Am I Alive?

Dear Architecture, Do I still love you?

Dear Architecture,

I love you! Since I saw you for the first time, I have hopelessly fallen for you more and more. That big bungalow where I spent my childhood was your harbinger for me. I would sit in my balcony and feel the cool breeze wash my hair, I would bask in the daylight that filtered through the window, listen to birds chirping in the garden and rain falling on rooftop; stretch my hand out the door to try and collect the raindrops in my hand. You are the one that enriched my existence since the beginning of time. You were my basic need second to only food and clothes. You protected me, but at the same time you let me engage with the rain, the sun, and the wind.

As I grew up, I saw your different forms. Your magnificence hit me when I went to school. I would run around in the large halls with high ceilings, sometimes hearing my own echoes, sometimes indulging in the peaceful silence. I realized how intricate you could be yet so sensitive to the people around you. My own existence seemed insignificant in front of you. It made me love you all the more. All my life I knew that you loved me back because you always made me happy.

But now, now I am scared. Sitting at my desk in this big office tower, staring out the huge glass which spans from floor to ceiling, I am scared. I am scared to see what you’ve become. I am scared to think what will happen in the future, our future. I am at the 13^th floor and I don’t feel a thing, if it’s raining outside, I am dry. If it’s sunny outside, I am cold. If it’s windy outside, I am still. I can’t hear the birds chirping, can’t feel the peaceful silence; sounds of whirring machines surround me. There’s a disconnect between your own outer and inner self. You look beautiful from the outside but it does not reflect on the inside. You are a limitless circle on the outside, but a confined square inside. It’s like I don’t know you anymore. You were the one who connected me with nature, but now you detach me from it. You protect me all the time, I feel trapped within your confines.

You’ve changed! You’ve lost your purity. It makes me want to run away from you. Take my heart and smash it at the glass that stares at me so blankly. I keep asking myself if I still love you! And the voice from deep within stops me and says “YES!” It says there’s still hope. It says that if you and I try we can make it work. If we go back to our happy memories and rekindle the essence that brought us together, relive it in our current times, we can solve it. But how? After all these years, how?

Do you have an answer?

Hoping for our better future,

Me

putting my FOOT down!

Being an enthusiastic traveller, I was very excited to be travelling again. At the airport, I saw old ladies carrying small foldable stools in their bags. Why? I wondered. Why would anyone make their bags unnecessarily heavy? Do they want to be able to access the overhead bin themselves, or are the food counters really high? Why? Could not get an answer! I boarded the plane and settled in to begin my month-long vacation. After so many months of exhaustive work, I deserved it. The chair was comfortable enough, and I dozed off. After about half an hour, I found my feet dangling in the air, struggling for comfort and a place to sit on.  I woke up to realize that there is no footrest below the seat in front! The feeling of being trapped in an enclosed space with this discomfort for the next 15 hours, made me slightly claustrophobic.

Foot stools or Ottomans have been around since the Ottoman Empire. They were designed to provide a soft cushioned surface to rest the feet after a day of hardships. Over time, these evolved to take various forms from simplistic wooden rails to adjustable mechanical foot pads. However, despite a luxurious past, these footrests haven’t been able to find their way in the realm of prolific public use. While ergonomic scientists argue that footrests ensure proper blood circulation to the feet, why is it still considered a luxury? Why has it not found a place in the design language of mass-produced chairs installed in public spaces?

The memory of the simple rubber-padded top almost equal to the width of the seat, supported on a metal framework hinged on top to enable height adjustment, lingered in my mind. The foot pad is usually installed below the seat in the front and engraved with some pattern to provide appropriate friction between the feet and the pad. It seemed that the airline simply did not care for the comfort of its users and mechanics of this sedentary activity were too much to get into.

I struggled through the flight, with my handbag serving as the footrest. Exhausted, I made way to the train station to get to my brother’s house. Words cannot explain how liberating it was to see chairs with footrest in that Amtrak train. I almost felt like keeping one of those with me forever. It occurred to me why those ladies were carrying small portable stools in their bags. They suddenly seemed so much smarter now.

faith in the MAKING

Idols have always been an essential part of religious expression in Indian culture. Archaeologists have uncovered seals from the Indus Valley Civilization with images of Lord Shiva engraved on them. They have been a way to communicate with God, the 'supreme' being. Growing up in a similar religious setting, I have found myself instinctively joining hands at every sight of a God or Goddess, venerating silently and asking the divine to bless me; without giving much thought to what’s behind the image.

