Abstractions of delusions

Beijing Airport - Foster & partners

2011-12-26T12:09:00.005+05:00

Site Plan

Level 1 Plan

Finger Section

Elevation

Section

Spine Section

Roofing

Untitled

2011-12-26T03:04:00.005+05:00

Her wet eyelashes rested on her beautiful face in the rain of tears. The shiny mirror of her life lay in pieces that would never be put together again. She had lived to kill her soul, her own. If only she could name him. Her ears would long for the voice of her own. She would shriek and scream, cry and weep for a nameless part of her. They never showed him what was her own. For months she kept him in her bosom, fed him her own blood and painted a million dreams for him. Today she had him no more. Her hands were free, her legs untied yet she lay helpless only with her tears to dry.

The pain had suddenly reminded of her ordeal for nothing. It had made her soft skin pale and her gentle pink face red with sorrow. A few feathers lay around her as her nails had dug the sheet and the mattress she lay on. Going into an ecstasy of blinding pain, she yearned to hear a beautiful cry on the other side. There was only deafening silence.

A world had come down on her and she would fight back with an ocean of tears; until she sank into them.

June 8 1997

Nazeeha Chaudry gave birth to a sub developed fetus. It was never shown to her and was declared property of the teaching hospital.

June 11 1997

Nazeeha Chaudry was declared deceased due to post child birth complications.

PS. This is a work of pure fiction with any collision with reality purely unintentional

Körperfotogramm. (©Floris Neusüss - Courtesy of the Atlas Gallery)

Dormitory Design - Semester 8 - IBA Campus Karachi

2011-12-26T02:46:00.004+05:00

New york University Philosophy Department - Steven Holl

2009-10-25T16:48:00.003+06:00

Steven Holl Architects have completed an interior project at the Department of Philosophy in the Arts & Sciences faculty at New York University.

All photos are copyright Andy Ryan. Below is a short statement from the architects, followed by a press release:

–

STEVEN HOLL ARCHITECTS

New York University (NYU)
Department of Philosophy
New York City, NY, USA
2004-2007

The Dean of the Faculty of Arts & Sciences and a committee of Philosophy Professors collaborated in the selection of Steven Holl Architects to design the complete interior renovation of a 1890 corner building at 5 Washington Place for the consolidation of the NYU Department or Philosophy within a concept which organizes the new spaces around light and phenomenal properties of materials.

A new stair shaft below a new skylight joins the 6-level building vertically with a shifting porosity of light and shadow that change seasonally.

The Ground level, utilized by the entire University, contains a new curvilinear wooden auditorium on a cork floor.

The upper level floors contain Faculty Offices and Seminar Rooms which are done in different shades and textures of black & white, according to the texts in Ludwig Wittgenstein’s book “Remarks on Colour”.

The building exits within the NoHo Historic District and is within the jurisdiction of the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission.

The building is part of the main NYU campus within New York City’s Greenwich Village and is sited on-access to Washington Square Park.

–

Press release

Steven Holl Architects’ completes interior project for NYU Department of Philosophy in New York City

New York City, October 2nd 2007 — With the opening of the new academic year, Steven Holl Architects has completed renovation of the interiors of an 1890 building at 3-5 Washington Place for the Department of Philosophy in the Faculty of Arts & Science at New York University (NYU).

Originally located in the Silver building, a mixed use facility for classrooms and academic departments, the Department of Philosophy is now consolidated new presence in both the city and on campus.

Although the historic exteriors remained untouched, the new interiors give the Department of Philosophy a luminous image.

The facility includes faculty and graduate student offices, seminar rooms, a periodicals library & lounge and a ground floor 120-seat cork auditorium. Steven Holl Architects organized the 30,000 square feet of interiors around a concept of the phenomenal properties of light and materials.

A new porous stair, changing its direction at each floor, vertically connects the six-level building through shifting light and shadow and is designed to encourage social interaction.

This vertical connection in light is activated by the presence of faculty members and students and by a prismatic film splitting the available sunlight periodically. The light effect in the stairwell changes according to the seasons and the time of day.

The upper level floors, containing the faculty offices and seminar rooms, have been designed in different shades and textures of black & white inspired by Ludwig Wittgenstein’s book “Remarks on Color”. Steven Holl Architects have designed furniture, coat hooks, light fixtures, and door handles for the Department of Philosophy.

In 2004 Steven Holl Architects was selected for the interior renovation by a joint committee of University Administrators, the Faculty of Arts & Science Dean’s Office and the Philosophy Department for the sensibility and philosophy in its work.

About the collaboration with NYU, Steven Holl says: ”University buildings need to focus as incubators for interaction between students and faculty. It was a pleasure working with this university that was willing to broaden its design approach by including our staircase that now functions as the backbone of the building.”

Steven Holl Architects is well-known for invigorating university campuses with innovative designs including The College of Architecture and Landscape Architecture at the University of Minnesota (Minneapolis, Minnesota, 2002), Simmons Hall at M.I.T. (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 2002), the Higgins Hall Center Section at the School of Architecture at Pratt Institute (Brooklyn, NY, 2005), and most recently the School for Art & Art History at the University of Iowa (Iowa City, 2006).

Thankyou:http://www.archishu.com/

Thomas L. Wells Public School

2009-10-24T02:30:00.006+06:00

One of the recipients of a 2008 AIA Honor Award is the Thomas L. Wells Public School in Toronto, Ontario by local firm Baird Sampson Neuert Architects. The awards jury notes that the school is "a model demonstrating sustainable design principles and an enhanced learning environment" for the next generation of schools in the Toronto District School Board. They further cite the design as sensitive, arranged to capture light and vent, and well-scaled, all contributing to a positive experience for the students.

Located in a suburban area of Toronto, the building is sited to connect its outdoor areas to a nearby green corridor. The school's footprint is basically two parallel bars, with administrative and recreational functions creating its public face to the street, and classrooms facing the more private playing fields. The classroom bar is bent in the middle to subtly cradle this outdoor space. As well, since the classrooms face south, they receive valuable sunlight, a corollary of the building's site strategy.

Between these two parallel bars (linked by an internal corridor) are two courtyards and the library. The courtyards are used for play and as places to gather. The two-story mass of the school and its well-articulated composition of brick, glass, and metal create embracing yet open spaces for children and teachers.

Yet it is the library that draws the most attention, not only from its location at the center of the composition overlooking the courtyard through a double-height, sloping glass wall, but from its design. With the space afforded by its two-story height, a wood-clad object is "inserted" into the library to create a dynamic environment where wonder is piqued. One need only see the repeated form of this object on the classroom facade to recognize its importance. Placing this emphasis on the library make sense, if learning is seen as something that continues throughout life, and libraries are seen as the places where this learning finds a home

Thankyou: archidose.org

a night's dream

2009-08-31T06:32:00.001+06:00

She held the pen with the pink teddy on the back and begun to write those words. She knew what exactly to say to him but was too shy to do so. Yet she wanted him to know so bad. It had been four years and he was someone who she could totally depend on. He had given her all the reasons to smile, every reason to laugh and been there with those huge hugs when her eyes would go wet. Tonight she begun to write to him. The pen rolled over the paper gently so it seemed as a dancer it would measure every move and each word that came down on to the paper was crafted right deep in her heart. The words flowed in their totality and the reason for her secret smiles was now shared by the green lined paper. She thought she was done writing and stared silently at those words for sometime. Yet she smiled again seemingly unsure of her sureties. She looked at the clock and grinned for no apparent reason. It was four in the morning but she wasn't sleepy and yet very chirpy slowly singing songs to herself. It seemed like a beautiful dream and she didn't want to wake up if it was one. Shutting all the worries she chose to walk this way only because what she felt was the most beautiful feeling she had ever had in her entire life. Those eerie goosebumps and that hesitation to say what she wanted were moments she had memorized to live again and again. She folded that paper neatly and put it beside her green school book carefully. Morning seemed too far away as she counted those five hours on the clock against the back wall. Taking a deep breath she climbed into the bed and hugged the sheets in complete joy! She lay down on those silk sheets thinking of tomorrow to be her immaculate dream. All her dreams were all but figures of her own imagination but this time she wanted them to come to life. Slowly she closed her eyes anticipating for a tomorrow that already was.

Some architectural presentations (click on them to enlarge)

2009-06-15T22:21:00.002+06:00

To toughen up our babies

2009-06-15T22:14:00.000+06:00

Katsura Palace - Japan

2009-06-09T23:15:00.003+06:00

Al Hambra, Spain

2009-06-09T23:09:00.002+06:00

Snohetta's - Bibliotheca Alexandria

2009-06-09T22:54:00.002+06:00

Courtyard House - Ripple Design

2009-03-21T22:17:00.002+05:00

Ripple Design projected a courtyard in the middle of the house that reveals itself as a kind of plaza on a micro-urban scale ideal for relaxing or entertaining.

The outside becomes the inside of the house when you open the courtyard doors, that regulate comfort via breezes and heat gain as well as diverse social interactions.

The building reduces the ecological footprint thanks to the way in which the house is nestled into the hillside, the thickening of specific walls and ceilings, the exploitation of dense or reflective materials, the solar cells that heat water and create electrical energy, etc. In fact, the house creates all of its own power.

Stool Designs

2009-03-21T22:13:00.001+05:00

Prayer and Meditation Pavilion in Soba, Sudan By Studio Tamassociati.

2009-03-21T22:08:00.002+05:00

One of the projects nominated for a Detail Prize 2009, in the Special Prize Architecture Export category, is this Prayer and Meditation Pavilion in Soba, Sudan by Venice, Italy's Studio Tamassociati.

The jury comments:

"The architects have succeeded in creating a neutral place for meditation for all religious and ethnic groups present in the Sudan. Using local materials and a straightforward design, they have built an objective room that has a marked simplicity. This is enhanced by the deliberate use of light and shadow and radiates a calming influence reinforced by the surrounding areas of water. Also praiseworthy is the sensitive use of local materials and design characteristics as well as of local builders."

Husnain Lotia Residence, Karachi, Pakistan

2009-03-17T09:34:00.003+05:00

Green Housing?

2009-03-15T17:16:00.001+05:00

Zaragoza Bridge Pavilion by Zaha Hadid

2009-03-15T17:10:00.001+05:00

The note

2009-02-08T20:58:00.000+05:00

you could have said a word before,
or given a small tear to roll,
even a short look of grieve,
when handing out that deadly brief;

it said all but by who,
i tried to find you i knew,
read over and over till no more,
voices are lost and eyes are sore;

and when the wall started to break apart,
they walked over a broken heart,
crumbling under a shattered man,
without his soul now he may stand;

an art that could be taught,
passion that saw the worst drought,
my south road became your north,
beauty of thy love is all the gutters' worth;

there is no truth that life is unfair,
you wont make it all that bad,
give you smiles to make me sad,
all is said but not all is read;

on the shores, mending my boat,
giving all to get a little note,
they know it and so do you,
in there there was no you.

