One does not simply study architecture. They must also be fully willing to embrace a nocturnal lifestyle, cultivate a taste for rejection and experience patience-testing scenarios that become funny anecdotes, but in hindsight.
The minutiae of the metric scale are perhaps the crux of the architecture school starter pack. Decimals, conversions and scale factors—my heart still sinks, thinking of the many models and drawings, cast aside in the first semester for being in a 1:20 scale instead of 1:25. But lest I should delve into my personal phobias without preamble, picture this:
It’s the middle of a blazing afternoon coupled with a post-lunch lethargy. You’re sifting through an extremely congested part of the city, surveying it for every possible detail. No one told you ‘Architectural Design – 7’ included descending to the garbage disposal areas making notes while throngs of rushing people nudge your elbows. Also, no one told you that “group projects” would go on to become your least favourite words, right after “the review has been preponed”.
The Assignment
A study area of 72 acres, in Bangalore, to be surveyed, documented, and presented in groups. Ranging from walkability and building typologies to the public realms and third spaces, we were tasked with learning the region like the back of our hands. Sounds easy enough, right, given that it’s divided among six students?
Well, for starters, here’s what KR Market, the crown jewel of our study area, looks like on any given Thursday:
One of the reviews would be held the following day while half the group waited anxiously for the rest to arrive with the drawings of survey maps. And arrive they did, like clockwork, except that they were one and a half hour late (“Bro, Bangalore traffic!”) and cradling a curiously large bundle of sheets.
The Prints
In a perfect world, a survey map is handy tools to familiarize you with the study area as you navigate, and in marking your observations. But this is, in fact, the world of AutoCAD errors and impossibly expensive print-outs. Thus, a map we were expecting in A2, had been printed in a very large scale—a total of nine A0 sheets relaying the drawing of the whole 72 acres.
Now, if the words “A0” don’t make you and your wallet shrink, then count this blessing twice.
Here’s a sketch to demonstrate that:
As the bundle was unfurled in a relatively discrete corner of the market, most jaws dropped open in disbelief. Here we were, hoping to waltz about at the eleventh hour and finish the survey, but in one fell swoop, we broke into a heated argument.
…it wasn’t one in hundred, you dunce!
…that’s what I called you to ask.
…the printing will cost each of us, how much?
…that’s why we should’ve met on time.
…but she’s grading it tonight and I need to leave in an hour. I live very far.
After about fifteen minutes of disagreement, we reached a consensus that the overwhelming pressure of the deadline trumped the current frustration and culpability. Leaning against a temple railing, someone declared – “I think I’ll just be sick tomorrow. My uncle’s a doctor.”
Now, excuse the exaggeration, but this is definitely an accurate sentiment in the mind of the faculty:
It was clear we had to go ahead with it, especially since there was no way the prints as expensive as these would be wasted.
The Survey
Following a quick pit-stop for chai, we broke into pairs. We would tackle our given portions of the survey, mark the observations and scan the sheet. One of us would have the unenviable job of putting each of those together into a single sheet on PDF and email it to the faculty. It would fall to me eventually after enough people said “I’m not good at Photoshop”.
My partner-in-survey and I sauntered to our Page 4,5 and 6 regions as she added the total expenditure for the group. “It’s, like, almost 3k per person. These print-outs will bankrupt me.” I went on to add that we would be making a model next month, so that was a real possibility indeed. The cost of the rolled bundle of sheets I held fast was a firm reminder that mistakes in architecture came with a big price-tag, to say the least.
At dusk, we had walked almost a mile, with me walking with arms wide open, clutching the map and stopping intermittently as my partner would scribble notes onto it. I would realize an hour too late that my shirt would bear colourful blotches from all those permanent markers.
The Review
The review the following morning undoubtedly made for an interesting presentation. Forgoing the usual pin-up boards, we spread the labour of our misprinting in the middle of the studio. Minutes before it began, we were busy erasing footprints above the ‘KR Market Metro Station’, and a questionable spot by the ‘Public Park’ was hastily covered in green marker to depict “the vegetation”.
The discussion that followed consisted of us traipsing around the periphery of our taped-up sheets, using T-scales to point at different parts of the study area. Of course, we did try to pass off the gross error in size as our very diligent effort at surveying but the faculty bought none of that, albeit thoroughly amused.
It is redundant here, now, to reiterate that the things that make the study of architecture excruciating make the practice of architecture efficient. The overarching theme of this incident as I see it, however, is that friends make even the worst of time bearable, for by the lunch break that afternoon, we were all laughing about the trials of the previous day. This profession of ours demands many things of us, but a sense of humour in times of difficulty is perhaps the most essential.
