EOY2013

SSAA 11
ethical - this is not just a favourable set of values one espouses when convenient, but what one deploys
even when not personally favourable. In a fast developing country with critical sustainability, environmental
and equitability issues, the ethical cannot be overemphasized. These emphases, and the dynamism of our
exceptional faculty, make SSAA the benchmark for every architecture school in the region today.
Two years ago SSAA had began focusing on sustainability and in incorporating the new tools that have
emerged in energy analyses. We specifically set out not to create an add-on understanding of sustainability but
to address it as a core concern of design. In the new curriculum and structure that SSAA has now adopted,
there is now even more hands-on training with this and the accompanying new digital tools. SSAA graduates
will be on the forefront of addressing any issue of sustainability with more advanced means.
Dean’s Message
Sushant School of Art and Architecture is now almost 25 years young. Excellence has been the mode of
existence since inception, and today we step forward with a confidence that comes only with success and
experience. An SSAA education is unique and marked for the emphasis on free thinking, technical expertize
and design that addresses social and cultural issues. Architecture for us is still heroic and modernist but today
it is also a mode for theoretical enquiry and consideration in a country that is now taking its rightful place in
the global arena.
At SSAA there are four aspects of architectural education, just as there are four legs to a chair. First is the
emphasis on vocational skills that one must learn to master just as any craftsperson. Second is the emphasis
on professional skills, which particularly in architecture means not only spatial manipulation, but also the
ability to concretize ideas in to built form. A third emphasis is that of liberal thinking- that is the ability to think,
analyze and learn freely and follow a query without a consideration for an end. This emphasis on philosophia
is what separates architecture from other professional and vocational training. A last emphasis is on the
With the completion of our digital lab with 3D printers/ rapid prototype machine, laser cutters and scanners,
we are now also setting up a new design pedagogy which will seamlessly move from digital to analog. In India
we are the first architecture school to do so. We are also now emphasizing more on intensive workshops
with emerging technologies such as robots in the construction industry, again a first. These workshops as
well as our dynamic student exchange programme and joint studios with international universities and our
guest lectures and conferences has brought home a simple point- our students and faculty exceed global
standards and yet remain focused on addressing problems specific to India with imagination and highest
technical expertise. The success of our students and faculty in national and international competitions as well
as publications makes this an indisputable fact.
Sushant School of Art and Architecture will continue to be one of the most intense and cutting-edge centres
of architectural discourse. With our community of innovative designers, architecture practitioners, scholars
as well as excellent students we will continue to structure professional roles, political agendas and academic
discourses in India and the global arena.
Rupinder Singh
Dean, Sushant School of Art and Architecture
YEARBOOK 2013