Wasted

2009-02-08T20:49:00.001+05:00

As she walked on those weeds, I sit here and watch those beautiful feet touch the grainy sands. Her fair skin glowed in the evening sun and my eyes comforted at the sight of her smiling to herself. That smile is the beautiful spell that is cast over me all so many times again. This is my pain- I chose it for myself. Half soaked in water I wonder if this self infliction will ever end and if this night ever see a morning. The day may break in every time but who can make the darkness to escape? I question God's work, respect His decisions and ask for what i must get. Its like that bottle of wine you cant help getting drunk on, knowing no matter how bad it will be. Linguistically its referred to as addiction, the heart calls it love.

On the road back I see those car headlights coming closer and closer only to speed away. My neck feels too heavy to hold up this head. I want to bow down to Who knows all. How many times I breakdown is so okay to me that I care not move my lips to murmur a prayer even. My smile denies its self and the path seems never ending. I may leave thy footsteps on this road but I never wanted to be a traveler on it. Deep down in the depths of my self I wanted to be here forever. For once I wanted to be what I am. To find out who I am- for someone that is. Do prayers work and if the wishes come true? I let fate decide. Whatever the result, I loose both ways; one with a wrenching heart and other with everything I could possibly have. If only the rivers from these eyes ever fall into her deep oceans.

Calatrava: Church of St. John the divine (Project)

2009-02-08T20:45:00.002+05:00

Nuktey -urdu poem-

2008-12-18T03:54:00.000+05:00

Basti mein in murdoo ki

Zindagi ko parvan charhana ha

Ek nuktey k ghulam ban ge hazar

Ghoomay ja baja har bazaar

K eik meri aas thi

Who bhi jo meri pyas thi

Us nuktey k who loogh

Uthey bachey chor maa ki ghud

Yad aaya woh jo us din aya tha nazar

Jis k naam pe hum ne ki eik zindagi basar

Who nuktey na miley jahan

Hum chor aey apna sab kutch wahan

Humey yad sab kutch tha magar

Sabar ker k unke hum chaley dagar

Nuktey phir jag uthey eik din

Ghulam unke hai sarey insaa o jinn

Dekh raha hon mei yahan beth

Rang jo bikharey ga har har khet

K un nukto k baghair lafzoo ki kya okaat

Jaisey namaz ho bina rakaat

Gar unko ghum ho tu kyun na mein rou jaon

Unke liye mei tu bas mar jao

Tamam lugat ha dushman-e-nukta

Ab mujh pe aa nahi sakta koi sakta

K abb tu safey bandhi hain k ho ada namaz

Kahey na koi ab k aai na humey awaz

-dabeer hemani

Gentle

2008-12-18T03:46:00.000+05:00

for the roses that bloom;
for the rivers that flow;
today air is so pure and sight is sweet;
i see my lover and the drums do beat.
make the sun cool down and the night all bright;
leave the drought and come to the abundance;
for today all the old will young.
come oh dear on the throne of me;
for my ego swept away;
with open arms, I have nothing to say.
on the cliff I wait, its high but I know you will make your way;
i wait today with my open gates;
in the day and in the dark when its late.

-dabeer hemani

Untitled

2008-10-20T13:36:00.003+06:00

She could see nothing but darkness now. Opening those eyes wide so that the thin cold air cools his buring eyes. Not that one tear has fell but she has cried enough. This journey would be a long one but it wants to be cut short- by her, unable to stop from going on that road she tries and tells herself not to walk on it aimlessless or rather with an aim that is unwanted. The daylight has to creep in, the morning breeze wants to blow on the face and the warm sun shines on her skin; but i walk towards the darkness.
Perhaps one day, she would see the path more clear. Standing in the sandy waters of the beach today, the sun bakes over as she feels the cold water kiss her feet. The sea is so huge it always encompassed everybody, every wish, every joy and every sorrow. This misery wants to end but is there a way out? There has to be one, she tells herself and if there isnt, she wants him to feel it. Time is the vessel which you never see when full, its only when it emptys, you realise what you have lost. The only fear she has is if she may drift away way too much that it is impossible for her to come back for anyone; even herself. The fear overpowers her to step ahead or move behind. She just realised, she was officially in a limbo- that was no where.

So tommorrow!

2008-10-19T15:33:00.001+06:00

Tonight is a sad night. There may not be tears falling nor the women wailing but even the spirits fall silent in the gloominess around. She wasn't alone tonight but had so many people around that she would never think of being alone. Classical music wasn't her forte but tonight she felt strangely close to it. So on a borrowed laptop she plugs in these huge white headphone lying unwanted on that desk far away and slowly closed her eyes as those sitar strings sent vibrations into her head and the emotions simmered. She smiled secretly. All of people she always made sure felt wanted, cared and special were no where to be found. Their leftovers in life lay all across- a stark reminder of tomorrow that would be yesterday. Getting hurt wasn't a new thing for her but left alone was. Getting up with the look of disbelief on her face she moved towards the empty building and saw a dark corner with a carpeted floor. Good Lord the darkness wasn't as bad, at least no one could see you in there but you. A voice called from somewhere but it wasn't what she hoped it would be but someone wanted an errand. She got up slid out and did so in her face half hid in the subtle lighting. Falling back into her secret darkness and closeing her eyes secretly smiling to herself- not that she was happy but of helplessness and an artificial sense of content. Who was she fooling? One thing that she knew very well was that the night was anything but over. It said 3 43 AM in the digital watch she was wearing on her right wrist. The time never stopped but tonight it would lazy around as a pretty soul cried with a smile on its face, almost if all the breaths she took would be as heavy as her last one. She lied in gloom with the music blaring loud into her ears. A smile rolled up as her thin lips moved to complete the fooling smile. Tonight she questioned a lot to herself and got the answers to; they made so much more sense with the heart all submissive. Hidden under the veil of a false grin, which she would be wearing in the morning when she was with her 'friends', the people who promised to be there all the time but tonight when she really wanted them. Little did they knew that she had felt the breeze of betrayal hard on her soft skin of the inner most part of her soul as the pale softness turned red and rough.

Nadir Khalili and the superadobe

2008-09-03T23:59:00.002+06:00

Modular Shelving

2008-09-03T23:56:00.001+06:00

Billboard House

2008-09-03T23:51:00.001+06:00

Truck trailer

2008-09-03T23:46:00.000+06:00

Rawanda Genocide - As the events unfolded

2008-08-27T01:41:00.002+06:00

In Rwanda, visionary doctor is moving mountains again

2008-08-25T22:17:00.002+06:00

In Rwanda, visionary doctor is moving mountains again
Health system built from the ground up
By Bella English
Globe Staff / April 13, 2008
photo gallery >> Paul Farmer's mission in Rwanda

