Archinect - MIT (Arjun)

random

2008-05-09T16:51:31-04:00

a couple of images mostly just setting up cameras.

and just like that ...

2008-05-04T13:58:07-04:00

... 7 years come down to 14 days.

i've been painfully lax on the bloggage this semester. i'll do a recap once i turn in my thesis book (the 22nd, but untill then here's really the only image that matters at this point:

and here's another one that matters less, but it's a sketch render i still enjoy:

red bull don't fail me now.

Back from Mumbai, and then there was 1 ...

2008-02-19T16:59:55-05:00

... semester that is. the one in which i confront the 800 lb gorilla looming over me since i arrived here - thesis.

we have prelim reviews coming up next week, before we head into the meat of the term, so i'm busy prepping for those.

Went to Mumbai to visit my site last week, had the pleasure of staying with family there, especially an uncle who knows the city inside and out. I've been to India many times since i was a kid, usually spending 1 or 2 months there living with my grandparents - but that was in Chennai and Banglore, and while both cities are very different from Mumbai, having spent a lot of time there had acclimated me to the typical sights, smells, tastes of what Indian urban life had to offer. Which is good, 'cause I wasn't able to stay there for very long (just a five days).

My site is near the eastern edge of the city, up against an active port section of the waterfront. on the western edge is a super-dense bazaar/residential area, to the south is what wa...

MIT Spring 2008 Lecture Series

2008-02-01T15:41:31-05:00

MIT Architecture Lecture Series: Global Practice

Spring 2008

By now, global architectural practice has already graduated from the initial phase of being a somewhat mysterious and glorified enterprise. The jetsetters have long become tired jetlaggers. Today, global practice seems to be just another approach to survival for many architects and firms. This new condition deserves a moment of reflection:

How has global practice impacted architecture, art, and design?

What is the current status of global practice?

How may global practice further transform the way we work and think?

====
All lectures are on Thursdays at 6:30 pm in Room 34-101. Lectures are free and open to the public. For some lectures, members of the MIT community with IDs will be admitted between 5:45-6:10 pm and the general public will be admitted as space permits at 6:20 pm.

Room 34-101 is located at 50 Vassar Street, in Building 34 (EG&G Education Center). An interactive map may be found on-line at: ...

late night studio ridiculousness.

2007-12-06T21:05:38-05:00

so as we all know, studio around finals period can be rough. the late nights, stress, and hours of staring at lines on a paper or computer screen can make even the most resolute among us, well ... more than a little loopy.

here is something to hasten this. spread the studio joy.

painkillers, taurine, and a bag of candy.

2007-12-01T17:10:51-05:00

leaving the convenience store located in MIT's student center, i ran into a colleague who asked me how my end of semester was going. I replied by showing him the contents of my purchase --

redbull
aleve
a kingsize bag of M&M's

he laughed and simply stated "ouch."

Then he told me of an instance in a previous semester when, to make a cast model for studio , he had to purchase a package of pantyhose and a bottle of Vaseline from the store at around 2am. I believed him ... for the most part.

what are some of the strangest/hilariously depressing end-of-semester purchases you archinecters have had to make? funny anecdotes encouraged.

Albany Megastructure - New York State Capitol

2007-11-11T18:45:43-05:00

last friday my ideal forms seminar took a trip to Albany to check out the New York State Capital Complex. Its basically a complex of government buildings, connected by a huge parking structure/mall. The plaza level/roof of the parking structure is about five stories above street level. The freeway basically enters the mega structure and terminates inside the parking structure. Its an unbelievable project just in terms of its Bigness. Here are some photos:

After going there, I think the biggest problem of the project is its interface with the surrounding city. The spaces themselves, while monumental, aren't necessarily the problem. The access to the plaza is virtually non-existent, and the underground concourse which connects the buildings basically makes walking on the top of the plaza redundant. Add to that the cold weather in Albany, you get a vacant space during the winter time.

back to work.

