Jayashree Bhosale at Economic Times writes about this need for an “Indianised” design and by extension the Indian designers.

In the whole post-secondary education boom, pure design schools have not been at the forefront. And that is a niche waiting to be filled. The article below discusses the pros and cons of that.

India is now a potential design pool

There’s a whole new talent dimension that India has yet to cash in on: design. The demand for professionals in this field is going up by the day, as international brands call in on one of the world’s key manufacturing and consumption centres. But with just a handful design schools in the country, it’s an opportunity waiting to be tapped.

“There are only five to six good design schools in the country. Had the supply of experienced designers been enough, some of the top manufacturing companies of India would not need to hire design heads from abroad,” says Forbes Marshall director, Naushad Forbes, who is also a visiting faculty at Stanford. The Indian industry can meet just an estimated 10% of the demand for design professionals, as design schools take in only about 500 students annually.

“A lot of design companies from abroad are looking to collaborate with Indian design companies. There is lot of cross-cultural design taking place. In areas of clean technologies and eco-friendly design, Indian designers can contribute a lot as we are used to the concept of recycling and reusing,” says Falguni Gokhale, director, Design Directions, the company that designed the water purifier, Tata Swach.

The product design teams of multinational companies usually consist of people of various nationalities, and there is a place on these teams for Indians. “As India is a huge market, it is necessary for an MNC to have Indian designers to understand the needs of the Indian consumers,” says Florence Rohart, footwear designer with Adidas, Germany.

Institutes like DSK Supinfocom in Pune are looking to tap this opportunity, and recently held a week-long master class with a four-member team of footwear designers from brands like Puma, Camper and Newfeel participating. “We are looking for possible internships and placements for our students with big brands in different products,” says vice chairman Shirish Kulkarni.

India Inc is filling in some of the supply gap, but we still have a long way to go. Indian automotive companies like Tata Motors, Mahindra and Mahindra and Bajaj Auto have good design talent and studios that match the best in the world. The demand for professionals in emerging markets is particularly encouraging as design as a career in western countries has become saturated and fiercely competitive, says Sudhir Sharma, CEO, Indi Designs and erstwhile founder director of Elephant Design.

Further, he says, most developed countries have developed expensive design practices, which are not viable in today’s economy.”

Though there is a large number of vacancies, designers eventually start their own business. “Only 20% designers stick to a job,” Mr Satish Gokhale.

The competition to get admission to the National Institute of Design is tough while fees at the private design schools are high. The annual fee at private schools is Rs 4 lakh- Rs 5 lakh per student and some of these are five year courses, after Class XII.

Hence the news that foreign educational institutions are coming to India, means that it could be an interesting time for developers and architects.

It will be interesting to see if these foreign institutions bring in their own architects to plan and design campuses or will they hire local talent.

The article below dwells into this issue and brings up some interesting arguments.

Developers hope to benefit from foreign univs’ entry

It is niche developers like HCC and SEZ Sri City who see an opportunity by roping in big institutions

By Ranju Sarkar / Business Standard

Construction companies and real estate developers smell an opportunity when foreign universities are allowed to set up campuses in India. Last Monday, the Union Cabinet okayed the Foreign Educational Institutions (Regulation of Entry and Operation) Bill. Once cleared by the Parliament, it will enable foreign universities to do so.

Construction companies like Ahluwalia Contracts expect business to double from the institutional segment once foreign universities start setting up campuses. Ahluwalia has set up university campuses for Amity University across the country and campuses for JK School in Jaipur, and NIFT and NCERT in Delhi.

Shobhit Uppal, deputy managing director, Ahluwalia Contracts, feels these hopes are early but hopes to increase his share of the institutional market once foreign universities do set up campuses. The company also participates in the ongoing expansion of IIT campuses, and will also be eyeing the new Indian School of Business to come up at Mohali, near Chandigarh.

