Sandarbh and I

Its been a good two months of me in Sandarbh today. Starting off the blog saga, I am going to be talking about my favorites here.

To begin with, Atom, everybody's favourite in the office. He is our little child who is always ready and up for a play. His surprise sniffs while everybody is busy working or him getting pampered by all in turns makes work less stressful around us.

While Atom wants to be grab a chair along with us, lunches are my next favorite here. All of us sit done around the table, with the funniest to the strangest conversations, making the whole team crack down to laughter.

The latest tradition of Dobble after lunch makes a good buffer before we head back to work for the day.

And not to forget, the impulsive Saturday outings XD

While these are my favouries until now, Im looking forward to my further journey at Sandarbh.

- Sonali. 

River of Gold

Have you watched the movie Desolation of Smaug?

Have you noticed the way the river of gold flows through a system of channels- never stopping, never ending- till it reaches a point where the entire floor is flooded and the gold eventually solidifies to create a scarily beautiful reflective surface?

This is how Sandarbh is now trying to work.

Before you shake your head, let me explain:

Sandarbh, as an office, has been undergoing a lot of changes over the last month or so and all of us here, obviously, are a part of it:

What we initially went through could be drawn as a direct parallel to the way solid gold was melted in the movie at burning temperatures to give rise to a more mouldable, more vulnerable version of itself.

After that, we began the process of finding the right niche for each member of the office. This was when each person’s abilities were put through the grind to find the right balance between what they liked and what they were good at. Some people hit this sweet spot instantly but some found it harder to make sense of the internal chaos.

The former set of people then moved into their respective roles and began accumulating the drive to move forward on the path they’ve chosen- almost like the gold being tipped into its designated channel after being transported across the halls and through as many spaces as required to reach its destination.

What will come next is the culmination of all these tiny streams, overflowing and spilling over into the realm of collaboration to create one smooth outer surface, the intricacies of which are only visible to those within but the beauty of which, is accessible to every onlooker.

And that, from my understanding, is where we’d like to be.

Is it time consuming, energy sapping and tough on everyone? Yes.
Is it worth it? Most Probably.
Will we succeed?
That, only time will tell.

But I’m pretty sure that this process of optimization, communication, and identification of the gaps in the system is well on its way to make us a much more cohesive office space.

Looking forward to the next few months,
Namitha

Space.

You will always find it:

Space.

Meandering
Like veins under the skin;
Joining the various limbs
In a system of interconnected pathways-
Binding.

Sustaining Life.

This is how Atom and Coco make paths for themselves, ensuring that they are in the centre of all activity.

While the probability of you walking into our office and seeing at least a handful of people surrounding Sai’s desk is high, the probability of you seeing little incisions and elongated corridors stretching between the seats chosen by the people that form this organisation, irrespective of whether or not we’re in a meeting are even higher.

They sprawl on the floor: snoozing, nibbling, yawning or even walking around, sometimes constantly fishing for attention. And that’s one of the things that binds us as an office- this shared love for these sweet creatures and the energy that we draw from them, the quick breaks we take to laugh at their sleep poses and of course, the annoyance we feign when they’re being too needy.

The space they’ve barged into and hollowed out for themselves seems pretty permanent- evident in the literal and figurative sense; in the space we spend our entire day in and in the crevices of each of our minds.

Gushing about them to whoever I meet is almost a predictable part of my routine and so obviously, you, my reader, will not be spared.

Hoping you don’t mind it,
Namitha.

Keeping It Short.

What do I write in the blogs? When do I write the blogs?

These two questions have been a part of the daily internal dialogues running in my mind right from the time I joined the firm. The only difference between then and now is that the question of ‘when’ has taken precedence over ‘what’.

There seems to be a constantly growing list of interesting conversations that occur in office that could be converted into quality content for the blog but there also seems to be an increasingly diminishing ability to maintain focus beyond the time when assigned work gets completed. Is it the stress of the changes that we’re making or the fact that gradually, everyone is becoming more accountable and responsive w.r.t the roles they play in the office, I’m not sure yet. Either way, as I’ve mentioned time and again, the general level of productivity at the end of the day seems higher than it used to be.

