Are we there yet?

We talked too long to ourselves amongst ourselves while the majority stopped listening and progressed further. 

Architecture, Buildings - to me, seem tired. We've talked about them so much that we have nothing to emphasise on anymore. Why don't we talk about a painting, direction styles in various movies, graphics or literally anything else. 

Have we glorified Architecture to a point where we are driven by Intellectual, academic and conceptual theories? 

Maybe the task of making Architecture more accessible can be achieved not only by opening itself to other disciplines but also to itself and its end users. The more the people around you start to think about the place they inhabit, the better they'll care about Architecture. 

With the current crop, There's a fresh outlook for innate collaboration with various disciplinaries. Our sustenance is formed by having an extroverted approach to experts in various fields; learning and integrating their processes and workflow to express the best aspects of the collaboration.  

Since Architecture has sprung beyond its disciplinary boundaries, it opens up the possibility of practicing or processing in a way that does not depend on the articulate architectural way. 

Addressing reality and fighting for issues like Global warming, waste, urbanisation, overpopulation to name a few, would call for the Architects of the future to the fore. This is essentially the need of the century. Architecture and Architects are going to be driven by social issues which might shape the world for a better place than what it is today. 

They may be hypotheticals, but they pose a question on how to expand and think Architecture.

-Utsav Shah

To the Old and the New

Early morning scenarios at Sandarbh was always a busy affair. Every time I entered the office in the morning, there would always be a couple of people already waiting for me.   Sometimes Shaz and Kiri would be there tossing things at eachother. Shreya and Drashti would be complaining about their roommate. Aafreen would be chilling on the couch.  In a couple of minutes, the office would be filled - with conversations, and a lot of activity. A couple of them would go back to the work they had left from the previous day. The rest of them would come annoying me with "What work do you have for me today". The rest of them would join us for our morning meetings. My day would be consumed by jumping from one person to another. When these interns had joined the firm for their 6 months internship, it felt like all of them would be around for ages. 

But I guess time is something you definitely can't take for granted. The office I entered into today was particularly different from the office I used to enter a month back. Starting with Shaz, Kiri, Aafreen, Sid and Kavi the crowd slowly began to reduce. Slowly, the extremely noisy office began to become more silent.  Today's office missed the physical presence of it's people. Rambo called in sick, Meghna was working from home and with that, the morning meeting was a short affair.  Work was being carefully balanced between all the members. By 4pm, the office was empty with each of us working from different parts of the city. 

It is pretty saddening to suddenly see all the crowd vanish. The constant noise is being missed. Kiri's random dance moves are being missed. Shreya's trivia is being missed. Aafreen's crazy stories are being missed. 

But with that said, as these interns move on - the silence is not for too long. We look forward to the new and larger crowd to join us here. And when they arrive, the crowd and the commotion comes back too. 

Hey new interns ! looking forward to welcoming you guys!

Do dreams come true?

Do you remember what I wrote about dreams? You can find it here.

Frankly, I didn't believe it much. I was just being highly optimistic. But I wanted it - so wanted it.

And here I am, 11 days after I wrote that particular blog, wondering if all the events that happened last week was just coincidence.

All of it started a few days back when I was busy debating with Shreya about her obsession with New York. Sai gets a call from a person in New york regarding his project in Trivandrum. I was happy - after all this was a reason to travel to Trivandrum. But obviously how much of a difference would the client being in New York or in Bangalore or anywhere else in the world for that matter make a difference?

So we set out to Trivandrum to take a look at the site where we met the client's brother and discussed his requirements.

Just after we complete our site visit, we were pinged by someone else from New York. But this time, it was an architect who was the principal of a firm based in New York. He wanted to explore the possibility of our collaboration with his firm.

It didn't stop here.

Yesterday, after I draft a mail to this New York firm with further details of collaboration, Sai sends me a questionnaire sent by a firm in Azerbaijan who wanted to possibly work with us for one of their project.

As I sat in office reviewing this firm and the Architecture of Azerbaijan, all that ran through my head was -

"Can all of these events actually be accidental?"