Gallectic house- Future of Space Habitation #Architecture

Please visit my web page "Urban Tenets" at https://urbantenets.nl/

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Gallectic house. #digitalart #modernart #contemporaryart #gallery #futureofart #art #architecture #design #productdesign #house #futureofarchitecture #painting #digitalpainting #vernaculararchitecture #galexy #space #spacehouse

A photo posted by Urbanoregional (@urbanoregional) on May 13, 2016 at 10:35pm PDT

A den of your own in a public realm!

Soon you will be carrying your very own personal space in your pocket or purse!

Yeh true we all like crowd, faceless crowd rather, even the cloistered ones ocassionaly dream of getting lost in the sea of masses. Social animal they call us though everyone's  "social" is different. In a crowd called social some prefer dialogue, some monologue, some play observant and some like to withdraw in a safe corner.  But for sure everyone's life revolves around this thing "social" and everyone craves for this thing called "personal" (space) at the same time!

Like duality is a natural phenomenon observed in nature, "bittersweet taste for example", this perpetual  duality also transposes and gets reflected in human psyche,  "should I? Shouldn't I?" Hence as social is natural to our instinct, so is the craving for personal.

While we are busy planning our cities and communities we often tend to forget about individual needs and craving for secure personal spaces. A space of their own in a public realm- A need which was never talked about, never asked, never fulfilled and not intended to be given any time soon by urban planners and designers.  If you think you have been considerate enough on this issue as a planner, an urban designer or a landscape architect can you think of when did you last design a chair for a park or street instead of bench? Or for that matter when did you even last see a chair instead of bench in any public space? Why do one has to share a sitting space or bench with some stranger in a park or street, charming or otherwise. A solitary chairs in public space is a rare sight if so exists.

Its unfortunate that a solitary person in public realm usually has threat perception attached to it though this very crowd is made up of multiple individuals, seeking their own private space and identity.

So till the time virtual-reality  and holographic spaces takes over the public plaza and streets and parks to cater to personal spaces, we can have an intermediate solution today-Something like  a "space foam" or "3d reinforced fiber mesh" or a "statically charged reinforced siderweb polymer" or "anything which is light, structurally stable and yes biodegradable with self ufolding,  collapsing, binding or with "Spray ability", any one of these in a pressurised Can, something like Shaving Gel Can or Pepper Spray container.

Imaging you 3d spraying (not 3d printing) your own space, like a Cocoon, a temporary human scale shelter when u feel like running away from the crowd, and all from a disposable refillable container you can carry in your pocket or purse.

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Public spaces: transiting from interactive to addictive spaces

They talk about interactive public spaces, yeh, but its been long playing with this concept. Landscape architects, sculptors, Urban designers, everyone has done there bit fulfilling their fantasy of what an ultimate interactive public domain can be. It takes creative genius and sometimes state-of-art technology to make it happen. As for now they have succeeded in making the public spaces interactive enough through different tools like interactive sculptures, screens, kiosks, light, ambiance etc. but as a planner of urban space, as artists, as designers, as software developers and so on, we need to push is further, further to transform the difinition of public spaces from interactive to addictive, afterall addiction of public spaces and landscape and nature and parks and plaza is not a bad habit as such!

If that tiny puzzle, that mobile game, that vedio games, play station, that music can be so addictive, why can't a public space with all its hardware,  bandwidth, characters, ambiance, familiarity, nostalgia and infinite possibilities be an addiction. Afterall bringing people to interesting and safe public domain from comfort of their couch is job of those who help design city. Imaging a kid who has spent most of his childhood staring at tv or vedio game screen finally getting in touch with nature getting into public space!

Post-calamity socio-physical reconstruction: Untapped potential of urban planning!

It’s high time they should care for heritage values of shattered settlements.

Contemporary planning response : A wake-up call!! 

Any Natural calamity, An Earthquake, A Tsunami, A Flood or A Hurricane strangles the life of community and leaves a physical and emotional mark behind! Damage which is irreversible, but still people gather their spirit and strength and try to reconstruct that which has been shattered, their home, their neighborhood, their community, their village, their city, sometimes on their own sometimes hand in hand with community, with the support of government and with the aid and good wishes from around the world. It’s a collective effort of those who care to rebuild, those who feel responsibility to reconstruct, everyone contributes their bit!