More than construction companies, it is some niche developers like HCC and SEZ Sri City who see an opportunity by roping in big institutions in their developments. HCC, which is developing a township called Lavasa near Pune, has roped in Oxford University and Ecole Hoteliere, a premier Swiss hotel management school. Sri City, an SEZ 65 km north-west of Chennai, across the border with Andhra Pradesh, is also trying to rope in big names. The idea: once you have a big name like MIT, you could leverage it to attract others and sell them office, residential, and retail space. Developers could make money on the system they create around the institution.

Soumyajit Roy, Assistant Vice President (marketing), Jones Lang LaSalle Meghraj, said developers realise that education could be a big demand driver. They are focused on creating education clusters, where universities could come up. In the US, there are many ‘knowledge corridors’, such as the area around Boston which has lots of universities, research institutions, and industry-academic linkages.

Once you have a university, it fosters research institutions and start-ups. Sri City, with over 5,000 acres, is stressing on education as a driver to attract manufacturing units. It is hoping to leverage Chennai’s positioning as a manufacturing hub. For instance, if you have an engineering industry, you could have a focused research chair devoted to a particular industry, such as logistics or mobile applications, say experts.

Once you have a known university like Oxford or Wharton in your eco-system, it will be easier for a developer to rope in, say, a Google, IBM or Microsoft, which can relate easily to these names. It would allow companies to access research and talent and understand how to work together. ‘‘The whole idea is to brand, give them an incentive to set up base here, and create the right eco-system for it to thrive,’’ said an expert.

“Developers who have a land bank outside metros and can provide an environment which is campus-oriented could offer good options for universities,” said M S Jagan, consultant, Sri City. If the bill is cleared by March, he expects at least 10-11 colleges and universities to get into action mode and set up campuses in two to three years. There are 130 foreign institutions who have some kind of alliances with Indian institutions.

Anshuman Magazine, CMD, CB Richard Ellis, however, feels universities are unlikely to rush to set up campuses here. “Universities will be excited about the opportunity but will adopt a wait-and-watch attitude to ensure they don’t take a rash decision,”’ added Roy. There would be 15-16 colleges who would be keen to enter India but would also prefer to partner with local developers rather than buying the land themselves.

However, Pranay Vakil, chairman, Knight Frank, said as many of these universities had big balance-sheets, they are unlikely to partner with developers. They would rather seek land from the state or partner with them, which would also take care of connectivity. “It will create opportunities for companies like Larsen and Toubro, architects and project managers on how to create a university at a much lower cost. Technology will become important,” he said.

For instance, Mumbai-based architect firm Somaya & Kalapa Consultants has created a school in Baroda which doesn’t require any air-conditioning. It has managed to keep the construction cost low by opting for a brick structure and avoiding plaster.

Ravi Ramu, director, finance, of Puravankara Projects said there could be many deals between developers and universities in the next two-three years but people need to be cautious. ‘‘Setting up universities is not just about acquiring land and building campuses. People will find it difficult to make money in education, as salaries will shoot up,’’ he said. As more seats come up, capitation fees will come down, which will make education less attractive.

By Shailaja Tripathi / The Hindu

Three different structures by three different architects in three totally different countries and settings… but what binds them is their innate connection with the human beings who not only reside in them but also around them. Disappointed by the number of skyscrapers and high-rise buildings that lack a distinct identity of their own, Dutch architect Anne Feenstra brings us glimpses of these unique structures to inspire, sensitise and spread awareness, in the photo-exhibition ‘Architecture for Humanity’.

An initiative of Anne’s arch I, supported by the Centre for Media Studies and Embassy of the Netherlands, the project has taken off with three countries but as it progresses will travel to new countries and incorporate similar sites.

“We would like to do research on these sites, a detailed study on the culture, background, climate and the process of architecture. My mother doesn’t know anything about architecture and she recently visited India and she would look at these malls and giggle. I, too, was flabbergasted by the contradictions, the craft material for building available here and such structures. Where was India in them… nowhere. A building is meant for human beings. As an architect, we should create friendly buildings. You can call them green, sustainable, etc. This project is a platform for a dialogue in this area and addressing urban issues,” says Anne who divides his time between Afghanistan — where he teaches at the Kabul University — and India, where he is a member of the visiting faculty at the School of Planning and Architecture.

