Young Designers

Post eventrat[LAB] Embarks Upon Educating‘Computational Design’ in Indiarat[LAB] Education, a computational design workshop,was held at Indian School of Design Innovation, ISDIParsons Mumbai from 23 rd to 25 th of June 2015.rat[LAB] Education, in association with Super-Architects(S//A) (USA), is an initiative by rat[LAB] to start a newdiscourse in architecture and parallel design disciplineswith the use of computational design and its varioussubsets. The program aims to ‘fill the void’ through‘computation’ and its numerous techniques andmethodologies.The studio/workshop was designed as a 3-day eventcomprised of technical tutorials, teaching sessions andpresentations culminated in a symposium, round-tableconference, open discussion with leading and emergingprofessionals that demonstrate computation, parametricdesign or alternative techniques in their work, practice andacademia.Diverse participants made their presence in the studio, fromundergraduate students to professionals in the field ofarchitecture and construction. The studio was intended forthe participants to explore opportunities of usingcomputation as problem solving method, form-finding tooland spatial organization technique. At the end of anintensive learning of the tools and its parameters, theparticipants were disclosed to the design brief to research,identify and examine a ‘void’ in the city at any of the twoscales: architecture or urban. A systemic level idea was tobe explored and experimented computationally to ‘fill thevoid’ in a number of potential interpretations. The nature ofthe studio was experimental and open-ended with a specificagenda of using computation in the Indian context. Inaddition, the participants were asked to furnish a tentativefuture scope in all experimental projects developed in thestudio. The brief was flexibly structured for the participantsto identify the voids in existing built fabric, interstitialspaces, open spaces, connecting street networks, redundantfaçades, etc. However, a clear concept of data-selectionand usage had to be demonstrated in the projects.The series of technical sessions and lectures by Ar.Sushant Verma from rat[LAB], Ar. Dhruv Seth from StudioNode, Nitant Hirlekar from Mutation D-lab, Ar. SameepPadora, Ar. Julien Liehard on the use of computationaltechniques through Grasshopper and the ways to integrateit with architectural and urban systems gave a deeperinsight of the infinite possibilities of its application acrossthe domain of architecture.The participants’ design exploration with these techniquesranged from retrofitting the existing façade to rejuvenatingthe city (Mumbai) fabric in close observation to the city’scontext (tangible and intangible). The participantsshowcased extraordinary skills in using this technique in apractical application in a span of 2 days intensiveworkshop which concluded with an award ceremony whereall the students were given participation certificates.rat[LAB] Education aims to spread this knowledge across 4other cities in India– Chennai, Bangalore, Chandigarh andNew Delhi– scheduled between 01 July and 08 August,2015. This month long tour culminates in Delhi andselected works of 125+ participants across 5 cities will beshowcased in an exhibition in the capital. Acompendium/book will be published later in 2015 tohighlight the experimental work carried out in this tour.For further information, visit: www.rat-lab.org 018 Architecture Update July 2015