Filed under: Blogroll, Design and Architecture | Tags: Christopher Charles Benninger, discussion, Experience, Experiential Design, Experiential Design Lab, Interactive Design, lecture, Pune, Pune Design Foundation, Sarvasva Designs, SDPL, talk, workshops
Pune had a pleasant surprise in the form of Anurag Sehgal from Experiential Design Lab, New Delhi. He was in for a day and Sarvasva Designs (SDPL) organised an impromptu lecture of his for the architecture and design community.
The venue was the wonderful studio of renowned architect Christopher Charles Benninger, which provided a perfect setting for the talk on ‘experience design’. Present at the informal discussion were architects, well-known members of the Pune Design Foundation and also some people from the corporate side.
Anurag gave an informal presentation of what really is Experiential Design, how architects had been using some aspects of it from before, how it has become a technology-driven field that now can touch every aspect of the human emotion and can be built on a micro and macro level. He showed videos of works done by his office as well as some noted projects.
SDPL came up with the idea of the presentation to primarily educate architects and design professionals on how important Experiential Design is and how it can be used in their projects.
We are now planning a series of these presentations soon. Will keep all posted.
ps: Since we were so immersed with the presentation, we forgot to take photographs! :( …well, the next time now.
Filed under: Design and Architecture | Tags: design, India, MCCIA, Pune, Pune Design Foundation, Sarvasva
This is to report the successful inauguration of the “Industrial Innovation and Design Cell” on the 26th June 08 - a collaborative initiative by the MCCIA and the Pune Design Foundation.
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The Inaugural event was a workshop targeted at the the Electronics Industry, held at the ICC towers, Pune. The chief guest was Mr. Sohan Chordia of GIC - a senior and pioneering industrialist from the electrnics sector. It was also voluntarily attended by veteran academician Dr. Kolaskar - displaying a commendable seriousness in his endeavour to enter the field of design education.
Attendees consisted of primarily of senior and upcoming electronics manufacturers, electronics professionals of various types, as well as Design professionals, design faculty and students.
The event was covered by the press, and it was quite heartening to see the precise purpose of the workshop being fulfilled - manufacturers showed an active interest in interacting with designers, asking for advice from the design community and distinctly displaying a desire to engage the designers in professional projects. The students also expressed a good satisfaction at being able to get such valuable (and rare) exposure from so many prominent designers, as well as acquiring a first hand experience of seeing senior deisgners interact with the electronics industry and address their voiced needs.
Presentations by all four design speakers (Satish Gokhale from Design Directions, Bala Mahajan from Ticket Design, Prakash Khanzode from Onio Design, Nachiket Thakur from Mahindra Composites) were superlative and clearly made an impression on the attendees from the electronics industry.
Our next workshop will be held in approximately the first week of Aug - kindly send in your expression of interest for being a design speaker for the forthcoming InnoCell workshops of 2008.
(Excerpted from Pankaj Sapkal’s mail to the Foundation, giving the post-event details)
Both Directors of Sarvasva Designs are the founding and executive board members of the Pune Design Foundation.
Filed under: Blogroll, Design and Architecture | Tags: architecture, building, construction, culture, heritage, history, old, Pune, Pune Walks, wadas
I often wonder, when I think this question, “Where is our heritage going?” It’s disappearing so fast, so it should be going somewhere I think… I wonder what train or plane it is catching, and to reach where? Why is it vanishing without a trace? Does it have a dubious past or a criminal record? Then why is it being chased off?
I conduct heritage walks [Pune Walks] around the city. And this is something that is very close to my heart because I always feel my heritage and culture make me what I am today. And I am proud of it. It’s wonderful to go and touch the old stone and wood, and breathe in thousands of years of history that was the foundation of the today we live in.
Whilst walking along the streets of Pune, all I see are the old wadas being demolished and new monstrosities emerging in the name of ‘modern architecture’, and I wonder, “Where is our history going?”
Old doors are displaying forgotten history and culture. Windows open out to new vistas and a new life. Sometimes one only sees these now lifeless ‘openings’, a mute testimony to all that had been. And I wonder, “What did those homes turn into?”
Sometimes, and often, I’ve wished I lived in a place that had this kind of rich history, culture and architecture; and since I cannot, I make do by spending time at them. And its a wonderful feeling to share these treasures with others.
But when I see the kind of neglect from the people and government, and also the cold callousness of the Building and Construction industry; not to mention the absolute sense of irresponsibility and lack of imagination from architects, I wonder, “Where are we really going?”