RWINKWAVU, Rwanda - It was November 2004, and Dr. Paul Farmer had agreed to bring his world-renowned Partners in Health model to Rwanda, which was still reeling from the aftershocks of the genocide a decade earlier. Now here he was, with Rwandan health officials, to scout out a location for a hospital to serve the poorest of the poor.
Farmer, who teaches at Harvard, was taken to Ruhengeri, in the country's northwest corner. But there was already a clean hospital there, with employees and even an X-ray machine. "No, no, no. You don't understand," Farmer recalls saying. "Find me the worst possible place in the country."
So they took him to Rwinkwavu, a remote area two hours east of Kigali. Even Farmer - who works in the world's worst regions - was taken aback. The "hospital" consisted of derelict buildings that had been used by a Belgian mining company decades earlier, then as military barracks during the genocide in which 800,000 people were killed in 100 days. Bullet holes pocked the walls, which were also scarred with hate messages left by the killers: "Those we don't kill, AIDS will get."
There were no beds, no patients, no staff, no medical equipment. "It was abandoned, dirty and scary," Farmer says. There were 200,000 people in the district and not a single doctor.
It was the perfect place for Farmer.
With the help of the Rwandan Ministry of Health and the Clinton Foundation, Farmer went in with American and Rwandan workers to rebuild the facility and find Rwandan doctors and nurses. During that time, he and Dr. Michael Rich, who was raised in Natick and is Rwanda country director for Partners in Health, and their colleagues lived in decrepit housing left over from the mining days. Over the years squatters had moved in, so Partners in Health - or "Inshuti Mu Buzima" in Kinyarwanda - had to start a housing program, too, constructing 120 concrete or brick houses, a huge improvement over the mud shacks that look as if they'd dissolve in a good rainstorm.
In the summer of 2005, the doors opened at Rwinkwavu Hospital, which now sees 250 patients a day, some of them walking hours to get there. Farmer, Rich, and their Rwandan counterparts have built a second hospital in an equally remote area of 200,000 - also without a single doctor - and built or renovated 19 health centers that feed patients to them. A third hospital is on the drawing board, designed by Harvard architecture students. Ultimately, they plan to expand rural medical services to the entire country.
Reluctant heroFive years ago, Farmer became reluctantly famous with the publication of Tracy Kidder's best-selling book, "Mountains Beyond Mountains," which told the story of the brash Harvard Medical School graduate who changed the face of healthcare in rural Haiti. Now 20 years old, Partners in Health, with its emphasis on treating poverty as well as disease, has expanded to nine countries.
Though Haiti will always be his "true north," as Farmer puts it, it had become too dangerous there to raise a family. Rwanda is today considered quite safe under the presidency of Paul Kagame, the former rebel leader who stopped the genocidal slaughter that erupted 14 years ago this month. Farmer, a Harvard professor who each fall teaches undergraduates and medical students about global health issues and infectious disease, has moved with his family to Rwanda, where he recently became a citizen and a member of the Rwandan Medical Society. He'll be in Boston later this month for speaking engagements at MIT, Harvard Medical School, and a Brookline church.
His wife, Didi, who is Haitian, has a degree in medical anthropology and spends half the week with Farmer at Rwinkwavu, where she runs the community health workers program. The couple live with several other Partners workers in a modest house on the grounds. The rest of the week they spend at their rental home in the capital of Kigali, where their 10-year-old daughter, Catherine, attends private school.
The Farmer family recently welcomed two new members: Elizabeth, 6 months old, and Sebastian, born in February. Elizabeth was abandoned at Rwinkwavu as a newborn, and Didi, who was pregnant at the time, called and asked her husband if they could take her in. Though Rwanda does not encourage adoption, the government approved it.
"I had no criminal record, and I was under 50," quips Farmer, who is 48.
The truth is, Partners in Health has an excellent relationship with Kagame's government. "Our vision matches theirs," Farmer told a group of Americans who toured Rwinkwavu in early March. On this particular day, he is wearing a loud shirt with a busy African pattern on it, sewn by a grateful patient. "In Haiti, they give me potatoes and carrots," he says. Here, it's a handmade item of some sort for no one has money and Partners In Health services are free.
He tells his audience that Rwanda is the perfect place for his organization. "This is the most exciting thing I've seen in 25 years. Here we're in a country that came from a terrible place and in just 12 years says it wants a national health program with 40,000 to 50,000 health workers." Because of the government's commitment, Rwanda's progress on HIV/AIDS has been remarkable, with less than 3 percent of the population infected.
The third partner is the Clinton Foundation, the former president's organization dedicated to addressing health inequalities in developing countries. While Partners provides the medical expertise, the foundation provides funding, management, and policy support. The two groups also run programs together in Lesotho and Malawi. Farmer and Rich are paid by the Brigham and Women's Hospital, which also sends medical residents to work with them and learn about global health. The program manager for Rwanda is another New Englander: Melissa Gillooly from Warwick, R.I., who also lives on the hospital grounds.
With a $50 million annual budget spread over nine countries, Partners stays barely three months ahead in funding, which keeps Farmer up at night. "I go to bed worrying about all the promises we've made," he says, "and I get up each morning thinking we haven't made enough promises."
Dignity amid povertyThe countryside en route to Rwinkwavu Hospital is lush with banana groves, eucalyptus forests, and deep emerald valleys with sweeping views of the mountains. Rwanda is known as "The Land of a Thousand Hills," which seems a gross undercount. It is indeed a land of mountains beyond mountains.
But the close-up view from the Toyota pickup that Farmer is driving on a recent weekday is not so pretty. Everywhere there are mud huts with dirt floors and no electricity, water or toilets. Straight-backed women carry huge cans of water on their heads, while stooped men push bicycles overloaded with stacks of wood or bunches of bananas.
Everywhere, there are children; Rwanda, the size of Maryland, is Africa's most densely populated country. Big children hold small children; small children hold toddlers. Babies are bound to their mothers' backs with colorful cloth, even as they bend over in fields.
The bumpy secondary road ends at Rwinkwavu Hospital, and the unbaked scenery instantly changes. Bauhinia trees bloom along with bignonia vines and creeping ficus, set among several low buildings.
In the middle of the hospital grounds is a fish pond, a Farmer trademark at all Partners clinics. He and his brother Jeff, a former professional wrestler, dug this pond themselves, wading into swamps for plants and fish. Farmer says it's about providing dignity and something of beauty to the poor.
The 96-bed hospital includes a pediatrics and a malnutrition ward, operating room, women's clinic, radiology, pharmacy, dental clinic, lab, and a lively center for children with HIV/AIDS.
A field of soybeans flourishes on the grounds; the hospital lends the land to farmers with HIV/AIDS. Just beyond is the start of a training center for medical workers in Rwanda and throughout Africa. A nearby dorm for visitors has just been completed.
At the hospital, each bed has a mosquito net hanging above. In pediatrics, the first bed in the ward holds a preemie so tiny it's hard to tell she's even there. Other beds are filled with children suffering from septic shock, a brain tumor, malaria, and heart problems. Their mothers rarely leave their side.
Next door, the malnutrition ward is eerily quiet considering all the babies and toddlers, most of them lethargic. When patients are discharged, they go home with food and follow-up from local health workers hired and trained by Partners.
It is these "accompagnateurs" - neighbors, really - who are the backbone of Partners in Health. They go into homes to check on discharged patients and identify others at risk. They also visit those with chronic illnesses such as HIV/AIDS to make sure they're taking their medications, and to provide company. Partners is by far the biggest employer in their local areas: 1,500 so far, including 825 community health workers.
"Good things happen when you create jobs," Farmer says. The accompagnateurs, some of them HIV-infected themselves, can now support their own families. And the visits are healing, Farmer believes: "It's not so much about supervising as it is about being neighborly."
Rising above the past"Neighborly" is a loaded word in this country, where the majority Hutu butchered the Tutsi and moderate Hutu during the genocide. Neighbors killed neighbors, teachers and students killed each other, workers killed co-workers, doctors killed patients, priests killed parishioners - and vice versa. Many Partners staffers are Tutsi, while most of the patients, because they comprise 85 percent of the population, are Hutu. Thus, many Tutsi workers are treating Hutu patients and, under the housing program, building homes for Hutu families.
Bruce Nizeye was 14 years old when the genocide broke out. He watched as his father was taken away and shot to death. His 18-year-old brother was killed at school. The family house was burned down. Two years later, Nizeye found his mother in a refugee camp.
Now 28, he works with Farmer, who was best man at his wedding. ("I gave him a cow as a gift," Farmer says. "It's traditional for best man.") Like his father, Nizeye is an engineer, and directs Partner's building program. That means he has built many houses for Hutus, the group that torched his childhood home. Indeed, some of them may have destroyed the very homes they are helping rebuild.
Nizeye is also in charge of renovating the dilapidated infirmary at the country's largest prison, which Partners took on when Farmer learned there was no doctor for its 10,000 inmates. At the prison, Nizeye's workers are mostly the incarcerated "genocidaires."
Does it bother him to work with, and for, the people who killed his loved ones and destroyed his home?
"I don't even ask," Nizeye says. "I ask if someone is a hard worker or doing his job well, not if he is a Hutu."
At Rwinkwavu, Nizeye has jumped into the pickup with Farmer for the 45-minute trip to a Partners clinic in Rukira over deeply rutted roads that are little more than paths. Farmer maneuvers around a dead cow and picks up a couple of hitchhikers, when Nizeye gives the nod.
At Rukira, abundant flora - bignonia vines, bougainvillea, cala lilies - and a fish pond once again grace the grounds, while patients and relatives wait in shaded areas. Farmer is there to discuss a complicated case with the center director, and to see another patient who was raped and bayoneted during the genocide and is HIV-positive. Sometimes, he'll treat a hippo bite or land mine injury.
Back at Rwinkwavu, Claire is lying in wait for him. At 24, she has cared for two younger sisters for years, since their parents died from AIDS. Claire is also infected. She's a patient of Farmer's, but this day has other business. She wants a job. Though Farmer has a long list of patients, doctors, and staffers waiting, he sits down and looks at her resume.
"What do you want to do with your life. What is your dream?" he asks.
"I want to get a job and take care of my sisters," she replies.
"That's not a dream, that's a necessity," he says. They talk a bit about her dreams, and he promises to see what he can do.
Next, he stops by the lab to get some test results. He shakes his head: "Not good." Everywhere, he greets patients who ask about his new baby. "Bonjour, mon frere," "Bonjour, ma cher," he says, exchanging the Rwandan triple cheek-kiss. Some back-packing Brit with time on his hands has shown up unannounced to visit the doctor. Farmer is polite, but he's got work to do.
In the pediatrics ward, he and Dr. Jean Bosco Niyonzima head to Bed 6, where a young mother sits with her listless toddler. Farmer, speaking French, questions the mother, while Bosco translates into Kinyarwanda. When the woman says she has lost her two other children to disease, Farmer winces.
"Tell her the boy looks good, I don't want her to panic," he says. He suspects tuberculosis.
More to doIt's 5:30 p.m., and Farmer hasn't had lunch. His day started before 7 a.m. in Kigali, when he dropped Catherine at school. He and Gillooly attended a meeting with Rwandan health officials before setting off for Rwinkwavu, with a stop at the prison, Rwinkwavu Hospital, Rukira health center, and back to Rwinkwavu.
Now, Farmer and Rich are anxious to take their periodic power-walk up a nearby mountain. They are also anxious about their work, especially the ambitious expansion of the Partners model to all 27 districts and 9 million residents of rural Rwanda, in partnership again with the Ministry of Health and the Clinton Foundation. Right now, only a couple of dollars a year is spent on each rural patient in Rwanda; the doctors want to increase that tenfold. (The United States spends nearly $7,000 per person.)
"We want to be an organization that says yes," Farmer says. "We have to find some big donors." His work in Rwanda, he says, will take at least 10 more years.
Why does he do it all?
"Because it works, because it's exciting, because we're working hand-in-hand with the government. Plus, treating a hippo bite is really cool."
Paul Farmer will deliver the keynote address Saturday at an MIT conference organized by Global Poverty Initiative. On April 22, he will speak at the Harvard School of Public Health with Dr. Agnes Binagwaho, head of Rwanda's National AIDS Control Commission. On April 27 he will receive the 2008 Spirituality and Justice Award and deliver a sermon at All Saints Parish in Brookline.

© Copyright 2008 Globe Newspaper Company.

In memory of murder

2008-08-25T22:15:00.000+06:00

In memory of murder
Rory Carroll
Can art help ease Rwanda's pain?
Rory Carroll visits Kigali's disturbing new monument to the genocide