As with everything else, I hope time will allow us to find our groove and get back to having time for things beyond designated tasks, activities and deadlines. 

Keeping things short for probably the first time,
Namitha.

Baby Steps.

The office is alive.

That’s the only way to describe the past few days. After discussions upon discussion and talks upon talks, it finally feels like we’re going somewhere with our work.

Don’t get me wrong. We never stopped working, but we’ve only started working, very recently, with gusto. Almost all the deliberations we have nowadays are based on one word: consequence.

You’d think that there is only so much you can talk about consequences but you’d be sadly mistaken. Spend one day in our office and you’ll see various reasons to identify and link activities with corresponding consequences- not just in terms of immediate good or bad but also in terms of the manifold systems that revolve around that one word.

Another thing we’ve been touching upon is the fact that our organisation doesn’t end at the rung of interns or at the rung of people who supervise the site. Rather, our office and all that it stands for and believes in needs to reach the level of workers who ensure that all the office work is translated into something tangible.

These are, obviously, not ideas, ideals or concepts that can be introduced and implemented in one day and slowly, but surely, there is a shift in the way we view our work and as of now, the shift is one that moves us towards a better version of what we currently are.

As always,
I’ll keep you updated about the implications of these baby steps.

So long,
Namitha.

Non-Christmas Christmas Hullabaloo

After a month of celebrations, January is usually considered to be a downer of a month; what with the entire year ahead of you (am I the only one who feels better towards the end of the year?) and almost no grand festivals in the near future.  However, today was a day everyone in office was excited about. Turns out that between the public holidays and breaks taken by people in the office, we’d ended up never having the pre-christmas gift exchange last year and obviously, playing Christmas santa is an activity that cannot be ignored.

After 2 date changes and a lot of hullabaloo, we finally celebrated Christmas in office today and when I say celebrate, I mean the entire shindig with a make-do Christmas tree, borrowed lights, Christmas songs on the speaker and a bucket of gifts.

Now I expected us to start playing the game towards the end of the day because I really didn’t have much faith in the probability of anyone getting back into the groove of working afterwards. However, I was perfectly pleasantly surprised when (surprise!) it took everyone about 15 minutes to switch gears and go back to whatever was on the agenda  for the day and all this…wait for it..without any cribbing or whining!

I don’t want to believe it but it turns out that all of us, actually enjoy working! That, I feel, is quite a revelation (at least for me) and a happy one, at that.

Hoping to maintaining this positivity throughout the year!

Namitha.

Here's to you.

If I started to give you anecdotes about the way technology has handicapped us every single day, I probably would have enough content for the rest of the year.

But alas! That is not how this project works.

I am pretty sure that over the course of over 300 blogs, it would have come up quite a few times that generating a blog every single day is not easy. What ends up happening, more often than not, is that the writer of the blogs goes around asking everyone in office if they have any ideas or suggestions and will most definitely receive variations of the same threat:
"I swear, if you ask me this question one more time..!"

Alas, desperate times call for desperate measures and those are exactly what these incessant questions count as. But some times, these encounters can give rise to some pretty interesting, amusing or even perfectly mundane blogs.

I would've never thought that I'd ever write about Bougainvillea or Cab rides or even, more recently, scrubbing the floors. So here's a shout out to the crazy stories each member of this office comes up with.

And here's to you looking forward to the answers that come because we keep bugging others with the same question,
Always.

Namitha.

Immobile.

The initial plan today was to write about how I found it really amusing that the capacity of a home safe is measured in litres. But then I realised that it was merely because cubic metres are often expressed as litres and it ruined the whole fancy and imaginative explanation I was concocting in my mind.

So then, I was sitting here, out of ideas when it struck me that I should write about the link between mobile technology and the site life merely because of how weird it felt when my phone was dead the entire day.

