the shortest distance between two points
is a straight line it may be quick and
easy but it’s also the most boring path
to take in our schools in our society
and our workplaces we have been
misinformed that there’s only one path
one correct answer to any given question
and I call this the single solution
syndrome I prefer to take a winding
scenic route just like Billy from the
Family Circus when his mom asks him to
go straight out the door instead he
travels all around the house jumping up
and down under and over all around
covering every square inch of the house
before he heads out when you take a
meandering serendipitous route like this
you get to stop along the way and
discover you get to question learn
evolve
in any creative endeavor there’s no
single solution to any problem as an
architect I approach different designs
using many different methods and there’s
no single way of doing every design is
like an experiment multiple ways can be
and we don’t even pretend to them of the
right answer because everything is trial
and error I’d like to share with you
today five very different approaches
that we’ve taken with the design process
in five different projects the first one
is begin with the question we asked what
is a mosque we were asked to design a
mosque or a small prayer space in the
parking garage of an old apartment
building which was already existing to
cater to elderly residents of the
building who couldn’t visit the mosque
during Ramadan to offer additional
prayers and we’ve faced three major
we identified that the mosque in its
purest form is just a ground plane and a
wall in front to show the direction we
were able to complete this project from
conception to realization within two
weeks what we wanted to design was a
very bare white minimalistic kind of
mosque with kind of soft textures and
soft surfaces we studied the kind of
geometry that was used in Islamic
architecture and we developed this frame
and then we started applying the
techniques from tailoring to
architecture so we used fabric to cover
this frame which is called a mihrab this
wall is called a menorah and we created
this kind of tufted surface somewhat
like a back of a sofa and in fact we
used sofa makers to stitch this in place
and there are so many interesting
details in the surface like the tough
the creases the pleats and you know so
many different details that make this
surface very interesting and make it
more complex than it already is
[Music]
you can see some of the details here the
cross-stitch which we used to connect
and this forms like an undulating
mathematical surface a very complex
geometry
as the light plays over the surface it
creates all these dips and all these
tucks they create all these light and
shadow kind of effects which are very
dramatic and at the same time it’s a
very minimalistic kind of design second
is learn from president we were
commissioned to design a small
commercial kitchen for a health food
delivery startup in Hyderabad since it’s
a very large workspace it reminded us of
factories so we looked at factory
architecture as inspiration
the typical factory vocabulary of the
roof is this kind of serrated sawtooth
kind of a roof which has strips of
windows on the top and generally these
strips are there because they face the
north and they bring in north light into
the center of the building and this is
used to light up large span spaces north
light is not only good for health but
it’s also very conducive to work and
productivity we reinterpreted the same
model and created a sloped roof for the
kitchen and we gave it a sort of twist
and at every step we gave it different
so we divided the roof structure into
different planes and each plane was
separated from the previous one and it
created a sort of sliver in between the
planes which would let the north light
in into the sloped roof so according to
vastu Shastra we’re supposed to be
lifting the south side so the south side
of the roof was supposed to be elevated
so we did this by just lifting this the
roof up and then we were able to carve
out this mezzanine level on top where we
situated the office space which would be
used for supervision of the workers
within working in the kitchen let ideas
evolve and mutate I read about the
divine inspiration of the NBA
I read that whenever a basketball er
kind of at his peak when he makes a shot
he thinks about all his training and
everything that he has undergone and
everything that he’s ever learned and
then in the last moment at the same time
he just forgets everything and then
makes the basket and this is how every
creative endeavor can be done so I’ve
been really intrigued by this material
ever since I learned about it it’s
called fiberglass and it’s primarily
used in architectural purposes such as
skylights and even in model making but I
used it for the design of laser-cut
wearables I was really inspired by this
building which is called the turning
torso so it seems to go trysting around
as it goes up as you can see in the plan
the plan is sort of very peculiar
interested at a Reece Thep and I’ve
adapted this into the design of a
wearable which has many layers of
fiberglass which are going on twisting
at different angles as they go the
structure of a bird’s wing inspired this
ring the wing ring
and tentacles of an octopus kind of took
shape in this tangled angle we created a
whole series of wearables in this
material thank you
adding light really adds another
dimension to this material so the way
that light travels to through this
material is that it has this fiber optic
quality to it so when you light one edge
of the material all the cut edges get
lit so it gives a very kind of surreal
feeling to it so we created this design
of this lamp and as you can see in the
in the layers so we layered the lamp the
pieces in such a way that they’re
staggered so the light is kind of
lighting up all the edges and you get
