ARCHITECTURAL WONDERS OF INDIA

Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus- The Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus, formerly known as Victoria Terminus Station, in Mumbai, is an outstanding example of Victorian Gothic Revival architecture in India, blended with themes deriving from Indian traditional architecture. The building, designed by the British architect F. W. Stevens, became the symbol of Bombay as the ‘Gothic City’ and the major international mercantile port of India. The terminal was built over 10 years, starting in 1878, according to a High Victorian Gothic design based on late medieval Italian models.  It is one of the first and is considered as one of the finest products of the use of industrial revolution technology merged with revival of the Gothic Revival style In India. The centrally domed office structure has a 330 feet long platform connected to a 1,200 feet long train shed, and its outline provides the skeleton plan for building .Its remarkable stone dome, turrets, pointed arches and eccentric ground plan are close to traditional Indian palace architecture. It is an outstanding example of the meeting of two cultures, as British architects worked with Indian craftsmen to include Indian architectural tradition and idioms thus forging a new style unique to Bombay.  The station stands as an example of 19th century railway architectural marvels for its advanced structural and technical solutions.

ARCHITECTURAL WONDERS OF INDIA

Ranakpur Jain Temple- Located in the village of Ranakpur near Sadri town in the Pali district of Rajasthan, Ranakpur Jain Temple is one of the seven wonders of India. The construction is well documented in a 1437 CE copper-plate record. It is a superb example of classic architecture which makes it a haven for architects all over the world. The temple is said to have been built by Seth Dharna Sah (a Jain businessman) with the aid of Rana Kumbha, who ruled Mewar.

The temple is beautifully constructed using light colored marble and noted for its distinctive domes, pillars, shikhara, turrets and cupolas. It rises majestically from the slope of a hill of the Aravali range. It has 24 pillared halls with 80 domes that are supported by 400 columns. Over 1444 marble pillars, carved in exquisite detail, support the temple. The pillars are all differently carved and no two pillars are the same. It is also said that it is impossible to count the pillars. Also all the statues face one or the other statue. There is one beautiful carving made out of a single marble rock where there 108 heads of snakes and numerous tails. One cannot find the end of the tails. The image faces all four cardinal directions. In the axis of the main entrance, on the western side, is the largest image. You would be amazed to see at a height of 45 feet engraved nymphs playing the flute in various dance postures. Another stunning act about these columns is that they change their colour from golden to pale blue after every hour during the day.

It is due to the intricacy of the structure that the temple took approximately 65 years to complete.

ARCHITECTURAL WONDERS OF INDIA

THANJAVUR TEMPLE is one of the best temples in South India, built by Chola emperor Raja Raja I (985-1013 AD). This is the chola dynasty's finest contribution to Dravidian art. The construction is unique : the vimanam, known as Dakshina Meru, soars high while the gopuram remains stunted. The 64.8 metre-tall, 14-tier and pyramid-shaped vimanam rises from a square base and is topped by a huge monolithic cupola weighing 81.3 tonnes.

The most interesting part of this temple is the shadow of the temple, which surprisingly never falls on the ground at noon. The Thanjavur Temple is one of the tallest temples in the world and is so designed that the viman does not cast a shadow at noon during any part of the year.

ARCHITECTURAL WONDERS OF INDIA

KAILASH TEMPLE - The construction of the Kailash Temple was started in the mid 8th century under the direction of King Krishna I (757-775) of the Rashtrakuta dynasty. This temple is world's largest monolithic structure carved from one piece of rock and the most extensive rock-cut projects ever undertaken.

The temple is considered as one of the most astonishing buildings in the history of architecture. This is one of the largest 34 excavations at Ellora, which took almost a century. Kailash Temple is dedicated to Lord Shiva. The idol measures 109 feet wide by 164 feet long. The unique part of the architecture is that instead of creating underground halls, this temple has been carved vertically down on the rock. The architecture of the temple can be divided into four sections: the temple itself, the entrance grate, Nandi shrine and the passages surrounding the courtyard.

