Heritage Management

I happened to hear Anand Kanitkar speak over the past two days, at various conferences.  Now working with UNESCO, Anand  has been looking at various aspects of heritage management, and had shared his views . I thought of compiling the points and putting it across so that we all could benefit from his ideas. Have also added some of my own, and will welcome more thoughts on the same.

Points for Heritage Management from other countries that India, especially Pune can incorporate :

1. Salvage Archaeology.
There should be a policy made for salvaging heritage artifacts.
Maintaining and Showcasing these artifacts in a proper manner is also important.

2. Visibility.
India has many world heritage sites, but not listed. We can create a global presence through heritage if properly channelised.
Accessibility to these sites is very important and must be encouraged at all levels.
Heritage can create the right economic turnover, if given enough exposure and visibility.

3. Create Awareness.

- For locals – creating pride, awareness and sensitivity. Starting with schools.
- Local authorities
- People staying around heritage sites
- Heritage property owners. (there should be an incentive for the heritage property owners from the State Govt. wrt their property taxes and maintenance)
-  Celebrating the heritage week, with free entries for people from all walks of life to come, see and even touch. This will encourage people to come more often. Like in Italy, events can be created specially at all times of day and night for people to experience their heritage differently.
- Involving the young generation, especially school children, so that they can know their history as well help educate others.
- Creating multi-sensory experiences

Tools that will help heritage management:

- Creating Conservation Centres for experts to come from all over the world.
- Study centres for locals and foreigners to know more about our heritage.
- 3D Scanning of Projects
- Creating physical and virtual museums.
- Using heritage sites for public events, so that people also take notice of these structures and feel the pride too.

I hope the people who want to bring in a positive change in this city are listening…and reading this post. And I hope we can work towards giving our heritage more respect and a place of pride within our daily lives.

Take pride in your heritage, preserve it.

As part of a lecture series organised under the banner of Virasat Pune’s Heritage Week here in the city, Prof. MK Dhavalikar talked about the way heritage and its value has changed in India, over the past few decades.

India is a treasure trove of artifacts, still found abundantly in various areas, a lot of them by the road side with vermillion applied to give them religious connotations. Many such wonderful antiques have been smuggled out of the country and some yet are part of private collections, kept away from public eye.

The first Ancient Monuments Protection Act was passed in 1882 by the British, recognising the need for a governmental administration on the protection of ancient monuments. Most of our monuments are protected by the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Sites and Remains Act, 1958. The Government of India passed the Antiquities and Art Treasures Act 1972, in order to curb the smuggling of art treasures from India. This Act also helped establish ownership of antiques.

In spite of all this, very few people register their antique pieces, mostly due to lack of awareness.

The State Government should be adding museums to help relocate these treasures, but in the past 60 years, there have been hardly a handful of museums set up in Maharashtra. And by and large, there are only 2 official museums that house antiques – the Prince of Wales Museum in Mumbai, and the Nagpur Museum. But both have not been set up by the State. And the elected MPs and MLAs are doing very little to help.

It is this lack of responsible action and the increased want to own antiques by people from world over, that is causing the deterioration of our heritage.

For which, Prof. Dhavalikar suggests that public participation is necessary.  Preservation of heritage without giving it a religious symbolism is also important. The participation will happen only when there is awareness. And most importantly, when there is pride.

Prof. Dhavalikar quotes and emphasises, ” The quality of a civilisation depends on the respect it gives to it’s heritage.”

Happy World Heritage Day!

 

- The Heritage Week is being held in Pune from 15th April -22nd April 2012, under the umbrella of Virasat Pune.  For more details, see www.janwani.org

Heritage callings…

If I had not become an architect, I would have perhaps been an archaeologist.  I have a huge fascination for history and am constantly eager to know more. Because of which, in the past year or two, I have been enrolling in various workshops and courses on history, archaeology, architecture and heritage.

One such course that I am currently doing is a four-day workshop at the Tilak Maharashtra Vidyapeeth (TMV) . Conducted and organised by Manjiri Bhalerao and Saili Palande-Datar for TMV and  Samvidya Institute of Cultural studies, this short exercise is being carried over two weekends, for the entire day. Called ‘Olakh Pune ani Parisarachi’ , this intense course is on Pune and its Environs, and tries to reveal different facets of Pune and its Environs, such as Geograpy, Biodiversity, Archaeology, Ancient and Medieval History, Traditions of Art; Architecture and Sanskrit Studies, Traditions of  Literature; Music; Theatre; Dance and Films, Pune in 19th Century, Independence Movement, Post Independence Pune, etc.  Many eminent experts from various fields have been brought together to lecture at this course.

