House in the Hills : The Challenge

A site in the hills with gorgeous views looking into the mountains and a lush green lawn all around. Doesn't sound like much a of challenge does it? 

But consider this site to be a narrow linear plot that is an extension of the lawn to an existing house. Seems more challenging now, doesn't it?

A challenge, Yes. But an opportunity as well. To make the most of this narrow site while still encapsulating the most gorgeous views of the hills. We had to ensure that the house would compliment the existing built while still standing out on its own, fulfilling the requirements of the client while still interacting with the site around. 

There were many questions that came to mind when we started. We had a beautiful house set against the backdrop of mighty mountains. Would another cottage be able to fit into this context? How do we ensure that the green space stays as it is or perhaps more beautiful than before after this cottage is placed there? How do we create a structure that complements it surroundings? How do we use architecture to enhance the beauty of the space where it resides?

We found ourselves some answers, but only after immersing ourselves into the context and coming up with a design that evolves from the context itself. 

If we were to place a single block along the length of the site, we realized that we would have fallen short in terms of the area requirement. The idea then, was not to spread horizontally but rather spread vertically - bringing in the views and vistas of the surroundings at the top whilst still having an open garden at the bottom.
How exactly did we go about this? Come back tomorrow to know...

-Mannat

Sandarbh Projects

Through the medium of this blog I have been able to share a lot of things with you guys - stories from the office, about the people, experiences from site and even our journeys through Sandarbh. Some blogs have been rather personal, the tone of them directly affected by my frame of mind. Other blogs focused entirely on the perspectives of those around me. I've spoken about processes and philosophies, about analogies and anecdotes, about merry-making and a few mis-steps along the way too. But now that I look at all the blogs that have been penned down by me over the last couple of months, I feel like one thing that I have not spoken about as much as I would've liked are our projects themselves. And before this comes to an end, I'm definitely using these last few days to make up for that. So, without further ado I'm going to be posting about a particular project of ours - A house in the hills. Stay tuned to find out more about it...

-Mannat  

No Fear! No Guilt!

If I had to condense my initial few conversations with Sai and my learnings at Sandarbh (a rather unfair condensation to say the least) the three main things for me would be about choice, commitment and perhaps free will (for the lack of a better way to put it)

Choice to select the kind of work that we wished to do. Even within the structure of the organisation, there was enough flexibility and freedom for us to fill up our day with work that actually kept us engaged. Yes, for each one of us there were certain things we didn't necessarily want to do but had to do - however, it made up for only a small portion of the day. We all had the choice to plan our work day how we wanted it to be. The best part about this was that since we have such a diverse range of people, each of us with our own skills and interest, that there was no part of the job that got left out. We each complimented each other's strengths and weaknesses, some enjoying the work that was pure hell for others and vice versa.

Commitment to the job was a must. One of the first conversations that I had with Sai even before I joined the office, was regarding commitment. He put it rather simply - commit only to what you know you can do, and what you're willing to do. However, once a commitment was made it had to kept no matter what. I found myself in situations where I had over-committed on several occasions in the beginning (a bad habit that I had been dealing with for a while now). Whether I liked it or not I had to trudge through my commitments, luckily with support from the rest of the team. After the initial stumbles, I finally learnt to walk the fine line between committing to something with all your heart and over-committing.

Free will is perhaps the hardest to explain and has been the hardest to implement too. When I say Free will to work, I mean an environment where one works because they want to. The driving force in this case has to be internal. One of the strongest statements Sai made was this " Never work in Fear, Never work in Guilt" The principle sounds rather simple but is really much harder in practice. In introspection a lot of the things we do are a result of either fear or guilt. My time at Sandarbh has helped me rid myself of this. Yes both fear and guilt have a curious way of creeping up on you. But in the end its about how you deal with them - whether you let these emotions overpower free will or you learn to control them. I consider myself lucky to have understood this simple yet incredibly complex statement. I have realised that once you let go of these two negative emotions, you open up a lot of space in your life to be filled with the positive ones - joy, hope, inspiration, confidence, happiness and above all love!