The process

As for the three buildings included in the first leg of the project, Anne feels you can’t get more diverse than this. And he is right. While the visitors’ centre at Pamir National Park in the Wakhan corridor in Afghanistan, built by Anne, is made of rockstone, Vasanth and Revathi Kamath’s residence is a mud house in Anangpur village, Haryana, constructed on what was once an abandoned quarry site. The third, Villa Maarsingh, made by Onix architects at Leeuwarden in the Netherlands is fashioned out of locally available timber.

“It’s a miracle that such structures have been built. The area in Afghanistan on which the visitors’ centre is built has the highest mountain of the region, which is 7000 metres high. With Marco Polo sheep and other endangered species, it is rich in bio-diversity and thus the government is developing it as a tourist destination,” explains the architect who worked with 104 unskilled labourers on the site. “There are schools built by Americans in the region but I have heard people saying that they would never send their kids there because the material used isn’t compatible to the climate. They say they would rather keep herds there. First by involving the locals, we created an ownership, and the material, the rockstone serves them well. We found a guy who makes grinding stones. I took him to the riverbed where we spent an entire day selecting stones to be used as capitals on the columns,” he adds.

The villa in Leeuwarden scores on the simplicity factor which is quite common in rural Dutch settings. “Two divorcees got married and live there with their four kids. It has been designed in such a manner that even though you live together, you don’t have to do everything together. There are special layers within the house, unexpected corners,” relates Feenstra. As for the Kamaths’ mud house, he says, Revathi has literally put her hands in mud. Though made out of an age-old material, it has a unique contemporary expression.

(The exhibition continues till October 31 at India Habitat Centre.)

The government has accused top officers at the COA, India’s apex architectural body, of criminal misconduct. BRIJESH PANDEY tracks the issues as the CBI investigates

IN A move that could change the face of the study and practice of architecture in India, the Ministry of Human Resources Development (MHRD) has recommended a CBI probe against the president, registrar and four members of the executive committee of the Council of Architecture (COA). The COA is a regulatory body constituted by the Architects Act of 1972, which accredits and licenses educational institutions to teach architecture in India. Moreover, every architect working in India has to be registered with the COA.

In a letter to the CBI dated August 27, 2009 (DO No. C-1301168/2009-Vig) — from the Joint Secretary and Chief Vigilance Officer (CVO) of the MHRD, Sunil Kumar — requested the investigation of six top officials of the COA, namely, the President, Vijay Sohoni, the Registrar, Vinod Kumar and four members of the Executive Committee: KB Mohapatra, Uday C Godkari, IJS Bakhsi and Prakash Deshmukh. In the letter (a copy of which is with TEHELKA) the Joint Secretary alleges that:

• People at the helm of affairs of the COA are misusing the authority of the Council to levy fees that are not authorised by the Architects Act.

• Institutions that refuse to pay the unauthorised fees are being threatened with de-recognition.

• Council memberships and COA executive committee memberships are being manipulated and members are being allowed to continue beyond their terms.

• Prestigious institutions such as the School of Planning and Architecture (SPA), NIT Patna, the Lucknow College of Architecture and the Chandigarh College of Architecture are singled out for punishment, while private Institutes such as Chitkara Institute in Punjab and the Piloo Mody College of Architecture in Orissa are given preferential treatment by these individuals despite having inferior facilities and fewer, less qualified faculty.

The letter states bluntly that the preferential treatment of private institutes suggests that bribes have been paid to those named above. Letters written by Anjali Bhawar, vice-chancellor of Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar (GNDU) and Kamal Singh Chahal, head of GNDU’s Department of Architecture to the MHRD seem to corroborate this. Bhawar writes that while an expert committee of the COA had allowed GNDU to admit 40 students to the architecture course, the Executive Committee of the same Council refused to accept the recommendation of its own expert committee. Chahal’s letter reveals that while GNDU had declared 14 faculty members in the prescribed form submitted to the COA, that figure was mysteriously reduced to 10 in the COA’s report. The Joint Secretary states that this was done “perhaps to show private institutes that if the COA wasn’t sparing government institutions, private institutions had better fall in line and cough up money” to avoid de-recognition.