you get this kind of silhouette we were
commissioned to design a business center
in this space at Rajiv Gandhi
International Airport so we had to
replace this structure which is already
there and we designed something using
the same material this is what we
proposed in fiberglass and the profile
of the material profile of the roof is
such that it’s very streamlined so it
mimics the pathways of flights the kind
of routes that they take and the roof
design somewhat seems to at different
points it seems to take off and it seems
to land and light adds character to this
design and what we proposed was that the
entire business center would be a
transparent building which is not really
which is visually lightweight and not
really visible from a distance and then
you would only see the lines of light
and as you approach it make improbable
connections Sherlock Holmes said once
you eliminate the improbable whatever
remains no matter how sorry once you
eliminate the impossible whatever
remains no matter how improbable it is
that must be the truth and we had to do
a lot of improbable decisions in this
design so for
this we had to design a public art
installation for a street art festival
in Dubai and the challenge was that we
had to design an installation which we
wouldn’t build but it should be built by
visitors who would be visiting the
festival over a period of 10 days so how
do you get people who have never worked
with design before people who maybe of
all ages and different backgrounds how
do you they’re basically strangers so
how do you get them to connect together
and form an art installation and build
it over a period of 10 days that was one
challenge the second challenge was that
this the budget that was allotted to
this project was very very tight tight
by the bystanders but since I’m an
Indian I converted it to rupees and I
felt that it was very it was kind of
luxurious so I designed this piece it
was a flat piece with grooves in it and
you could interlock two pieces to one
another and it would become
3-dimensional so you would go along
interlocking all these different pieces
together and again there are no rules of
connection or of aggregation and anyone
could just pick up a piece and put it
together there’s no right or wrong way
of doing it so I did a few experiments
computationally I was able to kind of
populate these basic units and predict
how they would behave when they grew and
the entire project was done by within a
week I travelled from Dubai to Hyderabad
I sourced local raw material and cheap
local labour helped me to mass-produce
all these little pieces and then put
them together we packed them up and I
took them along with me on my flight
back to the bike and and I paid for 35
kgs of excess baggage but I still did
the job in half the budget so this is
our setup and it was very intuitive and
it was very self explanatory people just
had to come pick up the pieces and start
building so people of all ages and all
backgrounds came together and they built
this installation there were little boys
and big boys
all working together and they built this
installation incrementally over a period
of 10 days and nights it truly was a
crowd-sourced art installation this was
[Applause]
on earth what’s already within sometimes
with some projects all you need to do is
connect the dots Michelangelo said the
sculpture is already complete within the
block of marble all I need to do is
remove the superfluous material and kind
of set it free this project is just like
that so this is the Golconda fort as
seen from our site this is the four just
in the satellite image as seen from
above you can see the fourth wall and
this is our site smack dab in the middle
of golconda we were asked to design a
charity school which would cater to the
children from disadvantaged backgrounds
in the heart of coca-cola this is the
surrounding context so as you can see
all the buildings are very colorfully
painted there there’s a very dense kind
of environment so low-rise buildings of
high-density all courtyard houses which
are sharing walls with one another and
the lanes are quite narrow and very
steep because it’s on a hill and lots of
goats everywhere so this is the this is
the plan
there was a mosque already existing
there which was an old building and
there was a school which was housed in
like a big shed which wasn’t really
designed it was just just a big hall
with partitions and the the interesting
part was that the site was somewhat
divided into two parts vertically so
there was an upper level which was at a
fee at a height of 20 feet above the
lower level this is the site and as you
can see on the left side there is this
wall of rock which is kind of dividing
so this was the cliff that was dividing
the two sides and you can see the upper
and the lower level in this diagram here
so there’s two axis to this to the site
one from all from the road that is
winding around but it goes up the hill
so one from below and one from above
this is the view from above
you’ve got the playground this is what
used to be the playground on the left
side was the existing school and the
majestic Golconda fort in the background
which surrounds and envelops the entire
school on all sides so you’ve got even
on this side you’ve got Golconda fort in
the background and the school in the
foreground and the children here are
used to a very informal kind of
atmosphere they’re used to climbing
these rocks and mountains and they’re
used to learning outdoors and under
trees sometimes however their classroom
existing environment was dark dingy and
so we wanted to design something that
was much more interesting for them the
site itself dictated the kind of form
that the building would take so this is
the building that is there and you have
to access one from the ground floor and
one from the second floor and the
building kind of binds the two floors
together we picked colors from the