-Mannat 

A box of Chocolates

The team at Sandarbh is best described as a box of chocolates - an assortment of characters but they all have nuts (or rather are a little nuts!) It's a quirky bunch to say the least, each one with their individual peculiarities. Whether it's Monali's post lunch madness or the fact that Leena has to make sure that wood grains run in the correct direction in all furniture on sketchup (a quirk she picked up from Rambo) Sulu's love for biryani and all things spicy is comparable to an epic love story (think Romeo and Juliet, it's just as rewarding and punishing) When Sai starts off with something new, he is borderline obsessive about it. He must know everything about that particular thing (and also everything before or after it or even remotely related to it) The only other quirk I've seen come close to that is Nayana's obsession with time - tell her to be somewhere at a certain time and god forbid she can't make it, that's not an event you don't want to witness. No matter what conversation you have with Arjun on the phone - the conversation could be pleasant or you could be screaming at him, he will always end it with a polite "See you, bye" (something that'll often melt away the anger too, just ask Leena) Talking about conversations, Rithik has a tendency to talk to everyone in his mother tongue whether you understand it or not (and this quirk is not just limited to office, we've seen it happen on site too)
There are just a few random examples of a few random quirks. And each of these becomes more and more pronounced when we go out to party. This is exactly what we recognised yesterday. Whether it's going for a Pooja or going out to party, we a a decidedly quirky bunch that enjoys each others company!

-Mannat 

All About a Housewarming

Sunday mornings are typically spent in the laziest of moods but today was totally different. A bunch of us were up, bright and early and ready to head to Basavangudi - all for a Housewarming Pooja of one of our clients. The home so to speak is an apartment building shared between 3 families. While the interiors differ from floor to floor, on the outside several elements tie the whole built form together.

The days leading up to the Pooja had been action packed to say the least - both in office and on site. We pushed ourselves, excelling in some aspects, falling short in some too. But all shortcomings were forgotten when we were greeted with beaming smiles at the entrance of the home. The little Ganesha that we had presented to them as a souvenir was also seated near the entrance (Curious about the souvenir? Know all about it here) . As the God of auspicious beginnings and Remover of obstacles, the occasion and the placement felt just right. We were treated to some sumptuous breakfast and given offerings in the form of prasad. After that we went around the entire building, as a pooja had been conducted on three different floors as well - one for each of the families. As we stopped at each floor, taking our time at each level, we even had our client's joking around about how even today the agenda of going around the house was to generate a task list for the pending works. Being there today, the happiness, the vibrancy, it was all rather magical. This is what the job is all about right - at the end of the day its not the drawings or the renders or the details, it's all about the people who would spend their lives in that home. Many years down the line, I may not remember much about this particular project but its certainly going to be hard to lose the memories of all the smiling faces I encountered today!

-Mannat 

Perspectives from Sandarbh : Ananya - Part 2

Ananya's first day at work was interesting to say the least. I'm going to jump right into her narration of Day 1 at Sandarbh. Here goes...

" So, my first day of work was actually the first time I was going to the office. I had applied when I was in Kuwait and the selection process took place entirely over the phone and email. So there had been no physical interview, I had never met Sai and had no idea of what the office looked like. Harshitha had joined just a little bit before me and was the only one I had spoken to. When I asked her about the office, she described it as a 'cute' place and that's all. I got here just the day before I had to join office. I went to check out the apartment. That's when I met Harrshitha. They were organising a small office party and she asked me if I'd like to join her to go get the beer. My initial reaction was like 'No, why should I go for an office party even before I have started working?' I didn't end up going. 

So the next morning I reach here and I had no idea if it was like a proper firm or a house. I got to the location and called Sai up telling him I was at a house called Sharada. He told me that's the one and told me to come in. Turns out there was nobody else in the office at that time. Sai's table was littered with beer bottles and the office and garage (which looked very different back then) were in a bit of a post-party mess and Sai was trying to clear all of this up. Simply standing around was kind of awkward and I asked if I could help him but he was all like 'No, no, I've got this'. After this slightly unusual first encounter with the boss, Sai told me to make myself comfortable and told me he would be back soon. Atom and Coco were there and before heading upstairs Sai told me not to pet them too much as they had a tendency to become too friendly. So, I'm all alone in office with the two dogs for company, looking around at the books and that's when Ally comes in. She was carrying a cat (I'm not sure if it was Spice or Bella). She introduced me to all the pets telling me about them. She introduced me to Spice and told me that he was 3 months old. Curious, I asked about Atom's age. She then told me that Atom also came when Spice did. I was rather surprised coz Atom was quite large for a dog who would be 3 months old. But Ally kept insisting that these dogs grow to be very large. I had a friend in college and he also had a Great Dane - he kept talking about how huge the dog is. I've never had a dog and hearing these two stories from Ally and my friend, I just believed it. After this Harshitha came in and then Rambo did and the day went on. Sai had a conversation with me and told me to hang around, familiarise myself with the work. Towards the evening, we were all having a conversation and somewhere through that Atom comes up to me. I was just like, "He's quite a big dog for only 3 months old" and Sai's immediate response was like, "3 months old??? WHAT?" Everybody had quite a good laugh at my expense but in my defense Ally was the one who told me and she was rather convincing. That was pretty much how my first day at Sandarbh went..."

