An article on the work of Ar Nirmal Kulkarni, (Architect, Educator, Design Activist). This work has been undertaken with students of architecture but not through the usual curriculum but through the trophy programs of NASA. The brief encourages students to not only to venture outside the classroom walls but also to re-interpret the space in which architecture normally functions.

Each year thousands of students emerge fresh from schools of architecture, starry-eyed, dreaming either of building magnificent edifices or of being propellers of social change by providing revolutionary design solutions for the underprivileged. Nothing in their formal education prepares them for reality.  Dream jobs are hard to come by; and will get progressively remote as the niche market gets more and more exclusive. And the ‘idealistic’ ones cannot function without an inside knowledge of the target community (comprising mainly of the urban poor), their power structures and cultural mores. Unfortunately, the changing face of urbanism and the ground realities involved therein are not part of any architecture college syllabus.

On the brighter side, the National Association of Students of Architecture (NASA), India holds events and competitions that provide some scope for hands-on experience and out-of-the-box thinking. The annual G-sen trophy and the zonal NASA competitions are a case in point. The typical G-sen brief attempts to reinvent an existing structure or space to comply with the changing demands of urbanism.

The Urban Paradox

As a fallout of large-scale migration to cities, a staggering 70% of the urban Indian population today classifies as the ‘urban poor’. The situation has given rise to an existential paradox: we despise the presence of ‘their’ slums in ‘our’ midst, and yet depend heavily on the wealth of human labour that the bastis provide. Gender insensitivity and social discrimination are as much a reality in cities as the abundance of opportunity that cuts across caste, class and gender. Transport and technology ensure better communication, but the large-scale intrusion on common spaces has reduced human interaction to an all-time low. Now, more than ever, the country is in need of humane design solutions that focus on inclusive placemaking rather than iconic structures.

The problem in India (as, in fact, in most of the Global South) is this: At one end of the spectrum, we have the ones with the know-how; namely, the architects, engineers and urban planners. And at the other end, we have a huge unorganised sector that forms the corpus of the urban slum dwelling crowd: the ones most in need of this knowledge but with no access to it. Any attempt at the redevelopment of their space ends up being a lipstick job by the former set. The change is neither consequential nor sustainable since it is not powered from within. Add to it the real estate market pursuit, unfriendly government policies, miles of red tape and rampant corruption, and we are left with a very fragmented society with no contiguity in the different areas of development.

Is there a solution?

There is, according to architect Nirmal Kulkarni. “The solution is to empower lay people to become co-creators in the developmental process”. Nirmal is one of the founding principals of Aum Architects (Gurgaon). He also runs community programs with active student engagement at the centre. As an educator and practising architect, he realised early on that a feasible solution to the urban paradox can only be wrought through a kind of ‘design activism’ that interweaves value education with design thinking.

To find a viable and lasting solution, we need to tackle the problem at two levels. One is to acquaint the educated elite with the nitty-gritties of basti life, so as to generate empathy and start a dialogue. The other is to see that lateral thinking and design ability percolate to the bottom of the pyramid so that the subjugated are empowered to BE the change with minimal external interference. “Engagement is the key”, he says. “We need to realise that there is no ‘other’. We are all part of the same ecology. What impacts the part will impact the whole, one way or the other”.

For 5 consecutive years, from 2013 through 2017, Nirmal has been the moderator for the G-sen trophy and the zonal NASA competitions. He is pretty much a pioneer of the ‘socially-driven brief’ for these competitions. His briefs emphasize the structure or intervention in relation to society or social issues, rather than ‘structure’ as an end architectural product.

The idea of the socially driven brief

The architecture syllabus needs a serious overhaul. The system, as of now, provides little scope for hands-on experience and community engagement. The socially driven design brief is Nirmal’s earnest endeavour to plug this gaping void in the curriculum.

The briefs had different design intentions each year, but were marked by a few common denominators:

  1. They were always situated in the informal sectors of the urban sprawl.
  2. The briefs had 2 to 3 seemingly unconnected ideas to pursue. These ideas were from different spheres of knowledge but had to blend together in the final composite.
  3. The brief was structured in 2 to 3 different sections. The first was for data collection from site or secondary sources. The second was for collating the data as instructed. The third was for the application of this data in processing the final product, which was mostly an intervention. The process always called for interaction with the target community and active participation from both the sides.
  4. As a means of presentation, drawings had to be generated along with documentary videos of the data collation process, and any intervention that evolved through public participation was also to be documented in the videos.
  5. The jury members who judged this overall presentation were curated by Nirmal (himself the moderator) and were not always from the design field. For instance, in 2014 and 2017 sociologists were also called alongside architects to evaluate the overall process.

