Gradual Destruction and Constant Upliftment.

It has been about 3 days since our little experiments pertaining to the systemization of the office structure have begun and the mood in the office has shifted. The past few days have seemed like high tension, high stakes days for most people. There is no denying that by the end of the day we are so mentally obsolete that I, for one, don’t know whether to feel exhilarated or just exhausted.

This shift in atmosphere is not something anyone can ignore or even leave unnoticed. We did what we, as an office, always do- had a conversation that involved everyone that was in the office at that moment. The end result of this was the decision to start splitting roles and delegating work to establish the next step in this organisational process.

The good thing about this, if we are able to achieve it, is that eventually all the pending work would be done once and for all and from that point onward, there will only be a sustainable amount of work each person has to do. The flip side in my head, however, is that this isn’t an easy exercise to do as the outcomes are far too varied and probably even extreme:

One outcome could be that each of us, being unsure of how much the other person will be able to complete, will end up delegating the bare minimum. The other way would be that we just pass on everything that we can’t do leading to an extreme testing of the patience and work capacity of the last person on the hierarchical ladder.
Either of these methods would set us up for spectacular failure.

The only positive solution to this activity would be to follow a balanced approach that relies on gradual change of systems rather than a sudden upheaval of habits that have been inculcated over a long period of time. 

How we reach this balance is a whole ‘nother story altogether- One that I will share with you, as and when we progress forward.

Stick around, it seems like it is going to be a bumpy but crazy ride!
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.

Pushing the Envelope

It has been a month!

Wait.
It has only been a month?!

This first month at Sandarbh has been quite something. But it also feels like a blur. We’ve had good days and bad days and days that are so mentally exhausting that you don’t know whether it’s good or bad.

We’ve had sites that have flourished and sites where we couldn’t go the extra mile; work that got completed and files and lists that kept piling up; times where everyone was in sync and times where you didn’t even know what the person next to you was doing. But most importantly, we had people who kept pushing forward, with Sai at the helm of this movement.

As I said earlier, this month has been a month of momentum building- towards achieving even higher quality in terms of work, an even more conducive work environment and an even more holistic work life than we have. This is an ongoing journey where everyone is starting to make conscious efforts to reach the same the goal. A goal that we will achieve and hopefully even push the envelope on this year. 

In the previous blog Leena spoke about what an incredible ride 2018 has been for Sandarbh and I’m writing in hope that 2019 will be even better.

Have a great year ahead!
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.

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

Elitism and Eclecticism

The two words written in the title mean things that are far from each other. The former talks about exclusivity bordering on snobbery and the latter talks about diversity and heterogeneity. But the funny thing about architecture is that it can be expressed through either of the extremes- sometimes even both.

As designers, it isn’t uncommon for people to become a little haughty and believe that their aesthetic is the best and it is equally common to experiment so much that the building looks like a mash up of too many things that you, as an individual, wouldn’t probably put together. But that is the beauty of a creative field, isn’t it? Each person seems to have a different perception of what works and what doesn’t; this idea can vary by a few degrees or by miles and this also makes it the most frustrating part of this creative field: There is no pleasing everyone. And sometimes, there is no pleasing anyone (including yourself).

This is one thing I’ve realised we all struggle with. The discussions in office regarding everything starting from the placement on one tiny half wall to the grey lines on a white marble can get incredibly interesting and sometimes, even exhausting. But that is what makes brainstorming among a group of ‘creative’ people so interesting, especially if you’re someone like me who is inclined towards conversations, especially ones that have some heat to it.

This, for me, is one of the reasons the 3 weeks in office seem to have gone so fast.

Hope to see you tomorrow,
Namitha.

Guess-Break-Validate.

It has been a heavy few days at Sandarbh. There have been lengthy discussions about everything from human resource management to project management systems that can make your head go for a toss. 

Dead in the middle of this chaos of information is each of us is trying to wrap our heads around the volume of content that has been handed to us on a platter formed by years of experience.

Like everything else in life, this too has two sides: One being the cliché that you can learn from other peoples’ mistakes and the other being the fact that there is no way to guarantee that you won’t make the same mistake, unless you’ve made it once. But the funny part isn’t the possibility of making a mistake while knowing that it is one; it is that you won’t even realize that it is the same error someone else made, just in a different context.

But that isn’t what this blog is about.

This is about the things that struck me most in the entire (almost) 2 day long conversation: My favourite one being concept of breaking things down. The idea of taking something and deconstructing it is so simple in theory that we often forget how detailed everything in life can be.

Next in line is guessing and validating. Much like academic research where you start with a hypothesis and do various experiments to either affirm or negate your theory; research and small, harmless experiments on humans can be quite eye opening, especially if you are your own test subject.

And the third most interesting thing to me, was what was happening in front of my eyes- a scene where 10-15 people were huddled around one desk, listening with rapt attention for hours. The reason this is so interesting to me is because it perfectly combines the aforementioned 2 ideas in two very different ways:

1.      The first perspective is one where Sai guessed that we would benefit from such an all-encompassing talk, broke things down to make it easier for us to digest, watched us gobble up all this information and that, in turn, validated his assumption.

2.      The second perspective is one where we guessed that what Sai had to say would help us, broke the information down in our head to digest it, and today, when we tried to work using the principles discussed, found that our initial guess was validated.

