18/05 - Masters’ Course in Architectural Education: Aζ and Sushant School of Art and Architecture, Ansal University

Programme

Four two-hour sessions with a dozen focussed presentations and interventions. The presentations are constructed as experiments in conversation – the manners of speaking – about Architecture, Architectural Education and the Institutions in India since 1947.

Architectural Education in India, its Function and Field

This session will attempt to characterize the context of formal architectural education, as it is practised in India since 1947.

1. The Architect-Function: This presentation concerns events affecting transformations of the term “architect” in India since 1947. It will describe, first, the change affected by the Architect’s Bills (1968 and 1972) and go on to discuss events that have significantly affected the interpretation of the term |architect|. While a few events are well-understood, the presenter will argue, others – those surrounding, say, the ‘discursive’ events surrounding the Festivals of India and the ‘revolutionary’ event of the Political Integration of India – are in need of a closer inspection, in retrospect the affect they have had on conduct of Architectural Education in India.
   Will include a brief history of the idea.
   Presenter: Anand Bhatt, with an intervention by Manoj Mathur (30 Minutes)

2. Architectural Education from the ‘outside’: covers the challenge of creating relevancies in professional courses that must embrace the global while executing locally argues the presenter. Taking examples of Design and Humanities courses and empirical studies, he asks two questions; ‘with what “LENS” do we study the curriculum to ensure relevance?’, and ‘How are others, in the BRICS countries, Africa and Eastern Europe; designing high-impact, blended (or experiential) learning courses for the “Digital First” societies in the making?’
   Presenter: Sanjay Dwivedi with interventions by Madhav Raman (30 Minutes)

3. Considering Architectural Education: is an invitation for a structured dialogue on education from an academic. The speaker will present a deeply personal view of Architectural Education, drawing from his experience in the design of courses and curricula, empirical research and documentation. The speaker, who will be presenting again the third session, has several questions for academics present with an intention to characterize Architectural Education across diverging ‘schools’ that obtain in Indian Architecture.
   Presenter: Ravindra Vasavada, with interventions by Ashok Lall and KT Ravindran and responses by Mark Arjun Warner (30 Minutes)

Why create a Masters’ Course in Architectural Education?

This session will evaluate the affects that occur whenever new specialized disciplines and branches of studies are extruded from the kernel. It will, in particular, consider the impact of Masters’ programmes in Urban Design, Sustainable Architecture, and Conservation Architecture in India to build a metric for evaluating the proposed programme in education.

It is an open discussion and each question will be initiated by Architexturez South Asia with a five-minute presentation articulating some key questions at three levels:

• At the level of Ideology: how specializations since the 1980s in India have affected the way we ‘speak’ or think about Architecture?

• At the level of Methodology: how specializations have affected the practice of Architecture and the professions at-large?

• From a Temporal standpoint: In what kind of time do these affects occur?

Managed by Ameet Babbar, Shiny Varghese and Vibhuti Sachdev (60 Minutes)

Three Representative Courses

This session will present a new Masters’ in Architectural Education course that is discussed at Sushant School of Art and Architecture, and two courses that were prepared in 2006 by TVB School of Habitat Studies and Centre for Environmental Planning and Technology to understand the scope and requirements.

1. The first presentation by Sushant School of Art and Architecture will discuss the current Undergraduate Programme at SSAA, its priorities and methodologies, and present the general structure of the Masters’ courses.
   Presenters: Suruchi Modi and Vibhuti Sachdev (30 Minutes)

2. The second presentation will discuss TVB School of Habitat Studies (now GGSIPU), starting with the early in the Curriculum Development at GREHA, this presentation will discuss the pedagogy and academics at TVB-SHS and present the M.Arch Course in Architecture Education for GGSIPU, prepared by Dr K.L. Nadir and Anand Bhatt under the supervision of Ashok Lall (Dean of Studies) and AG Krishna Menon (Director).
   Presenters: Ashok Lall and Rajat Ray with responses by Mark Arjun Warner (30 Minutes)

3. The third presentation will contrast curriculum development at the School of Architecture, Ahmedabad, (1979-2003) with at CEPT University (2007-present). It will discuss Programme Notes towards a Masters’ Course in Architectural Education commissioned by CEPT University, created in 2005-’06, at the time of transition.
   Presenters: Surya Kakani and Ravindra Vasavada (Two presentations of 20 Minutes)

Levels, Competencies, and Requirements

The transformations experienced by Institutes offering Architectural Education are in need of a deep consideration as we can evidence from the contemporary conversation: no matter who is speaking, we hear the same expectations, the same manners-of-speech centred on the same components that tend to betray a kind of weariness, a sense of depletion, as if the academic process has moved elsewhere even as architects continue to speak about it with a sense of trust and truthfulness.

