name is joy and I am an architect and an
interactive artist let me begin by sort
of laying down what we architects do
when we’re not working what sort of
people we are this is an image of my
friends who went to Belgium recently
then go to a wine shop then go to get
chocolate then go to eat cheese the
directly went to the latest building
that was built in Belgium by an
architect called hadith and this was the
first picture posted on Facebook from
their entire trip which essentially
means that we architects even in our
downtime find a way to surround
ourselves with architecture so anyway we
are architecting even when we are not
actively architect so what happens is
that we are surrounded by a group of
other kinds of designers as well so we
have architects artists musicians
product designers fashion designers so
on and so forth and so effectively what
happens is that we sort of stay in a
cocoon we stay secluded for example can
I have a show of hands how many
architects are here there is an
architecture department in this College
by the way probably none yes thought so
so in a bunch of around 300 people there
is no architect probably he or she or
all of them are busy architecting
somewhere now so the problem with such a
situation is that we are secluded so to
speak socially and we have honestly lost
touch with the larger mass so back in
2014 when I woke up one fine day and
open my newsfeed this is what I saw now
you all of you know the guy up in the
foreground of the picture the one in the
background is the architect they are
discussing the Facebook headquarters the
architect is Frank Gehry and this is
what he said I’m not sure I can read it
out but 98% buildings are horrible in
nature Architects Lee speaking and this
guy this one Pritzker which is the
equivalent of Oscar in architecture so
we can take his word for what it’s worth
this made me wonder because like I said
I am surrounded with people who are
creative at the same time I see finely
crafted leather shoes the tactile nature
of cashmere scarves beautifully designed
facades that is what we all discuss
about all day long and so this guy is
saying that 98% of buildings are bad
that that comes as a surprise to me so
what I did was I started collecting
pictures from places around India so
what I noticed was that he was indeed
actually they so for example this
flyover infrastructure this is crossing
over a balcony now it’s bad enough that
I cannot enjoy the view with my morning
cup of coffee now they have also
obstructed the balcony just that they
won’t let a man enjoy his cup of coffee
just doesn’t make sense
moving on public planning there is no
access to view to sky if you notice the
entire 180 degrees is is covered by
buildings there is not a single parcel
from where or to where you can see sky
this is supposedly an upmarket
residential colony in Delhi if you
notice the facades of the buildings they
are incoherent in nature and also very
haphazard and chaotic and finally the
informal sector will know the hazards of
informal sector there is the fire safety
there is no thumb rule followed anywhere
or any bylaw followed anywhere which
leads to other very practical issues so
if I have to ask myself why is this the
case why is 98% of what we build so bad
and quality now let’s assume a guy has
saved 20 to 30 lakhs by walking
throughout his life and he wants to
build his house what are his options if
he goes to someone like Frank Gehry
a renowned architect he would probably
charge two lakh rupees now two lakh
rupees just for the design of your house
out of 20 to 30 lakh
this doesn’t make any financial sense I
won’t go to Frank heavy if I had 20 to
30 lakh rupees next option find an
experienced architect from India he or
she might charge 75,000 bucks still
doesn’t make any sense to me
next option any young architect upcoming
architect from the reason probably
charge 25,000 probably I could hire him
or her what are my other options a fresh
architect who’s just graduated or about
to graduate will charge around fifteen
thousand rupees and the last option
which is the most availed one is the
local Mason or Raju mystery as we know
him his package of service includes
design for free why is that how is it
free now if I have to use the same
language of Frank Gehry and the lower
curve represents the amount of horrible
quality of your design because resume
history doesn’t really design it comes
for free it’s as simple as that resume
is this quality would be the least
whereas the renowned architects quality
will be the best which is again shown in
the magenta curve so the question is if
let’s say I can’t afford a young
architect for 25,000 rupees why am I not
going to him or her why am I going to
resume I see what is the problem why is
again 98 percent buildings bad now then
I plotted our income versus percentile
population of India now an average young
graduate or studied architecture earns
25000 per month which is around 3 lakh
per year plotted on the graph what I
notice is that he or she or lady belongs