The ‘Why’ of the Social Brief

In 2005, Dr Olaf Sporns at Indiana University and Dr Patrick Hagmann at Lausanne University Hospital independently and simultaneously suggested the term ‘connectome’ to refer to a map of neural connections within the brain1. Building upon this analogy, Nirmal argues that all conscious beings are innately connected in a much more palpable manner than we care to believe. Since we are all part of a giant connectome, what affects one segment of society necessarily impacts the other. This makes it essential raise our levels of awareness and empathy. We cannot continue to turn a blind eye to problems that have hitherto been sidelined. The process of sensitizing must ideally form a part of youth education, and this is precisely what the socially driven brief hopes to accomplish. (The Connectome analogy was first introduced in the G-sen 2013 brief, but it forms the underlying philosophy of all the briefs till date.)

The ‘What’

The briefs explore a variety of topics: the misuse of the ‘commons’ or shared spaces; gender insensitivity; the lack of inclusive spaces for the physically and socially disadvantaged; and the problem of garbage disposal, to name a few. Each theme endeavours to create the much-needed awareness among youth as they embark on a profession that forms the core of urban planning.

  • G-sen 2013: Contextuality: This brief explored the theme of ‘Democracy through Design’. It encouraged participants to uncover self-similar patterns within all urban poor habitats, and then to (re)design spaces or structures within the existing framework in a way that - a) fostered self-sufficiency without having to go through creaky government machinery, and b) created a platform for knitting the communities together rather than fragmenting them, as insensitive planning does.  The central idea of the brief was this: Can ‘Architecture’ be used as an instrument of social justice? Also, can lateral thinking and design ability be cultivated from a young age, especially in the informal sector, through active engagement with the community?
  • G-sen 2014: Transformation: The brief explored gender-sensitive placemaking. The challenge was to redesign public spaces known to incite aggression against women, like transportation hubs, parks and wholesale markets, and generate ideas and interventions for making them more women-friendly.
  • G-sen 2015: The Backdrop: It challenged the notion of ‘building smart cities’ (sadly, a brainchild of the bureaucracy, where architects were merely cheap service providers) and urged the students instead to uncover smart features that distinguished their own city. Participants were asked to design a ‘Center for Human Interaction’ that would showcase these features, while simultaneously identifying areas that needed improvement with the help of cutting-edge technology. The objective was to foster a sense of pride in one’s environs along with the will to bring about a positive change.
  • G-sen 2016: Parallel Projections: It explored the threshold between ‘contextuality’ (what is) and ‘transformation’ (what needs to be) through the lens of gender sensitivity. The challenge was to create a design intervention within the existing basti space that would serve to address the problems of the local youth of both genders (youth being, also, representative of the threshold between childhood and old age). Engagement with the community was necessary, and the project had to be substantiated with relevant stories and documentaries.
  • ZNDC 2017: Communal Design: The 2017 zonal NASA contest was a seminal one in terms of participation and long-term engagement. The theme was ‘Connect the Dots’. This was designed as an ongoing educational program and had three major aspects: (a) Engage with youth of both genders from the informal sector and identify the problems in need of design solutions; (b) Engage with the municipal authorities in the area and get to know about schemes, funds etc.; and (c) Scourge the landscape for buildable waste material and design an intervention. This part of the brief touched upon the problem of garbage disposal.
  • DHFL 2017-2018: Design for Change:: The challenge was to create a replicable design for an Aanganwadi Center in an area of 120 square metres. The centre had to be optimally designed to accommodate the needs of the staff, lactating mothers, toddlers, older children and health professionals.

Does it work?

“The seeds have been sown, and there is certainly an enhanced sense of responsibility among the students”, muses Nirmal. But, while the enthusiasm of the participating colleges was heartening, the results did not always match up. They corroborated what Nirmal had known all along – that an erudite education is far removed from the ground realities of a developing nation. “Students suggested all sorts of elite interventions, from Sydney Opera House type structures to open-air theatres, bang in the middle of the slums, as a solution for all problems”, he laughs. The will was there, but it needed guidance. The highest points in the 2017-2018 contest were awarded to the college that had actually done some constructive work in a potters’ community. “Most of the others were just seeking to ‘uplift the downtrodden’ based on their own stereotypes”.