ARCHITECTURAL WONDERS OF INDIA

It’s time we celebrate the unique architecture of India, reflecting its conflicting course of history. We’ll embark on this journey and explore more, starting with The Bara Imambara situated in Lucknow, UP. Built in 1784, the complex was built by the fourth nawab, Asaf-ud-Daula, as a part of the relief project for a major famine that took place in the same year. It provided employment to nearly 22,000 people at a time. The architecture reflects a blend of Mughal and Rajputana design structure.
The central hall of Bara Imambara is said to be the largest arched hall in the world, built without the support of pillars. The hall measures 50 meters long and goes upto a height of 15 meters. What makes the construction unique is the fact that the blocks have been put together with interlocking system of bricks without the use of girders and beams. The roof stands steady till date without any support.
For more intakes on the same, keep following this space.

Culture as the underlying theme in Mesoamerican architecture

Mesoamerica is a cultural region in North America which flourished from 10,000 BCE to 1697 AD. The Mesoamerican architecture is well known for its public, ceremonial and monumental structures. Their monumental structures are marked by the use of iconography. Their architecture was heavily influenced by culture and their beliefs in general. An interesting feature is that the cities were constructed to represent the division between the underworld and the human world. The underworld was assumed to be in the northern direction hence tombs and similar structures assumed to be connected to the underworld were found in the city’s northern half. The southern part consisted of residential complexes and similar public structures as it was assumed represent life, sustenance and rebirth.  Between the north and south would be a plaza and occasionally a ball court depicting the mythical axis mundi, which serves as a crossing between the two worlds. The architecture of the pyramids & temples was designed to achieve special lighting effects during the equinoxes. Furthering this kind of architectural style, the Mesoamericans aligned their structures like the pyramids to approx 15° east of north. This way the pyramids would face the sunset on August 13, which was the beginning date of the Maya Long Count calendar.

Mesoamerican ball court

Mayas architecture

Maya civilization, a Mesoamerican civilization, was known for its art, written language, architecture, and mathematical & astronomical systems of the pre-Columbian and colonial Americas.

Palenque, Mayan city ruins in Chiapas, Mexico

Palenque was a Maya city in southern Mexico that dates back from 226 BC to its fall in 1123 AD. Palenque contains some of the finest architecture that the Mayas produced. The Temple of Inscriptions at Palenque was built in the 7^th century as a funerary monument. Within Palenque, the Temple of the Inscriptions is located in an area known as the Temple of the Inscriptions’ Court and stands at a right angle to the Southeast of the Palace. Inscription tablets are found here with hieroglyphic text and structural panels on the piers of the building. A temple sits over an eight stepped pyramid. Piers, that surround the five entrances, bear both carved images and hieroglyphic texts.  Inside the temple, a stairway leads to the tomb of Pakal, ruler of Palenque in the 7^th century. Pakal initiated the construction during his lifetime although it was his son, K'inich Kan B'alam II, who completed the project after his father’s demise. The temple’s six piers are tagged A to F. Each pier has either text or artistic representation or both which was designed using stucco. The tomb itself was designed using cross vaulting and recessed buttresses. Amongst many of the archaeological finds at the tomb was the lid of Pakal’s sarcophagus. The image that covers the lid has provided insight to archaeologists and anthropologists into the Mayas culture.

Lid of Pakal’s sarcophagus at the temple of inscriptions

Toltec architecture

Toltec, another Mesoamerican culture, ca 800-1000 CE, is centred in and around the Tula valley region, southwest of the Mexican state of Hidalgo and northwest of Mexico City. Toltec was followed by the Aztec empire and the Aztecs used the planning of Tula for their urban centres.

Toltec warriors

At the Tula lies the pyramid of Quetzalcoatl or of the morning star. The worship of the feathered serpent god Quetzalcoatl originates from here and it was widespread from central Mexico to Central. This is a 5 tiered structure. At the top of pyramid construction are the carvings of Toltec warriors. The 4 warrior statues have each been carved out of four meter high basalt columns.

The ceremonial centre of the city made of limestone outcropping was designed to be defensible with steep banks on three sides. The architectural innovations around the main ceremonial area point towards societal changes. The main structures of the ceremonial centre include two pyramids, including atlas figures, two main ball courts and several large buildings, one with a series of columns which faced a large plaza. The large central plaza has space for 100,000 people. On three sides, there are long meeting halls with ceilings supported by columns all facing the plaza with over 1000 meters of benches, which have stone reliefs depicting warriors and others in procession.