One fine Sunday morning, I was sitting with the newspaper in my balcony, when I noticed these people making idols in an open complex nearby. I wondered what the festival was, for which they were preparing these idols. Being an amateur photographer, my first instinct was to capture this process of ‘Faith in the making’. So I set out with my camera to put a frame to my imaginative expression. On close observation of the unfinished idols, I could not help but question the contrast between faith and fact. I realized that all the idols go through a set process of production (fact) to become the final product that 1 billion people look up to (faith). Faith, which in my opinion is an incomplete understanding of the ‘supreme’; a belief in the mind that restricts it to worship the image. How many people really think beyond it? Does anyone put their mind to the fact that it is essentially an object made of a framework of wood, layered with wet clay and hay and finished with paints? It is a standard process similar to the one used to make varying things from thatched roof which last for a long time to piggy banks which are very temporary.

The difference here is that an artisan put his day and night into it for months, because he believes he is serving the Lord. He put his art into each of the constituent elements:

• Head – beautiful face with the crown to elicit respect

• Arms – several arms holding various objects illustrating power

• Body – with perfect curves to illustrate feminism yet draped completely to display humility

• Feet – interacting with ground yet not so much so that people can come forward and touch them as a mark of respect.

It is astonishing that something so materialistic and ephemeral, which is brought to life by a simple artisan, defines the identity of so many people. And, no one seems to recognize that after all, it is just another mass-produced object.

phenomenon of experiential space

“Like the spider with its web, so every subject weaves relationship between itself and particular properties of objects; the many strands are then woven together and finally form the basis of the subject’s very existence.”                       -- Jakob von Uexkull

Man tends to weave relationships with his surroundings; he grasps vital relations to bring order into his world, adapting physiologically in the process. Human actions have a spatial aspect attached to them that are related to orientation and existence. Relationships like inside and outside, near and far away, above and below are spatial qualities that explain orientation. Man associates these with his daily activities such that space becomes part of his existence, building a mutually adaptive association with the human body. “Architectural space can be defined as a concretization of man’s existential space.” (Norberg-Schulz 1971). Man, from the beginning of time, has built space according to his needs; a space that was formed by what he wanted to see, hear, smell and touch. The environment became alive by his choice of objects, and thus he could relate his dwelling in the world with the space around him.

The existence and life of the environment is felt by the senses. Each aspect of the space influences the mind - the touch of the materials, the sound of the space, the smell of the air; all these work together to form an experience of space. “A real architectural experience is not simply a series of retinal images; a building is encountered – it is approached, confronted, encountered related to one’s body, moved about, utilized as a condition for things” (Pallasma 2006).

The experience starts from the approach to a place. The approach forms the path of preparation for the user to free the mind of all external noise and concentrate on the space and his existence. It is like visiting a church. It’s generally a straight path to the altar, however, the high ceiling of the naïve, the frescoes around and the stained glass windows constitute an atmosphere of contemplation; such that before a person reaches the altar, all his worldly worries have mellowed down and he is conscious of himself and his God to have a personal interaction with Him. The path may alter the experience in various ways.

                           

The path provides the opportunity for interaction between spaces. “…thoughts are communicated in the silence of phenomenal experiences.” (Holl 1993). Series of experiences form a path of exploration that draws the user into a world of discovery. Spaces flow into each other creating a fluid movement sequence of variable perspectives. “Perspectives of phenomenal flux, overlapping perspective space is the “pure space” of experiential ground.” (Holl 1993). 

Space Kinesthetics

The interaction of various spaces between one another forms an important aspect of space-making. “The visual perception at the human eye-level while moving through the space provides the only accurate reality of spatial experience.” (Pandya 2005). Objects placed above or below eye-level may be perceived differently, just like movement in horizontal space is very different from movement in the vertical direction. 

Experience based spaces are designed keeping the movement of human eye in mind and are thus rendered effective. Vistas unfold sequentially forming a process of concealment and revelation bringing in an element of exploration. This is enhanced by changing perspectives and shifting visual axes. Buffers may provide places of rest and contemplation. The whole architecture is thus experienced while moving through the space that is orchestrated by the perception of the senses. Space becomes alive and the individual has the "sense of presence". 


REFERENCES
Alberto Perez-Gomez, Juhani Pallasmaa, and Steven Holl. 2006. Questions of Perception-Phenomenology of Architecture. William Stout Publishers, San Francisco, USA .

Christian Norberg-Schulz. 1971. Existence space & architecture. Praeger Publishers, New York, USA.

Steven Holl. 1993. Steven Holl. Artemis Verlags AG, Zurich, Switzerland.

Yatin Pandya. 2005. Concepts of Space in Traditional Indian Architecture. Mapin Publishing Pvt. Ltd., Ahmedabad, India.