THE HEADS of the department of two premier architectural institutes stated on condition of anonymity that the Council uses frequent inspections and the threat of de-recognition to extort and intimidate. On top of that, institutes have been charged exorbitant fees by the COA for inspections and for periodic extensions of recognition. The prestigious Jamia Millia Islamia, for example, was charged a whopping Rs 40,000 for a three-day inspection in 2008. While the law provides for an inspection once in five years (without permitting the COA to charge for them), several premier institutes faced yearly COA inspections, while, for arbitrary reasons, other institutes escaped. After several complaints to the MHRD, Deputy Secretary Harvinder Singh admitted on March 16, 2009 that the COA could not take money for inspections or for the extension of recognition and asked the COA to adhere to the five-year interval between inspections. Significantly, former COA Vice-President Vijay Uppal wrote in October 2005 to the MHRD, objecting against Sohoni’s role in appointing inspectors and approving their reports, but to no avail.

And where did all this money go? Shockingly, according to Prof SM Akhtar, the HoD of Architecture, Jamia Millia Islamia, “There has never been an audit of the funds of the COA.” The Architects Act clearly states that the COA has to go through an annual audit.

Another instance which has had universities and the COA at loggerheads is the National Aptitude Test for Architecture (NATA). The COA declared that from 2007, the NATA would not only be mandatory for all institutes, but exclusive as well. In other words, institutes would be forced to discontinue any other entrance examinations or procedures they had in place and accept candidates who passed the NATA. Significantly, the NATA is a computer-based test, a fact which would have made the manipulation of results extremely easy to commit and difficult to detect. Premier institutes such as the SPA, the JJ College of Arts, Mumbai, IIT Kharagpur, IIT Roorkee, Jamia Millia Islamia and Jadavpur University were up in arms at this, claiming that forcing them to use the NATA alone would dilute their high entrance standards. Unfazed, the COA asked the MHRD to de-recognise the SPA and 19 other premier institutes. When TEHELKA spoke to Vijay Sohoni about this, he said, “I had to act only because these so-called premier institutes have an abysmal studentteacher ratio. We look at facts and figures rather than the prestige of the institution.” After a fierce legal battle, the de-recognition of the institutes was lifted and the NATA no longer made an exclusive entrance test.

UNAUTHORISED FEES WOULD BE CHARGED BY THE COA FOR INSPECTIONS AND RECOGNITION

For a stickler for rules and someone so seemingly particular about de-recognition, Sohoni is curiously lax when it comes to himself. One of the most damning allegations in Kumar’s letter to the CBI is that while the Vidya Vardhan Institute of Design Environment and Architecture, Goa, of which Sohoni is the president, is shown on the COA’s website as an institute affiliated to the Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU), the Vice-Chancellor of IGNOU has categorically denied any such affiliation. Kumar states bluntly that this amounts to cheating the public. The letter states that since “Sohoni is fleecing the students by collecting fees though the college is not recognised as per the Architects Act, the position of the President of the COA is thus being misused by him with criminal intent.”

However, when confronted with these allegations by TEHELKA, Sohoni denied them all. He rubbished charges of financial irregularity and stated, “I haven’t even received any complaint. The mandate of the COA is to ensure that there should be no compromise on the quality of architectural education, regardless of the name and fame of the institute. We take action only when there is a fall in the mandated student-faculty ratio. If the ministry has received any complaint, they should come to us, but sadly, this was not done.”

Ever since the CBI began its investigation into the case in the first week of September, there is a huge sense of relief among architects and at various schools of architecture. They believe that this investigation will ensure that instead of being focused on placating a rampant COA, they can now concentrate on architecture in India.

Original article here.

Cept University will introduce two new programmes this academic year, adding to the 23 programmes being offered in its seven faculties. While the faculty of technology and the faculty of arts and humanities will each offer one new programme, a centre for excellence will be set up at the University this academic year.

