Narasimha, the Hindu god which was half-human and half-beast, that killed an evil king is a symbol of the new Renaissance we are going through. In this article, Sabu Francis explains why architects in the new Rennaisance ought to be involved both in the physical world of traditional architecture and virtual world of spaces created using computers ...
Those who are unfamiliar with the story of Narasimha, can read it on the Internet
Today, we are in the information age. That is a much quoted and hackneyed phrase. What is lesser spoken about is that we are in the age of blurred boundaries. We are moving from the analytical approach of the early twentieth century and we are moving towards synthesis... joining up parts togther. The boundaries have started getting blurred between countries. See how the European Union is getting formed, for example. Even among specialist fields there are no longer boundaries: Physicists and Chemists and Biologists often sit side by side in conferences.
Alan Kay, one of the key figures in computing is a molecular biologist, a mathematician and an accomplished musician. He straddles many fields. Christopher Alexander has made advances both in computers as well as architecture. This tribe can only increase. We are now in the new Rennaisance of design. The presence of Narasimha is everywhere.
There is a another aspect of this question which needs to be explained. Much of "traditional" architectural space is now getting replaced by computer space. For example; take a look at how SFA works now: In terms of physical space it is very, very tiny (You may not believe it if I told you how much space it occupies. Let that be a secret) Most of the "space" of the office is within computer hard-disks. The same has started happening even for spaces used by our clients.
For example; Konkan Railway Corporation initially had wanted SFA to design a central administration office in Ratnagiri, India. The initial design work was also started. However, that project was completely replaced when their engineers duplicated the functionality of that central administration office using some specialised computer software they wrote. Now that entire office is managed by hardly a group of 15 or so people sitting in front of specialised networked computers.
It is for this reason that we are so much into computing along with the design of physical spaces. We strongly believe that the field of architectural design cannot ignore this Narasimha issue anymore. Many get baffled why an architect should be talking about stuff which they thought were within the domain of computer science. Some; who concede that maybe there could be some slight justification for our research into computing, ask a different version of the same question: "Why is that you do not speak much about computer applications such as CAD or word processing and instead talk about pretty low level stuff?"
This can be explained using an analogy. Say you were a carpenter. What would your skills be? The use of a saw and the plane, the skills for making a mitre joint, etc. Exactly. A carpenter is not going to talk much about the table that was made or the chair he constructed. Neither will he go ga-ga over those products. Those products arose out of a process. The skills are those that aid the process and they need to be learnt in depth. If a carpenter does not know how to drive a nail in properly, then what kind of furniture will he make?
The computer software that are used by architects are themselves design products that arose from a field that is hardly 60 years or so old (Assuming that the most of computer science started with the work of Alan Turing and his ilk in the 1940's). The field itself is going through a lot of turmoil. In fact, according to us, it has not even gone beyond its infancy. Therefore the products created by such an infant are neither refined nor stable. They look stable and usable because of clever marketing by rich companies. An architect who is serious about delivering goods in the information age should look beyound these tools and understand their internal workings. Right at the bottom of the working of any software tool are:
- a) the computer language that was used to construct it
- b) the data structures used in the tool and
- c) the algorithms used in the tool.
Those who are unfamiliar with the story of Narasimha, can read it on the Internet
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