surrounding pallet of the context and we
applied them in a very controlled manner
throughout the school in pops of color
so the gate is yellow m and then we kept
the facade and all the walls of the
building deliberately blank in exposed
concrete one because exposed concrete
doesn’t require much of maintenance and
the other reason is that we wanted to
negate the very bright colors of all the
other buildings in this context this is
how it looks I mean this is how we
envisioned it pops of color throughout
and this school is something that what’s
really unique about this building is
that you would experience it from the
inside out
unlike other buildings this is the
central staircase which forms which
bright red and it forms the spine of the
building and it connects the ground
floor the first floor and the second
floor all in one line and the rock kind
of embraces is embraced by the school
and the school grows around it rather
than destroying the rock that it’s
naturally existing so the rock becomes a
living part of the school and because
this project was so difficult the site
was so difficult we had to do a lot of
design on site so all these sketches and
things happen on site and we had to do
the design while it was under
construction and we took some
inspiration from the courtyard concept
of the vernacular houses and we created
this triple height atrium the two of
them which would bring in the natural
light from the top of the building right
into the heart of the building and
that’s the central staircase again so
every part of the building is naturally
ventilated and there is no need for
artificial ventilation or cooling
anywhere and it’s really heartening to
see the students you
using the spaces in a very you know
innovative and kind of unpredictable
manner the reason why we have steps here
is because there was rock jutting out
from below so we covered it with steps
and created an informal seating in the
library and the students are attending
school now sometimes the goats are also
attending the perforated wall above it
brings in natural light and it brings in
cool air and keeps out the the heat from
the north and this is how it is right
now the the roof is under construction
so this is how it would look
the skylight would look after its
complete since how it was this is how
the students you know like to use it
they like to use the external spaces as
well
the old school house has undergone a
transformation and this is how it was
two years ago and this is it today so we
started this campaign online called make
progress possible so we wanted to
collect used books for the school
library but people started also making
monetary donations which went into
funding the school building and it’s for
a good cause in the words of Robert
Frost – two roads diverged in a wood and
I I took the one less traveled by and
that has made all the difference which
path would you take I hope you choose
the fun one
thank you [Applause]
is a straight line it may be quick and
easy but it’s also the most boring path
to take in our schools in our society
and our workplaces we have been
misinformed that there’s only one path
one correct answer to any given question
and I call this the single solution
syndrome I prefer to take a winding
scenic route just like Billy from the
Family Circus when his mom asks him to
go straight out the door instead he
travels all around the house jumping up
and down under and over all around
covering every square inch of the house
before he heads out when you take a
meandering serendipitous route like this
you get to stop along the way and
discover you get to question learn
evolve
in any creative endeavor there’s no
single solution to any problem as an
architect I approach different designs
using many different methods and there’s
no single way of doing every design is
like an experiment multiple ways can be
and we don’t even pretend to them of the
right answer because everything is trial
and error I’d like to share with you
today five very different approaches
that we’ve taken with the design process
in five different projects the first one
is begin with the question we asked what
is a mosque we were asked to design a
mosque or a small prayer space in the
parking garage of an old apartment
building which was already existing to
cater to elderly residents of the
building who couldn’t visit the mosque
during Ramadan to offer additional
prayers and we’ve faced three major
we identified that the mosque in its
purest form is just a ground plane and a
wall in front to show the direction we
were able to complete this project from
conception to realization within two
weeks what we wanted to design was a
very bare white minimalistic kind of
mosque with kind of soft textures and
soft surfaces we studied the kind of
geometry that was used in Islamic
architecture and we developed this frame
and then we started applying the
techniques from tailoring to
architecture so we used fabric to cover
this frame which is called a mihrab this
wall is called a menorah and we created
this kind of tufted surface somewhat
like a back of a sofa and in fact we
used sofa makers to stitch this in place
and there are so many interesting
details in the surface like the tough
the creases the pleats and you know so
many different details that make this
surface very interesting and make it
more complex than it already is
[Music]
you can see some of the details here the
cross-stitch which we used to connect
and this forms like an undulating
mathematical surface a very complex
geometry
as the light plays over the surface it
creates all these dips and all these
tucks they create all these light and
shadow kind of effects which are very
dramatic and at the same time it’s a
very minimalistic kind of design second
is learn from president we were
commissioned to design a small
commercial kitchen for a health food
delivery startup in Hyderabad since it’s