Thesis Abstract (Beta Release2)

2007-11-10T02:11:46-05:00

So I've given another stab at my thesis abstract. After reading it a few more times, I was a bit wary of the title i gave it, which spun some of the argument. This isn't to say that I wiped the idea of "unwanted" urban migration as actually an essential aspect of Mumbai's economic success - i still do - its just that in the end, it isn't exactly the question or hypothesis i want to put forward. It was more of a sociological, historical theorem, which while i find it interesting and of definite value, isn't going to by itself yield an understanding of space or built form. So after doing more research into Mumbai's economic breakdown, forecast, and the labor and resources required for the city's economic engines to keep running (which was rather depressing) I decided to approach the thesis from a slightly more speculative angle. Also, I ditched an upfront fascination with "third space" - while i still find it valuable as a method of analysis of space, it wasn't going to get me an...

Thesis Abstract (Beta)

2007-11-05T22:05:22-05:00

so after a couple of tries over the weekend to collect the research i've done so far and my personal ideas regarding them, I've written up a beta abstract that more or less gets at what I'm thinking. Its still really raw, and I still need to figure out how to better integrate my ideological / theoretical interests with concrete, study-able phenomena, but this is what ive got so far .... its still way too lengthy to technically be an abstract, and i'm trying to figure out how to pare it down (and concurrently, streamline the logic behind it as well). constructive comments / criticism are very welcome.

MIGRATION AS A CIVIC ACT:
NEGOTIATING MODERN MUMBAI’S HYBRID URBAN TERRITORIES
ARJUN BHAT | SMARCHS ARCHITECTURE AND URBANISM

This thesis studies the case of urban migration in Mumbai, and proposes a design for a relocated administrative state government which would serve the additional function of facilitating the migration of new incoming urban migrants into Navi Mumbai. The thesi...

MIT Lecture Series: Homegrown (with Mustard) #2

2007-10-26T20:32:20-04:00

So here at MIT, Mark Goulthorpe has spearheaded a new lecture series titled "Homegrown (with Mustard)" in which MIT Design faculty as well as practitioners from the Boston/Cambridge areas present their work; however, different from the usual lecture format most design schools may have, this series introduces a moderator, selected by the lecturer, to inject interrogations, critique, questions, and/or psychoanalysis of the presenter with the hope of exposing narratives, insights, and reactions which would remain hidden in a typical lecture setting. Its an interesting format, and while I don't know if other schools have similar events, its new to me.

The first lecture was two weeks ago, and featured Nader Tehrani moderated by Preston Scott Cohen. I was unfortunately only able to attend the first 20 minutes of the lecture before I had to leave. Last night, however, I was able to see our Department Head, Yung Ho Chang (Atelier FCJZ) moderated by Sanford "the Kwint" Kwinter. It wa...

3-2-1 Architecture

2007-10-19T19:51:55-04:00

A friend of mine forwarded this video to me. I don't know if it reaches the same level of archi-dorkism as the Mies video i posted earlier, but hope you enjoy it all the same.

T-Shirt Contest

2007-10-18T12:47:07-04:00

so, in an effort to put off actual productive work, I decided to make an entry for the DUSP (Department of Urban Studies and Planning) t-shirt contest. Now, I'm technically not a member of DUSP (being in the Dept of Arch) but as my specific degree is in Architecture and Urbanism, I felt I was more than able to handle the complexities of designing their t-shirt. So, this is what I made, after about 5 minutes of hardcore Illustrator action:

I mean, who doesn't love robots?