The Guardian, Wednesday March 24 2004

At first sight it could be mistaken for a hacienda. Perched on a hill overlooking the city, it is a big, solid, obviously new structure with a terrace, a garden and a long granite wall. Move closer, though, and you notice unexpected touches: thousands of names engraved on the wall, windows made of stained glass and a ground floor that is effectively buried underground. The sunshine does not follow when you walk down the steps into the entrance of Rwanda's official house of pain: a new memorial centre in the capital, Kigali, for the genocide of 1994.
Ten years on, Rwanda is erecting its first proper memorials - and racing to complete them by April 7, the anniversary of the first day of slaughter, when centres like this one will open their doors to survivors, perpetrators, scholars and tourists. For those who have kept guard over mass grave sites lest the remains - proof of the genocide - disappear, these centres offer a chance to end their vigil and rebuild their lives. "Now I can do something else," says Emmanuel Murangira, 48, an unpaid sentinel for hundreds of bodies in Murambi, south of the capital, where a memorial is under way.
The Aegis Trust, a Nottingham-based genocide prevention charity that is setting up memorials at the request of the Rwandan authorities, hopes the design and exhibits in Kigali will be on a par with Holocaust museums in Berlin, Jerusalem and Washington DC. But fusing a museum with what is in effect an art exhibition to depict historical events in Rwanda is a fraught exercise, simply because the genocide was so recent. Make it too vivid and survivors who visit could be upset or even traumatised. Veil too much and you sanitise what happened. Accuse too harshly and you undermine the peaceful but fragile co-existence prevailing in Rwanda since Tutsi rebels ousted the extremist Hutu regime, which orchestrated the massacre of 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus in 100 days.
Trickiest of all is whether to mention the Tutsi reprisals during and after the genocide, since the former rebels are now the government. "We don't want to start historical arguments that the country is not ready for. Though we do expect a very strong reaction from people who visit the memorial," says Stephen Smith, who founded the the Aegis Trust with his brother James after visiting Jerusalem's Holocaust museum.
The Kigali centre is Rwanda's de facto national memorial. Its hilltop site was chosen by a former mayor of the city in the late 1990s. Coffins containing the remains of up to 50 people each were stacked five high in eight concrete graves, totalling thousands of people, and on the slope above, a Rwandan architect designed the building. Some residents grumbled that the $1m would have been better spent on practical needs such as municipal drains.
The building might have remained a shell had not Belgium, Sweden and the Clinton Foundation stumped up $1.5m to finish the job. (Britain's department for international development sponsored memorials outside the capital.) Several months ago, Kigali city council commissioned the Aegis Trust to have it ready by April 7. Smith is positive, if not effusive, about the external architecture the Aegis Trust inherited. "I think it is a very creative space. I like the idea of being forced to descend into a cavernous space. To me it feels crypt-like."
The sound of traffic at the bottom of the hill fades as the visitor walks up the slope. The stacked coffins are now overlaid by polished black terrazzo, which is lined by a black granite wall, 2.5m high and 70m long, displaying the names of 20,000 victims. At night, torches will be lit, the flames visible for miles. A word that did not exist in Kinyarwanda until 1994 - jenoside - hangs from a sign near the entrance.
Steps lead down to a large mound of jacaranda wood with engraved reliefs depicting everyday Rwandan scenes, titled Life. But as you move through the memorial, other sides of the sculpture become visible - those depicting rape, beatings and killings. The team of sculptors included survivors and relatives of perpetrators.
The first zone, Before Genocide, is a dimly lit passageway with images dating from 1894-1994; the emphasis is on images rather than text since many visitors are likely to be illiterate. These show one of Germany's more obscure colonies at the turn of the century, independence in the 1960s and life continuing much as before in a small, unremarkable country in central Africa. There is just one ominous note: the Germans' use of taller, lighter-skinned cattle-owning Tutsis to reign over the shorter, darker peasant Hutus - divide and rule that poisoned ethnic relations.
The second zone, Warnings, shows how the horror was avoidable. Here are a copy of the fax sent by Romeo Dallaire, the UN peacekeeper commander, asking his superiors in vain for permission to seize weapons caches, and the quote from Colonel Theoneste Bagosora, Rwanda's alleged Himmler, vowing to prepare an "apocalypse". At the top of a stairwell is a stained glass window depicting dark, brooding clouds of midnight blue. Made by an Auschwitz survivor, Roman Halter, and his son Ardyn, both based in Britain, the stairwell window represents Rwanda's lost chance to escape its fate had the international community responded to the warnings.
The third zone, Genocide, is a passageway of harrowing stills and film clips showing just how fast events moved on April 7 1994. Within hours, road blocks sprang up around Kigali, trapping inhabitants. Images deemed too graphic to broadcast a decade ago show people being decapitated, bodies twitching on the road, the wounded struggling to rise. Some survivors involved with the memorial wanted to include simulated sounds of clubs crushing babies' skulls, but they were overruled. Instead there is a glass case displaying machetes, clubs and guns, and survivors talking to camera about being raped and mutilated. One interviewee is in silhouette not because she is embarrassed, says Smith, but because she did not want to give her attackers, some of whom are free and may visit the exhibition, the satisfaction of seeing the effect of a shotgun blast to her lower face.
The fourth zone, Responses, tries to lift spirits somewhat by focusing on the heroism of those who hid fugitives, resisted death squads and retained their humanity at a time of depravity. That is followed by a section called Aftermath - its name changed from "reconciliation" after survivors said today's peaceful co-existence should not be mistaken for forgiving and forgetting. There are exhibits about refugee camps, reunited families, the impact of HIV/Aids, self-help groups and the rounding up of thousands of alleged killers.
Of the reprisal massacres of Hutus by the Tutsi rebels there is not a word. Not surprising, perhaps, since the rebels now run the country. Smith does not use the word censorship but he makes it clear it was the decision not of the government but the Aegis Trust. "In this society at this time it's akin to Britain in 1945 talking about the bombing of Dresden as a war crime."
Genocide survivors disagree on whether victims' remains should be buried with dignity or displayed as a warning. The Kigali memorial hopes to have pioneered a compromise in a quiet, dimly lit room where the bones and skulls of hundreds of adults and children are just about visible through a smoked glass floor which is called a grave. A neighbouring room displays artifacts recovered from bodies: shoes, watches, rings, identity cards, trousers.
On the top floor there is a raw, minimalist exhibit of dozens of photographs of children with brief captions. One girl gazes from a cot wearing a white dress and an uncertain smile. All we are told is that her name was Irene Mutoni, she was two years old, her farvourite food was banana and rice, her favourite toy was a stuffed dog, her first word was daddy and she died drowning in boiling water.

Competition Entries for Mobile HIV Clinic in Africa

2008-08-25T22:09:00.012+06:00

JAS Architects

Johnson Entry

Naeem Biviji

1st place

2nd place

3rd place

thankyou: architectureforhumanity

African Architecture

2008-08-25T21:58:00.009+06:00

Service Centre Pay Points

Sue House

The 'Real' Hotel Rawanda

Deiner House

Farming School

Medical Research Facility

Nelson Mandela Meuseum

Habiat Montreal - Modular Housing - Moshdie Safdie

2008-07-05T22:23:00.005+06:00

Exploded Axo

Unit Plan

Details

Perspective

Elevation

View

Panaroma

Site Section

Planar House - Steven Holl

2008-07-05T21:53:00.003+06:00

Using light for spirituality in Japanese churches

2008-06-24T18:05:00.003+06:00

Cathedral of Santa Maria
Japan
Kenzo Tange

Church of light
Japan
Tadao Ando

From facebook for architects!

2008-06-24T18:00:00.001+06:00

Diss-claimer:
All these pictures are NOT mine, i came across them and posted here
=)

UNESCO Meditation Space - Tadao Ando

2008-06-23T05:56:00.000+06:00

The Box - Eric Owen Moss

2008-06-19T03:48:00.002+06:00

The Box

Program: Office building

Area: 12,240 sq ft

Selected Awards:

AIA/CC Design Honor Award 1995
DuPont Benedictus Award 1995
AIA/LA Design Design Award 1994

Selected Publications:

The Box, monograph on The Box project, August, 1996
Arquitectura, (Mexico) Stealth, IRS, Ince Theatre, August, 1995
Architectural Review, (England), January, 1995
New York Times, The Box project, January 23, 1994

freedom served caged

2008-06-19T03:37:00.002+06:00

Looks like the stage is set,
the elders have placed the bet,
for the souls not here yet,
the blood that drips still red;

so you thought a prayer would do,
helpless we are to all know who,
on our knees we drag to,
get the freedom to be caged in a zoo;

the victory bells are sounding already,
our spirits no longer steady,
trying to lurk from one to another getty;

we stand as a mob today,
and the corpses that we lay,
knees feel weak the hair go grey,
long ago someone choose for me this way;

though a star shines above,
the battlefeild and the white dove,
one who teaches the wild about love;

the clouds have gathered and they thunder,
no rules for your beautiful blunder,
here we sit and wonder,
reasons for why men would plunder;

thought the answer we got was simple,
they wanted to set an example,
for their children and wives to be ample,
some had to live crippled;

wow to the 'men' who kill,
paint red the green hill,
for them its an honour and thrill,
long live the will,
no talks for any guilt.

dabeer h.

Screams of the emptiness

2008-06-14T03:13:00.004+06:00

screams of the emptiness

a thought that occured today,
our shadows moving away,
what you want is not what you say,
i do what i did and i pray;

the vision of the times to come,
a heaven it might seem to some,
the days pass by as the thoughts go numb,
to the same tune i still hum;

glitters of hope remain close,
a battle i was ready to loose,
on the air once i cruised,
today i try standing up all bruised.

-dabeer hemani

The legecy and the inevitable..

2008-06-07T20:06:00.002+06:00

Self Potrait using mix media..

2008-06-07T19:49:00.003+06:00

I am not what you see,
I am what i am trying to be..

I am a soul trapped,
the grail wrapped,
the rope snapped,
I am what I read..

I am a coated on,
to the laws sworn,
tired and worn,
I am on what I wont morn..

I am a passenger,
escaping from scavangers,
searching for thy messenger,
I am what the the system would danger..

One cannot consent to creep..

2008-05-09T21:45:00.001+05:00

Masoleum of Qauid e Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah - Founder of Pakistan

2008-04-06T13:28:00.003+05:00

The mausoleum is made of white marble with curved Moorish arches and copper grills rest on an elevated 54 metre square platform. The cool inner sanctum reflects the green of a four-tiered crystal chandelier gifted by the people of China. Around the mausoleum there is a park fitted with strong beamed spot-lights which at night project light on the white mausoleum.

The location is usually calm and tranquil which is significant considering that it is in the heart of one of the largest global megalopolises. The glowing tomb can be seen for miles at night. Liaqat Ali Khan, the first Prime Minister of Pakistan, and Jinnah's sister, Mohtarma Fatima Jinnah, are also buried besides Jinnah.

Official and military ceremonies take place here on special occasions, such as:
National commemoration days, especially Pakistan Day (23 March), Independence Day (14 August).

Birth and death anniversaries of Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah, 25 December and 11 September respectively, and
Birth (30 July) and death (8 July) anniversaries of Madar-e-Millat Fatima Jinnah.
Dignitaries and officials from foreign countries also visit this place. The Mazar-e-Quaid has been officially recognized as the National Mausoleum of the country.

Architecturally, the mausoleum is a modernized replica of the Ismail Samanid mausoleum (9th-10th century) in Bukhara, Central Asia. In addition to the general design, the mausoleum is clad with the same brick lattice work on the facade as that of the eleven-hundred-years old Persian original in Bukhara.

Site Plan

Elevation

Section

Architect: Yahya C. Merchant

Gaudi - Straight line belong to the man and the curved to God

2008-04-06T02:23:00.005+05:00

I thought Architects were Kings and Emperors, boy, I was wrong again. According to Antonio Gaudi, some of us are God and Goddess.

What amazed me the most is how he solved the structural construction of the building. Antonio Gaudí spend lots of work on studies for the design, and developed a new method of structural calculation based on a stereostatic model built with cords and small sacks of pellets. First he traced the outline of the church on a wooden board (1:10 scale), which was then hung on a ceiling. Cords were hung from the points where columns were to be placed, and everything else is up to God and gravity.

Drafting like riding a horse..

2008-04-06T02:19:00.000+05:00

Anyone with both experience in riding a horse and drafting? Is it “Like riding a horse”, am not too sure about the riding part but it sounds as if they’re sending the wrong message: “Drafting is like riding a horse in your bikini.”.

How To Become A Famous Architect

2008-03-16T20:28:00.002+05:00

Took this from a conversation between a Architecture critic and a person doing M. Arch;
“The fastest way to become a famous architect,” he said, “is to throw a brick at a famous architect.”

advice taken!

sweet smell of a great sorrow

2008-03-15T20:47:00.003+05:00

sweet smell of a great sorrow

i can be a thought today
a wish that you blew on the way
words flow and those eyes say
i can promise you but i doubt you may

the chatter of birds on the side
river of words would be the guide
they give you me and its me they hide
words have danced and they have cried

the winds of serenity seems arrived
kiss the breeze; hold me tight
i never felt so right
you let me go and slaughter my pride

i have a few treasures left
a box full of memories ive kept
hug the place where you once slept
feel you warm in the tears i wept

see the stars decending below
wispher to me as i see the glow
squeeze my soul; leave me hollow
a life dedicated to a tune so mellow

-dabeer hemani

Villa Savoye - Le Corbusier

2008-03-15T10:44:00.001+05:00

on the beach

2008-03-01T13:40:00.001+05:00

Pimp My Model

2008-03-01T13:16:00.003+05:00

When you are sick of your modelmaking... you know who to call..
PIMP MY MODEL

an interesting take by havard students

Narrow House

2008-02-24T00:45:00.001+05:00

This narrow house belongs to the lady in yellow - Helenita, designed by her, she live in this 1 meter wide by 10 meter tall house in Madre de Deus, Brazil.. Source

Frank Gehry in the Simpsons

2008-02-19T21:04:00.007+05:00

One of the most prominent architects of our time is Frank Gehry, a Canadian living and practicing in Los Angeles, he is best known for his Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao and more recently his Los Angeles Disney Concert Hall. However, those who have followed his career would realise that Gehry experimented with various forms in his earlier career in his own house and the Loyola Law School.
He is probably the most published and famous living American architect, and it wasn't a surprise that they would have him featured in a Simpsons episode. Gehry is a guest star in The Simpsons Season 16 Episode 14. When I say 'guest star' I mean he really voiced the part and played himself in the episode. I am placing the screenshots of the episode below, narrating the plot.