a very large workspace it reminded us of
factories so we looked at factory
architecture as inspiration
the typical factory vocabulary of the
roof is this kind of serrated sawtooth
kind of a roof which has strips of
windows on the top and generally these
strips are there because they face the
north and they bring in north light into
the center of the building and this is
used to light up large span spaces north
light is not only good for health but
it’s also very conducive to work and
productivity we reinterpreted the same
model and created a sloped roof for the
kitchen and we gave it a sort of twist
and at every step we gave it different
so we divided the roof structure into
different planes and each plane was
separated from the previous one and it
created a sort of sliver in between the
planes which would let the north light
in into the sloped roof so according to
vastu Shastra we’re supposed to be
lifting the south side so the south side
of the roof was supposed to be elevated
so we did this by just lifting this the
roof up and then we were able to carve
out this mezzanine level on top where we
situated the office space which would be
used for supervision of the workers
within working in the kitchen let ideas
evolve and mutate I read about the
divine inspiration of the NBA
I read that whenever a basketball er
kind of at his peak when he makes a shot
he thinks about all his training and
everything that he has undergone and
everything that he’s ever learned and
then in the last moment at the same time
he just forgets everything and then
makes the basket and this is how every
creative endeavor can be done so I’ve
been really intrigued by this material
ever since I learned about it it’s
called fiberglass and it’s primarily
used in architectural purposes such as
skylights and even in model making but I
used it for the design of laser-cut
wearables I was really inspired by this
building which is called the turning
torso so it seems to go trysting around
as it goes up as you can see in the plan
the plan is sort of very peculiar
interested at a Reece Thep and I’ve
adapted this into the design of a
wearable which has many layers of
fiberglass which are going on twisting
at different angles as they go the
structure of a bird’s wing inspired this
ring the wing ring
and tentacles of an octopus kind of took
shape in this tangled angle we created a
whole series of wearables in this
material thank you
adding light really adds another
dimension to this material so the way
that light travels to through this
material is that it has this fiber optic
quality to it so when you light one edge
of the material all the cut edges get
lit so it gives a very kind of surreal
feeling to it so we created this design
of this lamp and as you can see in the
in the layers so we layered the lamp the
pieces in such a way that they’re
staggered so the light is kind of
lighting up all the edges and you get
you get this kind of silhouette we were
commissioned to design a business center
in this space at Rajiv Gandhi
International Airport so we had to
replace this structure which is already
there and we designed something using
the same material this is what we
proposed in fiberglass and the profile
of the material profile of the roof is
such that it’s very streamlined so it
mimics the pathways of flights the kind
of routes that they take and the roof
design somewhat seems to at different
points it seems to take off and it seems
to land and light adds character to this
design and what we proposed was that the
entire business center would be a
transparent building which is not really
which is visually lightweight and not
really visible from a distance and then
you would only see the lines of light
and as you approach it make improbable
connections Sherlock Holmes said once
you eliminate the improbable whatever
remains no matter how sorry once you
eliminate the impossible whatever
remains no matter how improbable it is
that must be the truth and we had to do
a lot of improbable decisions in this
design so for
this we had to design a public art
installation for a street art festival
in Dubai and the challenge was that we
had to design an installation which we
wouldn’t build but it should be built by
visitors who would be visiting the
festival over a period of 10 days so how
do you get people who have never worked
with design before people who maybe of
all ages and different backgrounds how
do you they’re basically strangers so
how do you get them to connect together
and form an art installation and build
it over a period of 10 days that was one
challenge the second challenge was that
this the budget that was allotted to
this project was very very tight tight
by the bystanders but since I’m an
Indian I converted it to rupees and I
felt that it was very it was kind of
luxurious so I designed this piece it
was a flat piece with grooves in it and
you could interlock two pieces to one
another and it would become
3-dimensional so you would go along
interlocking all these different pieces
together and again there are no rules of
connection or of aggregation and anyone
could just pick up a piece and put it
together there’s no right or wrong way
of doing it so I did a few experiments
computationally I was able to kind of
populate these basic units and predict
how they would behave when they grew and
the entire project was done by within a
week I travelled from Dubai to Hyderabad
I sourced local raw material and cheap
local labour helped me to mass-produce
all these little pieces and then put
them together we packed them up and I
took them along with me on my flight
back to the bike and and I paid for 35
kgs of excess baggage but I still did
the job in half the budget so this is
our setup and it was very intuitive and
it was very self explanatory people just
had to come pick up the pieces and start
building so people of all ages and all
backgrounds came together and they built
