place together in a sense because they are from the neighbourhood. That choreography for me starts from home, because I know the shop that I am going to, I do not know the name of the shop but I know the name of the shop keeper.

RK: Choreography of an event is important depending on the scale of the mall. UB City is im- mensely successful, how much ever we may not like the place, or the way that we may define the quality of architecture. It is not because you want to be seen or because you need to have INR 3000 in your pocket before you enter. I know that a lot of people like to meet up in the court- yard. It might be for a cup of coffee for INR 85. You want to walk around and aspire to buy a Bur- berry. The scale of the shop is irrelevant. Architecture, the soffits and the frescoes around irrele- vant. What is beautiful is that something thought to build an amphitheater there. Someone thought that you could have a different enigma of a food space. Bring Bangalore into that envi- ronment. Let the rain and air come in. The mall we don’t care, the escalator and the joy of arrival we don’t care, but what is nice is the food court area. It is a super success. Similarly is the first mall that went off air conditioning – The Forum Value Mall. Initially it was designed to be a closed box. I thought that we could do without air conditioning for corridors, the place would not be sold for less despite the lack of air conditioning in the corridors. It is not going to become a BDA complex. That building was done in such a way that anybody could insert a bandage into it in whatever and screen into and no one had any control on it. The irrelevant things were controlled like park- ing, and some basic movement patterns and it was let alone. This is another method of dealing with it.

SN: I like what you are saying (Ravi). This whole kind of choreography of the space. It is almost like you set up some kind of rules, I do not know what the ideal set of rules or conditions are, but after let the space decide for itself what it should be used for. I don’t think you can say this should be used for this or that. UB city works in the same way. It has got the amphitheater, it has the strip of food court, it has some other aspects to it and afterwards it is used in its own way.

RK: That is what is fantastic in Commercial Street, BDA Complex.

SN: The point that it starts failing is when the designer begins to put a stamp on it. When the de- signer starts styling it too much. Then definition of use becomes strong and it enters the territory of the social conditions. Otherwise I think that there is a better chance of surviving in our context.

TN: That is a very interesting example. Here we are not talking about the mall of UB city but rather you are talking about the plaza of UB City. The plaza of UB City is designed as any kind of public space in historic cities, throughout the world. I disagree with you that UB City is a place for events. I have been there a couple of times and I have tried to sit in the amphitheater but a security guard always forbade me to sit. You have a beautiful amphitheater and I cannot even sit for five minutes looking at this amazing and beautiful building in front of me (ironic smile). That is a very sad situation. UB City is not designed for unexpected events, everything is super controlled. The terrace of the cafes are all the same, all are aligned. There is nothing exciting about this plaza. The only interesting thing is when you are here, the city appears to be calm. If you are here with children you can let them play. The third point, UB City is not accessible for everybody. Just the door, to enter, you have two guards and a large escalator. The scenography is intimidating and