the diversity around us before, it has now been made very explicit. Climatically, geographically, socially, culturally, religiously, technologically, the globe is extremely diverse. Thus, contextual understanding of local realities is bound to be extremely different. The challenge ahead of us is to understand and internalize this diversity, or understand it in terms of interrelationships/ interdependence. The aspect of understanding ‘place’ and ‘people’ is bound to take time. Shortage of time to assimilate and condense such diverse expressions of realities can cause gross errors in formulating responses and can lead to disastrous spatial responses. There seems to be blatant mass copying of ideas and cutting + pasting of forms + visual aesthetics resulting in architecture being divorced from contextual expressions. We seem to be disconnected with what needs to be done. The disconnection is within us, it is amongst people and it is with contextual understanding of place. Let’s understand the factors of this disconnect:

1.       Speed: In the rush for delivering outputs (because of increasing competition) and continuous demand entrusted by users on designers for micro planning and micro adjustments (related to countless options generated by software by tweaking a set of variables), we do not seem to give sufficient time to digest external data and tap into our own repository of intuition/ knowledge/ wisdom. This is terrible, for how can architecture ever be profound, if It is not dealt with due respect? Not digesting contextual social and/or cultural meanings of places, because of shortage of time, results in extremely shallow process of creation and is just restricted to an exercise of enclosure - making with an icing over a box kind of an approach.

2.       Virtual contact: The disconnect is further enhanced by being engrossed 24X7 in digital virtual world and by constant personal consumption of virtual vocabulary of images and sounds.  Fast, fragmented, hyper, visually loaded, scattered thoughts, sense of instant consumption are some of the experiences that are getting generated in us. However, it is a fundamental need in our designing process to peel off the superficial information and realize the fundamental nature of a situation. This means to ‘empty’ the mind of information jargon and to understand fundamental relationships that exist in Nature. In doing so, we start to understand what constitutes an appropriate response. The overemphasis on being in touch with virtual world also takes us away from experiencing ‘real-world’ incidences of interacting with people; understanding effects of climate on people and architecture; understanding the use of spaces by observing, participating and experiencing; forming meaningful dialogues and relationships and so on. Indian life cannot be contained in a virtual world – it has to be lived by active participation in all forms of art, festivals, cultural and social events, so as to be a better designer. Indian life is not streamlined and organized and uniform like the developed world. It is messy, chaotic, noisy, diverse, extreme, contradictory, hopeful and depressing at the same time. It has a rich (and burdensome Past) and at the same time the youngest aspiration population existing side – by –side. Can we ignore this reality at the cost of catering to only a virtual diet of places and people?

3.       Too much emphasis on the rational: Reality has many dimensions - rationality being only one of them. In using the tool of digitization and as more and more of our daily life processes get controlled by the digital environment, we end up getting ‘ordered’ and ‘efficient’ like a machine. People and processes are spoken of only as resources to be exploited or consumed. The increasing micro analysis of each and every fraction of our processes (enhanced again by software) leaves lesser and lesser room for spontaneity and novel ideas. In the process of rationalizing everything, we lose out on the ‘fun’. We tend to become unemotional, extremely predictable, non spontaneous, unnecessarily aggressive, hyper, anxious, impatient, ego centric, noisy and so on. The ‘subtleness and the tranquility’ contained in gestures, body language, and lived experiences is sadly forgotten. At stake is our own experience of reality. Should architecture also tend to be aggressive, non spontaneous, and ignore the intimate gestures of human experiences? Should we forget the wonderful experiences of seeing the morning Sun, a cool breeze or the fragrance of agarbatti or the taste of zunka bhakar? Have we forgotten to be silent and just observe with a peaceful mind what happens around us? Can architecture hope to create such quality of tranquil spaces? Can architecture create positive feelings or mood? It is important to be aware of what we are thinking and what is determining our thoughts.

4.       Compartmentalized thinking: This is a complex phenomenon and the roots lie in over emphasis on rational approaches, digitization and the birth of super specialization in different fields of knowledge. The ‘fragment’ of the phenomenon is mistakenly considered as the ‘whole’ and this tendency indicates lack of time to understand a phenomenon. The fragmented thinking considers you and me as being separate, the activity, space, and anything that comes within architecture as separate. Addressing one fragment is not enough – its effects on others are important to be considered to curtail haphazard responses. Are we giving ourselves sufficient time to know these relationships between fragments? A highly fragmented approach may not be able to discover the influences of culture, history, ecology and time on creating profound experiences. 