While hearing this whole event, I simply could not keep a straight face. But I'm sure it definitely makes for a memorable first day and Ananya sure remembers it in vivid detail!

-Mannat 

Perspectives from Sandarbh : Ananya - Part 1

When I first joined Sandarbh, the three seniors - Sulu, Ananya and Harshitha seemed like they had so much experience working here and I could only imagine it would take years to get to that level. Turns out, they have just recently completed a year at Sandarbh. In an attempt to commemorate this, I'm bringing back the 'Perspectives from Sandarbh' series. Interviewing Harshitha has been nearly impossible, Sulu has been hard to catch too but I had a blast while speaking to Ananya. Read on to see what she has to say about her experiences at Sandarbh...

Me: So Ananya, one year at Sandarbh! How do you feel?

Ananya: Honestly, it feels great. My life has changed a lot in the past one year. The person that I was back then and the person that I am today are vastly different. I don't think I would be able to recognize that girl if I saw her now. The journey though hasn't been a straight line progressing upwards. There have been a bunch of ups and downs. Its kind of been like a wave actually. When I initially started here, I was hit by bouts of homesickness. I kept wondering 'Why Bangalore?' and didn't particularly want to be here. The city tends to grow on you and once the homesickness settled down I started to really enjoy my work. The firm is great and the work is engaging. This went on for a while but then certain doubts from the past started to surface again. I was never sure about architecture and whether it was truly meant for me. Again I started questioning what I was doing and had pretty much stopped enjoying architecture. That was definitely one of the major lows. Then I realized that Sandarbh was giving me the best opportunity I could get as an architect - I'm working in the profession but I don't necessarily need to do all the things that I dislike about architecture. At this point I simply feel great about it. I never knew that I had so much potential. I kind of look at Sandarbh as a start-up with a whole lot of experience. I get to do my own thing - the kind of work that I enjoy. The kind of responsibility I get is something I could never had imagined a year ago. All in all the amount of freedom I get in the kind of work that I wish to do is amazing!

Me: You talk about a great change between 'Then' and 'Now'. How has Sandarbh been instrumental to this change?

Ananya: Ok so let me start off with telling you about the last week : I went for the first meeting with a client, essentially creating the first impression of Sandarbh. Then I sent out like 4 presentations. The presentations were also put together by the small team of 4-5 people that I have been managing. This was really not how I imagined things to be. This was not my expectation. I imagine that I would just to sit at a desk and be told what to do. When I talk to my cousins who are doing MBA, these are the kinds of responsibility that they talk about. I really did not think I was capable of this one year ago. Its not like I didn't think I would eventually be doing these things but just always imagined them to be in like the distant future.

My professional growth has been exponential and so has my personal growth. Both of these things have gone hand in hand. As I grew professionally it had an impact on my personal life and as my personal life improved so did my work. It has kind of been the virtual cycle that Sai keeps talking about. An improvement in one led to an improvement in the other which again led to an improvement in the first and so on. Early I used to be very worried about sharing my opinions - now I can do so more easily. The thoughts that come to me now instead are the kinds where I am figuring out my happiness in all spheres of life - personal and professional. I'm not saying that any of these changes and improvements did not exist before now, maybe I have just become more observant and aware of them. Now, I don't just wait for things to change. Rather I'm consciously working towards bringing about a change. A lot of the credit for all this definitely goes to Sai and the innumerable conversations that I have had with him

Ananya really seems to have taken on a new life. In an attempt to better understand the degree of change, I decided to probe more about her initial days at Sandarbh. Come back tomorrow for some fun and interesting stories about Ananya's first day at work...

-Mannat