First things first, nothing happens without a whatsapp group. So, obviously, the multiple office groups need to be checked various times during the day for everything from communication between the site and the office to material procurement or even deliberation on drawings. If your whatsapp is off, chances are that you have no idea what the others are up to.

Next, the probability of you carrying camera equipment when you’re out of office, either on site or in the workshop, are particularly low so, obviously, collection of photographic evidence pertaining to work, site conditions and even selected fittings and fixtures (when you’re shopping with the clients) is out of question.

Thirdly, god forbid you do not get an auto or a bus, there is no way you or anyone else can get you back to office by booking a vehicle.

All these, of course, are apart from the fact that you cannot call or message or even research something if the client or workers ask you for input on something you don’t have a great grip on.

I was thanking my stars that I was with Leena and didn’t really need to use the phone but that isn’t the point. The point is that we are all so dependent on our mobiles that even 8 hours of work without them seems like a long shot.

But, here’s to my phone finally having enough charge for me to use the hotspot to upload this blog.

Adios,
Namitha.

Some Wednesdays, We Scrub the Floors.

I was doing my regular mind mapping, idea hunting exercise to find quality content for the blog and as fate would have it, it came in the form of Rithik and Arjun walking into the garage and telling me about the start of their day. It turns out that they began their lazy morning with an activity that shouldn’t really be surprising, considering that today is the day after Christmas. But of course, it needs to be noted that what led to this said activity had nothing to do with Christmas.

It turns out that some of the previous work that had happened on site had left the beautiful ceramic floor tiles used in the house pretty dirty. On noticing that, along with a lack of workers on site early in the morning, someone decided to take things into their own hands and this is exactly why, when our boys turned up on site, they were met with the image of a man, who on close inspection, turned out to be the owner, scrubbing the bathroom floors with all his might. 

Now, imagine this situation:

You turn up on site because you’re building someone’s house and you see the said someone going full force and cleaning. What do you do?

Let’s be honest, you don’t really have a choice. You discuss what other work needs to be done and start scrubbing the floors with him. And if you’re lucky, as these guys seem to have been, there will soon be pumped up music and a constant banter filling the air as other people slowly join you and start, well, scrubbing the rest of the areas.

I couldn’t help but laugh at the image of all of these guys calling dibs on different spots and cleaning till the tiles shined.

I guess if any of us at office ever need to do some floor cleaning, we now know who the experts are!

See you tomorrow!
Namitha

Monday Blues.

Today didn’t feel like a Monday.

There was no lazing around in the morning; no relaxed tea break to start the week off on the right foot and certainly no positive pep talk that makes you feel like the sun is shining on your entire life.

Instead, today began with the kind of personalized bashing that only comes when you work in an environment as familial as ours. But the good side to a hand stitched pointing out of errors is that it often comes with a side of motivation; and as we all know, motivation is linked with productivity.

However, productivity has been an elusive friend to me because it seems like a lot of effort goes into office everyday but it amounts to nothing much, or even worse, the opposite of what was supposed to be done. And yet, as I mentioned in my very first blog, your day can flip from bad to good in a second and while it certainly took more time than that, it did get better.

Word processors are my friends and so are excel sheets. Combine those two with visits to showrooms and I’m like a kid with candy.

The rest of the day went in jotting down which of the shiny fittings would go into which bathroom and drawing up lists of work that need to be done these coming few days. So in a way, today was a perfect blend of indoor and outdoor time and that in itself is enough to balance everything else out.

Add to all this, the fact that tomorrow is Christmas, and quite frankly, you can’t be in a dismal mood. Even if you don’t celebrate it, no one can stay sad about a mid-week holiday.

Don’t you worry though,
I’ll write to you tomorrow, in the midst of an assumingly scrumptious cake.

So long,
Namitha.

Rendezvous with the Bougainvillea

Lunch is a relatively grand affair at Sandarbh. Most of us usually go together to eat at one of the two places that are at a walking distance from office. But was it the workload, the boredom of eating from the same old places or just plain laziness that prompted us to order food a couple of times consecutively last week, I don’t know. Whatever it was, it is safe to say that when a couple of us walked to our old hangout today, we couldn’t help but feel sluggishly full and contemplative about the choice of walking on the way back.