The Simpsons visit the neighbouring town of Shelbyville where the people are apparently more affluent than the Springfielders. In fact, the whole town thinks that all Springfielders are stupid hicks. So here's a scene in a Shelbyville play where the Shelbyvillians are portrayed to be clean and proper while the Springfielders are portrayed as stupid hicks.

After the play, Lisa tries to convince them that Springfielders are refined, cultured and articulate as well but gets hooted by the Shelbyville crowd.

Marge as Chairman of the Cultural Committee proposes that the town builds a new concert hall, so that Springfield would be seen as a cultured and refined place. Who should be the architect? Frank Gehry of course!

Here's Gehry's own house, which is the most memorable of his projects and was even deemed 'deconstructivist' for the way the materials were treated. It lies in a state of paradox, seemingly incomplete yet complete.

Gehry checks his mail and finds a letter Marge sends him.

He crumples the paper and tosses it on the ground and gets his inspiration for the Concert Hall.

Gehry then presents his design at the Springfield Town Hall.

The spunky new building impresses the crowd and everyone votes to build it.

The construction begins and it seems that they are building a rectilinear building instead.

Then the wrecking balls come and knock the building into shape.

And once the final form is arrived at...

Gehry gives his thumbs-up in approval.

After it is built, Gehry is seen here trying to get skateboarders off his building.

Soon there is an opening night with all the pomp and splendour.

The interior even looks like the LA Concert Hall! The opening night is a big disaster because everyone leaves the building after hearing the first 4 notes of Beethoven's 5th Symphony. Apparently no one in Springfield (but Marge) is interested in classical music!

The town sells the building to Montgomery Burns and he decides to turn it into a prison. Modifications are done to the building.

And here's the building completed as a prison.

who said architecture wasnt fun?

Dear my love - a personal interpretation of beethoven's music

2008-02-18T15:52:00.003+05:00

dear my love
i can see the place where
dreams of ours are ripped bare
no one seems to care

dear my love
i have gone to the place where
everything is there but love is rare
they maybe two but not a pair

dear my love
there are no words to speak
my eyes cannot stop these tears to leak
they see me strong but never have i been so weak

dear my love
the time is gone
medals and crowns you may have won
me that you havent known

dear my love
the darkness is creeping in
thy purity is the only sin
and you know how it has been

dear my love
you have gone so far
levels you set i couldnt par
i still have the love alive for how you are

dear my love
these words are the last
thy ship may be wrecked by i hold the mast
and a promise that i wont regret the past

Dabeer Hemani

School

2008-02-16T01:28:00.000+05:00

Furniture Design A

2008-02-16T01:20:00.002+05:00

Salk Institue - Louis Kahn

2008-02-16T01:15:00.001+05:00

Skyline of Istambul

2008-02-14T01:38:00.000+05:00

Warning

2008-02-14T01:32:00.001+05:00

Architorture agaiN

2008-02-11T14:54:00.000+05:00

TWA Terminal @ JFK Airport by Eero Saarinen

2008-02-07T16:54:00.000+05:00

TWA Flight Center was the original name for the Eero Saarinen designed Terminal 5 at Idlewild Airport — later called John F. Kennedy International Airport — for Trans World Airlines. The terminal had a futuristic air; The interior had wide glass windows that opened onto parked TWA jets; departing passengers would walk to planes through round, red-carpeted tubes. It was a far different structure and form than Saarinen's design for the current main terminal of Washington Dulles International Airport, which utilized mobile lounges to take passengers to airplanes.

Design of the terminal was awarded to Detroit-based Eero Saarinen and Associates. It was completed in 1962 and is the airport's most famous landmark (as well as being a National Historic Landmark). Gates in the terminal were close to the street and this made it difficult to create centralized ticketing and security checkpoints. This building was the first airline terminal to have closed circuit television, a central p/a system, baggage carousels, an electronic schedule board and precursors to the now ubiquitous baggage weigh-in scales. JFK was rare in the airport industry for having company owned and designed terminals; other airline terminals were built by Eastern Airlines and American Airlines. Individually branded terminals included the Worldport of Pan American World Airways and the Sundrome of National Airlines.

Following American Airlines' buyout of TWA in 2001, Terminal 5 went out of service. The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey had proposed converting the main portion of the building into a restaurant and conference center, but some architectural critics opposed this move.

In December 2005, JetBlue, which occupies the adjacent Terminal 6, began construction of an expanded terminal facility, which will utilize the front portion of Saarinen's Terminal 5 as an entry point. The peripheral air-side parts of Terminal 5 have been demolished to make space for a mostly new terminal, which will have 26 gates and is expected to be complete by 2008. The building is under restoration and expansion by JetBlue.

Besides being well-known to JFK passengers and architectural buffs, it was also the site of filming of the Steven Spielberg movie Catch Me if You Can.

Architecture and symbolism

2008-02-07T16:51:00.000+05:00

abstraction of an untitled story

2008-02-06T22:42:00.001+05:00

a wish i still have deep inside
promises that didnt mean to abide
going back into the ocean with the last tide
this alien in the world has lost its only guide

fright, scream, tears and pain
moments when you cant see anything sane
the dreams that were to be slain
got to loose everything as tonight i got nothing to gain

the parts of my life i collect togather today
truth is the only thing i have left to say
speaking makes me numb so here my tears pray
feels good showering in the cold winter spray

once smooth memories that are now fine
my messiah wasnt to be time
never did i know my crime
a life sold for quater of a dime

this space has depth in its self
screaming i bleed in this world gone deaf
putting togather all that is now left
lying brusied and broken form a lost quest

these peices that i posses are a treasure now
this the clerfy to the king they bow
last stormy night was when i was to know
the seeds i sowed were still to grow

that gentel touch and the turning of another year
guilt that is hidden in every falling tear
my self is now i fear
the past i once saw is again very near

Dabeer Hemani

Warning!

2008-02-06T22:36:00.000+05:00

the warm morning river

2008-02-06T22:12:00.000+05:00

waiting for the sun to rise
no mercy as the baby
failure worth a million tries
the arch of my world is through your eyes

that wish flying on the wind
frustration building within
my virtue is a holy sin
a dead me deserves your grin

to do whats right today
winter come; a bath in the shining ray
no blacks or white; these areas are grey
in mourge, dead, my concious lay

fall as the tears of thy soul
faces rubbed dark as charcoal
these fishes are to break the shoal
this was my way and that was the goal

a purifying act of silence
seeking the easy way to guidence
the destruction was to be immense
me and myself alone in the crowd so dense

the fear starts to grip as the teeth tremble
thy blood is the victory symbol
it may not look like but its able
to rewrite this song and give you another fable

the darkness shows me the way to calm
feel as the river flows down my arm
how good u do when u are to harm
the coldness makes you feel the river so warm

Dabeer Hemani

The Fall

2008-02-05T22:55:00.001+05:00

photography and editing done by Khuala Jamil.

Crazy Architecture

2008-02-05T16:15:00.000+05:00

4x4 House by Tadao Ando

2008-02-05T16:02:00.000+05:00

Home becomes an 'island' in a building row!

2008-02-05T15:50:00.000+05:00

As far as planning disputes go, it is a far cry from letters of complaint to the council over an unsightly conservatory.
After a row with developers, this family's home has been left perched 12m (40ft) up on its own concrete island.
It all started when they refused to accept compensation to move and, while the row rumbled on, the bulldozers excavated the site around them.

Rumoured to have government connections, the family is not expected to be forced out.
But popping to the shops might be a bit difficult. And as for getting the car out of the garage – well, who knows?
The house is in Chongqing, central China – the fastest growing urban centre in the world, with more than 4million residents.
The boom is fuelled by strong economic growth and the 2008 Beijing Olympics. But behind the scenes is a debate, that has been raging for ten years, over the need for a law giving legal protection to private property in a Communist state.

thankyou: http://www.metro.co.uk/

Fondazione Querini-Stampalia, Venice - interventions by Carlo Scarpa, 1961-63

2008-02-05T13:21:00.000+05:00

The Staircase of Olivetti Showroom By Carlo Scarpa

2008-02-05T12:53:00.000+05:00

Location: Piazza San Marco, Venice, Italy (Place: Piazza San Marco, Venice, Italy)

Date: 1956 - 1958 (Date: 1956 - 1958)

Building Type: Store, Shopping center (type building: Shop Shopping Center)

Architect: Carlo Scarpa

I am an architect!

2008-02-04T21:31:00.001+05:00

A wise man once said..

2008-02-02T10:42:00.000+05:00

"Every society is judged by how it treats it's least fortunate amongst them." - Unknown

Church on Water - Tadao Ando

2008-02-02T10:25:00.000+05:00

The Church on the Water is located in Tomamu, east of the city of Sapporo on the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido. It was designed by Tadao Ando between 1985 and 1988, and it was built in an astonishingly quick five months in 1988. The site is in a clearing in a beech forest, and slopes down towards a small river. Hills surround the site to the west, and a resort hotel lies behind the church, to the east.The church faces a large pond, 80m by 42.7m in size. The pond steps down in five stages towards the small river. At the high end of the pond is the building, the shape of which is basically a pair of overlapping cubes. The larger of the two faces the pond directly, and serves as the chapel. It is connected to the smaller cube entrance by means of a semi-circular, spiral stairway. Finally, a long, L-shaped wall runs alongside the south and east of the pond-building grouping, separating the church from the hotel behind it.The visitor gains access to the church by rounding the wall at the northernmost end. The entry door is set under a glass and steel cube, and as one enters, four large, concrete crosses set inside the glass cube direct the view upwards. Going up and around the brightly lit crosses, the path then leads down the dark spiral stairway the chapel below. Onve visitors enter the chapel space, they are confronted with a view of the pond. A steel cross placed in the middle of the water, and the entire view is framed by the open face of the chapel; in fact, the chapel has only three concrete walls. The fourth side is made by a glass wall, which can slide open.In this project, Ando succeeds in defining sacred space in two ways. By making the entry route intentionally circuitous, a sense of ritual and purification results, similar to the sufferings and revelations that define the religious experience. In addition, the L-shaped wall, which appears in earlier Ando projects such as the Chapel at Mount Rokko, demarcates the church as a protected, secluded area, unlike and apart from the resort hotel directly behind it. Indeed, the moment of passing through the wall is rewarded immediately with a full view of the church, which is not visible at any other point along the outside path.