to the top 2 percent of the entire
population now we all know money doesn’t
go from the lower portion to the upper
portion it essentially means just as you
pass adjust as you finish your course
right at that moment you started working
for only top 2% of the Indian population
god forbid you end up being Frank Gehry
probably this percentage will reduce the
point zero zero five percent
given the amount of fee you will demand
which essentially means 98% Indians
cannot afford architects it’s a
staggering amount 98% people cannot
afford architects how is that possible I
don’t know how Frank Gehry got right
with the percentage maybe it ran his
numbers or maybe it is a coincidence but
if I run the numbers in India 98 percent
people cannot afford architects now to
put this figure into perspective
by 2022 8.2 crore housing units or
residences have to be built if I
interpolate the same percentage out of
8.2 it close won’t be designed by
architects 8 crore informally
organically or designed by Roger mystery
will be houses built again staggering
number which leaves
so there are around 50,000 architects
registered in India which essentially
means each architect would be in charge
of 8 residences for you now any
architectural graduate or practice or
anyone who practices architecture will
tell you that just by himself or herself
8 residences is a daunting task now the
question is why is it difficult why is
an architectural accessible to all it’s
it’s because accessibility is inversely
proportional to the features or the cost
or the charge so now for example more
people travel in the cabs because Ola
and uber have made it more accessible
probably more people will switch to
using smartphones because geo reliance
has made it more accessible rather they
have made it free now fee in turn is
proportionate to the manner spent in the
project and the profit that is earned
from the project
but the little portion called profit is
in a way again throwback is
proportionate to the manner spent which
is to say if I’m spending one day on a
project probably I would warn five
thousand bucks for it if I’m spending a
whole week I would want seven into five
thousand bucks for it which essentially
ends up being your the fee charged is
essentially proportionate to the manners
involved of a project which means again
accessibility is inversely proportional
to manners now when I propose this to my
colleagues all my colleagues Tony lists
they say that the question you’re asking
is unanswerable the pursuit of reducing
manners given the way we work is
meaningless but I tell them you know
what nfo Sartre and Camus let’s let’s
figure out a solution for it and the
solution is already there we just need
to look outside borrow things from other
industries and connect them in the right
workflow now essentially what an
architect does is at at different system
equivalents the room size and
orientation may VD and along with that
different rooms are interconnected you
find the right interconnectivity and the
right set of sizes you get an essential
layout and then you convert that layout
into a stylistic embodiment be it an
example of modern architecture late
modern architecture when I feel oh I
could Excel whatever it is now this
change from the layout to a nice
stylistic 3d is taken care by something
called shape drama and algorithm called
shape grammar which is been used by the
gaming industry for a decade now this
particular game SimCity developers don’t
sit around and model all these buildings
these are generated through very basic
level rules similar to the game of con
where when you set local level rules and
the entire form emerges from those you
set simple rules and the form emerges
from that so now I’m going to talk about
this little research me and couple of my
friends Gaurav & pratik have undertaken
is and I’ll take you through the steps
and I
tell you the positives and the V and one
way in which we can address the problem
of reaching out to more people and
giving service to more people so you can
define your room in a very soft manner
not discreet using minimum maximum and
an optimum area
length width and also the aspect ratio
of the room so once you have a fuzzy
boundary you can stochastically select
the right size of the room depending on
the interconnection of the rooms and the
size of the plot available now let’s say
the user comes these are this is a
sample case rooms who want to tell what
the user comes and draws this
interconnections the wide gray fat line
is let’s say the stake is the user says
that rule number 1 will be connected to
north so on and so forth and these rooms
are to be connected and those rooms are
not to be connected so the first step
would be I’m briefly going through the
algorithm so to speak the steps of it
first step would be to take out the
Criss crosses the notes simplify the
graph next step would be to connect all
the outer rooms to the cardinal
directions to sort of ascertain which
rooms should face north which rooms face
should face south so on and so forth and
