I learnt a new word today – mise en place. I came across the word in the brilliant book ‘The Practice : Shipping Creative Work’ by Seth Godin. The dictionary meaning is ” the preparation of dishes and ingredients before the beginning of service.” 

Seth Godin writes in the book : “A skilled chef will be certain to arrange her cooking supplies before firing the stove. All the ingredients will be chopped, measured, and laid out. This prevents last-minute urgencies, but even more than that, it gives her a chance to visualize what’s to come. Seeing the tools and ingredients, ready to go, prepared with care, opens the door for intentional action.” This is a very important culinary skill, which is fundamentally linked to the process of cooking. Melissa Gray, a senior at the Culinary Institute of America. “It really is a way of life … it’s a way of concentrating your mind to only focus on the aspects that you need to be working on at that moment, to kind of rid yourself of distractions.” (1)

I could relate this ‘intentional action’ with the design framework (above image) we are working for semester 5 design studio at WCFA. Shreyas Baindur (his blog) and me are teaching this course together. The online format pushed us to be more precise with the planning of the learning outcomes of the semester. This is our mise en place for the design of a public building. It looked a lot messy before it reached this stage. It contains the key questions, context of the project, methodology adopted, layers addressed, readings, readings morphed into methods (like the book Manual of Section)

But after we made this framework lot of things are falling in place for us. Like the input lectures, sequencing the design process, revisit/remind the students of the framework during the mid reviews. The biggest help is that it is keeping us focussed – both at macro level outcomes and micro level table discussions. Even the students find it comfortable to know what they are expected from the semester. Once the ingredients are in place, we can focus on the cooking. So through this framework, we can demonstrate how a certain set of ingredients will produce a certain dish. Students can take the structure, change the ingredients and cook their own dish as they move ahead. With the mise en place – starting point is clear, thus one can trace and evaluate the process for further improvement. This mise en place could be a great tool for the thesis students in particular (and also the guides, including me), as so many of them have the whole store room on their table 🙂

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Notes :

Source to the image on the top : https://www.seattlemag.com/sites/default/files/field/image/0413misenplace.jpg

(1) Link to the essay : https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2014/08/11/338850091/for-a-more-ordered-life-organize-like-a-chef

‘Architecture is not about form’ – Peter Zumthor (1)

‘Architecture is the result of the forming’ – Roy Lichtenstein (1)

Talking directly about form is generally frowned upon in architectural circles (particularly in academics). I think we loose a lot of time in design process, just because we don’t prefer to discuss about form ‘directly’. We do a lot of intellectual manoeuvres to talk about form ‘indirectly’ – space, type, typology, etc. Even though the point is valid, i feel we could find more room to talk about form in a more upfront ‘direct’ way. We could capture in the discussions both its limitations and advantages. I understand the present debate on architecture becoming a ‘visual’ medium, and how form is manipulated to only please the eye and not the other senses. Yes, that is first layer to acknowledge. Once we overcome this layer, we can talk about ‘form’ through more channels . I found this book ‘Siteless : 1001 Building Forms’ by Francois Blanciak very apt to engage in the discussion of form is a democratic way. This subtitle ‘1001 forms’ might sound rude and cheeky to the ideal-academic-ear.

I feel not discussing directly about ‘form’ in architecture is like not mentioning about ‘rice’ when talking about cooking biriyani. When i just casually flipped through the book, initially it seemed to be a very generic collection of computer generated forms. When i was able to ‘suspend judgment’ for sometime and looked a bit deeper, the book became so revealing. All the drawings in the book are hand-drawn, which intrigued me a lot. The book has 1001 forms – each a little bigger than a stamp accompanied by a phrase. The book is “essentially meant to be more of a tool to trigger the imagination of the reader, a way to store one’s creative impulses, rather than a means to display an array of morphological ideas to be copied, as some architects might have misinterpreted” and Blanciak critically understands limitation of the ‘form’-al approach saying “there was also this desire to somehow exhaust the potentialities of architectural form, in order to transcend this very issue, not only for architecture, but also for me, in order to be able to focus on other points of interest within this field.” (2)

The book sharply starts with this text below. ( A note for ‘readers’ who are put off by too much ‘text’, this book has a lot of ‘drawings’ (not colourful though!) and only has only 3 pages of text! ). A sort of a theory book with almost no text.

