October 13, 2014
Rather so often in design offices, the principal designer gets his name splashed in all glory on every magazine cover and every presentation. I have seen firms started by some one ,changing their names , the moment it changes hands. When a son takes over it becomes ” & Sons” even when there is only one, or of-course the name is abbreviated so that it becomes an acronym. Rarely do firms actively strive to ensure that the act of taking credit , is a collective act , and not a singular one.
Even when they do,the designers do take all the accolades and a huge amount of other folks often don’t get talked about.
I know about us; we as a firm would not survive without many people who are not designers- they simply are our backbone .
Here is a story of two of them.
Nilesh did his graduation in Arts and a 3-d animation course and after working somewhere else joined us in 2013. Sneha is a commerce graduate and she too did a course in 3-d animation and joined us a few months after Nilesh.
After a few weeks of acclimatising, they started to soar. They refined their aesthetic, developed an array of skills and now produce visualisations of projects mostly faster than the time it takes us to imagine a design.
Below are some selected samples of the literally countless renderings they have produced in the last year and less.
The three below are part of countless renderings of the city of Benaras; this done for an ongoing redevelopment study.
Featured elsewhere in the blog, these for an office building where the foyer is inspired by Paul Klees painting, on uncomposed objects. These in different metals float and seem suspended in time. One of the images is of the parking basement; a lot of it already cast and worthy of a visit when in Baroda next.
The ones below are for the Bridge House in Baroda; a fairly featured project- these images prepared for a lecture in Mumbai.
The ones below for a city club in Mumbai. It should be commissioned by early next year. It echos the many architectural vignettes of Mumbai and puts them together in a compressed space.
These for a small cricket stadium under construction in Mumbai.
The ones below of Drum House; also a fairly featured project . The images for a lecture in Mumbai.
For a large residential property , early renderings of the house. The pictures below of the main living space aligned on the axis of a existing avenue of large trees.
These again for the lecture in Mumbai , of a project shown in lectures, but not published at all. Its a powerful house of strong characters; and now there is talk about doing a book on it.
The ones below for the World Trade Center building in Gandhinagar; we should break ground by the end of the year.
Nilesh and Sneha have recently been joined by Sunil , who also does 3-d animation. With the three of them cranking out images we will have to work fast!
Some other time I will tell you about another Nilesh , our model maker- who zen like , sits the whole day , carefully cutting what seem like small pieces of paper and plastic , and storing it somewhere and miraculously at an unexpected hour, a building appears out of nothing.
Till then, Happy Diwali, and May you all have a Restful time with Family and Friends.
Aniket Bhagwat