The Mesoamerican architecture has been influenced by their culture and in the modern day these architectural relics of a bygone era inspire art, decor and applied arts. 

Bizarre buildings Part 1: Weird, Cool, Techy, Arty

Beauty of the bizarre in architecture tells us how laterally the human mind can think

The thing that makes architecture a true fine art is ‘weirdness’. Like painting or sculpture, a truly innovative building that wows us with its idiosyncratic design and construction makes us sit up and take note of what must have been going through the architect’s mind while she or he conceived of something so outlandishly beautiful. In fact, lateral thinking that goes into creating an elevation gives architecture its true charishma. It isn’t just about following the beaten track. Here is a list of some interesting and out of the world creations that are baffling in their design and execution. There are so many such buildings around the world, but when you add scale to the wierdness it becomes something truly extraordinary. The buildings are in not particular order, so pick what you think is the weirdest. 

In the next part of this series, watch out for some skull-cracking concepts. Watch this space next week.

Device to Root Out Evil

This work by American artist Dennis Oppenheim has had a history of controversy. With it’s steeple buried in the ground, it makes a clear remark regarding religion. First exhibited at the 1997 Venice Biennale, it was later moved to Harbour Green Park in Vancouver, Canada in 2005. Not surprisingly, the city parks committee voted to remove the sculpture, and at the time of this post it was installed at the Glenbow Museum in Calgary, Canada. In September of 2004, John L Hennessy, President of Stanford University, made the unprecedented decision to reject Device to Root Out Evil, a sculpture that had been commissioned by the President’s Panel on Art by the American sculptor Dennis Oppenheim.  Hennessy feared a potential controversy because the sculpture is an inverted church.  In a statement, Hennessy said the piece was “not appropriate” for the campus. The artist maintains that his interest is in exploring the dialogue between architecture and sculpture.  Device to Root Out Evil “withdraws functionality from architecture.” To those reading religion into the work, he answers that “Turning the church upside down makes it more aggressive, but not blasphemous.

Forest Spiral

The Hundertwasser house ‘Waldspirale’ (Forest Spiral) was built in Darmstadt between 1998 and 2000. Friedensreich Hundertwasser, the famous Austrian architect and painter, is widely renowned for his revolutionary, colourful architectural designs which incorporate irregular, organic forms, eg onion-shaped domes. The structure with 105 apartments wraps around a landscaped courtyard with a running stream. Up in the turret at the southeast corner, there is a restaurant, including a cocktail bar.

The Longaberger Basket Building

The Longaberger Basket Company building in Newark, Ohio might just be a strangest office building in the world. The 180,000-square-foot building, a replica of the company’s famous market basket, cost $30 million and took two years to complete. Many experts tried to persuade Dave Longaberger to alter his plans, but he wanted an exact replica of the real thing.

Cubic Houses, Rotterdam

The original idea of these cubic houses came about in the 1970s. Piet Blom has developed a couple of these cubic houses that were built in Helmond.The city of Rotterdam asked him to design housing on top of a pedestrian bridge and he decided to use the cubic houses idea. The concept behind these houses is that he tries to create a forest by each cube representing an abstract tree; therefore the whole village becomes a forest.

House Attack

Erwin Wurm (born 1954) is an Austrian artist born in Bruck an der Mur / Styria. This bizarre structure is another one of his architectural expressions that is steeped in humour. 

Solar Furnace 

A solar furnace is a structure that uses concentrated solar power to produce high temperatures, usually for industry. Parabolic mirrors or heliostats concentrate light (Insolation) onto a focal point. The temperature at the focal point may reach 3,500 °C (6,330 °F), and this heat can be used to generate electricity, melt steel, make hydrogen fuel or nanomaterials. The largest solar furnace is at Odeillo in the Pyrénées-Orientales in France, opened in 1970. It employs an array of plane mirrors to gather sunlight, reflecting it onto a larger curved mirror.

Nord L B Building

This building in Hanover, Germany, occupies an entire city block and serves as an important linking element between the various activities which define the neighbouring quarters of the city: retail, commercial, residential, cultural, sport and leisure. Through varying heights a building emerges which gently integrates itself in the existing fabric of the city. 

