A conversation with Abdul Kalam Shaikh, an extraordinary electrical contractor who built his contracting practice on an understanding of what well-executed electrical and power services enable quality work on site.
With over 15 years of experience, Kalam has enriched many projects, including a few at Matter. His work is a constant reminder of the many hands that make a good building. This episode is an insight into Kalam’s practice, his ideas on electrical contracting work, and his passion for things done well.
An editorial project by Matter in partnership with Şişecam Flat Glass, PRAXIS investigates the work and positions of diverse contemporary architecture practices in India.Pooja Khairnar of the Nashik-based pk_iNCEPTiON speaks about a certain mutability of ideas holding deep personal and professional significance that travelled through time, experiences and cultures to shape ‘architecture’ for her. With careful definition and constant reflection, a vivid map of interactions with the city, meaningful dialogues with mentors, and self-introspective journey emerges to conceptually anchor and create a scaffolding for the studio’s growing body of work to be understood. The repertoire of projects thus created across scales demonstrate a sustained emphasis on multiple ways of cultivating cultural and aspirational exchange with communities, and on the notion of ‘expanding’ a brief based on a critical evaluation of what the project impacts and what is a ‘necessity’.
An editorial project by Matter in partnership with Şişecam Flat Glass, PRAXIS investigates the work and positions of diverse contemporary architecture practices in India.In this episode, Avinash Ankalge and Harshith Nayak of A Threshold, introspectively examine their practice from the perspective of evolving from a multitude of lived experiences over time. These vignettes link their work’s ability to look consistently towards traditional depictions and landscapes, their mentors, and travel in terms of cultivating dialogues, and exploring experiments in spatial systems and details. They connect their processes of sketching, making models, seeking exchanges in architecture and teaching back to these guiding impulses. In invoking the various inferences, they form a worldview of an architecture of – possibility – that has more to do with the stewardship of gained knowledge and steering it towards making new kinds of relations with the programme, light and public.
MODERN SOUTH ASIA A Visual Archive of South Asia’s Modernist Heritage
The Modern South Asia (MSA) series is dedicated to exploring modern architecture of historic importance in South Asia through photography-based books. The series will focus on architecture from the 20th century, designed and built by regional and international architects. Each book will provide the reader with an in-depth visual exploration of the architecture through contemporary photographs, architectural drawings, and newly commissioned writing by architects, thinkers, and academics.
The MSA series is edited and photographed by Randhir Singh. The project is supported and published by Arthshila Trust.
The Campus as a Garden: Doshi’s Indian Institute of Management Bangalore
Essay by Kazi Khaleed Ashraf Photographs by Randhir Singh
Speaking to a group of students at the campus in 2014, Balkrishna Doshi characterised the Indian Institute of Management Bangalore (1983) as not a building. “Can you ‘see’ IIMB as a building?” he asked.[1] In saying this, Doshi was emphasising that not only is IIMB not a building, but the typical components of a building had also receded from view. “It is not visible because nature has taken over – so you see a wall here, a pillar there”. The project at IIMB sits against the predominant practices of producing spectacular or robust buildings, and ushers in the principles of what I describe as an architecture of complexity.
An editorial project by Matter in partnership with Şişecam Flat Glass, PRAXIS investigates the work and positions of diverse contemporary architecture practices in India.In this episode, Swati Janu of Delhi-based Social Design Collaborative emphasises on their idea of design and collectives as prisms to multiply opportunities to make architecture and its responsibilities accessible as a conversation to all; especially to those outside the purview of planning processes. The practice engages with an integrated approach to arrive at meaningful enquiries and possible opportunities at a more localised level, in tandem with the governance and power structures, community networks and the city. Architecture is conceived as a sort of node in the broader system. Swati, and her colleagues, Shreya Rajmane and Anushritha Sunil reflect on their processes and values that guide and conciliate technical and narrative tools to translate ‘projects’ across spatial, planning, advocacy, academia, art, writing, research and other diverse forms.
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