Notes

In the first meeting we talked about understanding the broader framework of craft, craft
processes, its relevance in architecture and read about it. I was preliminary told to start with
three books, India's Craft Tradition, The craft reader and Whose Tradition?: Discourses on the
Built Environment. Simultaneously I had to list down 100 projects, 70 Indian and 30 global
projects which according to me incorporated crafts in architecture. After listing down the projects
I was supposed to put together basic information, visuals, keywords and why for each project
listed.

In the next meeting we discussed the next step which was to analyze mine and other 200
projects listed down by other two students based on quantitative and qualitative lenses. We
analyzed these 300 projects based on these six set quantitative parameters, chronology,
typology, location of projects, firm, material palette, adaptive reuse v/s new projects. The next
step was to analyze these projects through qualitative lenses:
1. People process or technology driven
2. Architecture interior or product infused with craft
3. Cultural narrative/conceptual v/s environmental or contextual
4. Traditional usage of craft v/s Contemporary
5. Process generating form v/s form driven process
6. Identity (vernacular architectural motifs)
We discussed the two types of research, one where the premise is already set and then you
speculate and infer and the other where you build the premise based on the data. In this
particular framework, our analysis was supposed to be guiding us to the inquiry.

For the next meeting after this analysis, I had to make a presentation listing observations and
inferences from the texts I have read and analysis from these projects to frame my inquiry. The
broader inquiry that came about was, in a country like India where diversity is evident in our
culture, society, political and economic atmosphere, craft is the way to sustain this plurality in
the future. This came about from the chronological analysis of chosen projects done for the past
two decades. After discussing this idea with sir, I was told to narrow it down and be more
particular as to how I came to this conclusion, and support it with the cases and the qualitative
analysis that was previously done.