“The body of work that follows aims to fill the expanding gap between a profession that glorifies morphological originality through media exposure and a more secluded field of architectural research which, unlike its scientific counterparts, paradoxically neglects experimentation and the manipulation of form through its sole focus on writing. Proposing a creative alternative to critical academic literature, this study develops a prospective series of forms that focuses on the nucleus of architecture, the building as a unit (whether touched by others or left aside), and on the clarity of expression of its generative idea. As a result, in the coming chapters, text has radically been replaced by form. In order to multiply the range of potentialities in architecture, this study accepts the physical aspect of buildings as its primary component (the periodic denial of which proving vain) and proceeds by trial and error. ” (3)

Below are some of the images from the book :

Talking in an interview to WAI Thinktank about the book, Francois Blanciak, articulates brilliantly about ‘form’WAI :

Do you see pure form as a medium or a goal?

“Well, in this particular instance, it’s a medium. If we understand pure form as a set of forms that originates in Euclidian geometry, such as spheres, pyramids and cubes, the inherent capacity of these forms to contain, rather than to divide, makes them particularly appropriate as receptacles for site-specific programs. If we understand the design of an architectural project as a process of adaptation of form to external dynamic forces, these can be catalyzed by the use of pure form as an outer shell for the project. On another hand, pure form is merely of interest for its capacity to be eroded, to be affected by those forces. In a dialectic process of definition, this fixed outer shell helps determine the program, and reversely, the program reveals and distinguishes morphology. So the reversion to pure forms comes from an intention to operate a sort of tabula rasa on architectural expression. It’s almost the negation of form itself.” (4)

One of the another consequential questions from the interview gives us a lot to ponder on :”Can an open acknowledgement in which form is no longer a taboo change the discipline up to the point in which even architectural education is changed?” (5)

There is an academic lightness to the book like the drawings ‘magic pilotis’ or ‘graphic-scale building’ which takes a lighter tone on its own content, which makes ‘reading’ (or looking) of the book more absorbing.

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Notes :
(1) Quoted via : Architectural Review Editorial –  https://www.architectural-review.com/essays/editorial-form-does-not-follow Accessed on Oct 30, 2020

(3) and all the images are from the book.

(2), (4), (5) –  http://waithinktank.com/Francois-Blanciak, Accessed on Nov 28,2019

Here I am making a deliberate attempt to make the process of teaching ‘visible’. This above sketch is a plan to teach ’theory’ for the third semester students under VTU university. The syllabus mainly focusses on teaching architectural attributes (axis, rhythm, hierarchy, grid, etc). A structure similar to the chapters of Ching’s canonical ‘Form, Space and Order’. A very structured approach to teach ‘theory’. Surprisingly Ching mentioned, when he was at WCFA campus, that how this book does not fall under ‘theory’ category in most schools in US, as it was too ’simple’. I use this book as the point of departure to teach this course.  Recently I read the brilliant ’The Geography of Thought’ by Richard Nesbitt, which made me relook this approach to teach theory. This book also a brought a lot more clarity to ever present anxiety to the notion of making ‘Indian’ way of thinking explicit. This text by Nesbitt might be as well as summarising Ching’s methodology “Greek philosophy started from the individual object – the person, the atom, the house – as the unit of analysis and it dealt with the properties of object. The world was in principle simple and knowable: All one had to do was to understand an object’s distinctive attributes were so as to identify its relevant categories and then apply the pertinent rule to the categories” But for the Taoists “The world was complicated, events were interrelated, and objects ( and people) were connected “not as pieces of pie, but as ropes in a net”. The Chinese philosopher would see a family with interrelated members where the Greek saw a collection of persons with attributes that were independent of any connection with others”