the last step is as far as the graph is
concern is triangulating the graph which
anyone who studied graph theory is the
necessary thing to do to planar eyes a
graph to then turn it into its
rectangular dual rectangular dual in our
case is the layout so after that we
divide the graph into x and y directions
which relates to the X dimension of that
particular room and the Y directions
dimension of that particular room now
this little portion was graph theory on
top of that if you add pert which is
again a very basic and straightforward
algorithm used by project managers it
can be used to ascertain the length of
the rooms so that the exact outer
boundary of your building won’t be exact
it will be a perfect rectangle or a
perfect square however you wish this is
an example of that so if you notice the
the magenta lines too
notifying the x-axis dimension and the
San Juans notifying the y-axis demand
since the moment you overlap them you
have the layout and if you correlate the
two graphs the lower graph is the
original connections made by the user
and the upper graph is the plan so you
can notice the adjacent C’s remain the
same but all of it is calculated based
on the room sizes already assigned from
a set preset now I have taken some
examples I’m added a courtyard and few
more rooms to sort of make the example
more complex these six examples of
layouts come from the same design
problem different orientation of cotija
different ways of considering
configuring my rooms I’m going to
explain the right topmost one how to
convert that into a stylistic embodiment
so for example we take that layout and
we turn it into feature is official ism
is where you have intricate Jolley work
now this is taken care by shape grammar
computationally speaking this is pretty
straightforward the argument is figure
out the surface on the first floor and
then populate that with circular
perforations modernism continuous
wherein you have a continuous glazing to
connect visually the interior to the
exterior country style development of
the same layout modernism split and
lastly an example of what Frank Gehry
says the horrible style of architecture
shape grammar wise be lazy pick out
every surface populate random windows on
it that’s about it no need to do
anything now the reason why I went
through the steps is because these steps
are fractal in nature so at every step
you have let’s say 100 different
possibilities and the moment you go to a
different possibilities by trickle-down
effect your eventual outcome will be
different so for these five steps for
any design problem within 15 minutes
you’ll be given at least one lakh
different options of different layouts
of different stylistic embodiments
and the advantage of this is because it
is computed now you can compare your
options which one works best in terms of
reducing cost which one works best in
terms of consuming the least amount of
energy and so or the counter-argument
would be another way of putting it would
be for let’s say Maude on an example of
modern architecture which are the five
options which have the least amount of
energy consumption or even across all
stylistic borders which are the top five
options which have let’s say the least
amount of cost involved so so to
summarize what I would like to say is
that we as designers architects we are
not agents of construction construction
is taken care by at this moment market
forces by our developers who are making
our constructing housings historically
it has been taken care by socialist
schemes by governments and at the same
time through philanthropic will work by
corporations or individual people what
we architects can do is get inspired by
what mr. Ford did in the mid nineteenth
century that is democratize the
production of vehicles and what Vicki
House has been doing lately that is they
have democratized the construction
process of houses so now you can upload
your design and get the 3d printed parts
and you can construct it now is the time
to reach out to the rest 98% to reach
out to the rest 98% we need to turn our
design process open-source because not
only is a socialistic disaster it also
doesn’t make any business sense doesn’t
make any business sense so if I spend
only fifteen minutes to get out to get 1
lakh different options for a design only
15 minutes compared to what usually
takes a week at least two a month
depending on the complexity of the
design the amount of fee that I’ll end
up charging will be far less so the
catchment area
of my clients or in other words the
people I can give designed to will
increase automatically so at the end I
go to borrow a line from Jack Kerouac
and say that all designers all across
the board need to sort of burn like
fabulous yellow roman candles and we
need to reach out do more because eight
point two close units are to be built
nation is to be built we need to
increase the percentage of people we
reach out to otherwise ninety eight
percent is not a flattering figure as
far as the horrible nature of architecture is concerned thank you