I feel what is at stake is the understanding of ‘Time’ and by extension – spirit of place. At stake is the web of inter relationships that create life. At stake are matters related with ecology, culture, memory and intimate experiences. 

Can we reconnect with ourselves by pausing? Can we hope to slow down our pace of life and rediscover the wonder of Time? 

It is upto us.

Niranjan Garde

References:

Garde, N. (2016). Introspection. Architecture + Design, 33(03)

Context

In the present times, one of the central issues that all design fields face today – is the notion of the term “context”.  Very briefly, it means “relevance” or “appropriateness” of a conceived output to a given situation. Thus, the fundamental question for designers is: what constitutes a “situation”? A more fundamental question preceding the earlier query is – why should context matter?

The question holds great relevance in times of globalization/ free flow of information, goods, ideas, and images and so on. It brings to the forefront recurring concerns of time, place, perception, transfer, transformation, adaptation, rootedness. This process of recurrence, continuation, transformation is evident all around us. The New has a seed in the Past and the Present bears the seed of the Future. Note that it is a “seed” – so there are possibilities of successes, disasters and anything in between based on choices (free will) and the environment that informs the choices.

Essentially, a context may mean:

1.       The idea of inter connectedness or relationships: A given situation/ event/ phenomenon is not isolated. It exists and is perceived in relation to other factors or variables. Thus, winds are caused by pressure differences, which are caused by variations in temperatures on Earth and the ocean floors, which are dependent on Earth’s size and movement, which are also tied up with revolution orbit of the Earth, which is governed by Sun, which is again dependent on…..(the connections go on). Thus, what causes a particular event? This is a complex answer.

2.       The idea of interdependence – With above realization, comes the understanding of interdependence and (in today’s buzzing jargon) sustainability. If we realize that an entity such as a tree is responsible for creating a habitat of birds, nests, flowers, fruits, microclimate, foliage, timber, soil protection, water retention, temperature control, food, clothing, shelter – we may become serious enough NOT to cut the tree. It takes minimum 1000 years for the ecosystem to support a tree. Considering the gravity of what is at stake, cutting a tree should feel blasphemous. But it will not pinch us, because we are unaware of our dependence on its existence. Therefore, realization of interdependence, will sensitize a person regarding the decisions he/she takes.

3.       The idea of responding to the flow – Since relationships are inherent (found in Nature and are not man-made), they will continue to behave in their own frequencies/ tendencies. The Sun will keep rising and setting – triggering a whole range of cyclic phenomena that we term as ‘Life’. Thus, decisions (free will) taking into considerations such phenomena, are likely to generate a favorable output as compared to a competitive decision. The only difference between other forms of life and humans is that we can be far more aware of these interconnections and therefore would be able to exercise judgment while deciding our actions. Other life forms will continue to do their jobs just as a part of a chain of events. We would also do the same, however, by being conscious of it. Thus, what do we become conscious of exactly? What seems to be the central point here? The point is – that our thoughts (and the experiences we feel) are also contextual! Thoughts are informed by our specific position in Time and Place. Time would mean any external notion of absolute time (hour, day, seasons, years) and internal notion of time (our own ‘age’). Place would mean any external notion of place on earth (latitude + longitude) and internal notion of place (our own ‘body’). Based on these variables, the entire spectrum of thoughts continues to get created. Thus, our own thoughts are a reflection of the connections to Place and Time and therefore, they are relative and not constant. They will keep changing. Therefore, we must respond based on this connection with Place and Time. Anything that is favorable to the given Place and Time, incidentally becomes favorable to our own existence and vice versa. For, in the end, ‘we’ (as a phenomenon) and the external event (as a phenomenon) are related and are not different! This becomes context!

To Students

Is Life only ‘mathematics’? Does one find answers to all the questions by getting information from various sources, applying numerous “check lists” and believing that it would give an automatic result? If all the variables of a given situation are known in advance and there are tried and tested solutions for “dealing” with those variables, then, does an amalgamation of such solutions guarantee a perfect output? Can considerations of ecology, culture, thought, time, behaviour be contained and described as a set of formulas that one can apply for any condition? If this is what we are led to believe by the internet, then we don’t know how ‘Life’ works.