Rangoli pic courtesy Manjiri & Saili

I have completed the first weekend and although have read and known about many of the aspects talked here, I have got a new insight and discovered many other facts unknown to me before. And it is a beautiful process this, to be able to keep learning and relearning. In the next post, I will share with you some of the interesting points I learnt.

I look at the history of thousands of years and I see the need of preservation and conservation of the tangible (built) and the untangible (natural, cultural to others) aspects of heritage, and at the same time I know that in 50 years into the future, what will be termed as heritage will also be the legacy we leave behind- based on our actions now.  Are we prepared for that? Or will we wait for time to tell?

‘Design Challenges in Indian Cities’ – a panel discussion.

ADI_Pune Chapter is launched.

Varied panelists, 60+ attendees and a very participative discussion.

The celebrations of World Industrial Designers Day in Pune and the launch of the Pune chapter of  the Association of Designers of India (ADI) , was followed by a serious discussion on how design can and should change, add value and be integral to a city. Designers, architects, urban planners, people heading NGOs all stepped up to give their views on the topic ‘Design Challenges in Indian Cities’.

On the panel were renowned Architect & Designer Shrikant Nivasarkar, who was chairing the discussion, Textile designer Chandrashekar Bheda, who had from Delhi to be part of this session; Architect and industrial designer Anand Belhe; Janwaani Director Kishori Gadre, Industrial Designer Pankaj Sapkal and Architect Shirish Kembhavi. Their discussions were further given another perspective by Industrial designer Satish Gokhale; and Satish Khot, President-NSCC, Pune.  Designer Nachiket Thakur was co-ordinating the entire session.

The panelists

IIID_Pune Regional Chapter supported the event, because of which there were many architects and interior designers present in the audience leading to different viewpoints from fields apart from Industrial Design.

Viewpoints of the Panelists:
Shrikant Nivasarkar:

• It is important to form a collaborative team and take the design activities further.
• Design, planning, interventions….all of this or rather design should come from within if we want to do something for the city- a sense of participation and ownership is required.
• When we talk of ‘creating an image of a city’… globalisation will bring dynamic changes in emerging cities, is design or are designers ready for these changes?
• Quoting Kumar Vyas, “Chandigarh and NID were good initiatives and great intentions, but went on different tracks- they never came together”.  How do we safeguard or work towards sustaining great initiatives?
• India’ strength lies in its diversity. How do we maintain that diversity/individuality?
• Context to People and Context of Environment- both are key issues for designers.

Kishori Gadre:

• Design interventions are needed for different projects and places within the social fabric of the city. And these interventions are required right from the household level to that of the urban scale.
• Case study – Garbage disposal, zero garbage zones which required industrial design help, provided by Onio Design.
• In cities, the ‘pain’ is divided into large numbers and therefore no one knows what they want.
• Designers need to come forward and work on different issues.

Shirish Kembhavi:

• There is ‘design’ at every step in an urban environment or space, but does it really contribute?
• A space can be turned into a place only thru design interventions.
• There is a need to demonstrate a ‘design value’.
• Housing is very important…can we create a house that costs under a lakh of rupees?

Pankaj Sapkal:

• Awareness needs to be created foremost.
• Some systems cannot be changed easily- change needs to start at individual levels.
• A food and water crisis is being predicted and is imminent and that we need to prepare for it right now, at the individual level.

Chandrashekhar Bheda:

• Regional identity is being forgotten.
• People are working in isolation, macro level thinking and working needs to be done.
• Newer idioms can be formed through collaborative efforts.
• We are in a hurry to become ‘global’,  but we are forgetting to be local or regional.

Anand Belhe:

• What makes a city?
• Mixed usage of city areas/Migration/Systems/Planning
• Adaptability/ Flexibility to change
• Human scale- is it comfortable?
• No planned approch – all individuals are looking at their own work.
• Permeability within a city?
• Is the city for cars or for people?
• Carbon foot prints? -Ac environments everywhere, causing more damage- and this is only because of architects.
• There is a disparity between the rich and the poor.
• Growing local food is a necessity. – Half of the food going to Mumbai is wasted. Why? Is it bad transportation or packaging?
• How is the movement in a city?
• Can we standardise certain elements to improve productivity and economic conditions? China is a good example of standardisation.
• Design and architecture are basically very similar, with same principles.