The Church of Light by Tadao Ando

2008-02-02T10:15:00.000+05:00

Exterior

Interior

Outside

Mass

Church of Light – Tadao Ando - 1989

Tadao Ando’s Church of the Light is located in Ibaraki, a residential neighbourhood 25 kilometers north-northeast of Osaka. The building can be described simply as a bare concrete box with a wall cutting through it at a 15 degree angle. The heavy cast-in-place walls help separate the religious experience inside the small 113 square meter chapel from the outside world. The delineation between sacred and profane is important on this site, which does not permit much distance between two streets and the church itself.
The experience starts with the worshipper making his way past the existing minister’s house, to the back of the concrete church. The intersecting walls create an entry forecourt, forcing the visitor to take an S-turn to enter. Inside, the space is dominated by the glowing cross at the end of the nave. The bare concrete walls have no decorations that would mitigate the experience. The starkness creates an isolated, ascetic feeling inside the church. The interior is perhaps claustrophobic, with views to the outside only available through the 20 cm gap in the concrete wall that is the cross. The dominance of the cross is paramount in the church, requiring the pastor to preach from one side, which took some convincing on Ando’s part.
Ando's Church of the Light was a very low-budget affair, where the starkness of the interior was a necessity, and not so much an aesthetic choice. The contractor donated the construction of the roof when funds ran out and the church pews are made of wood salvaged from the concrete formwork. Yet the simplicity of the church is its beauty — a highly ordered, extremely focussed space only steps away from the workaday residential neighbourhood outside.

Water Spectacle: Digital Water Pavilion Planned for Zaragoza Expo 2008 is H2O-wsome

2008-01-27T05:54:00.000+05:00

Water Spectacle: Digital Water Pavilion Planned for Zaragoza Expo 2008 is H2O-wsome

Architecture Qoutes

2008-01-27T04:40:00.000+05:00

Adolf Loos
Does it follow that the house has nothing in common with art and is architecture not to be included in the arts? Only a very small part of architecture belongs to art: the tomb and the monument. Everything else that fulfils a function is to be excluded from the domain of art.
Architecture arouses sentiments in man. The architect's task therefore, is to make those sentiments more precise.
The house has to please everyone, contrary to the work of art which does not. The work is a private matter for the artist. The house is not. The house has to serve comfort. The work of art is revolutionary; the house is conservative.
The room has to be comfortable; the house has to look habitable.
The work of art shows people new directions and thinks of the future. The house thinks of the present.

Le Corbusier
A house is a machine for living in.
The home should be the treasure chest of living.
To create architecture is to put in order. Put what in order? Function and objects.

Arne Jacobsen
If a building becomes architecture, then it is art.
If architecture had nothing to do with art, it would be astonishingly easy to build houses, but the architect's task - his most difficult task - is always that of selecting.

Frank Lloyd Wright
A doctor can bury his mistakes but an architect can only advise his clients to plant vines.
A great architect is not made by way of a brain nearly so much as he is made by way of a cultivated, enriched heart.
All fine architectural values are human vales, else not valuable.
Every great architect is - necessarily - a great poet. He must be a great original interpreter of his time, his day, his age.
Form follows function - that has been misunderstood. Form and function should be one, joined in a spiritual union.
New York City is a great monument to the power of money and greed... a race for rent.
No house should ever be on a hill or on anything. It should be of the hill. Belonging to it. Hill and house should live together each the happier for the other.
Television is chewing gum for the eyes.
The heart is the chief feature of a functioning mind.
The truth is more important than the facts.

Tadao Ando
I believe that the way people live can be directed a little by architecture.
I would like my architecture to inspire people to use their own resources, to move into the future.
There is a role and function for beauty in our time.
When I design buildings, I think of the overall composition, much as the parts of a body would fit together. On top of that, I think about how people will approach the building and experience that space.
You cannot simply put something new into a place. You have to absorb what you see around you, what exists on the land, and then use that knowledge along with contemporary thinking to interpret what you see.

Luis Barragan
My house is my refuge, an emotional piece of architecture, not a cold piece of convenience.
Space and light and order. Those are the things that men need just as much as they need bread or a place to sleep.

Louis Kahn
A great building must begin with the unmeasurable, must go through measurable means when it is being designed and in the end must be unmeasurable. Architecture is the reaching out for the truth.
Design is not making beauty, beauty emerges from selection, affinities, integration, love.

Philip Johnson
Architects are pretty much high-class whores. We can turn down projects the way they can turn down some clients, but we've both got to say yes to someone if we want to stay in business.

Maya Lin
I try to give people a different way of looking at their surroundings. That's art to me.
You have to let the viewers come away with their own conclusions. If you dictate what they should think, you've lost it.

Alvar Aalto
We should concentrate our work not only to a separated housing problem but housing involved in our daily work and all the other functions of the city.

thankyou: brainqoutes.com

I am an architect

2008-01-27T04:33:00.000+05:00

Doomsday

2008-01-21T22:37:00.000+05:00

Dont exactly remember the photographers name but really enjoyed watching the couple of shots above.

cheers!

Karbala: The true symbol of non-violent resistance

2008-01-13T12:01:00.000+05:00

By Rupa Abdi, TwoCircles.net

Black was the colour of pathos, and I was submerged in it. Women dressed in black sarees and salwar kameez were beating their chests to the chant of ‘Ya Hussain’. The chorus rose to a fevered pitch followed by a sudden silence. In that momentary silence was crystallized generations of mourning. The place – a Shia Muslim neighbourhood in Lucknow; the time – the tenth of Moharrum. If grief has different shades, on can see it during Moharrum.

While the rest of the world greets its ‘New Year’ with celebrations, the Muslims, especially Shia Muslims, begin Moharrum, the first month of the Islamic calendar of Hijri, with mourning to commemorate the martyrdom of Imam Hussain – son of Hazrat Ali and grandson of Prophet Mohammad. Over 1300 years ago, in the desert of Karbala, in present day Iraq, Imam Hussain and his small band of relatives and supporters sacrificed their lives for Islam.

From the first to tenth of Moharrum, and sometimes for a longer periods, majlis (the Mulsim counterpart of Satsang) are held day and night in Muslim neighborhoods and Imambaras where zakirs and zakiras give sermons which climax with the heart wrenching tale of Karbala.

History has seen numerous massacres of innocent people, but the tragedy of Karbala is one of the few where men, women and children voluntarily allowed themselves to be subjected to hunger, thirst, humiliation and death on the burning sands of Karbala because they believed that Imam Hussain stood for righteousness. Little wonder that for over 1200 years Muslims, have been nurturing the tale of Karbala in their hearts like an open wound, lest they should forget the supreme sacrifice of Imam Hussain and his followers.

Great spiritual leaders are known to make great sacrifices, but at Karbala, common men and women with infants at their bosom, their hearts and souls aflame with righteousness, chose death rather than evil and weakness. Such was the greatness of Imam Hussain, such was his spiritual power, which could uplift common mortals to heights of supreme courage and sacrifice.

However Karbala is not an exclusive Shia event, neither do majority of Sunnis consider it as a point of contention between themselves and the Shias. Imam Hussein is widely revered by all Muslim communities without any exception, even many Hindus in India mourn the tragic death of Imam Hussein and his 72 relatives and supporters who were brutally killed in Karbala. Majority of Sunni scholars are unanimous in their condemnation of Yazid including Maulana Ishaq (a Sunni scholar), Shaikh Ahmad Deedat (a Sunni scholar from South Africa), Dr. Shahid Athar (a professor and Sunni writer on Islam), and Dr. Tahir-ul-Qadri (Pakistani writer and religious scholar) among others. Sheikh Faysal Mawlawi, deputy chairman of the European Council for Fatwa and Research, issued the following statement in the year 2004:
“The revolution that Imam Al-Hussein made was not a rebellion against a legal ruler; it was a revolution against a tyrant dictator, Yazid Ibn Mu`awiyah, who deprived the Ummah of its right to choose its rulers [by succeeding his father to the caliphate]. Besides, he was notorious for being corrupt and dissolute. The majority of the Sunni scholars and others agreed to that, and Ibn Hajar mentioned so in his book As-Sawa`iq Al-Muhriqah.”

The tragedy of Karbala took place in 680 AD on the banks of the Euphrates in Iraq but Karbala has a universal appeal and in today’s climate of violence, it is more relevant than ever. The tragedy of Karbala and its spirit of non-violent resistance and supreme sacrifice has been a source of inspiration to the likes of Mahatma Gandhi and Pandit Nehru. The former’s first Salt Satyagrah was inspired by Imam Hussain’s non violent resistance to the tyranny of Yazid. Gandhi is said to have studied the history of Islam and Imam Hussain, and was of the opinion that Islam represented not the legacy of a sword but of sacrifices of saints like Imam Hussain. Nehru considered Karbala to represent humanities strength and determination. According to the great poet Rabindranath Tagore, Hussain’s sacrifice indicates spiritual liberation. Munshi Premchand, one of India’s greatest Hindi/Urdu writers, a visionary and reformer, eulogized the tragedy of Karbala in his famous play ‘Karbala’. Premchand’s Karbala was published both in Hindi and Urdu in the 1920s. This was the time when Hindu-Muslim relations were strained and the battle between Hindi and Urdu was raging. Premchand’s Karbala was aimed at both the Hindu and Muslim audience. This play was not just Premchand’s tribute to the martyrs of Karbala but also an attempt at reconciliation of declining Hindu-Muslim relations. In his introduction, Premchand drew parallels between Karbala and Mahabharat and Ramayan.

Karbala drew the attention of quiet a few Western writers and Charles Dickens is believed to have said that, ‘if Hussain fought to quench his worldly desires, then I do not understand why his sisters, wives and children accompanied him. It stands to reason therefore that he sacrificed purely for Islam.’

According to Dr. K. Sheldrake, ‘"Husain marched with his little company not to glory, not to power or wealth, but to a supreme sacrifice and every member of that gallant band, male and female, knew that the foes were implacable, were not only ready to fight but to kill. Denied even water for the children, they remained parched under a burning sun, amid scorching sands yet no one faltered for a moment and bravely faced the greatest odds without flinching.’

Karbala symbolizes the true face of Jihad – non-violent resistance. Not taking life but sacrificing your life for Islam. In the words of famous Urdu poets:

“Insaan ko bedaar to ho lene do,

har qaum pukaraygi hamare hain Hussain” ---- Josh Malihabadi

(Let humanity awakens and every tribe will claim Hussain as their own.)