Hole House

Officially known as the ‘Inversion’ project it was the work of two Houston sculptors Dan Havel and Dean Ruck who were offered the building to work with for a short period of time prior to its demolition to make way for a new Art League Houston building.  Havel and Ruck created a large funnel-like vortex beginning from the west wall adjacent to Montrose Blvd. The exterior skin of the houses was peeled off and used to create the narrowing spiral as it progressed eastward through the small central hallway connecting the two buildings and exiting through a small hole into an adjacent courtyard.

Paucescu House: HQ, Association of Architects

The building is the headquarters of the association of architects from Romania. The old building was called ‘Paucescu House’ (built in the second half of the nineteenth century) and in 1914, with the last arrangements at the Royal Foundation (1914), part of Paucescu house was demolished. Thereby, the building area was reduced considerably, but even in the new form, it remained a remarkable one. During the communist regime, the Paucescu house sheltered the Directorate of State Security. After 2000, the Union of Architects came into possession of the building. Everyone expected the palace Paucescu to regain its brilliance by restoring original style. What happened then is a different story. There was the question of the total demolition of the old building. Instead, the solution was not a restoration, a reconstruction, nore a preservation but simply keeping a piece of the old building and incorporate it into a new approach.

The Chapel of the Holy Cross

The Chapel of the Holy Cross is a Roman Catholic chapel built into the mesas of Sedona, Arizona, which was inspired and commissioned by sculptor Marguerite Brunswig Staude. Richard Hein was chosen as project architect, and the design was executed by architect August K. Strotz, both from the firm of Anshen & Allen. The chapel is built on Coconino National Forest land; the late Senator Barry Goldwater assisted Staude in obtaining a special-use permit. The construction supervisor was Fred Courkos, who built the chapel in 18 months at a cost of US$300,000. The chapel was completed in 1956.

Stone House

This amazing building Stone House was built in Fafe mountains in Portugal. Two stones connected together have made a strange but beautiful-looking house.

Errante Guest House

There is not much info about this bizarre Errante Guest House built in Chile but it looks absolutely amazing and unusual.

Aragon Pavilion

The Aragon Pavilion has been designed by Olano y Mendo Arquitectos, from Zaragoza. It covers an area of 2,500 m2 and is 25 metres high. The pavilion is spread over a basement floor, ground floor or enclosure, first floor, second floor and terrace. Aragon Pavilion’s interior exhibition space is (without the square/enclosure) is 2,774 m2 (+135 m2 in the cavities of the columns). The pavilion takes the form of a typical Aragonese wicker basket achieved by intertwined panels of glass and micro-concrete with white glass fibre, providing the interior with a large quantity of natural light.

The Eden Project

The Eden Project is a visitor attraction in Cornwall in the United Kingdom. Inside the artificial biomes are plants that are collected from all around the world. The project is located in a reclaimed Kaolinite pit, located 1.25 mi (2 kilometres) from the town of St Blazey and 5 kilometres (3 mi) from the larger town of St Austell, Cornwall. The complex is dominated by two huge enclosures consisting of adjoining domes that house thousands of plant species, and each enclosure emulates a natural biome. The domes consist of hundreds of hexagonal and pentagonal, inflated, plastic cells supported by steel frames. The first dome emulates a tropical environment, and the second a Mediterranean environment.

La Pedrera 

This undulating beast is another madcap Gaudí masterpiece, built in 1905-10 as a combined apartment and office block. Formally called Casa Milà, after the businessman who commissioned it, it is better known as La Pedrera (the Quarry) because of its uneven grey stone facade, which ripples around the corner of Carrer de Provença.

Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Nice

A monumental and beautiful building in Nice, France, which holds a host of famous works of both French and international modern artists. The design of this building is considered legendary because it appears so appropriate for what it houses.

Watts that but a triumph of the human spirit!

Sam Rodia built the Watts Tower in LA single-handedly. So, what's the big deal? For starters, the tallest tower is 30 metres high and he made it with basic tools without any machinery. It took him 34 years to finish his dream project

The Watts Towers

Sam Rodia at work on the towers

We hear about the hard life of the artist, the most common being the life of Van Gogh who suffered many tragedies while on his way to changing how art was perceived by the world.