Expert comments:
Satish Gokhale:

• Sometimes design may work successfully as a stand-alone product, but might fail when taken in consideration with a larger context.
• We need to create products keeping in mind the larger picture and who/what/how it affects our immediate environment.

Satish Khot:

• It is important to create awareness of design at the general public level.
• Can we create something aesthetic that allows every homemaker to create a zero-garbage disposal system at home itself? Perhaps a planter which can also recycle all the waste into manure.

The audiences’ viewpoints:

• This is a good initiative, and perhaps ADI can be a body that solves issues at the common man’s level.
• Why can’t designers be on the administrative levels in a city? When we can have city engineers, why not a city architect or designer?
• There is a lot of work that is being done at an individual level, which needs to be acknowledged, learnt from and also shared.
• Issues like garbage disposal do not always require Industrial design. If we can come out with solutions wherein the garbage does not leave the society but gets converted into useful manure, then the process of having these garbage bags collected to bringing them into a truck and then offloading can be deleted.
• An identity of a city can be created through simple means also- eg: Jodhpur, with an all-white scheme for its housing.
• Need to educate people on design.
• It is time that design is not looked as something that needs to come as an afterthought or at the end of a product cycle or for finding a solution to a single problem.  Design needs to come at the beginning, especially for social and city-level projects.
• There is a strong builder lobby in Pune- they need to come for such forums and together proposals should be created for the city. Ditto for administrative personnel.
• Need to increase public utility services and come together to work on finding solutions for the city.
• Case studies need to be created that demonstrate design values, which could be showcased to create awareness. Start small so we can learn from the experience.

One of the highlights of this Panel discussion was the fact that Shrikant Nivasarkar, who is also the President of the Pune Construction Engineering Research Foundation (PCERF) has offered a space for design and good case studies, in the interest of the city, to be showcased during the CONSTRO exhibition in January 2012, in Pune.

The audience and the panelists took back a lot from this event- great insights, motivation to think, to do and make it happen, understanding the need for collaboration and identifying areas to work in… apart from an interesting bookmark in stainless steel from the ‘oneliner’ range by Sarvasva Designs, books from CMYK and an event sponsored by LUXUS.
Compiled and written by Darpana Athale, Sarvasva Designs.

Launching the Pune Chapter of ADI

On the occasion of the World Industrial Design Day (WID) on 29th June 2011, the Association of Designers of India (ADI) will be launching their first chapter in Pune.

The event will also see a panel discussion on ‘Design Challenges in Indian Cities’, an initiative that will call upon solutions for some key questions. Such as:

1. What role can industrial designers play in improving Indian cities ?
2. Are there any avenues in your opinion where Industrial Design skills will play a critical role in defining better living in cities ?

The panel discussion will conclude by short-listing design challenges.

And the evening will be closed with the screening of ‘Objectified’, a documentary film by Gary Hustwit; about our complex relationship with manufactured objects and, by extension, the people who design them.

So what happens to the short-listed design challenges?

These would then be proposed for further resolution, within a defined time frame. Professionals and students from the design community would then be asked to participate (even compete) for coming up with constructive solutions meeting these challenges. The best of the solutions identified out of this program would be recognized as winners and would be taken up for implementation (the competition details would be worked out once the key challenges are agreed on).

Small steps towards great initiatives….

Architecture and Design- the old and new!

Let’s start with the new beginnings…

India finally has it’s own body for the Design Industry. Called the ‘Association of Designers of India’ (ADI), the initiative of forming this body began a year ago, when the Pune Design Foundation and AIDI, Bangalore members decided to dissolve their respective local bodies and come together to create a pan-India body for Design. So history is being made and the Facebook group, within a matter of few days only, has a membership of 300+ designers, all raring to come together and work for Design and it’s promotion.

The ADI will be formally launched on February 10th, 2011 during the inauguration of the Pune Design Festival.

The Pune Design Festival or PDFest as it is more popularly known as, is in its 5th year and promises to be a wonderful collaboration between different design fields, with various events lined up.

Mukund and I from Sarvasva are proud and honoured too, to have been part of the founding body of both – the ADI and the PDFest. What glorious times we live in! And I’m sure, this is just the beginning of more to come.

Look up ADI on www.associationofdesignersofindia.com (the site is still coming up, will keep you all posted) and PDFest on www.punedesignfestival.org.