I mean, would you point out to a non-characteristic, typical, glazed facade and tell your children, “Look, this is our wonderful heritage!” … ?
Text and pics (c) Darpana Athale, 2008.
Filed under: Uncategorized
A very interesting and well-made video on Traffic and the many outcomes of it.
Filed under: Blogroll, Design and Architecture | Tags: Academics, design, India, Methods, Students, system, TCP, Teaching
Few days ago, I had a student from a well-known design institute come to our studio, to get help on his TCP project. Citing a confusion, which apparently the entire class was having, he discussed the project at length. And whilst talking, he mentioned how the ’systems’ class project had gone easier, and how there was a confusion right now as to how to take things forward.
He basically had two problems- one that his project was going beyond what had been expected in class. In fact he had managed coming out with an entire new design of his own. Second, his guides and staff in college were too busy to help him. Ditto with other students. [The same evening, we got another student wanting help.]
But the biggest problem was the brief itself. The class had been asked to look at TCPs [Technically complex products] and find problems and therein solutions. That was all. The process, means and selection/level of complexity of products were left to the students. If the students got stuck somewhere, they had the choice to take up another product, but only at the later stage of the earlier product- which does not give students time to complete either or anything . So this particular student was stuck because he not only had not really found any problems in the product, but had managed conceiving an entirely new product. And that’s when I realised that most of the time, students are only taught that they should take a product and HAVE TO find faults in it, and then give solutions. But rarely are they told that it is not necessary that products always will have faults or are problematic.
Look at the mobile phone. The functions are almost the same since its conception. But what has been changed is the version. Things have been added to ‘better’ it. Similarly with a software having many versions, a monitor vs a flat screen and so on. The earlier products are not ‘faulty’, they have just been modified to either look better or be perceived as different.
So when a student is supposed to find faults in a product, but cannot, and goes on to create a new product by synthesis of thoughts and ideas, which is not what is expected in class, he/she will get confused.
And if they find the ’systems’ class easier, its because they’ve been ‘directed’ as to what needs to be done. And in fact the class was made to look at stuff/products that actually were not making much of a difference to the overall system itself. This kind of leading is extremely dangerous and detrimental. You need to make a student think. And think right. It also surprised me that they could not relate the system class to the TCP class. And that was because the level of complexity of a TCP class was totally in contrast to the basic overview of the system class.
So on one end, students are dealing only superficially with things, and at the other, they have to deal with completely complex products- and its not surprising that they cannot relate to either. And this is what is being taught in final year design classes. So how do we expect students to comprehend design and design solutions as a whole? Sadly, the students are eventually blamed for the lack of correct information and education. Are we creating a better race of designers then?
-Darpana Athale.
Filed under: Blogroll, Design and Architecture | Tags: Bangalore, design, Hyderabad, India, Retail
South India, for all purposes, is thought to be more nerdy, conservative and money-conscious. People in other parts of India sometimes do tend to think that south-Indians have garish taste in everything.
South India is not just known for its conservativeness, but also for being very closeted and choosy about what they call ‘their own’. A typical Tamilian, when it comes to shopping, no matter how far they travel in the world, will prefer to shop in Chennai for a wedding or function at home. And though the same is prevalent in most Indians, the people in the South are more so.
On my recent trips to Bangalore and Hyderabad, I realised how much the retail environment had actually emerged, and changed the lifestyle of people in the South. And how they have adapted the new to merge with their old, instead of the other way round.
So what happens when the retail boom hits the South? It booms so much that the ‘West’ (read as Maharashtra, Gujarat and Goa) are put to shame, literally. Even the style, economy and film capital Mumbai is a poor caricature to the kind of retail buildings built in the South. From 7 storeys for just saris, to a mall for ‘whatever you want under the sun’ if you are getting married, to furniture and more, the South has retail structures that are larger, more specialised and also better looking as compared to a Mumbai, or for that matter a Pune, that looks like a poor cousin in comparison.
Agreed that space is a constraint in Mumbai, but design? Why are there no well-designed stores or store windows for that matter? Malls and stores in Mumbai, which started the mall culture in the country, fail to impress once you travel down South. Large show windows, well-designed details, better products and also buildings that have a better setback, dominate the skyline of Bangalore and Hyderabad. And these are just the 2-tier cities, not the large booming metros that Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata and Chennai are.