Improvisation with tiles, ceramics on the structure

A Van Gogh-like figure in the world of architecture is Simon Rodia, or as he is popularly known, Sam Rodia. He is special because he had very little formal education and, certainly, none in architecture. By day he was a construction worker and in the evening he worked on creating the now famous Watts Towers, an American heritage site.

The funny thing is, despite the enormity of his creation very few people have actually heard of him. The fact that the Beatles used a photo of him on the cover of their classic album Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, did not push him into the popular consciousness and he continues to be a figurehead in non-mainstream architecture-art.

The entrance to the towers

Rodia was born in Serino on February 12, 1879, in Italy and, like many Italians of the time, he emigrated to the United States when he was 15. He lived in Pennsylvania until his brother died in a mining incident and then he moved to Seattle, Washington, where he married Lucia Ucci in 1902. They soon moved to Oakland, where Rodia’s three children were born. Following his divorce in 1912, he moved to Long Beach and worked at odd jobs before finally settling in Watts in 1920. And in 1921 he started building the Watts Towers all by himself! This masterpiece would be completed only in 1954.

He toiled for over 34 years on creating what seemed to many to be the obsession of a mad man. He was at the receiving end of vandalism by his neighbours who did not understand the passion with which this many went about his work. After finishing his day job, he would collect whatever scrap or discarded materials from the site he worked at and used it on the Watts towers. The ingenuity and resourcefulness that he displayed while creating these amazing expressions of architecture is seen to be believed. Right from broken tiles to bottles to anything that could be used as ‘bricks’ went into the towers.

Note the use of soft drink bottles

In 1921, Rodia purchased the triangular-shaped lot at 1761-1765 107th Street in Los Angeles and began to construct his masterpiece, which he called ‘Nuestro Pueblo’ (meaning ‘Our Town’). For 34 years, he worked single-handedly to build his towers without benefit of machine equipment, scaffolding, bolts, rivets, welds or drawing board designs. Besides his own ingenuity, he used simple tools, pipe fitter pliers and a window-washer’s belt and buckle.

Construction worker by day and artist by night, Rodia adorned his towers with a diverse mosaic of broken glass, sea shells, generic pottery and tile, a rare piece of 19th-century, hand painted Canton ware and many pieces of 20th-century American ceramics. Rodia once said, “I had it in mind to do something big and I did it.”

The tallest of his towers stands 99½ feet and contains the longest slender reinforced concrete column in the world. The monument also features a gazebo with a circular bench, three bird baths, a center column and a spire reaching a height of 38 feet. Rodia’s ‘ship of Marco Polo’ has a spire of 28 feet, and the 140-foot long ‘south wall’ is decorated extensively with tiles, sea shells, pottery, glass and hand-drawn designs.

After finishing the towers in 1954, he retired to Martinez when he was 75. A few years after the Department of Building and Safety ordered that the towers be demolished. A group of concerned citizens, calling themselves ‘The Committee for Simon Rodia’s Towers in Watts’, fought successfully to save the Towers by collecting signatures and money and devising an engineering test in 1959 that proved the Towers’ strength and safety.

In 1978, the Towers were deeded to the State, which undertook extensive restoration of the three main towers. In 1985, continuing restoration responsibilities were given to the City of Los Angeles Cultural Affairs Department and currently both the Towers and the Watts Towers Arts Center are under the operation of the Cultural Affairs Department. While the Towers fall into no strict art category, international authorities and the general public alike have lauded them as a unique monument to the human spirit and the persistence of a singular vision.

Today, the Watts Towers have become a cultural melting point. Each year, thousands of people are attracted to the Towers’ site for the Simon Rodia Watts Towers Jazz Festival and the Watts Towers Day of the Drum Festival.

The beauty of the Watts Towers is that it has no real ‘use’ besides just standing tall in its multi-hued, multi-textured near primal beauty. Which is why, it would not be wrong to call the Towers a marvel of architectural-art. It is almost impossible to believe that one person could not only design but also build a 30-metre high tower. 

