We started school with looking at pictures of buildings. Architecture education that is. Our first day we were taken into this very large room which contained a lot of books neatly organized [Library was just being renovated so books were distributed, stored in several different faculty rooms]. They made us sit around one of the bigger tables and started bringing in the books from the shelves. It was all books with pictures in it. Next to these pictures were drawings and sketches but these particularly didn’t make much sense.

We were asked to imagine.

Imagine how these various types of black and white diagrams became subjects for the images. These imaginations didn’t get all of us very far. Random thoughts in your head don’t count for much. None the less there was these names that came by. Names of those whose drawings were found next to these pictures. These weren’t particularly...

Shastri Nagar

Slaughter House

Bhatt Chawl

Chinchpokli Gonsalves Wadi

Quresh Nagar

Rajiv Nagar

Nityanand Nagar

Sarkar Baudi

Sayyed Wadi Waroda Road

Hanuman Gafti

Kadeshwari Mandir

Madan Wadi

Dargah Gali

Khar, B.M.C. Depot

D'Monte Street

Bazar Road (Asma Building)

Jamat-E-Jamooriha Colony

Nagris Dutt Nagar

Makhai Park

Indraji Nagar

Dayabhai Amarshi Chawl

Cosmo Colony

Maharashtra Nagar

Glasswala Compound

Hajtmehd-Nooralane

Marwadi Chawl

Kondaji Mala

Transit Camp

Rajaram Wadi

Marwadi Chawl

Chandiwala Compound

B.P.E. Marathi Municipal School

Pimpleshwar Wadi

Chimbai

Nutan Nagar

Patel Compound

Sherry Rajan Village

Godiwala Compound

Karamba Zopadpatti

KEM Colony

Sea Face Zopadpatti

Peter Chawl

Balasaheb Kher Chawl

Amar Gul Pathan Chawl

Murugan Chawl

Varma Store Kadeshwari

Pawar Chawl Kadeshwari

Yuwan Apartments

Sitaram Mali Chawl

Baudh Samshanbhoomi

Bugga Galli

Guzdhar Bandh

Shivdarshan

Goradia...

Pinpointing inspiration is a difficult partly because allegiances shift and practices evolve. In principle to follow someone’s work is a matter of taste, an inclination to a particular style doesn’t quite hold ground. This, of course, should be noted as hanging on to a style isn’t a thing anymore. We are argued (by Marc Kushner) to be in the age of experimentation. Mostly a quasi-lethargic stance, a position such as this is, well somewhat, required as it’s more than ever (maybe) difficult to find patterns leading to a systemic movement. Either lack of intellectual rigor to inspire or framing the popular consumable information model inspiration for any design task is murky ground. Building up from all this mush is a follow list. In spirit, it reflects the popular format of social networking sites but without its algorithms.

01] http://siteenvirodesign.com/ _ James Wines, Denise Mc Lee...

Following is a documentation of correspondence between citizens and coordinators from city NGO’s on working GIS projects in various capacities. There is an increasing trend to develop skillsets using geographic information systems and technologies. A summary of ideas of what GIS in can hold against participatory planning and citizens advocacy is displayed by this extract. These notes link to ideas being developed against the mumbaiopendata.org project with an anticipated possibility if these concepts discussed can if at by collaboration or adapted via reference into the project. With a minimum variable product release of the repository (edition 1.01) the next set of discussions is how the project can and should develop over time either as service or an extended part of a practice.

Dated 22nd October 2014

From _ jitendra

I feel

• a GIS site (based on OpenStreetMap) be made available...

mumbaiopendata.org as a platform is a mashup. It’s an outcome of a series of tests and effective trials in collating content for dissemination on a specific subject of investigation in this case Mumbai Urbanism. Update on this edition divides content at large into its distinct categories and locate it separately on the two platforms. Tumblr serves to organise and structure as per tags various information packets (in all cases groups of ten) on the city while pages on Google Sites locates material for download.

To explain the content distribution categories _

INSTITUTIONS collect organizations and acts working in the city this is further extended in PROJECTS specific pages.

BLOGS explore city writers and their collected body of work while READS list writings.

DATA (SETS), MAPS, REGULATIONS and IMAGES deal with material which become part of exercises, tasks and projects produced.

...

The personal archive is an inherent outcome of a research project. Composed from references of various types and diverse sources, they are instrumental in shaping the final supposed, much-anticipated submission. With limitations in the physical off-line document pile, how can the virtual alternative be imagined and therefore proposed? This question tries to streamline processes of information and data collections which are an integral part of research and when it’s on a specific area of preview such as in this case Mumbai urbanism what is the best possible way to source, store and subsequently disseminate. Previous observations concentrated on similar both private individual exercises to institutional initiatives. What they have in common is the singularity of the subject and particularly narrow scale and scope. As with mumbaiopendata.org they are focused energies on a particular...

Design education somehow imbibes a constant need to reference before, during and after every assignment. Beyond personal libraries, the bookmark folder in a browser is now a go-to location. From that folder are resources in the form of print publications, competition sites, a repository for drawings, coursework, public design portfolios, school lecture archives, blogs, work archive of architects and information silos. All these through it’s varying capacities a study of on a culture of buildings or preferably reference for the internet architect researcher. For a whole field of study, it’s surprising that concentrated sites are relatively few. But then an alternate argument proposed is, as it’s a diverse field points for reference can run across knowledge domains, need to restrict references to any specific identified centers may not add value to a research endeavor. What most of these...

mumbaiopendata.org is a task compiling mumbai information and data. Built over time and projects the repository makes available content which are referenced for various city-based exercises. This post is an explanation of bits making up the site. What follows is a brief description of events or ideas tested for against development of the space and explanation of the two parts. Its, primary domain is linked on Tumblr. Links from the left navigation, between institutions to etc, is located on google sites. What these, Tumblr and Sites, contain in the majority are references to secondary sources, information, and data used for city projects. Sites is considered the main repository while Tumblr visualizes material which can be accessed. Based on received reactions a more consolidated platform should be drawn out, hopefully, making up for navigational errors in data accessed.

To begin is...

Ideas for an information storehouse is not new. They are always around in severals forms such as libraries, archives, collections, databases, blogs and other methods of content collation imaginable. This observation concentrates on a selection of found silos and statements of proposals which by existence are foundations of design practices. By their creation, these have substantiated research projects to have resulted in a type of work produced. With more and more material disseminated on-line, a physical repository is giving way to the digital. Being a relative new territory of engagement its various available formats are just about unfolding. This view is merely a result of lack of available information, as in not much work is present describing an engagement of sorts with curated content. Those found as this list are essentially gathered by chance and patterns found in them to...