Competitions…

I happened to work with Rohan and Amit for the ‘landmark’ competition of recently. We sent our entry yesterday. Our sheet looks a “happy” sheet according to Rohan and I too think it has come out quite nice. Its filled with colours and drawings of the city imagined (we didn’t take on ground interviews). There certainly is something about taking part in competitions, which I thoroughly enjoy…
I remember Paul talking about competitions during (Vardha competition) as how they ‘activate thought processes’ and ‘generate’ lot of ‘+ve energy’ in college. When I was working with Shantanu, (during Kharghar competition) he talked about how competitions are the only way of entering mainstream practice for new firms; monopolized by builders and just too many architects out there to take away any project headed your way. During the Banganga competition we as a group had great fun designing the building and continue to do so (and at the same time get jolts of insecurities of some big shot architect pulling a “marine drive” on us).

I think these architectural competitions allow a certain democracy within the system for everyone interested to voice their opinions at the least. Then winning, getting selected etc. is a different matter all together. But what is most important is it allows you to express.