But alas! Something good did come out of it. We realized that we all shared an almost comedic connection to the words ‘Bougainvillea’ and ‘Rendezvous’. Now that you’ve  heard the  words, I’m pretty sure you’ve guessed what I’m talking about. But in case you were a prodigy who dealt with complicated spellings right from a young age and have no idea; I’m talking about this middle school phenomenon called ‘Spelling Bee’ where everyone received, memorized and then showcased their ability to spell out a never ending list of words that you honestly couldn’t expect a 10 year old to have even heard- let alone phoneticize.

Be it stuttering on stage, stumbling with the pronunciation or even acing the contest, the possibility of finding two words that people from different parts of the country share a connection to; among the million that make up our vocabulary seems pretty astounding to me.

Here’s to finding more and more nostalgic things in common with people I barely even knew 2 weeks ago,
Namitha.

Stringing Words

Writing on a daily basis is quite the challenge.

On a regular day, I’d have excitedly chirped about the exhaustive discussion that we had today about various socio-political scenarios that seem to be unfurling around us; or about the good ol’ throwback songs that were being played in the garage that instantly took me back to impromptu jam sessions at home; or about the slightly chaotic organisation of our files that can make it quite difficult for a new person to even begin to figure out where what goes; but I can’t seem to.

It would be unfair of me to turn this into a personal blog or even to post something I’m discontented with (as I did yesterday). So here I am, signing off hoping that tomorrow comes with a fresh perspective, either mine or someone else’, and  a string of words perfect for framing the predictably unpredictable every day.

Namitha.

Pleasant Learnings at Site

Since the time I've been working at Sandarbh, I have noticed how we are so dependent on technology. This, has been even more apparent during my time at the site.

Tradesmen make up a large part of transforming what we envision as architects to become a reality.

They are harnessing technology by completing the information loop by reporting to the organisation about every task carried out on a daily basis. Efficient Communication through phones and internet mediums between staff have enhanced the quality and skill set on a whole new level. In the same aspect, faster decisions and updates communicated through these methods have made the process as transparent and fast as possible. This kind of communication is what runs the organisation in a smooth and responsible manner.

Yesterday, one of the workers approached me with a beaming look on his face. He sprung out his brand new phone, asking me to create an account to set up his phone.
I was quite happy to see that the technological shift has been taken up by everyone.
It was a very interesting lunch break for me, which made me put my lunch aside and help him set up his phone gladly.


This made me think how the whole dynamics have changed. A few years back internet and seamless connectivity was a wishful luxury. Today the idea of being connected has become a very integral part of everyone's lives. People are ready to work  harder to get that little bit more on  luxury. Makes me think though, in a broader scheme of things, the return on investment through these processes have proved to be far more beneficial.

Tucked into the Warmth of this World.

If you saw a building being torn down on your way to office, you probably wouldn’t turn around for a second glance; but even the thought of your home being damaged a little would definitely wrench your gut.

Deny it as we might, the architecture around us seems to have 

the power to evoke emotions we often don’t even know exist within us. One could say the same thing about travel and the proof of this lies in the fact that we tend to bring back pieces of memorabilia from each holiday we take.

The feeling of your eye randomly being held captive by something that reminds you of a distant memory is quite indescribable. But the joy of moulding your home around everything that you have seen, loved and collected over the years would feel like snuggling into the warmth of a comfortable blanket.

One tiny part of this nostalgia is what I experienced when I walked into one of our sites.

The house that has been designed capitalising on the beauty of patterned tiles and upscaled wooden frames that have been strategically placed on walls and floors to offset grey and white backdrops. These plain colours come with the opportunity to add a trace of brighter shades that heighten the brilliance of the tessellations used. And let me not forget the strikingly blue doors with a hint of stained glass that frame the greenery around the house beautifully.

