Seminar

I've ranted enough about work this year. Now onto some fun work stuff.

The final year students of Bachelors of Architecture at the School of Planning and Architecture, New Delhi, host a series of seminars every year. These seminars are public and are aimed at generating interest and discussion on contemporary architectural theory and practice.

Seminar Week is finally upon us and I was one of the few who volunteered to make the posters and invitations. A few discussions, many hours on adobe creative suite, a few less at Nehru Place, and here's the end product:

the poster

invitation (front)

invitation (back)

Also worked on the official blog. Had to make some more graphics for it. We chose two speech bubbles as our icon and the tagline (QUESTION. THINK. TALK.) because we wanted to emphasize that these seminars are about discussion.

This here the poster for our own seminar (Seminar 2/ By the People):

The idea was to make the poster represent a window into Shahjahanabad (or other such seemingly chaotic settlements). Rohan also worked on this brilliant video as an introduction to our seminar:

Hello World!

Final year of architecture school is brutal.

Our main projects -Urban Design and Seminar- are both in large groups (four and five, respectively) and it's really, really hard to reach consensus on anything. I'm always working, staying over at someone or the other's place. Even when we work at my place, I'm still with these guys. 24x7. There's no real break. And when we all get frustrated and take some time off, we're definitely doing it at the expense of work. The schedule is grueling, one submission after another, with no space in between to contemplate on your design or discussions. Studio is majorly frustrating, and our faculty seems particularly unreceptive and uncompassionate.

I feel as if I'm always ranting/ complaining, whether to friends, family, and now, cyberspace. 

This can not be it.

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Delhi Dallying made its first series of posters (see here) and organized its first walk. Yet to write about them.

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What I've been reading:
Delhi: Lights, Shades and Shadows

Flatland

Suri's Burn Book

Twilight in Delhi

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Our seminar involves a detailed study of the mohallas of Shahjahanabad. We try to go every week and we've made some pretty good contacts in the old city. People are generally quite open and friendly; my (unvoiced) perception of an apathetic and too-fast-paced world is changing.

Reverting to cliche, the old city provides countless moments of pure aesthetic and experiential joy. I haven't captured many of them (they are so clear in my mind: surreal barber shops, the play of light and shadow, the setting sun, wind in my hair, the thrill of kites, the food), but some I share here. For some amazing photographs, visit here, here, and the end bits of here.

garbage

haveli khazanchi, off of dariba.

every corner chaiwallah 

the lime green building on ballimaran, a landmark for us

meena bazar

patangbaazi

the sky on independence day

ballimaran

the mohalla of a dhobhi community in chatta shahji

my favourite find, jama masjid

printing press, chatta shahji