Summary
Prem Chandavarkar looks at the wall as more than a physical boundary. He speaks about trust, porosity, beauty, public life, inhabitation and the growing divide between physical and digital worlds. The episode is part of The Gyaan Project’s fifth year of collaboration with The Drawing Board, an international architecture competition hosted by Rohan Builders and Mindspace Architects.
About the guest
Architect, academic and writer Prem Chandavarkar is managing partner of CnT Architects and former executive director of Srishti Manipal Institute of Art Design & Technology.
Who should listen
Architecture students and young architects who want to think beyond form and function, and understand architecture through space, inhabitation and experience.
Architects, urban designers and planners interested in how walls shape trust, safety, public life, exclusion and the way cities are organised.
Designers and creative practitioners interested in beauty, practice, sadhana and the difference between designing something and how people actually experience it.
Anyone thinking about our digital future and what we lose when physical and digital life become increasingly disconnected.
Topics discussed in the episode
[0:00] Introduction
[1:21] What does a wall mean to you?
[4:53] How do you see order as a concept?
[9:07] What does a wall reveal about society?
[11:58] Can making a wall be ethically wrong?
[15:02] When is a wall about safety or exclusion?
[22:48] Inclusion and exclusion in designing walls
[23:48] What happens when a wall outlives its purpose?
[24:40] What should students question before they design?
[28:05] Does everything need to be utility driven?
[37:49] What will walls look like 50 years from now?
People mentioned in this episode
Ernő Goldfinger, Christopher Alexander, William Cronon, Donald Trump, Rafiq Azam, Jane Jacobs, James Stirling, Mahatma Gandhi, Humberto Maturana, Francisco Varela, Joseph Rykwert, Gernot Böhme, Geoffrey Bawa, Frank Lloyd Wright, Carlo Scarpa, Tadao Ando, Luis Barragán, Louis Kahn, Le Corbusier, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Manuel Castells, William Gibson
Reference reading
• The Drawing Board on YouTube
• The Drawing Board on Instagram
• The Drawing Board on Facebook
• Prem Chandavarkar on LinkedIn
• Prem Chandavarkar on Instagram
Walls do much more than divide space. They reveal what we value, what we fear and how we choose to live together.
Do walls make us safer, or do they reveal how little we trust each other? I would love to hear your thoughts in the comments.
