Archive for September, 2008
Mumbai leads the way in Green projects
Where builders regularly flout environment rules for profit, it’s hard to believe that Mumbai is becoming an eco-friendly city. But it is true. Of the 259 buildings in the country that are waiting to get accredited as green buildings, more than 70 are from Mumbai. Five of them have already received accreditation. A green building [...]
Urban Design Research Institute Fellowship Program
The Urban Design Research Institute (UDRI), announces a new Research Fellowship Programme to provide young scholars, researchers and independent practitioners the opportunity to do research on contemporary urban issues and concerns of Mumbai. This programme is supported by the Sir Ratan Tata Trust (SRTT) grant. Research Fellows shall be given a monthly stipend and professional [...]
Charles Correa: Cities as agents of change
Charles Correa is arguably India’s most renowned architect and urban planner. From the Mahatma Gandhi Museum in Ahmedabad to the Brain and Cognitive Sciences Centre in Boston, his buildings have covered a wide spectrum. On the 50th anniversary of setting up his office in Mumbai, Rahul Singh spoke to Correa about his career and concerns: [...]
Mumbai: Affordable Housing 100 km. Away
In a recent article the Mid-Day talks about how affordable housing is now at least 100 km away from the city center. According to developers, these are the places where one can find affordable housing which is in the 1500-3000 Rs per sq.ft. bracket. From reading the article below, I wonder if this is another [...]
As India’s southern centres choke, IT goes north
TWO Indian cities are emerging to challenge the traditional centres of Bangalore and Hyderabad as the country’s information technology services grow at 20 per cent annually. Chandigarh – home of India’s first Olympics gold medal winner, Abhinav Bindram – and Coimbatore are fast attracting technology companies and workers as inadequate infrastructure cripples the southern centres [...]
Monuments need patronage: Bangalore
By Bijoy Ramachandran in the Bangalore Mirror. Hassan Fathy, the celebrated Egyptian architect once said, “Every masterpiece requires a patron”. On seeing the large city-scale commissions coming up in Bangalore, I often wonder why our ambitions are so small both as architects and clients, and how the mere replication of facade elements and features serve [...]
Mumbai: Aesthetics Citywide
NDTV writes The Maharashtra government is taking its plans to transform Mumbai into a Shanghai to another level. So if you are in Mumbai, and you hang your clothes out of your balcony, or have not painted your building in years, you could now be asked to pay a fine. In a move to make [...]
Mumbai Urban Overhaul: Sky’s The Limit
The TOI reports In a ruling that could change the face of Mumbai, the Supreme Court has cleared the way for pulling down more than 16,000 pre-1940 buildings — including chawls — that have become dilapidated, and constructing modern high-rises in their places. The ruling has devised a win-win formula according to which people who [...]
Volume Zero: The Work of Charles Correa
September 04: If only Charles Correa were Mumbai’s chief architect. The city might have scored higher on aesthetics and urban planning . Even though the architect works out of Mumbai, the city has little of his work. To see what we’re missing, head to the NCPA today to watch Arun Khopkar’s Volume Zero: The Work [...]
Indian Green Building Congress 2008
The Indian Green Building Council of Cll – Sohrabji Godrej Green Business Centre announces its flagship event "Green Building Congress 2008", International Conference & Exhibition on Green Building Technologies between 24 & 27 September 2008 at the Grand Hyatt in Mumbai The main congress consists of a series of parallel events. International Conference on Green [...]