1. What has changed, what is changing: an invitation from experienced academics who have continuously participated in National Strategy and Policy discussions over the years. The presentation offer observations on recent events in Architecture, personal insights in the processes that are underway, and address questions to the academics present to articulate the emerging demands on Architectural Education, where the disciplines of the profession are reproduced.
   Presenters: KT Ravindran, Ravindra Punde and Shiny Varghese (Three presentations, 10-20 Minutes each)

2. Learning from Integrating — LEAN principles in an AI-First World: is a presentation that asks several questions, given the Government of India’s reliance on techno-scientific transformations when it comes to policies concerning architecture, urban design and cities in general. It becomes interesting in the context of these policies to ask as to how specifications of conceptualizing processes, such as the Design Thinking Principles will assist current and future architects launch their professional practices. The presenter will raise two key questions, (a) will aesthetics will remain a ‘gift’ or a sense for a chosen few or become a mission-critical subject that underpins all learning? and (b) given sciences outside of architecture and archaeology have intruded the disciplines in compelling ways, how much should be taught using computational – “AI-First” – approaches and where traditional methods must persist?
   Two Discussions: Sanjay Dwivedi; followed by Anubha Kakaroo, Kshitij Marwah and Navyug Mohnot (15-20 Minutes each)

3. Controlling and Regulating Architectural Education: This presentation reconsiders the Architect-Function, vis-à-vis the dual and incompatible interpretations of the CoA’s role – that of a registrar and ‘tribunal’, and of a ‘protector’ – that prevail and focuses on the erosion of the Councils’ powers since the early 2000s. Finally, it asks what authority – even a moral right – does the CoA have in overseeing the maintenance of the Minimum Standards of Architectural Education in India? Has the time not come, for schools of architecture, to return to the types of reasoning, or, at the least the manners of speech deployed prior to the Architect’s Act?
   Presenter: Anand Bhatt with interventions by academics and responses by Shiny Varghese (30 Minutes)

Interventions

Ameet Babbar, Anand Bhatt (1)(2), Sanjay Dwivedi, Vijay Garg, Anubha Kakaroo, Ashok B. Lall, Manoj Mathur, Suruchi Modi (3), Surya Kakani, Nirmal Kulkarni, Ravindra Punde, Rajat Ray, KT Ravindran, Vibhuti Sachdev (3), Shiney Varghese, RJ Vasavada, Mark Arjun Warner.

Jeyanthi Nadesalingam and Himanshu Sanghani, Observers for Sushant School of Art and Architecture; Madhav Raman as discussant for Sanjay Dwivedi in the first session; Navyug Mohnot and Kshitij Marwah in discussion with Anubha Kakaroo and Sanjay Dwivedi in the fourth session. With messages from Prem Chandavarkar and Riyaz Tayyibji

Format: Interventions typically consist of a research presentation and questions for the audiences, in equal measure, see the abstracts of the previous meeting for reference.

Concluding Session: Introducing the next Architexturez South Asia Meetings.

• Architectural Publications: a review meeting to evaluate drafts of the readers and texts prepared by Architexturez South Asia, the readers will provide textbooks in professional practice and architectural education and the texts are reprints of long out-of-print, but case-establishing, PhD Thesis and Books.
  Presenter: Anand Bhatt (10 Minutes)

• Intellectual Property, Copyrights, Moral Rights and Architectural Works: hosted by Indian Institute of Architects (Northern Chapter) is a meeting to understand the points of convergence amongst the Architects’ Act and other laws that affect the practice of architecture in India, for two reasons, (a) to dispel the common notions surrounding the idea of architecture as it is enshrined in India; and (b) to pay specific attention to the convergence between the Design Act (which allows building to be design-marked, and by implication allowing for ‘builidng designers’), Copyright Act (describing what the practice of architecture entails) and the Architects’ Act (describing who is a practicing architect).
  Presenters: Ameet Babbar and Vijay Garg (10 Minutes)

Location

INTACH
71, KK Birla Ln,
Lodhi Estate, New Delhi.

10:00 — 18-:30 Hours
12^th May, 2018