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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Sometimes we ask the wrong questions, most often we never question. In the process of creating a product, we forget to ask who the object is or will be or what happens in the life of an object? As architects we often forget to ask: Who is a house? Who are the people who meet the house? What conversations take place? What culture is born? At a time when even the minutest of an artifact and its position in the house is dictated by the architect whose hegemony imposes a kind of aesthetics on the society, the transition from a house to a home takes multiple encounters between the object, the people and the environment. Every encounter adds a new layer of meaning through constant conversation, adding to newer narratives - multiple formations of a new house; a new HOME. A house is never static, the textures, the paint, the objects, every spec of dust particles, movement of the people etc. constantly alter the very essence of its sole existence. For an architect, designing a house...

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It is always our aim to engage in meaningful dialogue with people around us. Urine is an inevitable part of our urban landscape. Moothram/Urine, was a social experiment to understand Urine as a cultural phenomena in our urban landscape. The performance was structured in two parts: 1. An introductory role play that tried to instigate the audience to question our perceptions of urine, urination and urinals. Many people from different walks of life shared their experiences and t heir ideas of what we lack, who we are and why we do what we do. 2. The prop (A yellow urinal) that was used in the role play, was left in the street to understand how people relate with it. The natural familiarity with the object could gather meanings, from being a mere object to a functional space to an artistic exploration. We leave it to the public to reflect on the object. To begin with, we have installed this on Manaveeyam Road. Although Manaveeyam Road is an important cultural corridor in Trivandrum, ther...

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