Throughout your architectural education, you are trainded to ‘be’ an architect. Nobody teaches you how to teach architecture.
The course is clearly structured to dissipate strong values, while the approach to do the same is allowed to be highly trans-disciplinary so as to explore and further develop techniques that are ‘critically and creatively’ advanced. Given the fast pace of the ever-evolving world we live in, it is imperative that the spaces we design have the quality to transform and adapt, thus lending themselves towards an innate quality of being living and evolutionary.
This book is put together, post an entire semester at the University and initial experience in the studio pedagogy; where the site studies and design brief interpretations were tracked. The larger purpose of this publication was to understand how each student interprets a given project brief. This volume documents how various solutions are proposed to solve a basic problem of an ‘under-utilized’ site; especially in a time where land is considered not only a limited but also a depleting resource. This site finds home in the heart of the city ‘The Craft Museum’, in New Delhi; run by The Ministry of Textile, Government of India. The ministry has a number of concerns, when it comes to this site, under the umbrella issue of contemporary relevance and the significance of cultural methods in which art is currently curated.
The studio brief asked the students to propose ideas to re-develop the complex; to create a place that responds to the rich context and enlivens the old campus too. The new additions are meant to be in terms of architectonics and program. This format encourages students to formulate an informed architectural stance.
As a personal stand this document is put together as a teaching diary, for my first semester. In a KOBAYASHI MARU SCENARIO: that sets out no-longer to test character or architectural caliber, but rather to record and evaluate original and critical thinking.
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