Essay: You Win Some, You Lose Most
In the last twenty years of practice, our firm ABRD Architects has kept busy primarily by competitions – often by
Anupam Bansal
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This website is a home to numerous ideas that couldn’t be realised due to several reasons.
unbuilt 2.0: architecture of future collectives delves deeper into the meaning of unbuilt, and expands beyond the buildable unbuilt. It features about 50 ideas, realistic and speculative, along with thought provoking and intriguing essays on the theme by diverse design professionals across India.
Indian architects report that a significant amount of their work remains unbuilt - whether as concepts that didn’t make the cut at competitions, as proposals which got tied up in red tape, or as projects that were abandoned by stakeholders. While we measure the worth of a building by the visual, tactile and spatial experience it offers, the fact remains that unrealized ideas are just as crucial as built structures - for design, development and discourse. This volume seeks to celebrate these ideas.
In the last twenty years of practice, our firm ABRD Architects has kept busy primarily by competitions – often by
What could have been, What can be – Amritha Ballal, SpaceMatters
What could have been, What can be – Amritha Ballal, SpaceMatters
Buildability of the design is the fulcrum on which its valuation as unbuilt design often turns. Every buildable unbuilt design sustains the contradiction between ‘pure design’ and the messiness of reality that produces it, which it must navigate and alter, and which may defeat it occasionally.
If we view unbuilt architecture as a photograph of the inner turn of the architect, what is revealed in this photograph will demonstrate whether architecture is captured by an ideology of arrogance or an ideology of humility.
The memory is almost visceral in its intensity; the overwhelming, consuming satisfaction of finishing one’s first design assignment – be it a humble cabin or a small amphitheatre nestled against a hypothetical hill – and the realization which hits us as we cap our Rotring pens, that somewhere, someday, this could exist.
This project was proposed for a competition for an iconic structure along the banks of the Sabarmati Riverfront in Ahmedabad. Given the context of a limited budget and the municipality’s small appetite for maintenance, we took the opportunity to reflect on the nature of a monument – who it serves, what it reflects, and what kind of resource it consumes.
Contemporary Retake on Temple Architecture, by Architecture Discipline – An amalgam of a traditional religious space and the spirit of innovation and experimentation
The design of the J. Krishnamurthy study centre is a metaphorical expression in the architectural language of Krishnaji’s ideas about life, silence and the role of the study centre. It is a place for serious introspection, silence, with a good library resource centre, a.v. room, a translation facility, meeting / discussion space and liaison office.
J. Krishnamurti Study Centre, at Hyderabad, by Shirish Beri
Planned as a memorial for the Kashmiri leader, while he was alive, the modest sized structure is located along edge of the Nagin Lake, on the outskirts of the city. The plan consists of four similar pavilions with pyramidal roofs, two of which are enclosed, both assessed from a common Reception, fronting onto a stilted area, in association with the water edge, The form of the building is characterised by its pitched roofs, distinctive skylight and arched openings.
The concept of the proposal was to provide a form that is as pure and perfect as possible on earth in colour, texture and philosophy. The proportions and sizing of all aspects of the design rely heavily on the understanding of the “Golden Ratio” and principles of mathematics and origami.
Maharashtra Nature Park Competition is an opportunity to rejuvenate one of the rare parcels of urban forest that lie forgotten within the city and from there on cast a spotlight on a much larger area, extending from the upper reaches of the Mithi and Vakola Nallahs (streams) to the forgotten connect through Mahul to the Eastern waterfront.
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