Qatl-e-Hussain asl main marg-e-Yazid hai,

Islam zindaa hota hai har Karbala ke baad” --- Maulana Mohammad Ali Jauhar

(In the murder of Hussain, lies the death of Yazid, for Islam resurrects after every Karbala)

More recent times when Karbala inspired as a freedom mechanism

According to the prevailing conditions at the time of the commemoration, such reminiscences may become a framework for implicit dissent or explicit protest. It was, for instance, used during the Islamic Revolution of Iran , the Lebanese Civil War, the Lebanese resistance against the Israeli occupation and in the 1990s Uprising in Bahrain. Sometimes the `Ashura’ celebrations associate the memory of Al-Husayn’s martyrdom with the miserable conditions of Muslims in other non-Islamic third-world nations, on the pretense that every nation and era has their own Husayn.[20]
On the other hand some governments have banned this commemoration. In 1930s Reza Shah forbade it in Iran. The regime of Saddam Hussein saw this as a potential threat and banned Ashura commemorations for many years. In the 1884 Hosay Massacre, 22 people were killed in Trinidad and Tobago when civilians attempted to carry out the Ashura rites, locally known as Hosay, in defiance of the British colonial authorities.

Nuktey (Sufi Inspired Urdu Poetry)

2008-01-12T21:35:00.000+05:00

Nuktey
Dabeer Hemani

Basti mein in murdoo ki
Zindagi ko parvan charhana ha

Ek nuktey k ghulam ban ge hazar
Ghoomay ja baja har bazaar

K eik meri aas thi
Who bhi jo meri pyas thi
Us nuktey k who loogh
Uthey bachey chor maa ki ghud

Yad aaya woh jo us din aya tha nazar
Jis k naam pe hum ne ki eik zindagi basar
Who nuktey na miley jahan
Hum chor aey apna sab kutch wahan

Humey yad sab kutch tha magar
Sabar ker k unke hum chaley dagar
Nuktey phir jag uthey eik din
Ghulam unke hai sarey insaa o jinn

Dekh raha hon mei yahan beth
Rang jo bikharey ga har har khet
K un nukto k baghair lafzoo ki kya okaat
Jaisey namaz ho bina rakaat

Gar unko ghum ho tu kyun na mein rou jaon
Unke liye mei tu bas mar jao
Tamam lugat ha dushman-e-nukta
Ab mujh pe aa nahi sakta koi sakta

Abb tu safey bandhi hain k ho ada namaz
Kahey na koi ab k aai na humey awaz

perhaps the first sufi poem ive ever written.. and in urdu!!

World's biggest building coming to Moscow

2008-01-11T21:00:00.000+05:00

Moscow’s rapidly growing skyline will soon feature an eye-popping new addition: Crystal Island, which will be the world’s biggest building when completed. Sir Norman Foster’s mountainous 27 million square feet spiraling “city within a building” will cost $4 billion and it is scheduled to be built within next 5 years.

The Crystal Island will be Lord Foster’s second large scale project in the Russian capital, and his third new building design that resembles a volcano (we’re talking about his two mountainous buildings in Astana, Kazakstan). Although many people are calling this design the ‘Christmas Tree’ of Moscow - we can’t help but be reminded of the utopian and also rather volcanic X-Seed 4000 design for Tokyo. Unlike that pipe-dream project, however, Foster has a track record of getting buildings built, so the likelihood is high that we will see this striking structure towering over the Kremlin within 5 years time.

The statistics for the project are absolutely staggering; floor area alone will be four times the size of Pentagon in Washington DC. The incredible 1500 ft. tall multi use structure will feature 900 apartments, 3000 hotel rooms, an international school for 500 students, cinemas, a theater, sports complex and much more. There will also be a 16,500 space underground parking lot for all the visitors. The Crystal Island visitors will be able to enjoy panoramic views of Moscow on the viewing platforms located 980 ft. above ground.

And as we’d expect from Foster + Partners, this soon-to-be world’s biggest building will also incorporate a number of sustainable design features into the overall scheme. The exterior facade will be solar responsive and will include solar panels which, along with wind turbines, will generate electricity for the huge tower. Natural ventilation will be provided thanks to numerous strategically placed large atriums. The internal environment will also have dynamic enclosure panels slotted into the structural framing that will allow daylight to penetrate deep into the heart of the structure; the panels will also be controlled to modify temperature inside the building – closed in winter for extra warmth and opened in summer to allow natural ventilation. Energy management is at the heart of this structure, several on-site renewable and low-carbon energy generation projects are planned.

Images via SkycraperCity

More: http://www.fosterandpartners.com/News/324/Default.aspx

Staircase Drawers

2008-01-11T20:53:00.001+05:00

Here’s a brilliant idea that leaves us wondering - why didn’t we think of this first? Despite our penchant for 2-in-1 furniture, we’ve never seen anything quite like this before. Regardless of attempts to be organized in the modern world, most of us continue to be ashamed of one (or eight, in my case) junk drawers around the house- black holes filled with old receipts, pens, and random trinkets. But now you can flaunt your junk drawer with Unicraft Joinery’s simple yet brilliant under-the-staircase drawer solution.

What a great way to utilize a generally overlooked space! Step and store in style, using each step as storage for a different item- everything from socks and shoes to books and, well, junk. The Australia-based company unfortunately does not have a website, but contact info can be found here, with more details in Vogue Living Australia’s Autumn/Winter 2007 issue.

Thankyou: Inhabitat.com

BITUBLOCK: Building blocks made from compressed rubbish!

2008-01-11T20:44:00.000+05:00

If we told you there was a sustainable substitute for concrete you’d probably say rubbish!… and you would be right. The dream of a resource-saving, emissions-reducing replacement for concrete is becoming a reality in the form of BituBlock - made from post-consumer waste. Dr. John Forth of the University of Leeds is behind the revolutionary process that turns rubbish into a strong, less-energy intensive structural material that is poised to make concrete obsolete.

BituBlock is a high-performance product that is about six times stronger than traditional concrete block. It’s made by mixing waste products like recycled glass, metal slag, sewage sludge and incinerator ash with a sticky binder called bitumen, also used in road paving. The mixture is compacted in a mold and heat-cured, which oxidizes and hardens the bitumen.

While high recycled content is a vital part of sustainable construction, BituBlock’s landfill diverted ingredients are just part of what makes it so groundbreaking. Concrete is the most widely-used construction material with over ten billion tons produced annually. About 7% of global CO2 emissions come from concrete production. The primary source of CO2 emissions generated by concrete manufacturing is Portland cement, responsible for 74% to 81% of total CO2 emissions. In BituBlock, the bitumen binder replaces the Portland cement.

Structurally superior, BituBlock is gaining commercial interest and the project team, which also includes Dr. Salah Zoorob from the University of Nottingham, expects BituBlock to be market ready in just 3-5 years. Plans are also underway to develop ‘Vegeblock’ using waste vegetable oil.

Thankyou: http://www.inhabitat.com

Spiral Glass Staircase

2008-01-11T20:32:00.000+05:00

Some time after 5 p.m. workers at the Shinsaibashi retail store removed the black plastic that had been covering the front window, revealing for the first time the design of the spiral glass staircase--it was worth the wait!
The store itself runs left-to-right in the building, instead of front-to-back as is usual. As you look into the store, the entrance is angled inward, and you have an excellent view of the glass staircase to the left, and the store off to the right. The regular "home," "pro" and other sections are on the ground floor, and presumably the Genius Bar, Internet cafe and "kids" section is on the second level. The point-of-sale counter is at the far-right, or rear, of the store.
Ah, the glass staircase! It has 24 glass treadles, or steps, angled into a 270-degree near-circle. It begins from a two-step-up, stone platform, angles left, and then joins up with a 10-foot long glass bridge before reaching the second floor. The most compelling part of the staircase, perhaps, are the huge, glass side panels for the interior and exterior wall of the stairs, which is a visual and design marvel. You'll find yourself wondering they were made, and how they was transported to the store for installation without breaking. When you done pondering that, try to comprehend that the stairway is suspended over space--there's nothing below the steps or stairs holding them up. Initially you don't realize it until you see "nothing" below the stairs! Then you gaze upward and notice that there are several thin, silver rods running from the staircase to the ceiling, which apparently support the weight of the stairs.
It's difficult to see in the photos of the glass bridge, but the siding for the second floor actually mimics the G5 design--thousands of small holes drilled in metal siding. I believe this design was also used at the San Francisco store.
Interestingly, the front windows aren't fitted with the floor or ceiling hardware to support Apple's standard window displays. It appears that the long side-window will serve to display Apple graphics, while the front windows will be clear of obstructions to showcase the store and the staircase.
Overall, the store design is an incredible use of space, and provides a spectacular--and inviting--view into the store. How any passerby could ignore the stairs, and the attraction of walking up those stairs to the second floor is beyond me! There's no doubt that it will be a crowd creator for the store!

Architectural Terms

2008-01-05T12:12:00.000+05:00

Sense of Entry
The front door is big and far away.

Human Scale
Less than 400 feet tall.

Skewed Grid
The design looked too boring with a regular grid.

Pedestrian-Oriented
Doesn’t have enough parking.

Contextual
Is surrounded by a lot of other buildings the architect couldn’t tear down.

Theoretical
Nobody in their right mind would ever consider building the crazy thing.

Signature Building
You can’t afford it.

Less Is More
The designer ran out of ideas. Cheap Skate.

Classically Proportioned
Traced out of a book of Greek architecture.

Postmodern
Traced out of a book of Roman architecture.

International Style
No country will take responsibility for it.

Deconstructivist
The backhoe ran into it during construction—and they liked it.

Seismically Designed High Rise
In an earthquake, the structure will not collapse, but will drop all of its glass and stone panels into the street turning pedestrians into a stew-like mush of pureed flesh.

Jury
Firing squad.

Design Review Board
Failed architecture majors.

Architecture Student
Egotistical masochist with no money

Carlo Scarpa's Steps

2008-01-05T12:03:00.001+05:00

These are steps designed by carlo scarpa.. remembered the studio design project where a lot was to be done in minimal space.. this architect did certainly used his brains for sure.. i guess a lot in architectural innovation is more about observation and logic. thinking caps on!

dabby

Smoking point for smokers in a non-smokers world!

2008-01-05T09:50:00.000+05:00

Paris reporter Hugh Schofield says attitudes to smoking have changed dramatically in France in the past year and any fears that people will generally ignore the new law can be discarded.
The French health ministry allowed smokers a 24-hour "grace" period for the New Year festivities in a gesture of "tolerance".
Any smoker caught flouting the ban thereafter can be fined up to 450 euros (£332; $662), while those who turn a blind eye to smokers on their premises can be fined up to 750 euros.