QUICK FACTS

Detail of a column

a. It took Sam Rodia 34 years to build the Watts Towers. He did it single-handedly without machines

b. The Watts Towers installation consists of 17 major sculptures.

c. They are constructed of structural steel, covered with mortar, adorned with a diverse mosaic of broken glass, sea shells, generic pottery and tile, a rare piece of 19th-century, hand painted Canton ware and many pieces of 20th-century American ceramics

d. It was built without machine equipment, scaffolding, bolts, rivets, welds or drawing board designs. Sam used simple tools, pipe fitter pliers and a window-washer’s belt and buckle

e. The tallest tower is 30 metres high. The other towers are 29.5 metres and the next one is 16.76 meters high. 

• More stuff of the Watts Towers from the official website

Architecture can save the world

A graphic designer’s perspective of how Architecture sparks his creativity

I don’t know if this is a coincidence of any sort, but a majority of my clients are architectural firms, colleges and in some way connected to Architecture. Every now and then I’m given projects which involve complementing the architecture or the interior design of a restaurant, college, school or even a library. And every time I sit down in front of my Macbook, staring at Photoshop on the screen, I can’t help but wonder how much influence Architecture as a creative field has on my work.

Even while in college, most of my friends were studying Architecture while I was studying Visual Communication. Though my friends from my own department were always a source of ideas or inspiration, I’d often find myself sitting with my Architecture department friends, sipping on endless coffees and working on their laptops in the cafeteria, brainstorming a million ideas on how to go about designing an eco-friendly hotel, or things of that sort. While I would be working on a project to design a film poster, they would be discussing the design of a film theater! It’s out of these sweet coincidences that most of my ideas are born and serve as an inspiration for most of my designs.

More often than not, you would find me browsing Tumblr searching for architecture references. Be it cutting-edge, modern architecture, or ancient Egyptian architecture, I borrow elements of different architectural wonders and incorporate them as design elements. One of my biggest inspirations has been the Japanese architect Kenzo Tange, who for years has been the pioneering symbol of modern Japanese Architecture. He combined traditional Japanese styles with modernism, and created minimally magnificent buildings such as the Yoyogi National Gymnasium in Tokyo.

Or even buildings like the Guangzhou Opera House by Zaha Hadid are other brilliant examples of post-modern minimal architecture. The streamlined accents, the subtle triangular exterior patterns, the touch of accented glass, all come together so brilliantly, that one cannot help but to be inspired. Just 5 minutes spent looking at these structures would form a surreal image in my mind, and my brain translates it into smooth vectors, and voila! I have the perfect design ready.

I guess the whole idea behind me wanting to pursue graphic design was embedded deep into my mind the time I visited the IIM Ahmedabad campus. I had obviously seen other landmark historical monuments around the country like the Taj Mahal, Qutub Minar, Amer Fort and the Madurai Meenakshi Temple, but one look at this campus changed my whole perception about Architecture and Design. Designed by Loius Kahn, this 60-acre campus was the perfect setting for a college campus, at the same time being an architectural beauty. The structure struck an immediate chord with my mind, impressing me with its blend of modernity and tradition. It captured the quintessential spirit of contemporary India, and I actually felt myself creatively stimulated and also a little jealous of the brilliant young minds who fought it out to come and study there. I always thought of myself as a creative person, but I didn’t have it in me to become an Architect as that would’ve involved being very good at science and mathematics. As I sat on the footsteps of that austere but majestic structure, I began to think that if I wanted to do something I love, it would have to be related to Architecture and Design in some way. And hence, at that particular instance, I decided that I want to be a graphic designer.

From that day on, I did whatever I could in my power to construct and execute my dream. My weekdays were spent in college doodling buildings and design elements on any piece of paper I could find, and my weekends were spent browsing interior design inspirations, typography or just random buildings. The rest of the time I spent working on various softwares, experimenting with different stuff and creating my own minimal design style.

So in a way, Architecture has been a major building block, the foundation of my personality, creative process and has made me what I am today. Architecture and Design go hand in hand; neither is complete without the other. And I thank the heavens for this beautiful relationship. Architecture literally ‘built’ a part of my future, and I’m sure it will do the same for you. Till then and even after that, stay inspired!