I am led to state the above questions by observing and thinking about how students seem to respond to a “situation”. Simply put, any given situation for the students, seem to represent a mathematical problem, for which, a set of formulas would guarantee a perfect solution! (How convenient can that be and how stupid ‘we’ – the previous generations were – trying to scratch our brains and being utterly screwed up attempting to respond to a situation!). Am I being wrong in believing that Life is a mystery and no action can guarantee a full proof result? For, the students seem to be quite unaware of this ‘Unknown’ parameter of Life – indeed, there is nothing left to be known after all!

I take a case of students being told to design a residence for a given family of 6 members in Pune. So, off they went to “see” or “study” the site, its topography and draw the Sun movement pattern (East to West isn’t it simple?!); show wind directions by some arrows pointing South – West (“default” information about Indian monsoon winds); assume a standard set of requirements such as living, dining, kitchen, bedroom, toilets, balcony, family room, study room, and so on (how else would humans live anyway?) and assume concrete technology (that’s what they see around of course!) and assume four walls, with a flat roof with some doors and windows thrown in and stairs (to go up or down) and the entire thing is guaranteed to look “awesome” or “exciting” or “interesting” (whatever that means).....Really? I never thought designing houses could be simpler than brushing my teeth!

In dealing with how students tend to think and perceive any subject of architecture, a few revelations need to be stated here –

Student’s mind seems to be in continuous engagement with online/ virtual environment. Unfortunately, the most common information that is bombarded on us is highly fragmented, nonsense and can’t be applied to a given situation as it is. Mostly, understanding of culture, architecture, environment requires deep thought and interpretation of a given place/ situation/ context. ‘Interpretation’ involves decoding about how one perceives the world and therefore, it is unique to the individual. In architecture, this means understanding relationship of climate to people to materials to culture and aspirations and the making of the built form itself. Thus, it is necessary to relook at the given situation and question the status quo. Questioning and introspecting is an act that helps in transcending the ‘given’ and reinterpret a situation and generate an appropriate response. In all this process, acknowledging the ‘Unknown’ is fundamental. This is reality, wherein the past (mostly known and stable), the present (dynamic) and the future (probabilities) are related. Thus, there is a whole range of mental ability that one is required to tap into, to conceive a sensitive architectural built environment, which includes not just the rational, but also emotions, feelings, experiences, memory, and the risky (the nebulous) aspect of the Unknown! That makes architecture. The role of the Unknown in all our actions is required to keep us grounded and on our toes. To be 100% sure of a result or a product is a sign of a mistake – which is what the students do not seem to realize. As teachers, we are not asking 100% perfect solutions from the students, but we are asking them to come up with their own way of understanding a situation and responding to it.  It is a path of self discovery. What this process does is to break our own thought patterns that have created wrong judgements, biases, and conditionings and to see things as they are supposed to be seen and discovered. Every step taken in this direction takes us closer to the Truth, although being aware that Truth can’t be known in entirety.

Thinking about past, memory, time, culture, history and how they affect us requires effort, focus, commitment and introspection. This means to focus on the issue at hand and giving dedicated time for the situation. That also means to block any kind of a distraction from our mind. Is the current dependence of online media able to give you this dedicated time? Are you able to make out relevant from the irrelevant?

Thus, restricting our unnecessary exposure to fragmentary data on internet is required to stay focussed. Secondly, personal time for withdrawal and introspection time at the beginning of the day and before going to sleep should begin. This time helps us to review our life in panorama, set priorities, set some goals and go an some direction.

My observations regarding students, their behavior and work output suggests a combination of issues that they seem to face:

1.       Lack of focus and non clarity regarding the task at hand – Although a number of students used to be unclear in their thought processes also in the previous years, the tendency of being completely unaware of oneself seems to be increasing day by day. Among other things, I attribute this situation to over exposure and over indulgence to the information they keep receiving from the internet and other digital environments, thereby unnecessarily cluttering their minds with enormous data, which they are unable to digest or sort out or relate to anything. The importance of reviewing and introspecting what one has read, assimilated or observed by sitting alone can’t be underestimated. One needs to set aside time and create a mental space where different thoughts condense, or connections are found or the redundant is washed out and personal learning happens. These intrinsic qualities of the mind are to be explicitly told to the students and they must feel these qualities themselves. The mind can be trained to halt at a point, focus at a point and question the factors that create it. I feel, this mental space is ought to be given to the students, otherwise they might find it difficult and confusing to relate to their immediate environments. More and more time of the teachers seem to be spent in assisting the students to clear their own confusions and unfortunately, it can take a toll on the teachers themselves. The solution for this, somehow, lies with creating a culture or a proper habit of thought – right from school.