France has about 13.5 million smokers among its population of 60.7 million.
Restrictions on smoking also came into force in Portugal on Tuesday, but the rules were not as tight as in France or Germany.
Portuguese bars smaller than 100sq m (1,076sq ft) can still opt to allow smoking. Public buildings can still have smoking zones, provided they are clearly signposted and ventilated.
German restaurants and pubs have strongly resisted the bans, not only because of the potential loss of income but partly because of an earlier crackdown on smoking initiated by Adolf Hitler's Nazi regime.
The sensitivity of the issue has prompted the authorities to allow special rooms to be set up purely for smokers.
In Lower Saxony where a ban is already in place, chef Michael Windisch came up with the idea of a "smoking point", which he hopes will allow smokers to enjoy a puff without leaving the premises.
The toughest rules in Germany are being brought in in Bavaria, where no smoking rooms will be allowed.
Lighting up is also likely to be banned at the state's Munich beer festival in October.

Source: BBC World

A toilet shaped house!

2008-01-04T13:39:00.000+05:00

A South Korean lawmaker and public hygiene activist on Sunday opened his 1.6 million dollar toilet-shaped showcase house designed to campaign for cleaner loos worldwide.
The two-storey home, complete with a nameplate reading "Mr. Toilet's House", is now ready to be occupied, according to owner Sim Jae-Duck.
Billed as the world's only toilet house, the 419-square-metre (4,508-sq-foot) concrete and glass structure rose on the site of Sim's former home in Suweon, 40 kilometres (24 miles) south of Seoul.
Sim, 74, who told AFP last month that his mother gave him birth in a bathroom, has actively campaigned for "clean and beautiful" toilets since his service as Suweon mayor from 1995-2002.

His campaign has since turned many of public restrooms nationwide into facilities boasting paintings, fresh flowers or even small gardens.
Sim's house was completed before the Korea Toilet Association, which he funds, holds a forum in Seoul later this month to launch the World Toilet Association to take his campaign worldwide.
Before Sim's family moves in, he plans to rent out the residence for 50,000 dollars a day -- with proceeds going towards providing poor countries with proper sanitary facilities.
In the centre of the house is a glass-walled bathroom which features a device producing mist to make sure users do not feel too exposed. The loo's lid is raised automatically and music is also turned on when people enter.
The house, which has a stream and small garden in front, is nicknamed in Korean "Haewoojae," meaning "a place of sanctuary where one can solve one's worries."
Sim says 2.6 billion people still live without toilets worldwide.

Source: www.square-mag.co.uk

Alamillo Bridge by Calatrava

2008-01-04T04:21:00.000+05:00

The Alamillo Bridge in Seville, Andalusia (Spain) spans the Guadalquivir River. Construction of the bridge began in 1989 and was completed in 1992 by Santiago Calatrava.
It was built to allow access to La Cartuja, a large, deserted island on which Spain decided to host Expo 92.
The bridge is of the cantilever spar cable-stayed bridge type and consists of a single pylon, counterbalancing a 200 m span with thirteen lengths of cables. The original intent was to build two symmetrical bridges on either side of the island, but in the end, the Alamillo's singular design has proved most striking.
This bridge represents the soaring aspirations of the city of Seville in preparation for the World's Expo of 1992.
Calatrava's Sundial Bridge at Turtle Bay located in Redding, California (2004), and Chords Bridge in Jerusalem, Israel, are similar in design to the Alamillo Bridge.

Text from Wikipedia

PS. More interested people in this bridge can ask for further info.. which is perhaps too many mega bytes of wait to do =p

Dilbert is an architect

2008-01-04T04:13:00.000+05:00

KPT Tower Karachi

2008-01-04T03:23:00.000+05:00

The Karachi Port Trust (KPT) has announced that Aedas is the winner of an international architectural competition for the design of a new landmark waterfront development in Karachi, Pakistan.The mixed-use project will be the first such landmark building built in Karachi Port.

The scheme has two aims: to act as catalyst to some major regeneration initiatives planned for the port by KPT as it develops its land bank; and to provide a new landmark for this new Commercial Business District by the waterfront.

Endorsed by Pakistan’s President General Pervez Musharraf, designs also include residential, retail and conference facility space in addition to its core commercial facility.The distinct form will be an instantly recognisable symbol. It responds to ecological concerns to reduce carbon footprint, setting a precedent in Pakistan for environmental building standards though the use of passive design principles and techniques of environmental control.At the centre of the development is an 80 storey helical tower with glazed outer skin.

This will house 102,000 sq m of office accommodation, on top of which will sit a 250-bed 5* hotel across the top 21 storeys. The hotel will also include 30 luxury serviced apartments and a swimming pool, and give immaculate views over the Indian Ocean.Three further towers echo the design, each of varying heights, arranged around a lake.

These will each include 280 serviced apartments with a further 70 apartments above 10,000sq m of high-end retail development. The scheme also features a 1,200-seat convention centre and exhibition hall and an underground 2,500 space car-park.

David Kingdom, project director comments:“Over the last six months we have worked to develop a concept design that satisfies an international demand for BCO standard office space and answer an extreme shortfall in 5* hotel and high class residential facilities identified by the Karachi Port Trust.

This is the first step in developing a large swath of reclaimed land at Karachi Port, a promising area of prime commercial and residential development.”

Aedas is being assisted by MM Pakistan and Mott MacDonald UK & Dubai. The project is due to start on site in April 2007.

Source: Aedas

Hright: ~300m

Floors: 80

Developed by: Karachi Port Trust (KPT)

Roses From Him

2007-12-24T02:28:00.000+05:00

Roses from him
perhaps the best short story i have ever written.

With every passing moment I gazed down at the wristwatch and uttered prayers to see him here and soon. We had been married last year and were so very happy. Only last year, the news of our child arriving made us as happy as horses in a hayfield or maybe more. He was supposed to come back three hours earlier but there was no sign of him yet. I knew he was a man of his words and knew what he said and so very punctual, this increased my worries. I gasped in the cold air of early January and gripped my fingers so tightly that the wedding ring on my finger begin to hurt my hand. That made me even more desperate, now my eyes were searching for him in every direction. I was out on the doorsteps for a while now and the frost had made my face quiet numb. I touched my face and spotted tears rolling down my cheeks. The winter had made them so cold. And so was he, a mile away lying on the cold streets of Karachi, people surrounding the body of my beloved, my honey. Someone had knocked him down as he was buying flowers from a hawker. They were roses and I was allergic to them. Only if I could ever know whom these roses were meant for.

If..

2007-12-24T02:22:00.000+05:00

this is something i wrote two years back..
thankyou Senjuti for appriciating =)

and by the way on a more personal note.. an year down the line i got the answer to the poem..

If...
By: Dabeer Hemani

If the world would be coming to its end today
Would you still wait for me and say
With you I can never betray
We will live the day just our way

If the sun would stop burning today
With me would you like to stay
Enjoy its each and every ray
And bear its heat and not go stray

If the moon would descend upon the earth today
Would you still wake up to wish a good day
While the world joys, with me will you like to lay
Bear the hardships, the actions for which I have to pay

If I was to die today
Will you accompany me to the bay
Watch me turning blue and grey
And cry for me as I go on my way

architorture

2007-12-23T23:35:00.000+05:00

this is dedicated to all my architorture freinds who survived the torture!
best of luck =)

untitled

2007-12-22T19:18:00.000+05:00

obviously i am new at blogging so ive decided not to follow any rules (if there are any at all) and write about every and anything i feel about.
i always wanted to be an author.. always felt like writing from the start but maybe god had some other plans for me and in Him i trust =)

i wait for the time to come
maybe when you will know some
music was mine which you now hum
& feel as your fingers go numb

drowing into the sea of lies
failing after a million tries
a shock too much for my size
everything but my concious dies

living was never this hard
not that this was the toughest part
thought i had my trump card
a dead body on the push cart

coming back to the life that was
walking down the lane across
weeping for a living loss
a dream that was badly tossed

not much i did
into the sheets i slid
of thoughts i wanted to get rid
only if i could put the highest bid

apart from this my aims were alive
so many things i did for those five
into the ocean of calmness i want to dive
only if i could get around into the hive

the words are only a hint of the space
they may tell you about a fallen grance
gradients of a line i trace
there wasnt anything else i could face

though the fragrance is strong
and i still stand tall
no one could say he could have falled
until the day i got that call

and did i see over the horizon
no wine for me i drank the poison
a letter and a double barrel gun
those were the remains of a battle i won

Dont throw away those old tubelights

2007-12-22T16:55:00.000+05:00

this and so much more you can do with them.

thankyou: www.inhabitat.com

architecture - a frozen music

2007-12-18T03:02:00.001+05:00

architecture
dabeer hemani

Its of the brick and about bricklayer
Of a mason and his prayer
About the sahen and the foyer
Bridges suspended with wires

Of heights and lengths
Of materials and structural strengths
Of commissioned and free lance
Of concrete and tensile tense

Ando’s play with sun in the church of light
And the slopes of Frank Lloyd Wright
Alto’s Finland in him is a great sight
Barcelona for Mies will always be bright
The mile high never reached the height
Corbusians consider him a king of architectural might
Louie Kahn’s a genius in all his right

The models and the sleep
Their meaning lies within me deep
The road is clear but the way is steep
To this life I therefore leap

From contemporary to vernacular
To the views from the tourist’s binocular
Green energy from panels run on solar
Limitations may exist but ambitions go taller

Of the glass box of James Sterling
And Foster’s dome in Berlin
Making statues may be a sin
Its some thing I would do with wide grin

The humor and the smiles
Hidden behind one a million lies
Laid down like a courtyard filled with tiles
Some dreams may live forever deep in files

A coffee and the whistling kettle
It’s all a Thursday nights meddle
This is for what I settle
Of honors and shiny medals

The desperation and frustration within
A billion ideas buried deep within
The pen sketches and their shading
Some see the light others go fading

A sea of possibilities and swimming in one
Steel and gudders weighting millions of tons
A movie for Loui from his son
Finding God is a battle still to be won

The journey may seem long
Don’t be wrong to think I am not strong
Of lyrics, poems, duets and a song
What you do comes back like ping pong

If Dabeer thinks another Savoye can be built
He must not go underneath the quilt
Into the cradle way go all guiltIn front of God he always knelt

untitled

2007-12-18T02:39:00.000+05:00

untitled
dabeer hemani

have you ever thought about someone this hard?
maybe i have

have you ever kissed so many times?
maybe i have
maybe it wasnt me
it wasnt even she
but yes this was the same tree
and now i cant see
you set me free

have you ever loved soemone this much
maybe i have
maybe it wasnt my touch
you always wanted to be first
but it was never enough
and now i cant feel love
you are high above

have you ever made so many plans
kicked all those cola cans
stared at the ceiling fans
maybe i have
maybe i shouldnt have
but now i change lanes
a dream with broken panes
you wont take any names

have you ever been sad so long
maybe i have
maybe i dont remember that
alone in the dark i sat
but what did i get
a music with no beat
looking at an empty seat
you cant feel the heat

have you ever tried running away
maybe i have
in every way i sawy
said what i wasnt supposed to say
my lips would move and they would pray
but here alone i lay
a hope that you may
not go the other way

have you ever tried to forget someone
maybe i have
maybe i couldnt do
yes you know who
and yes we always knew
we were among the few
but in the falling dew
in my life's short review
you were the only view