This realisation had earlier led to the conception of INDES – Investigating Design, a non-profit organization that holds pro-bono workshops with students of architecture and communities of school going children. The INDES team of mentors includes architects, students of architecture and other professionals with a keen interest in design. The students are a mixed group – parents, teachers and children mostly from the informal sector. Together they explore and decode the city in which they dwell “to create an enhanced sense of belonging to the city space”.  They also ideate workshops in which complex topics like design fundamentals and the handling of materials are explored in a simple and playful manner. There is a lot of give and take, and each benefits from the other.

The answer to the question “Does it work?” is as yet ambiguous. We have design activists doing their bit, but they are a mere 10 percent of the architectural community. However, the growing enthusiasm among the students paints a promising picture. “After all, the youth is where the action lies, since they are the ones with the energy and the freshness of vision”, says Nirmal. “The task is uphill, but it’s just a question of shifting gears. If we shift the focus from structures to communities, we will eventually get there.”

Jury Member Note (1): Driving home some concerns on the socially driven design brief.

Vani Subramanian
Feminist researcher, filmmaker and artist
JUROR FOR THE 2014/15 @ CHENNAI FOR THE GSEN TROPHY – TRANSFORMATION

I write as a feminist researcher, filmmaker and artist who has been working on issues relating to gender and space, been visiting faculty in schools such as the School of Planning and Architecture and the Sushant School of Architecture in and around Delhi, as well as a juror for the G-Sen Trophy at NASA 2015, Chennai.

Consider this. A student being nurtured in the culture of starchitects, dreaming of creating landmark edifices, re-imaging the money shot of the times, or even planning to re-master human settlements at the scale of the city, embarks on a ‘socially relevant design project’. Setting out to make place for the ordinary, the everyday, by creating something with far-reaching consequences for the disadvantaged, while they themselves are reaching for the stars.

How does that student shift gears to get a handle on such a project? A quick reading of some social research. A random ‘study’ among people who somewhat represent the ‘target population’. A generous dose of ‘good intentions.’ And a deep dive into the stereotypes already embedded in the mind. Without a conceptual engagement with the humanities and social realities, this is the basis of most well-intentioned architectural (and developmental) projects. Planning, designing and creating spaces and places for living, working and being, based on the perceptions of the student/creator, rather than the people they are creating for, their lived experience and their knowledge systems. Not surprisingly then, they often do little more than seek to ‘uplift’ the poor and the disadvantaged, rather than transform the circumstances that disempower them. Because invariably, it is the stereotypes that rule.

The rural/small town life, often idealised as the simple, good old way. Its rigid power structures and strictures forgotten, even though many of the students themselves have escaped such environs to make a life for themselves outside of it. Far too frequently, the basti, the construction site, the market and other working class spaces are simply places to be re-organised, re-ordered with the urban middle class mind and priorities, with little or no regard to the cultural codes and practices among the people that often migrate to the city with them. Creating disabled-friendly spaces then becomes merely a matter of planning ramp facilities or signages in Braille rather than understanding the wide range of physical, mental and social disabilities that people live with. The LGBTI community is not really to be thought about seriously except on the one day in a year when they take over the streets with ‘pride’. And of course, the woman/girl in the city is little more than a target of sexual violence – so her world on the street, her school, her workplace, her means of transportation, etc., are all to be re-imagined in an architectural lexicon that segregates, imprisons and keeps close watch upon her, rather than creates public and private spaces that are accessible to her and enhance her potential for liberty, growth and happiness. This, in the face of data that repeatedly tells us that most sexual violence is meted out by known-assailants, often in the ‘safety’ of the home. Yet the dominant trope of the working class male on the street as the sexual predator is what these projects inevitably respond to.

These are just some examples of how we, as teachers and a pedagogical system in architectural schools have failed to bring the complex dynamics of caste, class, gender and sexuality into the classroom in a meaningful way. Which is a shame considering that it throbs with life within the classroom and amid the students, and yet we teach them to engage with it in an out-of-body, out-of-context kind of way. But architecture intended for people, must be based on a deeper awareness and appreciation of, surprisingly, the diverse realities that amount to people.

It is not enough for our students to learn about space, if they are not learning about the politics of that space. They cannot understand the real challenges of place-making, if they don’t grasp the place of social structures and hierarchies in that context. It’s not sufficient that they discover the physical and technical qualities of materials, if they don’t appreciate the material basis of inequality where they seek to make an intervention. We must develop their ability to think about not just how they can use technology, but also who among their target community has/does not have access to technology, infrastructure and facilities they may create. Then of course, is the discourse on the power of aesthetics – their own versus that of those they hope to create for. Which should they draw from, what should they hope to achieve, and what are the implications of the choices they make? And most importantly, can we help them develop an ability to introspect about the word ‘location’ itself, beyond the physical site under consideration? If they learn to implicate themselves in the process of their work and reflect how their own social location impacts the way in which they understand the problem at hand, and frame its intended solution, then we may have done our job. To help them imagine, create or at least work towards the start of something socially significant.