So what is it that the big cities lack and the smaller cities have taken the opportunity of? Is it because the bigger cities are monopolised by a certain set of architects and designers, who are as old in their ideas as their firm is? Or does the South have a better spending power that a store of a big brand in India, tends to spend better in the South, to do up the interiors and design detailing, than in any store elsewhere. Its an interesting point to be explored.
Whatever the reasons are, it just goes on to prove that South Indians are not only cash-conscious, but also meticulous enough to demand their money being used to ‘look the best!’.
(I apologise for the quality of pics here- they have been taken thru moving vehicles and a low camera battery!)
- Text and pics (c) Darpana Athale.
Filed under: Design and Architecture | Tags: Automobiles, Car, design, India, NANO, TATA
Three cheers to Shri. Ratan Tata.HIP HIP HOORAY, HIP HIP HOORAY, HIP HIP HOORAY!!!!
It’s been an amazing achievement which will be etched in our history books, Glocally.
I am amazed that none of us have really understood the meaning of a DREAM being made into a REALITY which was a PROMISE to a country of 1 billion+ people & the world, this gentleman has achieved it to its core and within his stipulated TIME FRAME.
Would this been a success of an American, European or even a Korean company we would had seen much more less criticism & would had looked forward to this car being launched in India (as an innovative product) to learn more from it and even buy one. Anyways, even with its cons the A,E and the K’s would had flooded each & every so call third world country with their version of the ‘NANO‘, what would had happened then?
I think we are all missing quite a few points here……..
1. The scenario of cars flooding our markets has always been there since the past couple of decades.
2. Our infrastructure has always been behind the actual requirement again by a couple of decades.
3. The world is getting more & more polluted, specifically by one or a couple of countries & its not India.
4. The world is shrinking & so are cars.
We need to upgrade our mental infrastructure to put the physical in place & a lot of problems lie in the attitude of our government & citizens who elect these persons to govern our country.
We are facing a lot of problems as a country, which need to be resolved by coming together of all the ministries & the policies required for the progress of this country.
Mukund AthaleFounder Director+ Principal Designer, Sarvasva Designs.
Filed under: Blogroll, Design and Architecture | Tags: architecture, book, poem
Poems, like architecture, are mosaic-patterned images…
They give you the entire picture in a glance;
but on a closer scrutiny, reveal to you, every single nuance.
I wrote the above lines on the cover of this interesting book, one I’ve had the pleasure to be gifted and read… Poems for Architects: An Anthology, by Jill Stoner.
Architecture being my passion and poetry being part of what I do to express myself, I found this book just apt and for me. The content definitely has poems, yes, but more so by different people from across the world. And classified under different sections like form, urbanism,etc- each section having a descriptive essay at the beginning and visuals interspersed with quotes. The book seeks asks as well as answers the question, ‘Why do architects need to know poetry?’
Sharing few of the poems:
1. A Walk Through Munich
*still life:
I walk through the city
apartment buildings,
government offices
built of marble,
sheathed in basalt,
which we tore out of cliffs
in Flossenburg, Mattausen, Lissa…
I look, I think:gasoline,
some hand grenades
a work detail,
and so, house after house,
street after street,
quarter after quarter,
one city after another,
like the ghetto in Warsaw;
as if this were a beautiful work of architecture:
above- the clear blue sky,
below- the burnt out walls.
(Tadeusz Borowski, translated by Tadeusz Pioro. This is a long poem of many sections, separately titled, of which ’still life’ is one.)
2. DIAGRAMS
Downtown, an office tower is going up.
And from the mesa of unfinished top
Big cranes jut, spectral points of stiffened net:
Angle top-heavy artefacts, and yet
Diagrams from the sky, as if its air
could drop lines, snip them off, and leave them there.
On girders round them, Indians pad like cats,
with wrenches in their pockets and hard hats.
They wear their yellow boots like moccasins,
balanced where air ends and steel begins.
Sky men, and through the sole’s fresh, chewed and pliant,
they feel the studded bone-edge of the giant.
It grunts and sways through its whole metal length.
And giving to the air is a sign of strength.
(Thom Gunn)
More in the next post.
Filed under: Design and Architecture, Pune Design Festival | Tags: CII, design, national design policy, Pune Design Festival
Yes, it’s been a year since I’ve written on this blog. And another Pune Design Festival 2007 was organised, this time with yours truly (me) being the Chairperson. I think when one is so involved in designing and doing other things related to design, one does not write that much on the subject. And this is a personal opinion out of my own experience.
