Navleeka

31/12/2025

Middle income group housing, Ahmedabad, India.

09/08/2022

https://travel-sketches-of-ayub-h-patel.webador.com/

Travel Sketches of an Indian Architect during student days in Europe, 1981

09/08/2022

https://architecture-critic-ayub-patel.webador.com/

27/05/2020

At Navleeka we do not believe in using too many finish materials to articulate a building form or space. Rather we opine that over history, the best of buildings, both hamlets and monuments have consistently employed fewr materials to achieve a sense of unity and coherence while diversifying scales, massing and composition. Therefore we look at those aspects of design that synthesize meaningful form and space that is conceived upon multifarious psychological and physical influences while incorporating devices that provide order to the whole ensemble.

In our view, many of today’s large complex structures that employ too many materials to express their presence are merely decorated diagrams as once described by Klaus Herdeg. Buildings do not become richer in meaning through a variety of materials, rather it is the variation of and transitons from several sets of scales from the intimately human to the monumental that set the stage for it’s expression.

How one approaches a building across the site and what one experiences at each threshold of spatial transition including the manipulation of light, vistas, and structure provides cues to a design concept that can sustain itself through the many stages of design. Memory plays a vital role in imbibing the design with tectonic expression that crosses temporal boundaries to make a building form timeless. At the spatial level, every place is at once here and there, an inbetween of sorts so that inside and outside weave into each other freely when desired and define each other blatantly when necessitated.

28/06/2019

Interesting topic to reflect on.

Why don’t architects often consider the ethics of what they do? Thomas Fisher’s new book, The Architecture of Ethics, digs into this topic in great...

27/06/2019

The architect must aspire to a betterment of the human condition through his or her work rather than dwell on fancy materials and superficial beauty. The beauty of architecture lies in the fundamental human principles it invokes. One must live the design, not merely visualize it or merely dress it up in fancy clothing for people to coo over. Design is not vogue.

07/10/2018

Architects today are constantly obsessed with form. Actually most of them are obsessed with shape or ornament or even so called styles, the latter especially true in California. While all of these may play a minor role, the crux of the architectural exercise is the making of space. Space is the true core of all architectural design, for it is that within that counts most. Buildings need to be designed from the inside out as a user experiences it rather than lay stress on the outer face, shape or form. Form is different from shape because form is inherent in the order and organization of space. Shape is superficial, not always observed, as in a dense urban setting. The Taj Mahal is a shape oriented building in space, therefore valid as exterior form, an objet d'art. So are the Pyramids and Ziggurats, as well as certain types of skyscrapers ; but these are monuments. Not all architecture is monumental. In that regard, the house, the workplace, the street and square, even the city are all spatial ensembles. Space, then, lies at the core of the architectural experience. It draws in, directs the flow, provides pauses, orients the mind and provides the ground for life's events. Space is everything.

30/09/2018

It is extremely difficult to be simple (as opposed to being mundane). In the field of design, even more so. Therefore, when you see a simple design ( not mundane) try and appreciate the effort. Complexity for the sake of itself is fickle. A designer should never attempt to break the norm just to be unique; rather uniqueness should result from a search for order.

11/08/2018

I will be at Navleeka's head office today...

24/01/2018

The golden era of architecture in India...Fatehpur Sikri