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Feature

A refreshing new beginning

Asif Iqbal Ryan

I was tired. I was tired of studying the wavelengths of electrons, characteristics of conductors and those soulless programming languages. My heart was refusing to become an engineer, itching to be involved with something more purposeful. Was it so bad, or maybe I just wanted to know about something more humane, colorful and lively! Perhaps I wanted to know about the splendors of life- art, poetry and architecture. May be I wanted to know about my ambient- culture, lifestyle and environment. I wanted to unleash my creative psyche to a vast world of imagination. I wanted to realize my dream of becoming an independent professional serving people directly, be part of their joy and happiness, life and living. I was in North South University, studying computer, traversing the path of an engineer. But I didn't become one; rather I switched to one of the latest additions to the long list of programs offered by the NSU. I joined the School of Architecture as soon as it opened in the first batch, rather quietly, in the Fall of 2004.

When I shifted the path of my career, I thought that I was beginning a perilous journey. Seeing my friends studying architecture elsewhere, some of them already into their third year, I thought halfheartedly that I would be doomed, confined to studios, day and night, go for design sites every weekend, or search some rare materials in the alleys of old city. Except that I imagined it to open a wide vista I didn't know what to expect from a new school. I was not sure how the school would fare putting its mark in the field of education of architecture in Bangladesh, given that in the same year and a little later four other architecture schools opened, each with colorful ads or promises alluring students. Understandably it is quite difficult for a new school of professional subject to start in style. However, to my surprise, things were convincingly different. The architecture program at the North South University promised a certain uniqueness and welcome deviation from the other conventional schools since the dawn of its appearance.

We had a quartet of young faculty with brilliant academic results coupled with variegated experience at home and abroad as our teacher from the beginning. They were a bundle of idea, enthusiasm, freshness and vigor, combined with wisdom and wit, never short of care and dedication, always friendly, helping, and ready for us. Since then the school made no compromise in securing the services of qualified, experienced and dedicated teaching staff, who could not only teach but also instill a sense of morality and responsibility, inquisitiveness and integrity, purpose and meaning. We even had foreign faculties from the USA and Germany, and often had visitors coming from MIT and Malaysia, Canada or Continent. Media personalities, film makers, art critics, artist, sculptors, interior or furniture designers, fashion and textile designers, product designers and so many others we had as our teachers, who exposed us to this boundless world of creative endeavors and pursuits, various media and means, craft and technique, with the sole agenda of arousing the creative mind in us. I have neither seen nor heard a constellation of such stars, an assembly of international award winners in sculpture and digital painting, architecture or puppetry under one roof, talking to the young minds, and breaking the barriers of teacher and student.

Unique in structure and content in Bangladesh, the curriculum that is offered by the school is based on the best American model transformed to cater to the local context. We are learning so much about art, the diversities of culture, our own local tradition, words and images, the events that shaped the appearance of our life, our cities, and our world, from day one. Not only we read, but also we make things different and beautiful, novel and bold, interesting and exciting. We created home for the ants and also for the aliens, for termites and turtles, by studying their lifestyle, food and habitat.

We envisioned box of joy for the Banani residents where they can return to their childhood in the midst of all the hustle and bustle of the busy urban ambient. We transformed a matchbox into dismountable multi-use furniture, a stapler into a projector, a knife into a staircase and things that even no name could describe. We developed children play item by studying human skeleton and we also designed spoons, street sculptures, partition walls and jigsaw puzzles. You utter it we make it happen, or at least we can imagine shape, size, material and function.

We go to our very own design studios- a cauldron bringing together all ingredients of knowledge. Here we build our visions, shape our thoughts, generate exchange ideas, form attitude and produce something which is an art and at the same time utilitarian, in small scales of course. We study theory to supplement informative and authentic design exercises; but those are not at all less interesting. Thanks to the very interactive teaching method and tons of fieldworks which force us to think and to be inquisitive, and help us to learn from hand on experience. For example, in one of our theory classes we did build real arches and domes with brick, cement and sand; for another we went to old Dhaka to identify, measure and document century old edifices; in yet another one we designed and erected a tensile structure. And now in one class, we are breaking down the railing and modifying the entrance to our own building. We built helidons to actually measure sun path and shadow pattern on model structures that we had designed in the corresponding studio.

My fear of joining something unknown, which initially I even suppressed from my parents fearing they would not approve given that I was halfway to becoming an engineer, completely subsided when we were told we wouldn't actually be taught design, but would be shown and led through the process that would culminate into creating something. And the learning would not stop at the school, but shall continue with the profession. We would be required to be observant, not only of people around us, but birds, trees, traffic, sun, wind, light. We were taught how to think, search, benefit and learn from nature. We were told that computers could not design; it only helps us to communicate. But soon we were presented convincingly with something no other architecture school of Bangladesh could provide to their students in all these years. Just after a year of its launching, our teachers built up a model workshop filled with carpentry and metal tools. It is extensively used by us and also by our teachers in making things with our own hand.

Our library is already one of the finest, and soon going to be the largest in Bangladesh. The latest books and journals like el Croques, A Files, Domus, A+U, we have them all up to date which no other school can match. In fact the library is a resource room that also houses materials and other samples. Resources are something that we are not short of. Oh I forgot to mention that we in fact have designed all our furniture used in the studios, CAD Room, Resource Room, and Model Shop. Now we are just designing the entrance lobby to our own building on Kemal Ataturk Avenue and the main foyer of the Department, and next week we are going to construct these ourselves. Walls of our crit room are adorned with collages done by us under the supervision of world-renowned artists.

We interact with reputed architects and renowned art and culture personalities from home and abroad in 'Kothon', a regular dialogue session where students from other universities are also invited. The creative personalities, stars in their respective areas by their own right, open up to students, argue, discuss, encourage, enthrall and take us in an intimate journey into their work and philosophy. These great minds and glimpses of their life not only inspire us, but also help us to prepare our mind and soul and set targets, targets that we all endeavor to emulate.

Indeed, we created the ambience of the school; we do nothing short of everything to create our world in the school premise. We do not come to the classes to study only; it's our second home. We come to join an exciting and joyous extended family of ours. We travel to far distance together to learn and to enjoy. In a short span of time, we have already visited the great Sangshad Bhavan twice, and the third one with a visiting American Professor is due next week. We have seen Doxiadis's work in Comilla, and as well as Buddhist Monastery in Mainamati. We have seen Zainul's Gallery on the Brahmaputra, and as well as Mymensingh Rajbari. We have seen the Art College, as well as Jagannath University, and many other institutions around the Bahadur Shah Park. We have seen Jahangirnagar University and Sangsaptak, and as well as Shankharibazaar and Geneva Camp. We have been inside the National Museum as well as Ahsan Manjil. We have been to brick refractory, particleboard factory and paint factory. We have been to the construction sites of Bashundhara City, Square Hospital, Hotel Westin and our own purpose-built campus. It is just beyond imagination how much we gained from these visits that we could not master from reading books or attending mere lectures.

The more days passes by, the closer we are getting; our teachers are also our mentors. They support us in so many ways beyond our studies that we cannot think of them nothing short of being an integral part of our family. I discovered that Architecture education is extremely involving, department of Architecture in the North South University; it is fulfilling; it helps me to breathe and cheer and cherish, dream and dare, explore and endeavor.

(The writer is a student of department of architecture North South University)