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Sunday, March 04, 2007
Harvard GSD
I had my first ever experience of being on the other side of an interview on Friday (yes yes I know several of you are thinking...there he goes again bragging, but I think this one is worth documenting). I was asked to interview graduating students at Harvard's graduate School of Design and lure them to come from one suburb to an even smaller, less exciting one to work. I was nervous as hell, until i got there and (surprisingly enough) everyone including the staff and students were super nice. Of course I realized then, that I was in a way, in a position of power. Some of the students' work ranged from mediocre to boring...highly digitalized formal studies without any suggestion of spatial understanding or any response/sense of context. i dont know whether this was because of a lack of previous training in Architecture or was it something that schools are intentionally focusing on now. I guess I can't really tell from my own experience ta school because I always stayed away from studios that focused thier attention on the software more than the resultant architecture. One student however was distinctly articulate with very grounded and good work. She was Lebanese and had done her Thesis project in Beirut. What was most interesting about her work though was a project that she and a group of friends did outside of school for housing in Sri Lanka after the Tsunami. They won the competition and with the help of Engineering professors at MIT and eventual funding from Harvard they went to the site and prepared some of the drawings right there...and the houses are being built. What she called a core house was similar to our site and services schemes in Bombay.
Maybe I am being completely cynical, but over the few years that I have been here and interacted with American students in architecture, I feel that they are unable to understand (or even unwilling at times) the need for architecture to be grounded sometimes and for it to fit within its context without being loud.
This is probably my first post without images in a long time. I wish I had pics of the GSD though. I liked it better this time. Now who knew that the snotty boy sleeping during Swati madam's structures lecture would be interviewing candidates at Harvard some day eh? haha! ¶ 10:13 AM 3 Comments
Maybe I am being completely cynical, but over the few years that I have been here and interacted with American students in architecture, I feel that they are unable to understand (or even unwilling at times) the need for architecture to be grounded sometimes and for it to fit within its context without being loud.
This is probably my first post without images in a long time. I wish I had pics of the GSD though. I liked it better this time. Now who knew that the snotty boy sleeping during Swati madam's structures lecture would be interviewing candidates at Harvard some day eh? haha! ¶ 10:13 AM 3 Comments
Thursday, January 18, 2007
Thursday, December 21, 2006
Sunday, November 05, 2006
brasserie
no...its not about bras!.....diller+scofidio's brasserie at the base of mies's seagram building was the venue of my pre-birthday celebration! with sonu rach and hitin making it special....nice place and even better mojitos!!...however ..talking about the interior only covered the first 5% of conversation,,,which drifted into discussing the old DON...plans of celebrating new years in Mexico city (finegrs crossed).,,,,and planning the next venue of our bachanalian reverie!....Son Cubano in the meat packing district with its conversion from a beatifully (dimly) lit restaurant to a cuban music fest provided the finale for a fun night of dancing/consuming alcohol and people watching...thanks guys...its was fun! ¶ 9:31 PM 2 Comments
no...its not about bras!.....diller+scofidio's brasserie at the base of mies's seagram building was the venue of my pre-birthday celebration! with sonu rach and hitin making it special....nice place and even better mojitos!!...however ..talking about the interior only covered the first 5% of conversation,,,which drifted into discussing the old DON...plans of celebrating new years in Mexico city (finegrs crossed).,,,,and planning the next venue of our bachanalian reverie!....Son Cubano in the meat packing district with its conversion from a beatifully (dimly) lit restaurant to a cuban music fest provided the finale for a fun night of dancing/consuming alcohol and people watching...thanks guys...its was fun! ¶ 9:31 PM 2 Comments
Sunday, August 13, 2006
manchester by the sea / cambridge
it was a great outdoor weekend with rach sonu and me going to meet buvi in cambridge. .....saw mit and some crazy/interesting/disappointing starchitecture.....saarinen's mit chapel was way better than i had expected from the images and drawings...and gehry's stata center did not fail to disappoint......although there seemed to be possibilities in which such expression could be dealt in a more engaging way with the site and the campus the final effect was in fact...just origami.....looking more closely we felt that the external play didnt affect the space indoors anyway...and the detailing was nothing better than pathetic.......although i didnt click any images of charles's building right across.....felt that it was like the paper cube before gehry crumpled it....i think the internal space might be interesting from photos i have seen before...but from the outside both buildings seem to compete for nothing.............besides that (and it was fun anyway).....we went to the beeeach!!.....and it was great inspite of freezing cold water and no alcohol permitted....spent the day there and covered up by drinking lots that night.....and we didnt fail to continue the spirit of filmi photos....this one is to charlie's angels!
¶ 10:30 PM 8 Comments
it was a great outdoor weekend with rach sonu and me going to meet buvi in cambridge. .....saw mit and some crazy/interesting/disappointing starchitecture.....saarinen's mit chapel was way better than i had expected from the images and drawings...and gehry's stata center did not fail to disappoint......although there seemed to be possibilities in which such expression could be dealt in a more engaging way with the site and the campus the final effect was in fact...just origami.....looking more closely we felt that the external play didnt affect the space indoors anyway...and the detailing was nothing better than pathetic.......although i didnt click any images of charles's building right across.....felt that it was like the paper cube before gehry crumpled it....i think the internal space might be interesting from photos i have seen before...but from the outside both buildings seem to compete for nothing.............besides that (and it was fun anyway).....we went to the beeeach!!.....and it was great inspite of freezing cold water and no alcohol permitted....spent the day there and covered up by drinking lots that night.....and we didnt fail to continue the spirit of filmi photos....this one is to charlie's angels!
¶ 10:30 PM 8 Comments
Monday, May 22, 2006
Monday, March 06, 2006
