Design - An interplay and interpretation of subject

Design fundamentals 

Art from Archive - I

A decade old or so..

In that very creative moment availability of tools at ones disposal seems immaterial, it was made by oil paints applied on paper like water color that time, probably water was also used instead of oil just to somehow spread the colors on paper, or may be a bit of fabric color as well. One could have created something like this even with charcoal, or eyeliner or toothpaste, or shaving cream, or tomato catch-up or may be with some combinations of them. Its that very urge to create something that one feels is art, getting caught up in arranging the perfect colors or brushes or tool or a perfect setting in merely postponing the creation of Art. 

  

Habitat Automation - Can our computers generate architectural concepts on their own?

Automation of Architecture seems to be the only way to fulfill this world dream of a home for everyone!

We all know computers are really good at visual simulation, 3D Modeling and Rendering etc., but when it comes to architectural concept design part can we also assign this task to computers or do we still have to rely solely on architects, for may be another century. We can’t really afford to wait even for another decade considering the handful of Architects in world and ever mounting unattended architectural needs of millions and more across the world, resulting in epidemic architectural indiscipline, in forms of unorganized colonies, squatters etc.  You see the problem is the moment we tag these habitations as squatter or unorganized it becomes a taboo, government and architects tend to lose their interest in such settlement thinking they will deal with it later, they simply let it happen blaming the scarce current resources, letting it morph and mutate, left unattended and when it becomes unmanageable, planners and NGOs come into picture doing their standard Slum Networking and Regularization stuff.  Don’t you think if these guys would have collaborated and helped those guys in the beginning while they just started making their home on their own, in absence of any substantial external assistance and in absence of contextual building bylaws, things would have been very different? Though we know that one of the major reason of such unorganized growth is demand supply gap of skilled manpower specially architects and planners. This gap will always be there so what will we do?

We can’t design and build home for everyone on earth with these limited skill supply, but we can sure help everyone design and build their home on their own with some robust mechanism in place, with very little assistance so that everyone in this world has a place called home.  If there isn’t enough architects and planners in world than we will have to find out some external tool which will assure a home for everyone! We will have to automate this very process of architectural design making it universally accessible at almost no cost, and please do consider that we are not at all talking here about mass housing or government welfare scheme or something. We are talking about knowledge transfer, relaxed, easy to understand and innovative and stratified building guidelines, innovative use of locally available materials and most important of all - automation of architectural design process itself. We are here talking about shear intelligence of computer to do more than 90 percent of architectural design including concept design and delivery part while architects and governing body to take up the rest 10 percent or so of task just to assure the quality of delivered options, rectifying fundamental issues, if any!

With millions of reference images floating freely on internet in form of architectural plans, schematic views, sectional profiles, site plans, neighborhood plans, area plans, city and regional plans, while many millions coming soon, along with almost unlimited supply of architectural and settlement patterns in form of satellite imageries, it won’t be a Herculean task for present and next generations of computers to understand the logic of all this and to produce a somewhat rational building or neighborhood plan and form on its own through its embedded logic and algorithm. Little bit of last mile human intervention and everyone in this world has a blueprint for their home.

Imagine feeding a set of crude data like your architectural wishlist, site location, plot dimension, uploading few pictures of site, surrounding and neighborhood, stating your financial position and budget, then exploring computer generated wonderful building options based on your data input, customizing it within the defined domain if you feel, choosing final one and downloading your own home in pendrive, or mailing it to competent authority or architect for few minutes of final approval. Now, here you are printing plans for execution on site within couple of fun hours, club this phenomenon straight with 3D-Printing thing and here is your home ready to move in, in another couple of hours.

As policy makers we need to be very realistic about finite resources at hand and look for new ways to complement the conventional process, while breaking away from certain self-imposed dogmas and diehard utopian dream built around human habitation needs and conventionally defined standards, dogmas evident from the fact that we have elaborate building bylaws for brick and mortar, and steel and glass, but no clear set of guidelines for houses made of thermocol, plastic sheet, tin sheet, gathered from here and there by poor urban sections. No efforts of technology, innovation and knowledge transfer yet to such populous, just because policy makers across world have a utopian dream of slum free world after some odd decades later, meanwhile intentionally forcing millions to live in squatters and unorganized colonies by not making simple and easy to understand guidelines and relaxed bylaws, utilizing whatever minimal resources and materials are at hand.  Caught in the centuries of dilemma of idealism Vs realism! Since these limited human interventions with limited skilled manpower supply haven’t been able to solve this world habitation scarcity and architectural indiscipline, may be its time we should look out somewhere else to fulfill world habitat needs - may be towards machines may be computers!   

