Attic Talk 1 - Architecture of Society

In his work ‘ Empathetic and Embodied imagination: Intuiting experience and life in Architecture’, Juhani Pallasma writes

Contemporary architecture has often been accused of emotional coldness, restrictive aesthetics and a

distance from life. This criticism suggests that we architects have adopted formalist attitudes, instead of tuning our buildings with realities of life and the human mind. In all honesty, don’t we usually design our houses on the basis of functional and aesthetic criteria,rather than imagining them as resonant settings and backgrounds for situations of lived life? “Let us assume a wall: what takes place behind it?” the French poet Jean Tardieu asks provocatively.But do we architects have the same curiosity for life?

It is in this context the idea of Architecture of Society becomes relevant. Beyond the structural identities, society lends itself the quintessential production of space (the social and physical space) - a product of continuous interaction between built, unbuilt, human and non human. The very complex nature of society, its structures and its products reveal itself through the various manifestations of human mind, behavior and architecture. The session hosted by Zorba and Balamohan, revisited Jung and Freud. They put in perspective the ideas of collective behavior, herd characteristics, idea of fear, collective unconscious and perception of space, gender, state so on and so forth. The discussion straddled across notions of social inclusion, the inner society of human mind and outer societies of human relationships. As Balamohan puts it “ Architecture is the visual shape (Gestalt) of society. Within that, all the various building types (Architecture of consumption, of mobility, of the political and religious, as well as factories, prisons, cinema etc) could become.” The discussion was attended by Prof. J. Jayakumar, Ar. Jayasankar, Mrs. Maya Nair, Ar. Prasanth Mohan, Ar. Aswathy, Abhiraman, Ar. Harikrishnan, Ar. Devi, Ar. Geethanjali, Ar. Shebin, Ar. Akshaisankar, Ar. Vishnu and Dr. Soumini Raja

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Home as a Grove - Jayan's Abode

Jayan's Abode began as an exploration of incremental nature of building a house, through the nature of growth of a family into a community. The act of building here is like the act of growing a grove: a meticulous controlled planting yet leaving room for the tree to communicate and grow in its own direction, thus forming a grove - a community of trees offering solace to organisms of all kinds. This Indo-Portuguese family envisages to build one such grove for their four member family to host their guests who travel annually to this abode for ayurvedic rejuvenation and yoga camp. The seed design is a residential unit that can house the four member family. The house invites guests every evening for shared dinner, thus offering an active kitchen yard and a sacred grove adjacent to the bedroom block. The private bedroom block and the public kitchen are connected by living space for select guests to engage with the family. In the later phases, the residence is integrated with the other...

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