A relevant question to ask here is that what an urban planner, an architect, an urban designer, a conservationist or a policy maker can do to restore the faith, hope and dignity of that community, How they can better contribute in the socio-physical reconstruction after an unforeseen natural calamity which physically shatters the settlement, a settlement which might have evolved in course of centuries whether it’s a village or a small town or a metropolitan city. Of course such situations demand a quick immediate response, a fast solution, a resettlement plan, a re-construction effort, a physical master plan to absorb and protect the affected population as quickly as possible; an infrastructure fast and techno-economically optimized enough to be viable. But in this race of providing the immediate comfort and amenities to the affected population we usually tend to forget or sometimes purposefully ignore the very basic need of community, the settlement itself, the fabric of settlement with which community has intimately remained attached throughout its life, probably they have grown together help shaping each other and hence the highly emotional bonding of community and settlement cannot be ignored neither its legacy of heritage value and learning.

In a neighborhood or community affected or devastated by natural calamity, an individual is not just bothered about his or her own loss, their own damaged house, but they are subconsciously also moved by the loss of others in the community and their very own settlement and neighborhood which has been shattered heavily. Their memories of growing in that neighborhood, those winding streets, their facades and architecture, their community spaces, those lingering familiarities and so on. We can try to reconstruct the original face of settlement if the damage is low and concealable, but sometimes they feel it’s better to reconstruct the settlement in adjacent open lands if the physical damage is much, this phenomenon is more noticeable and even more a point of concern in the rural or small urban communities. Usually physical planning response form the government and planners after a natural calamity in most of the cases is generally a super-optimized techno-economic solution, an efficient physical infrastructure, fast paced architecture, but surprisingly lacking in emotional response and nativeness in terms of architecture, lacking in regional impression and heritage values of planning, alienated from urban/ rural design principles and practices of the region, a shear absence of conservationist inputs and above all lack of human touch. Outcome seems an efficient but emotionless physical planning response which can and are being radially justified in the name of constrained resources and urgency of demanded action. Image above speaks for itself!

Though a much needed temporary relief, imagine the emotional and functional pain this new mechanical re-settlement master plan causes to the inhabitants in longer course of time through its totally alienated new physical planning environment, fabric and architecture, by continually reminding them of the disaster which occurred in past, due to its ever-present imposed unfamiliar environment. Imaging the continual struggle to adapt to this new imposed “efficient but rigid” neighborhood plan which has no relation whatsoever to the original form and architecture of the village or town which was devastated in earthquake or else and the loaded feeling of never to return to a spatial experience in their lifetime which even vaguely resembles to their original neighborhood or to a locality with its regional character! Imaging the loss to the future generation who is going to grow up in these reconstructed integrated prefab concrete township or villages with identical kind of off the shelf household unit next to the fading ruins of their devastated ancestral village and who will never know how it is like to live in the vibrant settlements were their parents, their grandparents and their ancestors used to live!

It’s high time that the legacy of heritage planning values, unique and integral to specific regions need to be acknowledged and incorporated in the post disaster reconstruction efforts specially in physical planning of the settlement which will have a long term beneficial effect. Even the communities in crying need of immediate physical reconstruction support, in a post-natural-disaster environment, need a physical planning solution with a “human touch”! 

A to Z Satellitexted : Urban Planning Text

Satellite view or architecture and planning resembling English alphabet 

Its took one bright idea, couple of days, several dozen cities, hundreds of Google Earth rotation and thousands of zoom-in-out to compile this piece of work for you. Enjoy Satellitexted* urbanism!    

*Satellitexted : Building plan in satellite view resembling Alphabet!

Let me Complicate it for you!!

Human mind needs complexity to appreciate design and aesthetics

If it’s too obvious it’s boring. If we have seen it earlier or something similar, it’s boring anyway. We always look forward to see and appreciate a piece of design or work of art or architecture which is refreshingly new, but still with a stubbornness  of design expectations since we also love the nostalgia attached to the familiarity of object or subject.

Possibly the reason abstract and modern art emerged is because people were fed up of realistic and photo-realistic portraits and other painting subjects and demanded something new something avant-garde to appreciate. Though there were complexity of techniques and process involved in those elaborately detailed classical or miniature paintings but abstractness of modern art gave viewers infinite possibilities to perceive, interpret and appreciate the artworks.  Though the artwork and style was new, people were still able to relate to it because of carefully chosen subjects of contemporary importance of that era or region. Similarly with architecture, possibly the abstract and minimalistic  architecture emerged because people were tiered of those architectural details and geometrical orders, people later demanded purity of geometry not the order of geometry, they demanded thematic abstractness of elements not the sensory overload of detailing and Minimalistic architecture provided them all they wanted.

We have reached a time in the human evolution where we seem to have cracked the base code of aesthetics, analysing the rich history of art and architecture and documented enough in course of time for generations to come, while accelerating fast towards future. Now when we have tested basic design flavor and aesthetics of almost every kind how will we satisfy the design and aesthetic urge of humanity which is always looking out for something new to appreciate.