Hydrology

2007-10-17T16:06:32-04:00

So I'm in my studio trying to go through some design iterations, in an attempt to find something concrete to work with. This is the scenario so far:

Our Site:

800 HA on the outskirts of Bratislava, mostly flat (40m rise over 6km) and featureless (there is literally, one tree), save for a system of canals which handle water flowing from the mountains to the Danube (transversally across the short axis of the site, about 2km)

No overwhelming usage of the site which dictates future program (some scattered farms, but as a whole, the site is just a greenfield)

A developer who's open to whatever makes them money (which is motivation to get something worthwhile done, because no matter what, this piece of land is getting "improved" - for better or worse)

Oh yeah, a gigantic car factory that produces Touregs (sp?) and Cayennes, directly to our west.

It one of the strangest sites I've had to deal with in studio. This isn't to say that I haven't had idiosyncratic sites to deal with be...

Yokohama Anecdotes

2007-10-08T13:55:02-04:00

So I'm doing a comparative study for my Ideal Forms class comparing the Government complex at Chandigarh to FOA's Yokohama International Ferry Terminal, and was hoping to get some people's first hand impressions of it, having never been there myself. Have any of you Archinecters been there? If so, what was your impression of it? Was it a popular place (besides for tourists and architecture students)? Would you say it was a successful public space?

We're only supposed to analyze the project on its idealized vision (its more of a comparative study between the intent behind the proposals, not so much of their relative success or failure), but I'd like to know nonetheless.

"Big things require Big Things."

2007-09-19T13:35:36-04:00

Or so our studio TA so eloquently stated at the end of our sessions yesterday.

So, a couple of weeks into the semester I've managed to accomplish a couple of things:

1. Finalized my schedule, which goes something like:

_Urban Design Studio—Bratislava: Design of an extension to the Capital of Slovakia (Profs. J. Beinart & J. De Monchaux)

_Ideal Forms of Contemporary Urbanism (Prof. A. D'Hooghe)

_GSD 4405 Other Modernities: Architecture and National Identity in Global Context (Prof. S. Bozdogan)

_Thesis Prep

and finally my TA-ship for:
_Advanced Seminar in City Form (Prof. J. Beinart)

2. Started to get a productive swell of pre-thesis paranoia/stress

I write my thesis in the spring, which is not that far off, or so I keep telling myself. My interest is an amalgam of interelated issues that have, since my first studio here last fall, started to aggregate into (what i think) is an underlying question - a question that I foresee as becoming my thesis (or so i hope). It goes a little someth...

Where the hell is Bratislava

2007-09-03T13:03:07-04:00

... or so i read on a shirt i saw here in a gift shop.

greetings from slovakia, archinecters. right now im in an internet cafe contemplating the slovakian keyboard, among other things. My urban design studio is working in bratislava for the semester, and we will be here this week speaking with representatives from the local government, local institutions, and our sponsors, discussing potential strategies for an extension to the slovakian capital. So far, the design problem has shown some very interesting aspects, which ill go into further detail on when i return. for now the salient key terms are

tabula rasa, or at least pretty damn close, if u can believe it

post communist identity

branding

trade corridors

transition market

and the list goes on and on.

the studio is a design studio with both planners as well as architects, so im interested to see how the mix of students, students who often seem to be on opposite sides of the fence, work out together. the debate kicke...

MIT School of Architecture + Planning Fall 2007 Lecture Series

2007-08-31T13:18:08-04:00

MIT Architecture Lecture Series: "What City?"

Fall 2007

All lectures are on Tuesdays at 6:30 pm in Room 10-250. Lectures are free and open to the public. For some lectures, members of the MIT community with IDs will be admitted between 5:45-6:10 pm and the general public will be admitted as space permits at 6:20 pm.

September 11

Ackbar Abbas

Professor of Comparative Literature, UC Irvine

"The (Chinese) City as Decept"

September 18

Vicente Guallart

Architect, Barcelona

"Sociopolis"

September 25

Saskia Sassen

Economist, Columbia University, New York City

"The Global City: When built environments become infrastructure"

October 2

Lars Lerup

Dean, School of Architecture, Rice University, Houston

"After the City"

October 30

Margaret Crawford

Professor of Urban Design, Harvard Design School, Cambridge

"Everyday Urbanism"

November 6

Hou Hanru

Director, Exhibitions & Public Programs, San Francisco Art Institute

"Post planning"

November 13

Momoyo Kaijima

Architect, Ateli...