It is this “mental difference” of “pieces of pie-ropes in a net” in the ‘geography of thought’ between the west and the east a revealing thought for me. Chings methodology aligns with the ‘pieces of a pie’ approach. It is because of ‘pieces of pie’ attitude to thought I think, Indian mind has an aversion for anything ’theoretical’ in ‘categorical’ form. The ‘rope in the net’ approach seeks for “complexity” and “interrelation”. This reading is making me revisit the approach I generally take to teach this course. The ‘rope in the net’ approach makes it a bit challenging to talk about the cognitive quality of all-the-times-interrelated qualities of architecture.  The diagram above is an attempt to attend to this fracture in the ‘geography of thought’. The plan is to take a certain attribute, say ‘hierarchy’, and then explain them through a palette of examples comprising  local-global, particular-universal examples. The range of spectrum  includes examples  from graphic design, medieval town fabrics, Correa (Belapur Housing, Bharath Bhavan), Srirangam, etc. A’ – represents an example from the other end of spectrum – a project like Museum of Contemporary Art by Sanaa, which employs the idea of ‘non-hirerachy’ as an ordering principle.  Brian Eno talks about ‘axial thinking’ where “a stable duality dissolves into a proliferating and unstable sea of hybrids”. So idea is to build a possible spectrum of hybrids between the end conditions of this spectrum. And also the lines connecting the various rows-columns will be an attempt to use the same example to talk about various attributes. Like one can take Fatehpur Sikri to discuss all the attributes at the same time. Hence the overall attempt here is to find a middle ground between ‘pieces in a pie’ and ‘ropes in a net’ routes of thinking 

Here is a very sharp text from Hertzberger on referring architecture to an ‘instrument’

“When you have a dwelling, a living unit, it changes considerably within 15 years. It may start with a couple, then they have children, then the children leave – it’s a constant state of change. Another way to approach this is the difference between an apparatus and an instrument. An apparatus is a thing – a coffee machine or a shaver, a thing based on the one thing it’s made to do – to make good coffee or whatever. A shaver is completely designed for cutting hair. But an instrument – like a musical instrument – is a thing that incites you to put your own ideas into it. A musical instrument gives you the challenge to do what you think you should do. And I want to make my buildings more like instruments and less like apparatuses.” (1)

“ A (musical) instrument essentially contains as many possibilities of usage as uses to which it is put – an instrument must be played. Within the limits of the instrument, it is up to the player to draw what he can from it, within the limits of his own ability. Thus the instrument and the player reveal to each other their respective abilities to complement and fulfil one another. Form as instrument offers the scope for each person to do what he has most of heart, and above all to do it his own way “ (2)

Architecture can operate as an instrument for various agencies – social, political, cultural and at multiple scales – public and domestic. To give an example at the domestic scale, I want to mention about the balcony we appropriated recently at our home during lockdown. This part of the balcony (image below) was used as a storage space for many years since I moved to this house. The negotiation of space between different members of the family forced us to carve this space as a refuge during the lockdown. This space is connected to my bedroom, so it is sort of private. Even though we have a bigger balcony in the house, this little space (4’ x 4’) became an ‘instrument’ to take refuge from the house itself. Now we have also started growing few plants here. This is a good reminder to me, on how a small place can also add a lot of value. We spend a lot of time here now – having tea, reading books. There are 8 houses in our apartment which have exactly the same balcony detail, out of which may only 2-3 houses are actively using that space. And we are only one to add a few plants to it. This unused balcony “challenged us to do what you think you should do”. Any architecture needs active participation, like a musical instrument has to be ‘played’. And may be its design’s responsibility to embed the potential to ‘play’.

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(1) Source : https://architectureandeducation.org/2017/08/29/interview-with-herman-hertzberger-2017-architecture-as-visual-and-social-connection/ . Accessed on Sep 14, 2020 
(2) Lessons for Students in Architecture, Herman Herzberger, 1991 Edition, Page 170

A brilliant note on writing by Peter Elbow in his book “Writing Without Teachers”. He could be as well as speaking about drawing here.

“Instead of a two-step transaction of meaning-into-language, think of writing as an organic, developmental process in which you start writing at the very beginning – before you know your meaning at all – and encourage your words gradually to change and evolve. Only at the end will you know what you want to say or the words you want to say it with. You should expect yourself to end up somewhere different from where you started. Meaning is not what you start out with but what you end up with. Control, coherence, and knowing your mind are not what you start out with but what you end up with. Think of writing then not as a way to transmit a message but as a way to grow and cook a message. Writing is a way to end up thinking something you couldn’t have started out thinking. Writing is, in fact, a transaction with words whereby you free yourself from what you presently think, feel, and perceive. You make available to yourself something better than what you’d be stuck with if you’d actually succeeded in making your meaning clear at the start. What looks inefficient – a rambling process with lots of writing and lots of throwing away – is really efficient since it’s the best way you can work up to what you really want to say and how to say it. The real inefficiency is to beat your head against the brick wall of trying to say what you mean or trying to say it well before you are ready.”

Thanks to this piece by Sara Hendren which led me to this quote and the book by Peter Elbow