A look at what major design events(India) happened in 2007:
1. The National Design Policy got launched. (finally!)
The Government of India has finally taken a good interest in design as an important field like medicine, engineering,etc. And on 8th of February 2007, the Union Cabinet approved the ‘National Design Policy’. For more details: http://www.designinindia.net/design-now/design-policy/index.html
2. Pune organised the second Pune Design Festival 2007. Here’s a gist:
Pune Design Festival 2007
(20th-24th November, Pune)
www.punedesignfestival.com
A festival organised and managed solely by designers for the design fraternity, industry and public to enable Pune become the Design Capital of India.
The Pune Design Festival 2007 saw many vertical components-
1. Design competitions for school (India’s first design competition for school children), college and non-design students.
2. Workshops for students: The first on Culture and Design by Lisa Yong and Wai-Loong Lim of YStudio, USA; Mukund Athale, Sarvasva Designs Pvt Ltd and Anirudh Natu,Symbiosis lnstitute of Design. The second workshop was on Strategic Branding taken by Anil Chouhan, Onio Design and Sanjay Jain, MIT-ID. These workshops were held at respective institutes.
3. Visions Workshop: A brand strategising workshop for corporate, management, decision makers and SMEs. Conducted by Eero Miettenen, Design Director, NokiaFinland; Pankaj Sapkal, Short-path and Balakrishna Mahajan, Ticket Design. Held at Multiversity School of Design. Design,
4. Exhibitions:
- Pune, its heritage and culture by INTACH-Pune Chapter
- National award-winning works of Indian Institute of Interior Designers(IIID).
- Showcase of works by designers of Pune, under the umbrella of Pune Design Foundation.
5. Conferences:
Spanning two days, 26 speakers, 8 moderators and encompassing fields of design like Product and Industrial Design, Design Management, Business, Culture, Environment, Automobile, Usability, Interaction Design, Colour Trends, Design Education, Communication Design, Architecture and Music + Design.
The conference had insightful and inspiring presentations by Padmashree Dr.Vijay Bhatkar, Freeman Lau-Hong Kong Design Center, Eero Miettenen-Nokia, Bhargav Mistry, Lisa Yong- YStudios, Jos Oberdorf-NPK Industrial Design, Satish Gokhale-Design Directions, Latika Puri Khosla-Freedom Tree Design, Neeraj Chandra-Britannia, Sudhir Sharma- Elephant Design + Strategy, Dr.Dinesh Katre-CDAC, Anurag Sehgal- Experiential Design Lab, Pramod Khambete- Tech MAhindra, Ajay Jain- Renault India, Nachiket Thakur- Mahindra Composites, Kiran Kulkarni- TATA Motors, Abhimanyu Kulkarni- Philips India, Nishma Pandit-Ticket Design, Girish Doshi- Navkar Architecture Studio, Christophe Francois - Institut Superieur de Design, France, Nachiket Thakur- Bamboo Vishwa, Prof.Pradeep Pendse- Welingkar Institute, Ampat Varghese-Srishti, Anirudh Natu-Symbiosis, Sanjay Jain- MIT-ID.
The Grand Finale was a presentation by Alessi- represented by Chiara and Giovanni Alessi.
One of the highlights was the Design Honour 2007 given to Shrikant Nivsarkar, President IFI, for his contribution to the design field.
Moderators:
1. Dhimant Panchal, MIT-ID
2. Ashwini Deshpande, Elephant Strategy + Design
3. Sammeer Chabukswar- Persistent Systems
4. Anand Palsodkar, Elephant Strategy + Design
5. Manoj Kothari, Onio Design
6. Nachiket Thakur, Bamboo Vishwa
7. Hrridaysh Deshpande, Elephant Multiversity - School of Innovation
8. Harshwardhan Gupta, Neubauplan Machine Design Studio
The Festival was a great success by the very fact that a group of designers could come together to organise such a large event and have such great content. And this being the second year only of Pune Design Festival; it still saw a huge number of eminent Indian and international speakers.