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Decoding secrets of good visuals - What makes some images and photographs stand out from the crowd

Some tips, tricks and subjects of images, graphics and photographs which is bound to cast a spell

1)     B&W background subject with semi-transparent bright techno/pop color in      foreground

2)     Picture with range of depth and focus

3)     Green appeal in innovative way

4)     Lush rainy/moist green landscape in terra incognita

5)     Realistic corporate affair capturing the mood of subject and vibes of business  minus ( - ) plastic smiles

6)     Simple things in perspective view

7)     Pattern or geometry unseen before

8)     A well framed shot of pets or wildlife with serious engaging looks

9)     Capturing Interactive and playful pets

10)  Green appeal in innovative way

11)  Bird’s eye view of Rooftop innovation

12)  Well framed commercial subject

13)  Black & Yellow Composition

14)  A well framed worm’s eye view of skyscraper or anything towering

15)  Caves or any undulating interior, lit with bright morning sun displaying    excellent interplay of light and shadow

16)  Translucent colored containers

17)  Hand drawn-water color effect in this era of 3D Simulation

18)  Morning sun rays filtered through simply anything

19)  Innumerable colorful interplay of sunlight and cloud at dawn, dusk further  accentuated if captured in hills

20)  Laughing giggling girls

21)  Asymmetrically captured frame of symmetrical building or symmetrical  something

22)  Translucent building glowing from inside - filtered hint of colors further acts  as charm

23)  White doodle on black background, call it old school blackboard nostalgia or  whatever!

24)  Futuristic ambiance and setting seemingly within reach in near future, not  just another fancy unreachable idiosyncrasy

25)  Anything overwhelmingly luxurious and classic specially interiors

More to come….

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Why architectural clients should be more demanding today?

Need of "Creative demand" and false in-vogue benchmark of "what is good!"

In a time of century when you should be asking for interactive customizable digital walls for your indoors as a client you are still busy choosing wall colors and wallpaper patterns, in a time when you should be demanding multiple mood lighting possibilities for your every room you are apparently happy and content with your stylish off-the-shelf chandelier and much propagated energy saving CFL lighting fixtures, when you should be asking your architect what kind of living experience he or she is envisaging and designing for your home, you are busy asking what would be the effective sqft area of your house, when you should be deliberating about multi-tier security system for your hard earned asset called home,  you are busy choosing stylish looks of your door knob, when you should be looking for indoor ambiance inspired by your sun-sign, you leave this design choice to the idiosyncrasy of architect after little deliberation, who will now design "your" house inspired by his or her "own" sun sign traits - if you believe in such thing called sun sign! And there are ample other examples which demonstrate you are more or less content will "Less" when it comes to Architecture for your home.

You do demand as an architectural client but mostly in a wrong direction. And you know, you only get what you ask for.  You really need to channelize your demands towards design, ambiance, technology integration, customization and personalization and to the little architectural elements which is going to make your life better and effortless at home. All you need to do is to be little more creative in your demand. Also you need to shed this notion that “popular is good”, that’s not the case when it comes to architecture because you as an individual or a group of family might have a totally different needs and aesthetic perception than your friends, or neighbor or that guy with million dollar Mansion, so your house need not necessarily be exactly like others no matter how tempting those options are.     

You see, if you are of this opinion that insisting your architect for your favorite pink or blue color for your living room wall makes you a good client, then you need to take a look way back to realise that those cave men were more creative for their homes, decorating their caves with such amazing cave paintings or drawings, even after thousands of years later you are still struggling to decorate your living room wall with pink or blue or some painting of great artist! Have you really evolved in this large span of time or are you repeating the same old story in some way or other. That full clad digital living room wall which you can color customize everyday or on which you can write your daily to-do-list or which can remind you of unpaid bills in a flash or where you can leave a message for your loved ones while leaving home is just an example to make your realise that there are no boundaries which defines and restricts architecture or interior design. 

The best part is that architects like challenges, so if you demand "more" as a client in terms of stretching the possibilities of design and innovation, they would be more than happy to help you and probably will give you something many shades better than your expectations, all you have to do is to be little more creative in your demand. 

15 things I learned in 10 minutes about photography - Flipping through a reputed travel guide book

Amazing revelations about Photography-

1)   It’s not just about Iconic structures or monuments it’s about capturing their interaction with the people

2)   If you are capturing a lively street, capturing an element of motion is a must (people, car etc.)

3)   When capturing sculptures or carved details in the open sun, wait for the right time of the day for the perfect shadow which accentuates the dimension and details of subject

4)   Capture the clouds in the background (particularly at dusk ) and half the job is done

5)   Capture  water fountain in the foreground and half the job is done

6)   Capture someone capturing others (seems a cheap trick though)

7)   If you capture street dining you must capture some element of service - something being served or by someone who is serving the thing

8)   If capturing museum or exhibition you must capture the chemistry between the exhibit and spectator, capture someone quite still and who is trying to understand and appreciate the meaning of exhibit

9)  Capturing the public spaces, capture the people and their behavior at the very intersection  of daylight and shadows (it naturally captures the human dilemma of judgment whether to go out in open sun on stay in the shadow) 

10)       When capturing motion you must have something static for reference, but for best results “that static one” has to be the one of the vary things which are moving (people, car etc.)

11)        Capture a glass building at dusk at the very moment when it gets illuminated in the evening while it is partially illuminated from outside as well from setting sun

12)       There is at least one definite location from where the famous sculpture or display (or structure) looks perfect (and usually it’s the most abused one as well, since whole world seems to capture the shot from the same point)

13)       When taking a shot of any high end restaurant  dining scene, don’t just capture the food and luxury, and candlelight, you need to capture the people having supper, with their interactions and their exaggerated animated  expressions

14)        When in vegetable market capturing a vendor interacting with customer, a price list smudged with chalk or otherwise in the backdrop is must.

15)       Shop display window + scripted shop name typo + passer by = classic shot without fail

Another series of interesting observations will be part of upcoming posts, Join me on twitter @urbanoregional for updates.  Your view and experiences are most welcome.

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