One more day, one final link.

2007-05-23T08:57:49-04:00

So in writing the last bits of a paper for my Traumatic Urbanism class, which I've centered on new/mass media's role as both perpetrator of the traumatic act and as stage for potential catharsis (attempting to connect this all somehow with consumption and the suburban ideal), I thought I would share a few interesting links having to do with a new treatment for PTSD that some of you may have heard about. Its called Virtual Reality Exposure Therapy - equal parts video game and medicine, brought together in a strangely twilight zone setting that borders between clinical breakthrough and naive technophilia. here are a few links:

Virtually Better

clinical case study

thoughts archinecters?

Nonsequitor for your final crunch.

2007-05-16T15:52:28-04:00

I know sleep deprivation can lead to some crazy experiences, but I never had anything close to this happen to me ... at least, not yet.

Hacks, Trauma, and 3 weeks to go.

2007-05-02T00:30:36-04:00

so i've been very slack in updating my blog. I'm sorry. It hasn't been a design oriented semester for me, which is weird. my time is spent mostly reading, writing, and thinking somewhere in between. its both refreshing, and incredibly disorienting. Studio used to be my spine, structuring my day to day routine, my semester, my academic life. Without studio, my life is spineless. This semester has been an exercise in navigating the unfamiliar.

What's happened in the past few weeks? reading. lots and lots of reading. mostly for both my thesis research/theory of city form class. More on that in my next post (i have a meeting next week where I need to turn in a proposal).

Also have a paper/presentation due soon for my Traumatic Urbanism seminar. I'm investigating the relationship between national identity, consumption, and how the dynamics between those two were affected by the death of the American myth, post Vietnam -- specifically, the role mass media has had in its me...

Serrenia by Foster and Partners

2007-03-16T13:54:31-04:00

Check out this short film my friend forwarded to me. it's promoting the "World's Most Exclusive Waterside Address."

K.I.S.S

2007-03-09T18:27:32-05:00

So I've been pondering this a lot lately. Perhaps its because of my studio TA-ship, and wondering what it is I should be telling students. Maybe its just a bout of personal reflection. Maybe I'm homesick for the wild and crazy times that was my undergraduate education. Whatever it is, the question is this:

"What was the single most important thing I've learned till now?"

I can think of a couple of phrases and exercises posed by my professors in my B.Arch days that could qualify, but filtering out a hierarchy isn't always so clear cut. of note:

-the K.I.S.S. principle (Keep It Simple, Stupid)
-the 12 line diagram (draw your entire concept/building/project/idea/motivation using 12 lines, then do it again, using less)
-your ultimate goal: totality
-I am ultimately responsible for my own education
-a dab of super glue + a dab of tacky glue = the best way to glue together a model

the list can go on and on, but I'm ending it here.

Archinecters, I'm curious -- how would you ...

The Architect's Dream Machine

2007-03-05T14:02:39-05:00

check out this advertisement i found on CNN.com's homepage. I hope some person here at MIT is close to finishing something like it ...

Fireside Chat with Peter Eisenman

2007-03-01T23:09:40-05:00

So Peter Eisenman gave a lecture today at MIT titled “Beyond the Index.” I’ll reserve my judgement of the whole thing till later (or perhaps one of my colleagues here at MIT will share their thoughts), but I thought I’d give a synopsis of the lecture, topics breached, questions asked, and completely ridicoulous things spoken by Mr. Bow Tie himself (sadly, he did not wear a bow tie to the lecture).

