Sunday 14 July 2013

I am in Gujarat with new energy....

this blog i am writing with immense sense of satisfaction. after my services were abruptly ended at particular institute in mumbai, i was forcefully put on introspection period. also meanwhile my services at other institutes were continuing i became more or less passive almost to minimal intervention when other teachers were horribly off mark. and during that period i was thankful of all other teachers who put up with my this hibernation period. i said to myself, i can always return to build buildings, the skills i learnt so meticulously in last 22 years of my experience (if you do not count 4 years of teaching). i always have advantage over other teachers, some of whom have never designed or built a single building in their lifetime and are desperately in need of one or other teaching jobs. and also they are the teachers who are always hiding behind syllabus and university rules and requirements of external vivas (which is again taken by teachers who have never built a building) for taking up new technology and methodology of designing buildings.    

so students, majority of whom have no idea whats going on, suffer endlessly boring classes, boring teachers who have no clear pedagogy, and also fear of victimizing & failing in internal markings if they do not follow irrational course of teaching handed out day in day out by so called self-styled "expert" teachers. i have developed strongest empathy with students. Also while practicing architecture & designing buildings there is so much comfort available to architects. non of these comforts are passed on to students. take for example designing buildings in single line in initial concept stage till it is approved by clients. this is fairly good practice also accepting by clients. in this method only external walls are drawn in double lines because they involve elevations and also window openings. but internal partition walls are drawn in single line facilitating faster re-drafting in case of any revisions, internal or on suggestions of client.    

my view is that students should find the architectural course very enjoyable. the student should look forward to come to architectural institute with a relaxed attitude and with eagerness to enjoy the process of putting up the building. if designing and constructing the building is a rational engineering process, don't you think then every step of above should look logical to students. instead the student is put through all the tortures of endless requirements to be fulfilled whether the student is able to grasp the basic design parameters or not. whether the student is happy or unhappy with the design solution s/he has come up with; s/he is required to submit all the drawings, models and perspective views. now somebody can argue should teachers wait endlessly for a student to put up a decent design. my argument has teacher deconstructed the whole process of design process and spilled techniques of design in class appropriately in proper way during design class. 
even though design is creative process it has same system of strategies and tactics employed say like in football game. so all coaches are ready with strategies & tactics employed world wide to counter the opposite team. similarly in my view it is predominantly design teachers role to spell out design strategies and tactics to negotiate every possible parameter as expected by client or any other requirement of site conditions or technology or time and cost of building.