The faculty of arts and humanities will offer a master’s programme in arts journalism, while a master’s in infrastructure engineering and development will be offered by the faculty of technology. A centre for excellence in urban transport will be set up at the university, under the guidance of the ministry of urban development.

Speaking about the programme in arts journalism, faculty member Nirmala Khadpekar said, "Arts journalism is an emerging field. It has existed around the world for only four years and is very new to India. The course will train the students in appreciation of arts and humanities, and how to write about the same."

The centre for excellence in urban transport will offer three programmes in the area of transport. The will be two master’s programmes in urban transport planning and management, one for fresh students and another for practising professionals. The centre will also offer a PhD programme.

"The two programmes in urban transport planning and management will have 21 students and 20 practising professionals, respectively, per batch. The doctoral programme will admit 15 students in five years. In addition to the three main programmes, there will be several other short certificate programmes," said professor Shivanand Swami of Cept.

Arts journalism
The master’s programme will train students to work in fields related to visual art, architecture, design, performing arts, television and films etc.
Eligibility: Bachelor’s degree or equivalent of any discipline

Infra and dev progs
This master’s programme will place students in sectors such as transportation, construction, real estate, consulting engineering and management consultancy organisations, both in public and private domain.
Eligibility: Bachelor’s degree or equivalent in engineering, architecture, technology, planning

Urban transport
The Centre for excellence will offer master’s programmes in urban transport planning and management for students and professionals, as well as adoctoral programme

It’s been a while since an architectural-themed conference on India has taken place here in NYC and it should be interesting to see the dialogue that it generates.

Hosted at the New School auditorium, the conference sold out a few days ago. Nevertheless there are tickets available for the keynote address at the end of Day 01.

Participants include:

Himanshu Burte, Prem Chandavarkar, Kenneth Frampton, Soumitro Ghosh and Nisha Mathew, Sudhir Jambhekar, Rajeev Kathpalia, Anupama Kundoo, Reinhold Martin, Gurjit Singh Matharoo, Anuradha Mathur and Dilip da Cunha, Rahul Mehrotra, Geeta Mehta, Vyjayanthi Rao, Samira Rathod, Margie Ruddick and Tom Zook, Michael Sorkin, Neerja Tiku, and Billie Tsien and Tod Williams

The conference looks to understand the growth and development of Indian architecture and cities overall in the time frame of an overall growth in Indian economy, and its standing in the global scenario.

However the choice of participants seems to be a bit peculiar. There are the usual high profile “suspects” and then others that are probably there because the US-based co-chairs had heard about them. And somehow my feeling is that it does not reflect the ground realities.

As much as he is reviled in the architectural community in India, I would have loved to see Hafeez Contractor present and talk about the conference. As my friend and landscape architect Runit Chhaya of Design Cell NYC puts it “Hafeez is today, probably the only architect in India who gets buildings sold, just on his name and fame “.

I will be covering the conference in detail. If you are going to be attending, give me a shout in the comments section.

To whom do we entrust the planning and design of our urban environment? How do Indian schools of architecture compare with the best in the world? How qualified are the graduating professionals who design our homes, offices and institutional buildings?

Do our architecture schools pass the test?

In 2006, after 18 years of studying, teaching and practising architecture in the US, we relocated our practice to India. Shortly thereafter, we were commissioned by a prominent Indian school of architecture to evaluate their operations and prepare a comprehensive assessment report.

The trustees of the school envisioned this exercise as an opportunity to analyse the existing infrastructure and curriculum, the calibre of the teaching faculty and the academic performance of the students. Our findings would facilitate a vision plan for the growth of the institution.

Enthusiastic about recording first-hand impressions of the intellectual life of this institution, we resolved to direct our efforts through conversations with the students, administrators and faculty members. We hoped that our study would reveal the potential capabilities of India’s future architects (at least as represented in this institution).

Having served on university admissions committees in the US, we had reviewed student applications from across the globe. Having completed undergraduate coursework in their own countries, most applicants were applying for graduate or postgraduate degree programmes in architecture.