While I was there for barely an hour, I couldn’t help but smile at the coloured glass lights that reminded me of Turkey, the blue tiles that seem to take you to Morocco, the light switches that I vaguely remember from a time my grandmother described in her stories and the grey, textured walls that speak of a time so contemporary yet timeless that it acts as a perfect adhesive to hold all these elements of striking individual beauty together.

I may be biased towards things that help me travel without moving but why would anyone count that as a bad thing.
Right?

Looking forward to write about many such brilliant projects,
Namitha.

Iron Trails

Space planning in an ordered sense is core to the world of architecture.

As much as architecture attempts to orchestrate our perceptions of scale and proportion and expose our senses to tangible experiences, a film of safety from various external agencies that resides within the realm connecting functionality and necessity cannot be ignored.

One would think that elements such as grills would be easy to design but even the most seemingly mundane components can be a result of complex processes. In function, grills form the layer that screens the outdoor clutter from getting inside. So isn’t it obvious that our grill designs will vary as their locations do. Safe to say, these small but essential parts of the building are formed at the confluence of a rational sense of design and visual quality.

Our journey of piecing the puzzle together starts at the workshop with the assembly of various iron sections to birth frames that then host a series of thinner rods placed into holes that are punched or drilled in accordance to the design.

Once the frame is welded, punctures of the required diameter are created to allow thinner rods to easily slide in and be welded. This forms the inner core of the grill which is then transported to the site. Here, a recreation of the process of punching holes into the external frame and welding rods to hold the core is done to hold the design in place.

At the end of it all, these oft-times ignored lines of ferrous find their quiet home perched upon the mantle sill; and if one spares the time to look closely, each of these will sing of the intricate and precise skill that has gone into their creation.

Here’s to our first site story,
Utsav and Namitha.

Altering Our Course.

In these memoirs of daily life that we put up on our blog, we often forget to mention half of our story: the half of the story that depicts the realization of the work that is done within the four walls of our office. What I’m talking about, is the substantial chunk of behind the scenes action that unfurls on our various sites- slowly, but steadily.

As students, we are often told that architects are ‘the creative folk’; the people who design but don’t necessarily need to get into the nitty-gritty details of the actual construction. But that is so untrue! I don’t pretend to know how other places work, but that is definitely not how we work. There are an equal number of people on site, as they are in office- scheduling, helping, directing and facilitating the work that needs to be done. When I tell you that I hadn’t seen one or two people from our office till yesterday but knew about them and the projects they were working on, I’m not joking. This can be attributed to the constant stream of messages that pour in on our office chat, day in and day out, from 8am to even 9pm, detailing the progress, and addressing the issues that inadvertently arise on site.

The reason I am writing about this today is because, as an office, we strive towards learning and growing to the best of our abilities and that can only happen, when we learn from our each other and the people around us. And so, starting from now, we will try to split the focus of these blogs between both our office lives- the indoor and outdoor ones.

Hope you’re as excited about this as I am,
So long,
Namitha.

Static Without Static.

What do you do when the electricity fails and you watch your old laptop that has been overworked ever since you laid your architectural hands on it, die a losing battle to its rapidly dying battery?

What do you do, when after a panicked attempt at switching from laptop to phone as your medium of work, you realise that there is no way you can efficiently detail out and finish all the mails you were supposed to send out while typing on the tiny screen in your hand?

What do you do when the electricity hasn’t returned in 2 hours and you are now knee deep in work that hasn’t been done- starting from documentations to presentations; all of which that, of course, need to go out that very day?

I’ll tell you what you’ll do.
You’ll head out for an early lunch.

And while there, you will mentally prepare yourself to beat flash with the pace at which you cover ground the moment the dim light on your laptop flickers; simultaneously bringing your device and you, back to life.

You will prioritize and make a mental note of the order in which you will handle files and, unquestionably, have to multi task.

And finally, you will wrap everything up, look at the clock with surprise and file this in your head as a relaxed day at work; quietly happy that you weren’t the one on site when the electricity went out.

Hoping to see you tomorrow,
Namitha.

