As time flies by, with five years of working experience, I would like to throw light on my journey from architectural course to urban designer and the transformations seen in my personal as well as professional life. As we all begin with our architectural career, we are already in the profession of intense creativity, hard work, awareness towards the environment, urbanization, and global paradigms. But there is a vast difference in the pedagogy of urban studies and architecture.
“Architecture should speak of its time and place, but yearn for timelessness” - Frank Gehry
My Architecture journey was and still is an assimilation of hands-on skill and proportions that I often use in cooking as my favorite hobby. We start relating our profession to different aspects of life. I came across as having an immense interest in pottery, ceramics and fabrics. We develop a taste that becomes quite distinctive. Every person has their own story of what architecture has offered them, but I am sure they are unique themselves. Many develop an eye for photography, sketching, set designing, writing, etc. Thinking out of the box being the basic training here, I would definitely say architecture provides a plethora of career choices in art, culture and allied opportunities. Many a time, I have observed the prescribed curriculum in Architecture schools have stipulated boundaries restricting one to barely identify beyond the built qualities and functions. The five years of Architecture, although feels so intense, has always been an introduction to the landscape, interior, graphic design and building services and building designs. We get so blinded tackling the micro nuances that the curriculum fails to make one understand a broader picture of life and activities that comes first before building anything. Although it is a self-learned process that barely one can decode at their architecture student-level due to age and curriculum factors. Hence, here we feel a need to see beyond just the built qualities and services. I felt Masters would provide that platform...
Stepping into Masters of Architecture and specialization in Urban design had been so exhaustive, it almost haunted our minds with the undergoing world conflicts of capitalism and globalization. That was really too much! And it felt as if a kindergarten student was taught world politics. That was a process in itself opening our eyes to social, economic and world polity that is impinging most of our design ideas and cities today. Academically, we could differentiate the change in methodology from cause-effect to multidisciplinary methods in seeing the built forms beyond services and functionality. It involves thoughts on urban anthropology, our urban history, and the future of cities. we get accustomed to the fact that built forms manifest social, cultural and economic aspects that shape or break the collective perceptions towards a city.
Venturing into the practical world where urban design can be seen as a dual-faced fraternity. One is the top-down approach organizations which we most probably see as housing and infrastructure competing to global world-class conceptions aspiring to cater to the certain strata of the society. While another face is a bottom-up approach organisations which may fetch less spending power but can satiate our passion by working for those strata of the society which are underprivileged like we see many of the NGOs, research and planning organizations run by experts and community itself. One chooses to fit themselves as per their goals determine to do so.
I would like to share my experience while working on projects and designing for an agglomeration and megacity, one can quickly understand multiple scales, ecology and water systems, geographical features that would impact designing for densities. We have always looked at urban design through a socialistic and 'classlessness' approach which may contradict current paradigms. The current paradigms are capitalist imperialism that has influenced most of our planning and governing approaches. In my opinion, we should now design considering the functionalist approach which says that class stratification in a society is inevitable. We should involve frameworks by directing the techniques of the free market in channelizing planning approaches to address inclusivity, publicness, liveability and bottom-up planning parameters where local participation along with multiple stakeholders could be at equal stake.
Lastly, I feel Design involves both visual and verbal thinking. It taps the power of multiple modes of learning- observation, reflection, abstraction and creation. Learning through peer criticism is a key component of design education. We should adopt comparative, ethnomethodological approaches in understanding complex social, cultural and built relationships before designing for just the built-form. I have starkly registered the difference in me where my inclination has resulted more towards addressing the social and cultural life components of our cities through people-centric methodologies. In conclusion to this blog I would say a wide variety of theoretical courses such as History of Architecture, Materials and Construction, Design of Structures, and Urban Sociology supplement the design studio enabling us(students and practitioners) to develop a well-rounded perspective of the subject.
Do comment on your views of what you think about Architecture, Planning, conservation and Urban design fraternity. I would surely appreciate to hear from you. This blog is purely my personal expression and do not intent to address any discrepancies. Stay tuned for more blogs and more urban related understandings.
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