The challenges before the curriculum and teaching in our architectural schools are monumental. But fortunately, their solution is at a human scale. 

Jury Member Note (2): My comments on Gsen Trophy parallel projection.

Mahesh Radhakrishnan
ARCHITECT - The Madras Office for Architects and Designers (MOAD)
JUROR FOR THE 2015/16 @JAIPUR FOR THE GSEN TROPHY – PARALLEL PROJECTIONS

Cities as human agglomeration are undergoing huge transformations at a rapid pace; a large part of this is due to the global forces and market capital. In this, the role of architects, planners and urban designers, especially in the third world are merely market exploits. The resultant is we(however helpless) produce cities of great inequality and disparity.

Traditionally the agenda of architecture is social and cultural production, however, the current realities in the last few decades have made this purely an economic one.

When architects are merely brokers of capital the goal of architecture from being social and cultural is lost. In order to reinforce this role, it is important for architecture to become ‘political’.

It is this political agenda that the G-Sen brief of 2017- Parallel Projections by Nirmal Kulkarni aligns itself to. It speculates on Contextuality, Notion of Commons, Threshold that exist between two conditions, places of Contestations and Confluence all with the singular agenda of making it Gender sensitive.

The brief tries to address a fundamental need for today’s students of architecture is to connect with the conflicted realities of their immediate environment. To see them not just as physical extents inhabited by people but as political processes. Can role of design then help architects negotiate this complex relationship between a place, its people and these processes? Can we intervene and empower through collective action? Can design interventions create societal change? These pertinent questions are a timely hypothesis, that both question the role of architecture and relevance of architects in an ever-changing paradigm of the phenomenon of the city.

Jury Member Note (3): GSen Trophy, NASA Jaipur

Neera Adarkar
A practising architect and an urban researcher.
JUROR FOR THE 2015/16 @JAIPUR FOR THE GSEN TROPHY – PARALLEL PROJECTIONS

Any space in the built world ranging from the formation of a shelter to that of the cities contains within itself issues of society and culture. and within that mainly of gender and class. We need to understand how the hierarchy of social relationships is reflected in the production of urban spaces and how in turn it defines the engagement of different sections of the society- mainly of gender and of class - to built space. Planners, policy makers, architects are all products of the same social system that makes them believe that as decision makers they are neutral and non-biased; that the built environment they create are also gender and class neutral, and that their perceptions about the needs and aspiration of society for which they plan and design, are unchallengeable. In reality is observed that the built environment affects men and women, rich and poor, young and old, very differently and the culture of planning and building has its strong links with the hierarchy of space.  However, the planners who are mainly male and who come from a privileged class do not understand this. For example women perceive and use private and public space differently than men. Their needs are different and more importantly their expectations and aspirations are different. Over the last two decades, all over the world including India, there have been researches and empirical studies to highlight misconceptions around the notions of neutrality. Factors like class, caste and religion too affect gendering of the built space. The architects and planners need to engage with different sections of the society before that undertake planning for them.  Most importantly the students of Architecture and Planning need to be encouraged and trained to interact with the communities for which they are going to design in the future to learn about their perceptions and expectations. Further, learn to work out strategies and processes to interact with the implementing authorities. Such a design/planning project for the students as a competition project would set them to imagine innovative built environments  that are gender friendly and class friendly.

Jury Member Note (4): Promoting socially-driven projects in curriculum of Architecture schools

Surekha Ghogale
Architect and CEO at Aga Khan Planning and Building Service, India
JUROR FOR THE 2013/14 @HYDERABAD FOR THE GSEN TROPHY – CONTEXTUALITY

The urban and rural built environment in India is in dire need of redesign, revitalization and change at the grassroots level, especially for the marginalized and neglected sections of society. However, proposed solutions can be sustained only through participatory planning and sensitive dialogue with the affected communities.

The waves of young architects who walk through the portals of our schools are often far-removed from this reality and unable to their potential as drivers of social change. It is therefore refreshing to see these aspects being included as additional curriculum through the medium of the GSen Trophy. Inculcating a spirit of social responsibility and encouraging a connect, between aspiring architects and planners with habitat issues at the grassroots, is the responsibility of our education system. It is necessary for the trained minds to be able to contribute their knowledge, skills and services to those who need it the most, but unfortunately are unable to afford it.