Breakfast

Things discussed during breakfast can turn out to be a fodder for the article! Anyways, our family members were discussing that the self quarantined ‘silent time’ offered a soothing experience of listening to the chirping of birds throughout the day. The observation extended that density, traffic has a connection to the quality of space.

Furthermore, if such experiences are forgotten with the increase in traffic conditions, would the next generation even remember and acknowledge the sound of birds and the soothing effect it plays on the minds? I leave it upto the Reader to decode what soothing effect means and how does it get generated? And, what notion of ‘environment’ does this experience create?

If I extend this observation to all flora and fauna on earth and our own association with them, a time would not be far away when a virtual image of flora and fauna will have to be forcibly inserted in our minds to acknowledge our dependence on them! Thus, in certain aspects, we are distancing ourselves from the environment and technological tools are becoming more sophisticated to help ‘us’ imagine our connect with the environment again!

In architecture, we have the Grasshoppers and the Rhinos – as tools that can be used for imagining the quality of spaces. Most architects may equate ‘quality’ with excellent or novel or a dynamic Form. Is quality only to be explicitly justified or evaluated as something only ‘visual’?

Or does quality of space also have social, cultural, climatic, topographical, local, environmental, psychological layers? If an architect can visualize these layers with sufficient positive projections (which come from personal wisdom), then definitely the quality of spaces becomes excellent. Thus, can advanced technological tools like Rhinos and Grasshoppers offer to enhance our wisdom of understanding quality? I have my own reservations.

Grasshoppers and Rhinos are neutral tools. What one does with the tool depends on one’s intent and perception of the environment. IF one’s perception and intent are powerful, so will be the quality of expression – Grasshopper or no Grasshopper…!