On another note, I have been doing a month’s course on Indian History/Archaeology and Architecture and have been learning so much of what makes this great country; including some of the renowned teachers who are taking time out to lecture and share their work and viewpoints. I especially wanted to do this course so that I could further supplement ‘Pune Walks’ (the heritage walks that our firm conducts) with the knowledge from experts.

And while I have been seeing the extreme passion and care being taken for projects in archaeology, I have failed to see the same happening in the heritage conservation/ restoration segment, especially here in Pune. And what is saddening more so is the huge gap between the ancient history (archaeology) and the modern times; which makes the middle segment of history/heritage all the more so important. And hence required to be respected, saved, documented, conserved, restored and maintained. Not retrofitted with the new only, or with the modernistic idea of what we think these buildings /structures should be. Because, if these structures are not going to be part of our present and future, we will in the long run have no link to our immediate past.

And the past is important for the future to exist.

- Darpana.

Sahara Pune Warriors _ Logo Design & Name.

The Pune IPLT20 team finally was launched, amidst much fanfare, with approximately 25,000 people attending the launch (or so it was quoted in the Times).

I was very eager to see the logo design, as being a designer one tends to think of such things first. So, when the launch was announced in the papers, the first thing I tried to find was the logo. And I will say ‘find’ because all I saw was a silhouette of Chattrapati Shivaji Maharaj riding a horse and with a spear. With the words ‘Sahara Pune Warriors’ written next to it. And to my disappointment, I found out that it this shadow that is the logo.

Quite frankly, I did not like the name ‘Sahara Pune Warriors’ itself. A pathetic plug by the Sahara Group. Even Vijay Mallya has refrained from using the Kingfisher or UB Group title for the team name. But, he has very smartly used the name, logo and colours of one of his very popular whiskeys, the Royal Challenge and made it into the team ‘The Royal Challengers Bangalore’. And he really knows how to market everything he has in style.

Perhaps, Subroto Roy could have left it at ‘Pune Warriors’ or even tried ‘Pune Peshwas’, to reach out to the local Punekars. And plugged his group a bit subtly.

Coming back to the logo. What a disappointment. One fails to understand if a graphic design team was even approached at all, or someone from the Sahara group has come up with some in-house experiment. If it’s the latter, then Subroto Roy missed the chance of leading through Design and especially because the city boasts of being at the top end of the design segment in the country.

There are many reasons as to why the logo fails for me:

1. Basic identity :
A logo should be able to represent a company’s thoughts or values to an extent. It should visually communicate. Especially for a sports team, the logo should exude power and strength. It should have an undeniable presence of character (which is coming right now only from the popular figure on the horse), and should be memorable. The Pune Warriors logo has none of the before mentioned attributes. There’s no freshness, an element of the new, and/or excitement in this logo. Neither does it seem able to build a positive, strong and long lasting impression. As a concept on paper, this logo may work. But when it comes to execution and final artwork, it does not. At all.

All I see is the copy-paste of the Sahara logo in text (with the orange, green and white of the national flag there like some misprint), adding of text ‘Pune Warriors’ to that and a dash of a ‘concept of national and regional has been added by putting a silhouette of Shivaji Maharaj against the tri-colours of the national flag. Seems more like a political way of reaching out to masses for a vote bank.

2. Scale:
I wonder if it can be seen clearly when scaled down. I think it will look like a blob.

3. Colours: Apparently the logo has been designed using the tri-colours of the Country’s flag. But can those be the corporate colours of a regional team? Frankly on a small scale, I could not make out the colours on the logo at all- it all looked yellow (text) with a dirty washed out background. The shadows and color gradients are a big no-no. Makes the logo look faded, and without any consistency. And, I wish there was some originality in terms of concept of building an identity than (mis)using the national colours.
And then again, will this logo work in Black & White? Hmm, it may- but perhaps only in B/W.

4. Font:
No exploration here. The same font as the Sahara logo has been used. Making this more a Sahara team than a Pune team. Then again, this may be deliberate.

5. Relation:
The logo was ‘decided keeping the Marathi people in mind and because Pune is the land of Maratha warriors’. I don’t think this logo relates either to Pune or the Peshwas or Cricket or even the Sahara Group. It’s an artificial attempt to reach out to the common man with a very bad copy-paste of different elements.