Elsewhere in India
- Caught My Eye > Sham Patwardhan-JoshiThe Origomu site states that “Over 46,000 pieces of plastic litter are floating on every square mile of ocean today, killing 2 million sea birds and 100,000 marine animals every year, with many getting entangled in plastic six-pack rings.” To create awareness and re-use of plastic waste, Origomu invites and inspires people to make jewellery […]
- Caught My Eye > Litttle Prachee, Sotomoto, Gnaana Multi-lingual Alphabet Blocks, Pero for childrenSome refreshing products for children that I enjoyed seeing. Litttle Prachee Prachi Walia (NIFT) grew up travelling across India, discovering Indian textiles and now brings it all into her collection. Vintage ‘mom-crafted’ frocks, and the joy of dressing up inspired her in creating Litttle Prachee. Love the use of embroidery, Indian fabrics and the sense [.. […]
- Design Feature > KatranMaterials are given second lives in India everyday. Newspapers into peanut cones, old saris into quilts, jeans into storage bags, vegetable peels into compost. Sahil Bagga (College of Art, 2002, Politecnico di Milano) and Sarthak Sengupta (NIFT 2001, Politecnico di Milano) researched on farmers spinning left-over fabric strips (Katran in Hindi) from cloth mi […]
- Design Industry in India by Laila TyabjiBritish Council Arts did series of interviews with those within the design sector on what the design industry in India is all about and where is it headed. I found Laila Tyabji’s thoughts especially enlightening. Design Industry in India by Laila Tyabji from British Council Arts on Vimeo. More interviews here. […]
- Caught my eye > Indian Stretchable TimeThis one made me laugh out loud. Time indeed is a flexible commodity for many of us in India. There is an unsaid rule of sorts, a subtext that once understood adds clarity to interactions. This watch makes it explicit. The product note states: In India, ‘fashionably late’ is safely replaced with ‘predictably late’. Cow […]
South Asia
- Conference + Symposium 09.09Le Corbusier: "Freeing the round has become false. Occupying the ground in the Military sense of the term has been the sole true action..." - This foreclosure of the ground is precisely the death of the formative model. It is urgent to invent a conceptual and programmatic model that is independent and functions outside the exhausted institutional f […]
- Report on Rationalization of ProceduresThe Committee deliberated upon the procedures for grant of building plan approvals and completion certificates including the role of the Delhi Urban Arts Commission therein. The consensus of the opinion was that the present procedures involving a multiplicity of authorities were resulting in considerable harassment and delays. The present procedures of scrut […]
- Panel Discussion: Architecture and the CityIn late July of 2005, I was invited by Inside Outside magazine to participate in their expo in Bangalore. The idea was to give young architects like me a chance to get noticed. I took the stall, but instead of designing and building the perfect bedroom, I set it up with a TV, two speakers and an amp and screened a film. It was odd, to put it mildly. Many peo […]
- Introduction to Whitewash!India, love it or hate it. Certainly it is impossible to be unaffected by it. My own relationship with the place is tainted by the contempt I feel for the people and incidents that unmake it everyday. Whitewash is merely a reflection of the skewed impressions that present-day personalities and events have made on my life. The deafening roar of the street, th […]
- Sataire: Architect wantedArchitect wanted with cool exterior, and studied manner required by established company. Part teacher, part practitioner, part writer, candidate may be a kind of new age Leonardo dabbling in disciplines for which he has neither training nor skill. When there is no work in the office candidate should be willing to write a manifesto or two; when there is nothi […]
- Whitewash! An Unkind View of India and its MakersA tabloid with a difference, Whitewash is a disturbingly indiscreet piece of writing that rips apart conventional Indian notions of politics, equality, caste, gender, ownership, personal rights, heritage, love of country - all in a way that at once distresses and invigorates […]
- Whitewash! New Delhi ExcavatedIt happened just like Mount Vesuvius. A little after mid-day on August 24, 2016 AD disaster struck. Mount Simla on the northern fringes of New Delhi erupted and literally buried the city in a layer of ash. First to be buried were small towns like Panipat and Karnal - towns whose loss could easily be sustained by the national budget; then the suburbs of Model […]
- Whitewash! "Old Cars Never Die"In 1970, Automotive Digest published a picture of the Ambassador car with the heading Old Cars Never Die, they only move to India. The golden anniversary of the Ambassador was celebrated a decade before the golden anniversary of India, and to applaud the union of the two giants, Random House recently released the definitive biography of the car called Ambass […]
- The AlternativesIn India, historically, the architect has been used as an anonymous means to an end. In the past, the end was generally the glorification of the State for religion through the creation of plastic forms and visual drama. Today, though not so anonymous, architects are ready accomplices to the property speculators, who either want to make money or glorify thems […]
- Professional IdeolgyLet me put the question differently, with the intention of answering it. What could motivate an Indian to seek advice from an architect? I believe it would be the requirement for a durable shelter which takes care of his needs, which are not only biological–at a certain level they are universal–but also culture-specific needs, subsuming values, attitudes and […]
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