17th

 June  2020  
 
NOTE  TO  STUDENTS  
Dear Friends,

Hi. Welcome to the Studio 9 of the 5th year. You have been working on a variety of projects
in your education at IAP. You also have been through the training program and have looked
into the real world situation as well. Now this studio is an opportunity for you to pick a project
that you would be most interested in. There is tremendous amount of freedom for you here.
You have to choose the project, an appropriate site for such project, and design the brief for
the project.

Stage I

The question would be in your mind, that how would you choose a project. How would you
identify your interest area for this studio? Let’s begin by looking in your mind. The area of
your personal interest has been in your mind. You have been observing and unconsciously
recording that in your mind. You have travelled around in your 21-22 years of life. You also
have lived in different places, visited different people, and enjoyed life. All the things that you
have done and observed, consciously or unconsciously, may not have stayed in the front of
your memory. In computer parlance it is not in your RAM but in your ROM. It’s in the store
memory of your mind. The thing that you have stored in your RAM is something that has
made an impact, positive or negative on your mind. That would mean that it is hard wired in
your brain and difficult to ignore. But what you have in the storage, the ROM part, is also
equally important.

In different scenario, we can say that the RAM indicates the major area of your personal
interest. Your likes and dislikes. But these likes and dislikes have used the knowledge that you
have acquired and stored in the storage of your brain. That is a good place to start for all of
us for Studio 9. Let me explain. We would like to use this time that you have before the next
semester starts, for identifying the area of your interest. Brainstorm for ideas and churn out
projects of each individual from the basic area of personal interest. I know that you have not
worked on individual projects in your education so far. Therefore we want you to choose a
project diligently and carefully. It has to be of your interest. That is very important. It is
important because otherwise the project, the studio, the 16 week long journey would
become drab, boring, and extremely uninspiring. We all faculty members want your journey
to be full of fun and frolic, learning, experimenting, and exploring.

Once you identify the area of interest, convert that in to the intent, statement of objectives
that you would like to achieve for the project. Based on this intents and based on the
experiences and interest that you have identified, choose a project. It would be great to
look into published material for similar projects if any after you have chosen the project. At
this stage, I strongly advise you to start with an A4 size sketchbook for this studio. Keep that
always with you. Record all your thoughts, draw your ideas, take notes from the material that
you read and refer. Note down the ideas that come about even in your informal discussion
with your friends and family. Always remember to put a date, time, and the reference on
each page, each thought, each sketch. Please do not ignore this. Not only because it is
going to be a ‘requirement’ for your studio submission, which it is, but because we are going
to go back to these pages to refer to our thoughts in past and compare the same with our
present to judge our progress. This habit if you continue to adopt would be very useful to you
throughout your journey for next few decades. Now please remember that what you are
recording in this sketchbook is always related to the project that you want to work on. You
might like an idea somewhere, but if it is not related to your project, directly or indirectly, do
not put it in the sketchbook. You can note it down in some other diary that you carry, but not
in this one, which has to be strictly related to the studio project.

Stage II

Once you take the first step the other two steps would be easier to take. Once you identify
the project that you would like to work, you would have to select a site, which is physically
accessible to you right now. It also has to be appropriate for your project. I would request
you to do so in this time of pandemic, as staying in Kashmir and talking about Kerala is not
going to get us anywhere. We will discuss the selection of the site at that stage. You will have
to collect a lot of information about the site. The drawing, - and not a Google image please –
to a scale, drawn, site measured if possible, documented, photographed, sketched, and all
related material of the context collected. Please do not ignore the surrounding, location,
topography and the built environment if any in your records. All the data that you collect
should be directly related to your project. Please do not spend, time, money and energy in
collecting data that is not going to be useful to you in your project.

Stage III

The third step is slightly complicated. You have to start work on the design brief. The design
brief, here at this stage, is not about the area statement. It is about the intent. It is about what
you want to achieve in this design project. It can cover wide variety of areas including goals
set about style, material, context, climate, response to people etc. Think about anything and
everything as long as it is related to the project that you want to include in your project and is
important to you. We will discuss all three steps sequentially and concurrently as we go
further.
Now let us begin with the first step. Please write down a note about the area of your personal
interest. I would remind you here that it is not a list of various areas that you are generally
interested in. It has to be very specific, related to architecture, and possibly related or can be
related to, a project. Here, when I say write down, does not necessarily mean a written page.
You can, and I would prefer that, sketch and draw. Total ‘write up’ should not be more than
one sheet. I would prefer not to have any naked photographs in this note. Even if you want to
use a photograph, you can use it as a base for your sketch. The sketch, the ‘drape’ is
important and not the naked photograph. All your drawings, sketches, and doodles should
not be larger than 3”X3” in size. That is a maximum size, but you can use smaller graphics.
Use your architectural skills here. You will have the liberty to use 4 sheets of paper in total. All
your pages should be graphically composed on a grid. Therefore you would have about 6
illustrations on each page or more depending on the size of sketch that you present. Each
page would be marked with your name, and date. I would repeat that please do not ignore
the importance of your name and date. You have one-week time to do so.

Now an important point that you should note is this. You should remember that you are the
architect of this project. We are, at best your client, and advisor or in worst-case scenario,
your critic. Please treat us so, (We are going to grade you instead of paying fees, but that is
the way of life. Right?) In turn allowing us to treat you as an architect. It is your project, so you
would have to prepare yourself and take the appointment of your client in advance to
explain your project. You will have to take down the notes and comments given. Share the
same with the rest of the group of client for further discussion. It is your choice to discuss or not
to discuss. We will not be forcing the discussion and pace, except announcing the calendar
of the studio. You will have to adhere to the schedule, which will be prepared and circulated
to you. There are not going to be any extensions in the schedule, which please note.
And lastly, please do not try and find an easy way out in choosing the project. The Airport, Art
and Cultural Center, Emergency Shelter and such projects are not going to be encouraged in
this studio. Try and select a real life situation and project. The project has to be sufficiently
complex, and large enough for you to pursue at the level of studio 9.

Good Luck.

Studio Faculty members,

Vinay Shah

Falguni Ghoghari

Sujit Kothiwale

Sujan Umaraniya