The Executive Committee of the Festival was:
1. Darpana Athale, Chairperson, Pune Design Festival 2007.
2. Nachiket Thakur, Vice-Chairperson, Pune Design Festival 2007.
3. Satish Gokhale, President, Pune Design Foundation
4. Ashish Deshpande, Vice-President, Pune Design Foundation
5. Sudhir Sharma
6. Mukund Athale
7. Hrridaysh Deshpande
8. Prakash Khanzode
9. Samyak Pungaliya
10. Pankaj Sapkal
11. Balakrishna Mahajan
12. Nishma Pandit
Sponsors: Principal Sponsor -Sakal; Industry Partner- MCCIA, Associate Sponsors- Think3, MIT-ID, Forbes Marshall, DSK School of Animation,Gaming and Industrial Design, Vishwakarma Institute Creative-i, Competition Sponsor- Symbiosis Institute of Design
Supported by: Designindia, NID, Intach-Pune Chapter, IIID, Kyoorius Exchange.
Organised by: PUNE DESIGN FOUNDATION. www.punedesignfoundation.com
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Pune Design Foundation
Pune Design Foundation is an association of design professionals & thinkers from Pune and surrounding region determined to make Pune as the design destination in India.
Pune Design Foundation has Communication designers, Industrial Designers, Usability & interaction designers, Accessory designers, design & brand managers, design researchers and design educationists as its members.
Mission of Pune Design Foundation is to promote the cause and awareness of design as a necessity to good living and better business. The ‘Foundation’ believes that Pune region has strength of around 500 design professionals, a number that is bound to increase due to growth in the engineering, Auto and IT industry in this region.
Pune Design Foundation aims to;
1. Create a strong network of designers and create a platform for sharing design thinking and case studies
2. Increase the awareness of “good design” amongst the “people” and ”industry” thru out-reach programs, events and museums.
3. To spread design awareness at school level so as to inculcate design thinking in young minds as well as provide structured guidance to improve higher design education.
4. To undertake design of public convenience as a key program to elevate general life of common people
5. To identify and help integrate regional cultural values, crafts and traditions.
6. To link up with national and international bodies to help promote the Pune region as a design destination.
7. To become a voice of the design professional community at government policy level.
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3. CII_Design Summit
This was in Bangalore and the focus was on the National Design Policy largely. But with a great presence of international designers, this summit also saw a focus on ‘innovation’ as the next word instead of design. Brand Experience, Culture, Design 3.0 were some of the other buzz words.
The next Summit is slated to be in Pune. 
…but one can’t stop blogging!
Currently am writing on 6 blogs- 3 of which are design-based. And all because the design activity in Pune has become a whirlwind affair that has literally catapulted the industry here.
I’m talking of the Pune Design Festival 2006 held (obviously) in Pune the last weekend. An unique thought process wherein for the first time, the design industry has come together to build a foundation of professionals in the field and like-minded academic institutions and corporates. So the festival was conceived and executed by the Pune Design Foundation group, as of now comprising 9 design companies and 2 academic schools based in the city. Our company being one of the design firms there.
The best part of this festival and foundation being established was the overall synergy within the design firms, as opposed to the normal competitive attitude most designers have. And the following statement is being made very objectively and not as a Punekari, but the attitude is a city-based one. When I used to work with a architecture magazine from Bombay, I used to often visit Pune and meet the architecture fraternity here and was amazed to see that there was(still is) a wonderful co-existence between the firms here. They would visit each other often, look at and share their views on the other’s projects, gather as a group and talk design, share ideas, visit different cities and other architecture practices… something I’ve never seen people in other cities do. In Bombay, there are people who are close-knit and share work, but not to this extent.
Delhi is another topic altogether. The politically inclined city makes its views very strongly felt even in the design group. People are secretive, fiercely competitive, will not allow anyone go ahead of them, extremely insecure of their clients, work and space… leading to a society that is wary of every other person who is termed a ‘designer’. They talk of knowledge-sharing on one hand, but will not disclose the name of their structural engineer, lest he be ‘poached’!
And these views are being said out of experience and very close observation. An example that happened to ‘yours truly’… a Pune-based client asked my firm to be part of the ongoing work in terms of execution as it is convenient, economical and one can also keep a good check on the project if the design firm is from the city itself. We were asked to meet and collaborate with the designer, who’s based out of Delhi. We did meet him as designers first and were in turn met with silence, a very cold attitude and a sense of thousand walls coming up around and between us. Basically we realised that he felt we were competition to him! Then when we said the client asked us to meet, he was flabbergasted, sweated a bit and was in a hurry to leave…so we finally had to convey to him that we were only planning to execute his project and not take his job from him. That is when he relaxed, just a little bit, and muttered something to the effect that he may not mind and will get back. Phew!
Why are people so insecure? In a field that is only going upward and in leaps and bounds, there is definitely work for everyone. And finally is this not the age to come together and build?
