Landscape plays major role as an expression in cinema: Experts

BNCA celebrates World Landscape Architectur Month 2021

Landscape in cinema is not only used as a background or a prop, but serves a much greater purpose. It helps bring to life the stories, and symbolism of the plot, and creates a profound impact on the viewer’s mind. The nature and soundscapes showcased in movies show these present from a human perspective, opined various experts from the fields of architecture and art.

The Department of Landscape Architecture at Maharshi Karve Stree Shikshan Sanstha’s Dr. Bhanuben Nanavati College of Architecture for women (BNCA) recently celebrated World Landscape Architecture Month 2021 with a special session. The event titled Movie-ing with landscapes included a screening of trailers of four prominent movies from Indian, USA, Japanese and German titling A Little Chaos, Raavan, Dare to be Wild, and The Garden of Words.

The event also featured a participatory dialogue with Sachin Bokil, Founder, Axii Design Consultants, MayureshShirolkar, Head of Department, Brick School of Interior Design, and Shree Naik, Founder, Hazelearth Studio, Delhi. It was conducted under the guidance of Dr AnuragKashyap, Principal,conceputalized by Dr. Swati Sahasrabuddhe, Head of Department of Landscape, BNCA, and was moderated by AmrutaBarve, Faculty, BNCA who is also a writer and poet. AnupamaBapat, Assistant Professor of Landscape Architecture, BNCA introduced the guests.

The session aimed to explore the intricacies of landscape architecture as depicted in movies. The dialogue aimed at discussing the role of landscape as a subject, as a setting, as a character, and as a symbol in movies. Speaking on the topic, Sachin Bokil, Founder, Axii Design Consultants said, “Landscapes in films have opened up scope for a larger perspective as they are mainly used as characters. A film is not a creation on its own, rather it is just a slice of the portrayal of life as it only showcases the reality. The portrayal of landscapes in films is much more constrained than it is in architecture. Landscape architecture takes a piece of nature and makes the experience more immersive.”

MayureshShirolkar, Head of Department, Brick School of Interior Design said, “Nature is not entirely landscapes, but it is a large part of landscapes. As architects, with our unique perspectives, we can encompass nature in a landscape. Since we are very visually oriented, let us try to be more experiential while looking at landscapes on the screen.”

Shree Naik, Founder, Hazelearth Studio, Delhi said, “Nature by itself is intangible but we are trying to encapsulate it in frames in movies. As landscape architects, we try to depict it from our perspectives on paper or canvas. Especially in animated movies, creativity and expression come together to beautifully portray landscapes in nature. The presence of landscapes in movies creates an impact in the minds of the audience as it registers subconsciously.”

The dialogue was also attended by student representatives AkankshaDonode and SourabhiNaik. The hour and a half long event was concluded with a Q&A session. 

Global Connect – Engage – Exchange initiative by BNCA

Maharshi Karve Stree Shikshan Sanstha’s Dr. Bhanuben Nanavati College of Architecture (BNCA) recently initiated its Online Lecture Series 2021 under its Global Connect – Engage – Exchange initiative. The five-week online event consists of several national and international speakers, and lectures by award-winning architects from the alumnae of AA DRL, London. The session aims to extend the institutional  boundaries of the syllabus and course conduction . The lecture series in due course of five sessions planned in February and March will give insight into the works and research of award winning architects who after graduating from AA DRL in 2010 have pursued research and experimental practice in different parts of the world. The first lecture of the series was held on 12^th February 2021 with its first speaker Takbir Fatima, Director of Design Aware, Founder of Fractal Workshop & BuildAware.

The series is co ordinated by Prof. Poonam Agashe herself an alumni of Architectural association London and a Faculty of M. Arch Digital architecture at BNCA. The session was conducted under the guidance of Dr. Anurag Kashyap, Principal, BNCA and was moderated by Prof. Mahesh Bangad, Prof. Dhanashree Sardeshpande, Head of the Digital Architecture Department delivered the welcome address and explained the motive behind the launch of this lecture series, while Prof. Poonam Agashe, introduced the speaker of the day.

Takbir Fatima, Director of Design Aware, Founder of Fractal Workshop & BuildAware started the session by sharing her experiences with the Design Research Lab (DRL) Program and the exploratory nature of design and architecture.

Takbir leads an international award-winning experimental architecture and interdisciplinary design studio that was born of a desire to create awareness through livable, wearable, usable, accessible, responsible design.

Wherein she and her team are deeply involved with the built and natural environment via investigative design research across Discipline, method ,scale and context. Taking an entrepreneurial route, Designaware has worked on various self-initiated projects, with a particularly strong focus on socially-relevant work. The practice with Takbir as a team lead continue to question methodological and pedagogical norms through their design research and practice

While elaborating on her award winning school design in Hyderbad named the ‘Hilltop school’ she demonstrated the extension of an architect’s role and showed the ways in which design can be democratized for the unprivileged in our society through community engagement.

Insisting on the need for plural approaches to design she said, “The process of design is evolutionary, rather than being one solution to a specific problem. As architects, we have to be wary of designing, and we have to collaborate with the users to make our design relevant.” She also added that, its time we acknowledge the role of Data and digital mediums in design “Data driven design is being purposefully used in urban informatics and is positioned to show huge promise in architectural design”. She showed how cleverly data can be used to design through her office design titled the Smart Office project , and pavilion design titled ‘String Theory’

Stressing on the fact that Constraints in projects and placements can often birth new ideas and gives a broader scope for experimentation.” She elaborated on how material constraints become the palette for creating temporary and permanent installations. She also showed workshop initiatives, and while speaking about her Fractal Workshops, she said “The premise of the workshop is to bring ,together different people and different ideas in an effort to collaborate and get better results. Different people experimenting with different materials collectively will always give out better results and success than individual projects.”

Speaking about her passion project titled ‘Road Less Traveled,’, Ar. Takbir spoke about her work during lockdown where she organized a  virtual lecture series  titled to raise funds that were channeled towards providing food and other necessities to displaced construction and daily-wage. Sharing her success in collecting 2 lakh rupees through the initiative, She called for architects to reach out socially, she said “The role of architects in response to catastrophes like the pandemic is to be aware and resilient and make the best use of knowledge and resources to help the society.”

During the course of her lecture, she explained the various projects that she has worked on, the importance of sustainable architecture, the scope of the field, and different approaches to experimental architecture and design practices.

Prof. Poonam Agashe delivered the vote of thanks and the hour and a half-long lecture concluded with a Q&A session.