6. And a personal reason is the misuse of Shivaji Maharaj:
One can easily make out the warrior in the logo has a turban like the great hero. Although most newspapers and sites are calling the figure as that of ‘a warrior’ or ‘a spear wielding cavalry’. And Yahoo News actually saying ‘a stallion has been chosen as the logo for the team’. Hah!
Frankly, I am tired of having Shivaji Maharaj’s name and image being used for anything and everything like it’s some cheap commodity. This does not make him popular with the crowd, but in fact is disrespectful of one of the greatest hero and king this country has ever had.

Hopefully better sense will prevail and the logo will change. Unfortunately the name won’t.

- Darpana.

Lunkad Skystation

Sarvasva Designs recently worked on a project of ‘bringing life’ to a newly built corporate building- Lunkad Skystation. Although the building’s design is very functional and suited to house the many offices in it, it also came across as very sombre structure.

We were called in for the signage, as well as graphic and communication design. We used colour to create that contrast within the overall space with the help of graphics, centrally placed, yet covering the service ducts. And also large quotes on team building, etc made in Stainless steel.

Graphic on the duct door

Large quotes in Stainless Steel broke the monotonous expanse of the lift wall, which spans 7 floors.

This subtle change created a tremendous impact on the overall space.
All the pictures shown here are during the installation.

Another graphic in corridor.

Quote in SS at fourth floor level.

This quote is on the 6th floor level. Harnesses and scaffolding were used to fix the quotes.

Working on the graphic in the basement

A 3D cut-out welcomes one from the parking into the office space.

PKN Pune-vol2 : A great experience!

With the first volume of Pune’s PKN seeing about 100 people, it came as no surprise to see almost double that number for the second PKN here in Pune, held on 22nd Jan 2010.

A cozy venue of the Sawai Gandharva Auditorium ensured that people could interact, be comfortably seated as well as hear and see the presentations well.

What is interesting about the venue is that its foundation has been laid by Pandit Bhimsen Joshi, one of the doyens of classical music in India, and a guru for most music lovers. And a simple rule of keeping footwear outside the auditorium, to ensure the sanctity of the space and performance, makes this place even more endearing and informal.

Which set the pace for the second PKN in Pune.

People came in early, almost an hour early to get good seats. And as the clock struck 20:20, the 200 seater auditorium was nearly full.

The mix of presenters was very good, the topics were varied and actually showed a completely different aspect of that speaker, not usually seen in their professional lives.

Topics ranged from caricatures, sculpture, music, art, photography & poetry to community services, other aspects of medicine and even childhood memories. The presentations were a mixture of humour, seriousness, indepth thoughts and connected well with the audience. Which made the evening extremely entertaining, inspiring and informative- something that all PKNs aspire for.

The most rewarding aspect being that many of the audience categorically said they will not miss any PKN anymore, and also quite a few mentioned and wrote to us saying that they were inspired to get more creative and go back to that childhood hobby or talent that was now hiding.

Hurrah! Here’s to many more PKNs in Pune, which should keep getting bigger and better…
A big big thanks to Mukund and Team Sarvasva who have helped organised it all.
And to all those who helped us, encouraged us and presented for us.

Warmest,
Darpana Athale.
PKN-Pune.
——————–
pknpune@gmail.com
www.pecha-kucha.org

Organised by Sarvasva Designs Pvt Ltd, Pune.
Shared and devised by Klein Dytham architecture, Tokyo.

The speaker list and topics for PKN Pune-vol 2 were as follows:
1. Ravi Gadre – ‘Caricatures’
2. Max Babi- ‘Music- Food for soul’
3. Ruchi Singhal – ‘ Sculpture & Anatomy’
4. Darpana Athale – ‘Moments. Memories. Meanings’ A Photo-poetry essay on the people of Pune.
5. Maitreyi Doshi – Trash Can community project, Baltimore, USA
6. Milind Mullick – ‘Watercolour paintings’
7. Dinesh Katre – ‘Memories of my childhood in Satara’
8. Dr.Parag Mankeekar – ‘Caterpillar…exodus beyond medicine’

The next PKN is on March 5th, 2010 – as part of the ‘Design Fest ’10′ – the annual design fest in Pune, organised by a group of design firms. Sarvasva Designs is the co-organiser of this Festival.

Pune Pecha Kucha Night- vol 1

The Indian Express paper carried a review of the Pune Pecha Kucha Night -vol 1. The first article in the papers today…. the captions are a bit mixed up, and the paper is carrying an apology for the same. Nevertheless, the article carries the essence of the event very well.

Indian Express, October 26,2009

The Pune Mirror too carried a note… here’s the link: