Changing The Landscape
Architecture Campus is the resort for rigor business work. Want something different and a little strange. A cloud to compute a cloud to de-mist.
A campus chasing the Asian fall, a spell that allows and redefines campus from a Bangalore was to, Bangalore CAN. Playful, ostentatious style enlivens a Four Season resort as a research space for computing. More than just adding greenery, connect the exotic, Indian sets, jungle-laden walk- ways festooned with statuary, vast “greens capes” filled with fountains, think temples and local stone works. Intelligent, Brand unique, the odder the better, the stranger the better, Campus of the 21st century Bangalore.
Apply think tank philosophy to a most unusual challenge-designing a campus. There is so much space in its acres and terrace. “Really get juices going.”
A blend of modern to a historic Bangalore verandah, garden influence that also permeates the Indigo Pearl or the crescents of the temple tree or the tree flames of a forest. Not only opted out for an industrial theme evoking Bangalore. Design lanterns provide a period lighting space. Out- door Tables are metal space, rivets a chic accent.
Not merely design the ground but also montage the architect. An Asia’s constant gardener. Go way beyond landscaping.
Gardens not too kitschy, over-the-top and predictable and often mesh with the environment,
green credit and more grow sophisticated. Gardens are Universidad-corporate-park-derivative for
the most part; fantasy tropical garden and lay out the first software capes of Asian acres.
Home for horticulture. Teeming with foliage, the grounds-which are just under an umbrella tree- resemble one of the workaholic resorts, complete with gates and lagoon, pool adorned with frog
figures. Probably 700 varieties of plants here.
“A key to success is that green can do everything, and that makes it easy for employee and the clients,”
Work breaks this material into calor schemes and textures, what we call the DNA of design.
Work Vacation space.
As an install scholar of Asian and tropical architecture. “Gardens are more burlesque and expan-
sive than anything that has come before,”
Such flair is understandable, We still sees nothing but upside in one of the world’s largest industries, Campus park. “It’s escapism, Creation” notes. “And there is really no limit on that.”
If I were asked under what sky the human mind has most fully developed some of its choicest gifts, has most deeply pondered on the greatest problems of life, and has found solu- tions, I should point to an India.” Max Mueller. Kishore is that complete Indian. An artist business di- viner. Kishore Patil as the mentor of many a strides, is a legend. An epitome of the fact that hones- ty, transparency and moral integrity are not at variance with business acumen. He set new stand- ards in corporate governance to participate the rise a of business to enviable heights. With the liberalization of Indian economy in 1990s, KPIT grew rapidly. The first ten years of the new century Kishore marked Pune on the map of making spectacular impacts. We know Kishore as having donned leadership decisions in immaculate conception as a Chief Executive Officer, Managing Director, Executive Director, Member of Investors Shareholders Grievance Committee, Member of Share Transfer Committee, Chairman of KPIT Info systems Limited UK, Chairman of KPIT Info systems Inc., Chair-man of KPIT Cummins Info systems Limited, Chairman of KPIT Systems LLC, Chairman of Panex Consulting Inc. and Chairman of KPIT Cummins Global Business Solutions Limited, KPIT Cum- mins Info systems Ltd Along with the growth of KPIT, Kishore has grown in stature. “To praise is an investment in happiness.” George M. Adams. Must I shy from heaps of praise that I can articulate to a man of such immense ability. An afternoon as we walked together in Zurich a few years ago I still recollect that his conversations only pitched the idea of leadership as an artist rather than a corporate. The need to participate in the evoluatory thinking of a team performance. His ideas were not strategic to a busi-ness but were inventory of being an artist. He said I quote “I have ob- served a number of works which actually lead one to assume that certain people’s eyes show them things differently from the way they really are, who perceive or as they would doubtless say ‘experience”” We built with him the Campus KPIT. His initiations and imagination were immaculate. He could see a city in a house and a business space in the vastness of green landscape. He chal- lenged every meet resolution to make me reinvent the idea to better form and order. I quote “Instead of trying to reproduce exactly what I see before me, I make more arbitrary use of the idea to ex-press myself more forcefully” Kishore. Associates in the meet failed some times to under- stand the command he parceled in his wink or humor. He was for ever in control of every delega- tion. Absolutely clear to mandate the sequences. “I must follow them for I am their leader.”
– Alexandre Ledru-Rollin
Moments we miss
A man sat at a metro station in Washington DC and started to play the violin; it was a cold Janu- ary morning. He played six Bach pieces for about 45 minutes. During that time, since it was rush hour, it was calculated that 1,100 people went through the station, most of them on their way to work. Three minutes went by, and a middle aged man noticed there was musician playing. He slowed his pace, and stopped for a few seconds, and then hurried up to meet his schedule. A mi- nute later, the violinist received his first dollar tip: a woman threw the money in the till and without stop-ping, and continued to walk. A few minutes later, someone leaned against the wall to listen to him, but the man looked at his watch and started to walk again. Clearly he was late for work. The one who paid the most attention was a 3 year old boy. His mother tagged him along, hurried, but the kid stopped to look at the violinist. Finally, the mother pushed hard, and the child contin- ued to walk, turning his head all the time. This action was repeated by several other children. All the parents, without exception, forced them to move on. In the 45 minutes the musician played, only 6 people stopped and stayed for a while. About 20 gave him money, but continued to walk their normal pace. He collected $32. When he finished playing and silence took over, no one no- ticed it. No one applauded, nor was there any recognition. No one knew this, but the violinist was Joshua Bell, one of the most talented musicians in the world. He had just played one of the most intricate pieces ever written, on a violin worth $3.5 million dollars. Two days before his playing in the subway, Joshua Bell sold out at a theater in Boston where the seats averaged $100. This is a real story. Joshua Bell playing incognito in the metro station was organized by the Washington Post as part of a social experiment about perception, taste, and priorities of people. The outlines were: in a common-place environment at an inappropriate hour: Do we perceive beauty? Do we stop to appreciate it? Do we recognize the talent in an unexpected context? One of the possible con- clusions from this experience could be: If we do not have a moment to stop and listen to one of the best musicians in the world playing the best music ever written, how many other things are we missing?