The applications consisted of grade reports, standardized aptitude tests, recommendation letters, essays summarizing the applicants’ aspirations, and portfolios comprising architectural design projects and samples of creative work in other disciplines such as film, music, sculpture or digital media.

Several students from India were represented in this applicant pool. In general, their scores on the aptitude tests and their academic transcripts were impressive; their essays were often zealous—expressing well-meaning, if slightly naïve ideas about transforming Indian architecture. In terms of the content and graphic quality of their portfolios—the most important criterion for admission—the Indian applicants fared poorly.

Neelkanth Chhaya, dean of the faculty of architecture at Centre for Environmental Planning and Technology (CEPT) University, Ahmedabad, attributes this weakness to a curricular deficiency where artistic and intuitive aspects of intellectual development are often ignored. “Our primary and secondary school system(s) seldom expose students to any serious study of the fine arts,” he says. “Most architecture schools pay a great deal of attention to result-oriented education. Design projects are critiqued on their feasibility in pragmatic terms only. Students should be encouraged to develop their exploratory capacity in tandem with a connection to societal and cultural realities. The design studio—the most important component of architectural education—is not conducted as an experiment, as a device to hone one’s speculative ability; it is conducted as a practice in known things.”

Report card: poor

Our review of the school of architecture echoed the following observations:

Students candidly expressed frustrations with inadequate infrastructure, curricular evaluations at odds with creative thinking, and lack of funding for travel, guest lectures and extra-curricular activities.

Faculty members privately bemoaned the general apathy in Indian architecture schools and its direct correlation with the poor quality of our built environment. Like the students, they seemed sensitive to the limitations of their circumstances, but also hesitant to project an alternative reality, especially one that might impose a more demanding assessment of their own performance.

Delhi-based architects Pankaj Vir Gupta and Christine Mueller are partners in the firm vir.mueller architects. Write to them at citynotes@livemint.com

This article was originally published online at LiveMint

This event will use Mumbai, India, as a case study to examine how architects, urban designers and planners are responding to the challenges and opportunities of rapid urbanization in the developing world. Speakers include professionals and academics from India as well as economists from the World Bank and Rockefeller Foundation.

However in most things that are unplanned, there is a danger of the whole education system going haywire. Some of the issues have to do with recognition of professional educational institutions by government bodies. What happens if you dont agree with these government bodies or do not want to follow their sometimes lopsided regulations.

Read On..

Architect of disaster: Council of Architecture (COA).

Created by a Parliamentary Act, COA is at loggerheads with many architecture schools, giving sleepless nights to hundreds of enrolled students and making one wonder if it’s under anyone’s control.

Armed with its statutory powers to regulate the education and practice of profession throughout India and maintain the register of architects, COA has been insisting that architecture schools introduce its National Aptitude Test in Architecture (NATA) or face de-recognition. COA website lists many schools of architecture (including IIT-Kharagpur and Chandigarh College of Architecture), where intake of students has been withdrawn or frozen for not submitting NATA undertaking .

COA has also recommended withdrawal of recognition for the reputed School of Planning and Architecture, Delhi, as also several others, alleging several sins of omission and commission.

Here are a couple of litigations in which COA has been involved:1. In a case brought by a student of Jai Narayan University- Jodhpur, the Rajasthan High Court held that the university did not need the approval of the COA for starting a B.Arch. course. The court also quashed COA’s rejection of the student’s application for registration.

2. In an ongoing case in Delhi the High Court, brought by students of TVB School of Habitat Studies, affiliated to Delh’s GGSIP University, COA has been found having granted recognition year after year to the school, which was later found to have violated zoning laws and made to close its campus. When the university absorbed the distressed students, COA insisted that the students could not join the university and would have to join another affiliated college, but in the evening batch and without adequate infrastructure. The COA also insisted that the course run by the university did not have its recognition . Pending the court decision, students of TVB some 140 of them face an uncertain future for no fault of their own.

Original article source.