this installation there were little boys
and big boys
all working together and they built this
installation incrementally over a period
of 10 days and nights it truly was a
crowd-sourced art installation this was
[Applause]
on earth what’s already within sometimes
with some projects all you need to do is
connect the dots Michelangelo said the
sculpture is already complete within the
block of marble all I need to do is
remove the superfluous material and kind
of set it free this project is just like
that so this is the Golconda fort as
seen from our site this is the four just
in the satellite image as seen from
above you can see the fourth wall and
this is our site smack dab in the middle
of golconda we were asked to design a
charity school which would cater to the
children from disadvantaged backgrounds
in the heart of coca-cola this is the
surrounding context so as you can see
all the buildings are very colorfully
painted there there’s a very dense kind
of environment so low-rise buildings of
high-density all courtyard houses which
are sharing walls with one another and
the lanes are quite narrow and very
steep because it’s on a hill and lots of
goats everywhere so this is the this is
the plan
there was a mosque already existing
there which was an old building and
there was a school which was housed in
like a big shed which wasn’t really
designed it was just just a big hall
with partitions and the the interesting
part was that the site was somewhat
divided into two parts vertically so
there was an upper level which was at a
fee at a height of 20 feet above the
lower level this is the site and as you
can see on the left side there is this
wall of rock which is kind of dividing
so this was the cliff that was dividing
the two sides and you can see the upper
and the lower level in this diagram here
so there’s two axis to this to the site
one from all from the road that is
winding around but it goes up the hill
so one from below and one from above
this is the view from above
you’ve got the playground this is what
used to be the playground on the left
side was the existing school and the
majestic Golconda fort in the background
which surrounds and envelops the entire
school on all sides so you’ve got even
on this side you’ve got Golconda fort in
the background and the school in the
foreground and the children here are
used to a very informal kind of
atmosphere they’re used to climbing
these rocks and mountains and they’re
used to learning outdoors and under
trees sometimes however their classroom
existing environment was dark dingy and
so we wanted to design something that
was much more interesting for them the
site itself dictated the kind of form
that the building would take so this is
the building that is there and you have
to access one from the ground floor and
one from the second floor and the
building kind of binds the two floors
together we picked colors from the
surrounding pallet of the context and we
applied them in a very controlled manner
throughout the school in pops of color
so the gate is yellow m and then we kept
the facade and all the walls of the
building deliberately blank in exposed
concrete one because exposed concrete
doesn’t require much of maintenance and
the other reason is that we wanted to
negate the very bright colors of all the
other buildings in this context this is
how it looks I mean this is how we
envisioned it pops of color throughout
and this school is something that what’s
really unique about this building is
that you would experience it from the
inside out
unlike other buildings this is the
central staircase which forms which
bright red and it forms the spine of the
building and it connects the ground
floor the first floor and the second
floor all in one line and the rock kind
of embraces is embraced by the school
and the school grows around it rather
than destroying the rock that it’s
naturally existing so the rock becomes a
living part of the school and because
this project was so difficult the site
was so difficult we had to do a lot of
design on site so all these sketches and
things happen on site and we had to do
the design while it was under
construction and we took some
inspiration from the courtyard concept
of the vernacular houses and we created
this triple height atrium the two of
them which would bring in the natural
light from the top of the building right
into the heart of the building and
that’s the central staircase again so
every part of the building is naturally
ventilated and there is no need for
artificial ventilation or cooling
anywhere and it’s really heartening to
see the students you
using the spaces in a very you know
innovative and kind of unpredictable
manner the reason why we have steps here
is because there was rock jutting out
from below so we covered it with steps
and created an informal seating in the
library and the students are attending
school now sometimes the goats are also
attending the perforated wall above it
brings in natural light and it brings in
cool air and keeps out the the heat from
the north and this is how it is right
now the the roof is under construction
so this is how it would look
the skylight would look after its
complete since how it was this is how
the students you know like to use it
they like to use the external spaces as
well
the old school house has undergone a
transformation and this is how it was
two years ago and this is it today so we
started this campaign online called make
progress possible so we wanted to
collect used books for the school
library but people started also making
monetary donations which went into
funding the school building and it’s for
a good cause in the words of Robert
Frost – two roads diverged in a wood and
I I took the one less traveled by and
that has made all the difference which
path would you take I hope you choose
the fun one
thank you [Applause]
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