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“See the world in green and blue, see China, right in front of you
See the canyons broken by cloud, see the tuna fleets clearing the sea out
See the Bedouin fires at night, see the oil fields at first light
And see the bird with a leaf in her mouth…
It was a beautiful day, don't let it get away”
“They paved paradise and put up a parking lot
With a pink hotel, a boutique, and a swingin' hot spot”
Let’s see, how do I begin this? It’s been exactly a week since I left India and landed in Australia, and three years since I experienced anything remotely resembling formal education (and eight since the standardized version), so this is going to be a bit difficult. Well, I suppose an introduction is in order (since this is an intro), followed by ramblings that may or may not be related directly to the issues of “sustainability” and “habitability”. These are basically concepts, ideas, interests and experiences that I’d like to include and develop in what I design – theoretical and esoteric notions, to be tempered and modulated by practicalities of embodied energies and thermal masses and… Which is part of the reason why I’m here in Sydney, thousands of miles from home, and taking this course as an elective. (And then of course, there’s the whole issue of my repeated use of the word “I” – an issue informed by the ancient philosophies of my country and the writings of Western authors like Neale Donald Walsch.) As I gather, the aim of this class is to understand sustainability and habitability issues, and observing and documenting these in practice using photography and writing. But that’s for later; right now I’d just like to get into the groove, so to speak, and understand where I’m coming from. So:
My name is Demis Roussos Bhargava, I’m 25 years old and I come from New Delhi in India. After completing my Bachelor of Architecture degree from the TVB School of Habitat Studies in 2001 I worked two years in the office of Prof. Ashok Lall and then a year with my Dad before enrolling at UNSW. I’ve been lucky enough to have been involved in the design of some very good projects, including a green office design for Development Alternatives, a redevelopment proposal for an industrial site within the city, an SOS Children’s “Village” campus in Bhopal and a retirement complex in the foothills of the Himalayas. In each of these I’ve tried to apply sustainability and habitability principles in addition to the conceptual and “design” issues, though at a rather amateur level. Hopefully I can evaluate and improve these designs – and my future works as well – by using what I learn in the class and in the street.
I like reading, music, nature and life. They inform what I believe in. And what I believe in informs my architecture.
I believe that architects build what they know. We read and see and hear, and then design. Maybe it’s an ego issue – look at me, I know so much more than just how to draw lines on paper (or in virtualspace). I’d prefer to think that architecture is a natural expression of our collective knowledge and beliefs. So I believe in multiple universes and temporal singularity, fractal and Euclidean geometries, the Third Wave of civilization, and in life on the knife edge between order and chaos. And while I believe that everything takes place “simultaneously” I believe that we choose our reality and therefore we don’t conveniently just accept what happens to us as unavoidable.
Because Architecture is about building something from nothing, people living and interacting with their natural/built environments. If this creating of order from disorder doesn’t fly in the face of entropy, what does? The Dark Tower ties together music and machine, life and building, a literary construct existing at the nexus of all possible universes that anchors (or generates) the lines of force that bind reality. If the Hindu temple is an axis of access to the cosmos the Tower likewise signifies our buildings acknowledge oneness with the universe, a union of the spiritual and the pragmatic, theory and practice, form and detail, part and whole, science and religion, all distilled in built form (and I believe it is). Personal catechism, esoteric belief system, call it what you will. This is what I believe Good Architecture can be. A solution systemic in reach with the flexibility to resist the tedium of mass-produced monotony and the mayhem of thoughtless stylism: ‘Anarchitecture’ – one order of chaos that belongs.
During my 5 years studying at TVBSHS I tried to carry my interest in biology into architecture with varying degrees of success:
These and this forms the foundation I want to build my architecture on.
As architects we can shape the built environment to catalyse a positive shift toward uniting nature, science and society. I recently read Alvin Toffler’s The Third Wave, and it just struck me how much we take things for granted. (It’s a great book and I’d like to go into it in more detail in some other entry, trying to relate what the class is about at that level, in addition to the physical aspects of the subject.) Everything about the way we were brought up, the way we live, and society today in general has its roots in the Industrial Revolution – standardized academic tests, the educational system as a conditioning camp for the 9 to 5 lifestyle and national government (among others). And why stop there? Most of the words I’m using here have their origins hundreds and thousands of years ago, and the earth I take for granted has been in existence 4.5 billion years. So what I do today could have an impact in 50 years, another kind of impact in 200 years and yet another in a 1000 (always assuming we don’t get blown up before then). I believe every thought floating out of mindspace, every line drawn in virtualspace (pixels coalescing built future in murky depths of the monitor) and every quick sketch forged in the heat of (battle) inspiration is of consequence. Of consequence to the picture we paint on the canvas of the site, to the people who breathe life into that picture today and in the future, and to pur planet. Of course, practising what I preach is something else altogether.
Time Magazine Special: The Age of Discovery
Crichton, M., 1993. Jurassic Park. Ballantine Books
Crichton, M., 2000, Timeline. Ballantine Books
King, S., 1981. The Dark Tower I. Milton Bradley
Toffler, A., 1980, The Third Wave. Bantam Books
Walsh, N.D., 2000. Communion with God. G.P. Putnam’s Sons
Walsh, N.D., 1993. Conversations with God Book 2. Hampton Roads Publishing Company
Image source www.btinternet.com/~digital.wallpapers/space_2.htm