----START TRANSCRIPT----

Introduction by Prof. Mark Jarzombeck
- starts with a description of Eisenman’s work, “Notes on Conceptual Architecture”
- details into the significance of the footnote as a positivist device, and its connection with modernity.
- The format of Eisenman’s connotes the split from contextualization and the readily reference-able
- The supplement becomes the primary text in the article, can infer Eisenman’s to be stated interest in working past the indexical, also the title of the lecture (“Beyond the Index”)

Eisenman gets up to speak (or sits down, rather, a...

This has nothing to do with Architecture

2007-02-22T20:30:52-05:00

A friend of mine passed this link along to me. Its an eye opening video, and I'll use the author's words to describe it:

"The first part is in my "native language," and then the second part provides a translation, or at least an explanation. This is not a look-at-the-autie gawking freakshow as much as it is a statement about what gets considered thought, intelligence, personhood, language, and communication, and what does not."

MIT Lecture Series Schedule

2007-02-13T18:25:51-05:00

So MIT's lecture series this spring semester is pretty bloody good. Cheers to the students and faculty here for putting together such a strong schedule. Here's the list:
>>>>

February 27
François Roche
“MI(pi)”

March 1
Peter Eisenman
"Beyond the Index"

March 13
Richard Meier
"Richard Meier on Architecture"

April 3
Massimo Carmassi
“Time and Architecture”

April 10
Zaha Hadid
“Total Fluidity”

April 18
Glenn Murcutt
“Process: An Architecture of Response rather than an Architecture of Imposition”

April 24
David Adjaye
“David Adjaye: Recent Work”

May 1
Cecil Balmond
>>>>>

I suggest MIT rename their lecture series topic from "Revolution" to "Sampler Pack."

Beginning of semester, (this semester) ... (part 2)

2007-02-12T20:50:32-05:00

My favorite form of procrastination is to do so publicly on the Internet.

So it took about a week, but I think i figured out my final class schedule. looking like this:

>>
Theory of City Form - Julian Beinart

Traumatic Urbanism - Mark Jarzombeck

Special Topics in Media Technology: Other Product - Chris Csikszentmihályi

Urban Design Seminar - Dennis Frenchman
>>

Hopefully will turn out alright. No studio this semester, which works out, 'cause my Media Lab class will take its place in terms of outside of class work. Also, I landed a TA-ship, which should be fun. Oh yeah, I need to get to selecting a thesis topic somewhere in all of that.

Another semester, another notch on the belt. It's got room for two more. Hope I'll make it.

What would you name your firm?

2007-02-07T16:24:59-05:00

So everybody's thought about it. I mean, i'm sure most of you out there are bored with the old, "last name acronym" typology of names for firms out there.

I think I'd name my firm the same way I'd go about naming a rock band. But thats just my guess.

As for a name? I know it may not bring in much business but I've got a soft spot for

Evil Architects.

or

Evil Architecture.

How about you guys?

End of semester, (last semester) ... (part 1)

2007-02-05T16:02:58-05:00

So its been a while since I updated this thing. A real long while. I guess i kept telling myself that i needed time to "reflect over how the semester concluded" before i could get to updating, but the fact of the matter is, I'm just a lazy bastard. Oh well.

So i guess this will be a two parter: 1) how last semester ended and 2) how this semester looks to begin. here goes.

-----------------------

So the final presentation in studio went pretty alright. I use the term "pretty alright" because I can't say definitively that I was enthused with how the final jury turned out. Not to say that the projects weren't all top notch -- I thought they were excellent, in fact, and our profs told us so -- but the route the final jury took was less about individual critique and more a general discussion of the studio and interesting topics that the studio brought up.

Now don't get me wrong, that kind of round table discussion about architectural ideas, concepts, politics, urban trends, ...

Development in China

2006-11-18T16:54:33-05:00

A sobering video documenting the state of Chinese citizens evicted from their homes and left homeless in the name of large scale development in China. The development industry in China has been one of the most economically successful in the world, but at what cost?

watch the video

As one of my studio mates put it: "not to be watched if you're in a good mood ..."