WOMEN IN ARCHITECTURE
No other profession can make the proverbial male measuring contest more visual and dramatic than architec-ture. Whether it is about being the tallest, most lavish, most modemist, most minimal- ist, most post-modernist, or most deconstructed, too many, but not all, of history’s celebrated ar- chitects come across like a bunch of juve-nile boys standing on a stream bank trying to project their urine further than the next. Even with noble ambi-tions, their narcissistic “fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love,” have often put them out of touch with the plight of their fellow human beings. I will offer a simple and very unoriginal solution to this problem; hire more female architects. As of 2005, nearly 80% of US architects were male. That dominance seems to be waning, as 90% of architects over 55 were male, while fewer than 70% under 35 were male.*2+ How-ever, the economic downturn might have slightly reversed that trend. At least that is the case in Britain where the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) found a 7% decrease of female representation in architecture firms between January 2009 and December 2011 (28% to 21%). This imbalance can be worrisome for many reasons, but I will focus on the possibility that it hinders the profession’s ability to be relevant to the general public’s needs. Studies from psycholo- gy and neuroscience find that women, on average, tend to be more empathetic, sympathetic and less prone to narcissistic traits than their male counter parts. They are less likely to get caught up in struggles over dominance and ego that lead to visions of grandiosity. For these reasons, Ste- ven Pinker in his book The Better Angels of Our Nature argues that the world would be a much more peaceful place if more women were in charge. Piggy backing on this idea, I argue that ar- chitecture would be far a more relevant and justifiable enterprise if there were more female archi- tects. Beyond making the profession more compassionate, a greater number of female architects would be a stalwart force against pernicious ideologies that dismiss com-mon concerns for the idealized tomorrow. Before you paint me as some self-hating male and fill my in-box with endless examples of celebrated compassionate and humble male architects, let me reassure you that! do not see gender differences as some kind of men are from Mars and women are from Venus cliché. No individual should be judged by her/his gender when being considered for a position. What matters is the skill set that a particular individual brings to the table, including empathetic and sympathetic skills. Traits possessed by the two sexes overlap considerably, so that many men are much more empathetic and sympathetic than many women. Hiring based on gender alone, with the desired goal of making your firm more in touch with humanity, is asinine. You might pass up a far more qualified individual just because he is male. In reality, I am not arguing directly for more female architects, but for the profession to place a higher value on empathetic and sympa- thetic skills. The resulting effect would naturally be a more gender-balanced profession. That is why the current lack of gender diversity in the architecture profession concerns me. Like other male dominated professions, architecture leaves itself susceptible to undesirable narcissistic traits that can creep in and take over the profession’s culture. Even if the base rates for empathy and sympathy were equal among women and men, it is hard to believe that firms are hiring the best of the best with the current gender ratio. The base rates aren’t the same so this gender biased profession is most likely ill equipped to understand and address people’s needs.
Conversation: Private-public architecture
8th August 2012
NG: We are hoping that this session is not a complaining session about the city but a rather pro- jective discussion that enables us with ideas as architects and urban planners. What we have on the table is some reading material that is collected for this discussion and if any one wants a copy please let Vivek or me know and we will send you one. We are here to talk about privatisation of the city and what this means to the role of the architect and the urban planner and this means in the city. The criticism against privatisation in the city is the loss of identity of the people in the city because as you privatise the city people do not feel ownership for the city, there is fragmentation and a growing amount of social inequality. This is seen not only in India but rather it is an urban phenomena created by the economic crises and the growth of the number of corporate enter- prises and the power that they wield. In a lot of contexts it can be described as an undemocratic or re-monarchisation of the city but by corporate entities. With that background we have two pri- mary areas of discussion, the privatisation of public programme in the city and the privatisation of public space in the city. To start with, we are going to talk about the mall. As architects and urban planners we have all been part of the design of a mall either directly or indirectly. We are going to compare the idea of the BDA complex versus the mall. The BDA complex is a state typology for community retail and community space, situated in the 1980s across neighbourhoods in Banga- lore. Today we see the complex as a redundant space, but it had value for what it aimed to do. It was meant for community generated small scale enterprises, unique to the neighbourhood, open to public, it acted as a community space. We are going to talk about it against the mall which is highly securitised, introverted space which simulates the idea of the public but is not public for many reasons. We start with Vivek. VS: First I would like to thank everyone for taking time out of their busy schedules. This book is a very dear project to Me: more than what you see on the walls in the office. It is a huge learning for me, collaborating with all of you with all your own experiences and ideas. For us as a practice, it is a new energy to chart out, new direc- tions, new techniques, new skill sets. Thank you very much. Naina: to get back to your question about the mall, as you are aware, we have worked on a mall and there were disappointments because there were a lot of parameters dictated though it start- ed out ambitiously and with radical ideas of new ways of using the mall in terms of programme, branding, structure and form. As we all know, they get diluted to a large extent once the client steps in with a budget. We faced the same constraints of budget and tried and tested typologies to be repeated again. There is a very strong research branch in each of these companies that dictate the win-win situation and the risky situation. They always look at the safest way to plan the floor plates of the mall. That was our experience we had.