Fitting into the Venn Diagram of Shopping.

In a venn diagram of shopping enthusiasts and non-fans, there is a small intersection of people who don’t mind shopping for others. As a designer, it is almost necessary to fall into that category (even if you do so begrudgingly); because there are days where you spend all your time hauling yourself and your client across the town on various, undecided modes of transportation from one shop to the next- picking, sorting, rejecting and finalizing all the different elements that come together to form a cohesive, tangible space.

If the thought of that drains you, just imagine the lethargy you will be faced with when you factor in the notorious Bangalore traffic, the subsequent pollution, dust and a constant cacophony of noises. But let me take a step back to tell you that it wasn’t bad at all. Bangalore decided to be nice to us by maintaining a pleasant temperament in terms of both weather and traffic; and our client helped us a great deal by being precise, practical and to be very honest, tirelessly sprightly. Within 7 hours, we had built a comprehensive itinerary of everything from granite to geysers, along with a fair idea of the menu we spent quite some time perusing during lunch.

It would be quite deceptive to say that there were no snags at all and that we were left as energetic at the end as we were at the beginning of this day-long quest for home-building materials; but it would be equally false to declare that it was as tiring and arduous as we anticipated it to be. In the end, I guess, it should suffice to say that my first shopping trip as a part of this office was quite the success, especially since it ended with some crunchy, cheesy fries!

Until tomorrow,
Namitha.

The Home Office.

Oxymora are my thing. I’ve always been amused by the clear contradictions that govern our lives. So, when Sai sat us down and explained the implicitly explicit house rules, I couldn’t help but spend some time thinking about the stark contrast between the offices I’ve seen and heard of and the one I’m in right now.

Yes, most of it probably stems from the attitude with which Sai and Leena deal with everyone around them; but it also has to do with the biggest oxymoron of them all- ‘the home office’.

The home office takes one look at the cliché that asks you never to take your work home, and chucks it right out the window. Irrespective of whether or not you have worked in another office, this idea of doubling your house as a home and an office can either make you slip right into the thick of things or completely unnerve you; not just because of the difference in the way things work but also because you’re slammed with a realization that you are accountable for what happens within someone else’ home, let alone the fact that it is your boss’ home.

But then again, maintaining a ‘professional’ demeanour when you’re literally at home is difficult.  You do end up being more ‘yourself’ and that is where quirks start to show. And quirks are important; they not only help you understand the people you work with faster but also teach you to adapt and learn how to align yourself with the varied personalities that are now entangled in your web of day-to-day life.

The point I’m trying to make is that this home office of ours seems to be well on its way to prove that work doesn’t always have to be a dreadful affair. It can sometimes, maybe even occasionally, be a cackling mess of productivity. How? That is something I hope to figure out over the course of my time here.

So long,
Namitha.   

Thesis?

I vividly remember the time when our first thesis review was scheduled. After listening to the importance of the Architectural thesis for 5 years, it was big deal for all of us. The first review wasn't very elaborate. All we had to do was to describe the project we were to take and show them the abstract. But hype around the first review was intense. 

Throughout the whole course of Architectural school, the thesis was given utmost importance. Every sketch we made, every line we drafted seemed like it led onto the thesis. Amazing design sheets were called "Thesis level sheets". The thesis sheets of our professors was a bench mark. 

After 6 months busy working, the sheets that I had closed after our Thesis jury was never opened again. I included parts of it for my architectural portfolio, but Sai says he never looked at it when he hired me. I haven't seen my thesis report since and neither do I know about it's whearabouts. And it probably won't matter. 

So what was all of the 6 months of research and hard work for? 

Today's discussion at office was centered around processes. Every activity has a direction and steps within that direction. It's the same with any activity - small or large. Even a simple sketch of a plan would have to be done in various steps. The thesis is probably a part of the process leading to a graduation to a degree to a COA number and legally practicing architecture. 

So hey student Architects! Your thesis is important. But probably not as much as they tell you it is. So have fun, enjoy the process and things will get sorted on their own. 

Happy designing!