History shows, we have and we will find out new ways to provide the world with new design aesthetics which they will enjoy and appreciate. Fortunately there are ways to do that. Apparently there are two fronts on which we can innovate. One is technology; other is complexity of design itself. Technology will provide us materials, techniques etc. to innovate on design front and complexity of design will give us opportunity to challenge and satisfy the demanding aesthetic urge of curious human mind in field of art, design, architecture etc. What is complexity in this context? Complexity is to give them a piece of work , art or design or architecture which is difficult to grasp in one go like a puzzle, but quite familiar, contextual and easy once decoded, something which challenges the mind. Complexity provided by emerging materials, techniques and tools as well as complexity of forms, and abstractness.

By- Anoop Jha

“Smell Architecture”!! We have to accept non-tangible design elements as part of architecture and Urban Design!!

Walking down the buzzing food streets of the world is a thrilling experience for most of us, it’s a play field of light and shadow, sound and noise, colors, textures and smell. Smell of street, smell of variety of foods being baked, grilled, processed, and served with love from generations, aroma of spices in the air, that raw fragrances of freshly chopped vegetables, occasional breeze with hint of what is being cooked inside, looking at the faces of crowd apparently engulfed and hypnotized by the tempting aroma of food, all this combined together with the built architecture of street gives an experience which is complete and memorable.



Now take a few steps back and rewind the tour without “Smell” part of the whole experience, and you will realize how important these intangible elements like smell, sound etc. play in making architecture and urban design a complete experience.  Though Light is also an intangible element but it has been given an undue advantage in architecture since centuries, contrary  to its counterparts like smell,sound etc. Unfortunately they don’t teach this in architecture and planning school as well, probably they themselves have unable to understand the significance of such non-tangible elements of architecture. Unfortunately there focus has remained on mass-producing architects, designers and technical hands through proven formulas and they have confined themselves in the predefined boundaries of architecture like, form,  function, space, texture, colors, at most interplay of light and shadow. What about smell, noise, feelings and state of mind of users, experiencing and validating the existence of the architecture and urban design in the first place?

It’s not a hypothetical assumption but a fact that you can’t create a good architecture without a great user experience which involves variety of non-tangible elements, those elements which can’t be quantified in form of project specification items into a spreadsheet.  It’s high time that architects and urban designers should shift focus towards the ambient environment and users experience since they have already mastered the art of form and space through accumulative knowledge of centuries. It’s time to move on.

By - Anoop Jha

Walking down the memory lane of city

Walking down the memory lane, may be way different an experience now than actually walking down the old neighborhood lane you used to live decades back, while you were studying in that town, while you were on a social visit to your aunts place or on a vacation to that place, or the narrow street you use to travel to and fro from the school in childhood days.



City changes its form, experience; attitude like a person changes his appearance, philosophy and approach In course of time. Impression and impact of time can be seen on the city as we see in the human life. City reinvents itself and reflects contemporary life. Comparing present and past impression and memories of city is an emotional affair. Hence extra care needs to be taken in revitalizing and redeveloping cities because millions of memories and hopes are attached to these. 

Where have we reached in evolution of Interior Design?

Analogy of Sculpture and Interior Design

Evolutionary comparison of sculpture and interior design can throw some light on the state of interior design in which it is at present and may pave the future direction for it. If you analyze the evolution of Sculpture, it has evolved from a “symbolic gesture of kingdom and state authority” historically to the “liberalized expression of rebellious creative individuals” in past century to an “interactive public art” at present. When it comes to interior design it has evolved from “utilitarian design driven by necessity” to “lifestyle symbol with expression of wealth” to “uniqueness with technological integration”. The crucial missing point in the evolution of interior design is that it has still to reach a point where a user can interact and relate to it rather than simply appreciating its beauty and ambiance while waiting on a comfortable couch in a lobby or from a workstation of an office.

While the focus of sculpture, individually or as part of landscape architecture or in public domain has shifted from a decorative element to an interactive and engaging public element, the efforts of interior design has remained focused mostly in the aesthetic domain with attention to space efficiency, economic execution and operation even at present. Since all the efforts are concentrated on the aesthetics, ambiance and efficiency part of interior design, majority of architects and designers are caught in to the vicious cycle of making it more and more efficient. It’s high time that architects and designers should break this cycle and create an indoor environment which is not only appreciated by the users but where division of user and space gets blurred, a space where occupant is constantly interacting with its ambient indoor environment in tangible manner, where user have been kept engaged not only by its aesthetics but in terms of physical and mental activities, an informative, interactive indoor ambiance like the case of modern public sculptures.

By Anoop Jha