thesis zone 3 finals

the school hosted the zone 3 finals of the national students thesis competition yesterday. the projects ranged from a libeskind lite tsunami memorial, an oceanarium in an unsuspecting tarkarli, an airport that happened to be in kanpur, an office building where the floors moved up and down, a temple shaped ‘indian’ skyscraper 2025 in noida, a mill lands project and an eastern waterfront project. all in all very predictable fare. i must be biased because the projects that the only projects i loved were kalpits brilliant interventions in falkland road- mutant forms to ‘decode’ everyday life; and namratas soft sensitive old age home in the inner city. unfortunately the jury agreed with me only on one of the above and kalpit had to give way for the tsunami building with its three bars representing the three stages of recovering from a disaster- shock/denial/grief. more than a little silly, i thought- but then i have been told that there are ‘issue based’ thesis and then there are ‘design based’ thesis- as if the two can be separated from each other. as if issues are not about space and as if design can exist in a space where it only references itself- as form.

kalpits thesis