Educating minds, winning hearts : The Floating Schools of Lagos,Nigeria

Every now and then comes along a project so endearing, so radically amazing that we are moved to sit up and take notice, and believe that there is still a certain bunch of people out there that are really doing some good work.

This particular project is one such example.

 We are talking about the Makoko Floating School project that is underway in the water community of Makoko of Lagos Nigeria. For the community, life on the water is nothing new. The region is prone to the occasional floods, and the residents have dealt with encroaching waters for generations by building make-shift houses, using canoes as their only form of transport.

So, NLẺ, an architectural agency, envisioned an achievable dream which would provide the residents with facilities, bringing an end to their problems. And what a better way to start it off than building a floating school! The project seeks to create floating buildings which would serve as classrooms for the children in the neighborhood.

They built a three-story architectural structure in the form of a triangular prism, which would float on water with a base made of 256 plastic drums. The floating construct is built with locally sourced wood, electrically powered with solar panels, and designed to house about 100 students.

This first generation of structures will be used to serve as schools and educational centers, but the plan does not stop here. Many more such essential facilities which would help the community gain access to better sanitation, fresh water and waste disposal will be carried out.

Furthermore, the project is designed in such a way that it is eco-friendly as well as cost-effective. Each building is also built to accommodate varying climatic conditions and weather changes.

7 Reasons why you should study Architecture in North East India:

North-East India is an ideal place for any young mind to receive education and life lessons at. Here's why:

•  It is a region of ethereal beauty, thanks to its geological and ecological diversity

• The perfect climate to bask in, to absorb the sights and sounds, be inspired and get your creative juices flowing

• North-Eastern architecture is heavily influenced by many cultures, especially Buddhism, seen in monasteries and temples. A single field visit to these architectural wonders is sure to evoke the creative architect in you

• The North-East boasts of some of the best artists and creative minds of the country. Be it in music, theatre, crafts, painting or any other creative medium, North-East Indians are highly creative, and being in such an environment will be highly beneficial for someone learning a creative science like Architecture

• Each state in the North-East has its own culture consisting of incredibly diverse set of rituals, cuisines, festivals, dances, etc . Soak in the rich heritage of each culture and see yourself growing as a person, everyday

• Because Architecture as a field of study is relatively new in the North-East, you will have the best faculty of the country to teach and nurture you with undivided attention

• Above all, your life in the North-East will be something you will treasure for the rest of your life, as you will gain experiences like never before and meet some of the friendliest people in the world

ARCHITECTURE : THE SELF LEARNING METHODOLOGY

Students, parents, followers of architecture......

I am Avinash Chirania, or you can say ARCHITECT Avinash Chirania as I am known to some people these days. As I write this designation before my name with pride, I recall the day when I was just  ‘Avinash’, an average high school pass out with the aspiration of being an Engineer or a Doctor as most of  my fellow age students used to think during that  phase of life.

Now as an architect heading a design team at 4LINE ARCHITECTS and also working as an Associate Architect for number of reputed architecture firms in the town, gathering knowledge from all the learned persons be it our Teachers at GCA, the Senior Architects, friends and fellow mates who so ever came my way in this extraordinary journey of 5 years of architecture and thereafter, I take the opportunity to thank the person who introduced me to the field of architecture.

I would here mention that in architecture, knowledge flows everywhere, every person you meet in your way, everything that happens in your surroundings, and everything that is right and also everything that goes wrong has something or the other to teach you. It is solely upto the student to cultivate the power of observation and grab the knowledge which is flowing.

I AM STILL LEARNING...........

Observe people, observe activities, observe the discussions and debates, listen to your

teachers, if a person talks to you about 10 things, you can consider 9 things would appear irrelevant to you but the one good thing you will pick will help you throughout your career.

THIS IS TIME TESTED I DID AND I STILL DO………...

No books, no person, no college, no studies, no supernatural power can make you a good architect they can only show you the right path to follow. It is you who will make yourself. Your problems, your observation, your own way of thinking, your way of dealing with people, and your approach towards life brings you success. The sooner you know yourself  the nearer you get to success...

I TRY TO BE POSITIVE ........WISH YOU THE SAME...

Avinash Chirania

Principal Architect at 4LINE ARCHITECTS

and always a student of architecture................................

Guwahati College of Architecture (2006 - 2011)