Of course, realizing that there is probably a more efficient way to work might look like a win-win situation; but it rarely is. What it means, then, is that there is a lot of unlearning to do, before you reach your optimal efficiency. But that is a conversation for another day.

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.

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.   

Square One

Real life first days don’t start with melodious background scores in a magical land surrounded by luscious greenery and friends you’ve known for ages. Instead, they often begin with bedheads, infuriating alarm clocks, ridiculously long car rides and a numbing pain in your head telling you that picking up a call from your best friend in the middle of the night might not have been the best idea when you already haven’t slept the previous couple of days.

But that’s okay. I’ve learnt today that even the most initially unsettling first days can often take a sharp turn for the better; especially when greeted by two beautiful dogs and a little girl who kindly informed me that she  prefers to be called strong over cute and says that she’d rather eat chocolates than ‘actual breakfast’. They get even better when you are told, to your face, that you’re not expected to know a whole lot. In fact, you’re expected to know nothing so that you can skip the part when you try to play it cool and impress the people around you and instead, get to put all that energy into working and learning things the right way rather than going through the whole tedious process of unlearning. And the icing on the cake is, sometimes, the fact that people around you don’t always comply with the socially accepted laws of normalcy, hierarchy or even, for that matter, personal boundaries.

The sarcasm, the eye rolls and even the nit-picking and the leg-pulling that I’ve seen around me today seems to be the basis of a camaraderie that forms the fabric of this office- a place that could be well on its way to creating a new word that combines casual and professionalism ( like athleisure, but unrelated to clothing).

I had an inkling on the day I got my first mail that I would like this place, today confirmed those feelings and hopefully, the next few months here will only add to it.

Signing off for the first time,
Namitha

Architecture a 24/7 job

Writing a blog post is a little like driving. You could study for months, read a billion articles on the driving, regulation and how to change the gear. But nothing could prepare you for the real thing. That is sitting behind a wheel and driving through the city traffic, i.e. the Indian city traffic.

I would say Architecture would be the same in this matter. You can spend five years learning about this profession but nothing really prepares you for the 24/7 commitment the job requires. This has come to my notice as I continue my internship at Sandarbh. Recently Sai went out of town with his family to celebrate Vishu. And though he was away he still was always in contact, messaging on our group and giving instruction. Same went for anyone in our office. Even though we would take an off we would volunteer to work on our assigned duties.

Yes, people "volunteer" to be the key word here. We opted to work from home. And I realized it was because not only was each one of us is dedicated to our duties but it is because we cared.

Architecture is a 24/7 job. It is something you hear everyone say. But what they don’t tell you is that it isn’t a 24/7 job that you have to do, it is a 24/7 job that you would want to do.

Stories - continued

Each person is unique, so are their stories. The definition for luxury for me isn't the same as the definition of luxury for you. 

So, in continuation to yesterday's post, (you can find it here) - you can ask me, how do we bring your story to your design?

The definition of luxury changes from person to person - the 5 year old and her mother, the husband and the wife, the architects and their clients . While we know that the minimum requirement for every line we draw, every design we make, every house we design is beauty, how do we know if your sense of beauty is the same as the one we try to achieve?

For some, luxury may mean largeness, huge scale, for others, it maybe the beauty of the material that brings luxury. You can love the imperfections of the hand made tiles, or find beauty in the rhythm of straight lines. Your garden may be a space you want to spend your weekends with your family around or a space where you watch the rain fall while sipping coffee from the porch. Luxury could be in the functionality or it could be in the aesthetics. You may get excited by the wall covered by books or the elaborate AV room that you possess. 

How do you define your sense of luxury? 

So, we start from day one. We develop a process that makes sure that your ideas have a space to develop.We ask you questions, we exchange ideas, we have conversations which might digress far away from Architecture.  We take help from other inspirations around the world. We develop mood boards, we exchange sketches, we ask you to criticize. From the first hand sketch to the final working drawings and the modifications through them, together we understand and define your sense of luxury.

And ,in this journey of discovering stories, your home is created.

Stories

When you come to our office for the first time with a set of requirements for the design of your home, it is quite possible that you get surprised with the questions we ask you.

We would want to know about your lifestyle, the little habits of yours, the nature of relationship between the members who are to stay in the house. We would ask you about your profession, how you spend your spare time, how you would be using your kitchen. Do you entertain a lot or prefer having quiet evenings with a cup of coffee? How was your childhood like? What are your hobbies? Do you have habits that you wish to change? Do you read? Are you a sunrise person or a midnight person?

The nature of the questions would probably remind you of the first time you visited your doctor.

But it is precisely this information that will eventually turn the house we design, into your home.

The bookshelf in the bathroom for the avid reader who spends a lot of time there in the morning hours. Or the pilot who needs his bedroom as private as possible for an undisturbed sleep after long flights. The positioning of the AV room for the movie buff who uses the space for unwinding after a long day at work. The travelers who would need space to display their travel souvenirs. The bay window meant for dogs rather than humans. The open jacuzzi, the room for the ham radio, the house with minimal number of doors - the story behind each architectural feature is unique.

This unique story of yours would be the driving factor behind the design of your home.