2.       Students seem to be too much self absorbed with the virtual world, so much so that the immediate real – time environment doesn’t seem to exist for them (or not important enough for consideration). By immediate real-time environment, means to realize that learning happens also from Nature, people’s values, aspirations and thereby discover one’s own calling.

3.       Students don’t seem to manage their time effectively, since they remain engrossed in virtual environments and important things remain unattended thereby creating a panic situation in the end. They are not aware that getting things done from other people requires human management of sorts and requires sustained efforts to deal with people. Real life scenarios, where cooperation and collaboration with people is required, can’t be solved with a click of a button. It is messy, complicated, and requires practice of human judgment. This learning is also very crucial. Staying in one’s own bubble created by virtual reality doesn’t allow the students this fundamental experience. Therefore, some tasks dedicated to interact rigorously with peers, colleagues, relatives or any anonymous person must be given to the students.

4.       Students do not seem to offer their critique (informed opinions, viewpoints, positions) on anything – they just accept what there is and reproduce the information again. It seems that they are on “auto-mode” where they continue to say, do, act in some kind of a “programmed” way influenced by internet….the words they choose to speak, the values they mistakenly think they cherish are casually said – as if they were a ‘given’! Or “wisdom” has become some kind of a standard formula to the students….that, by playing some kind of acrobatics, Life’s mysteries (if there are any left) are solved at a drop of a hat!

5.       It is a grave mistake to assume that the internet has answers for everything, or that it can decide what is right or wrong. And this malaise sets in right from school – where everything is given on a platter to the students. In the growing exposure and dependence on information by the students, and by giving less time to question facts and their own ideas, they seem to lose out on realities formed by introspecting their own experiences, feelings, observations and increasing awareness of their own surrounding environment. More and more talk generated by the students is tending to be rational (predictable), descriptive (the obvious), unimaginative (uncritical) without an iota of reference to any kind of feeling or personal value or a personal concern.

I can see where the quality of such mundane thought will eventually lead in terms of architecture – spaces which rely heavily on technology and building services (why should anyone scratch their brains and think about ‘outdated’ things such as climate and culture when technology can give you a ‘perfect box’); spaces that become extremely standardized (the universal ‘box’) for any situation, any place and for any kind of society – indicating complete disconnect with the local situation of responding to climate, people and the sense of place. In other words - spaces that tend to give an anonymous, impersonal, inhuman and a static feel. What we may tend to face is the trap of producing standardized solutions (and believing that they are applicable) to the diverse local situations existing on our planet. Another version of architecture, that may be conceived, is one of a hotch-potch – irrelevant and countless juxtapositions of numerous spaces making a structure. Just as a McDonald seems to offer us countless ‘varieties’ of the basic coffee (they all taste pretty similar) for consumption, architects may end up offering a variety of forms to clients at a drop of a hat – as if they had a magic wand for everything!

The point is both the responses stated above indicate a refusal to think deeply about the situation at hand and a denial to generate architecture relevant to the context. Just as two people are not the same, the architecture which is supposed to be the supporter of human activity and occupation and community living, obviously can’t be standardized for all societies. Secondly, just as a person has a strong character, tendency, in the same way – the architecture that is conceived ought to have a dominant idea (the soul of the project).

This calls for being immersed in the real – time situation. The danger of the internet imagery is that everybody thinks the same, tells the same and does the same! Therefore, academic exercises need to be designed in a way, wherein students would be required to continuously challenge the status quo and observe the workings of Nature around them. Secondly, silencing the mind is a crucial requirement in today’s times. By silence, one can feel the contours of one’s own thoughts, which has a direct implication on the nature of spaces that one sets out to design. Better, compassionate, sensitive, healing thoughts will generate similar quality of spaces for everyone to live. Fragmented, excited, anxious, hasty thoughts will tend to generate similar quality of spaces – half hearted and unloving and chaotic.

Thus, students – watch how you think!