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Professional Practice

Should there be a regulation on the number of COA licenses offered to


graduates in this country?
Thinking very logically about the question, there must exist a number of optimal
architects with relation to the population of the area in which they are licensed to
practice. The fact also exists that everyone is entitled to an education, and
technically, entitled to do this course if they wish to. However, they may not be
looking to practice it for a living. This is perfectly acceptable. However, it is the
sharp rise in numbers of graduates in recent years which begs the question
because we may have the potential to stop it before it hurts the profession. A
profession is distinguished by the quality of its practitioners. It is our record of
contribution to society that makes our profession profoundly important.
Professor Charles Benninger feels strongly about this issue. To quote him, ..within
five years we sitting here will all belong to a small minority of architects in a sea of
screaming and yelling, uneducated and illiterate, yet qualified architects. They will
simply use their democratic majority to push all that we believe in aside!
At Independence there was only JJ, and a night school in Delhi; when I arrived in
India two decades later in the 1960s, as a Fulbright Fellow at CEPT, there were
only nine schools of architecture; today there are more than three hundred and
twenty-five schools and their number is growing! There is a true gharana of
architecture in action here, like a nuclear ball of fire growing larger and larger, as it
expands outwards, ever further
We are inducting an army of very young, ill-equipped teachers. New teachers are
barely out of college, with little knowledge of what a practice is, with no site
experience, and no clue of the various contractual, technical, legal and ethical
issues that professionals handle. Would we have such people teach medicine, or
trust them as our doctors? We believe that architecture as a discipline and
profession should be taken just as seriously as medicine.
Today, we have 423 colleges of architecture listed under the COA with over 28487
students currently pursuing the course. Compared to the roughly 60000 architects
listed under the COA this number is alarming. We know that the COA monitors and
accredits institutions but is this checklist mentality effective or even credible?
Coupled with personal experiences while working with students across other
architecture schools, we have come to realize that there exists a sharp disparity in

the level our work. This cannot be because of lack of infrastructure. Some of these
students pay lakhs of rupees for a year or even a semesters worth of tuition. Their
studios are equipped with the latest computers and top of the line printers. What
then seems to be the problem. We realize of course that we are not qualified to
judge anyone, after all, we also happen to be students. However, we bear a
responsibility towards our profession and share it with other practitioners. In the
highly capitalistic context of todays built environment , the last thing that we need
is another irresponsible money hungry qualified architect who can potentially do
infinitely more harm than good if given the opportunity.
Some architects and academicians believe that an architect should be considered
a technologist rather than an artist. Of course there are the singular great
geniuses of every generation but for the everyday and the mundane, we also
require good professionals who can get the job done simply, efficiently and quickly.
What we do in our studios is laboratory work: analyzing rational functions and
logical interconnections; studying measurable site and climatic conditions; stating
problems clearly and making hypothesis of possible options to resolve those
problems; defining performance criterion and evaluating which design option best
provides the answers to questions posed by the client. We study engineered
materials and structural systems that support and span a variety of spaces. We
analyze enclosing envelopes, applying systems analysis, to select the best fit
after simulating hundreds of components, elements and parts!
Does our education really prepare us for this kind of scientific analysis?
Once again, quoting Benninger, we have projected architecture as an artistic
act of creation, rather than an act promoting the useful arts, through rational
procedures and scientific methods.
We have seen institution building in terms of individuals and star performers,
rather than as creating programs, procedures and systems. We have neglected the
team nature of our empirical processes and the importance of managing them. Our
failure in this area has opened the door to large contractors and project
management consultants jumping into our professional job applying only cost
cutting, schedule cutting and pleasing the client as their values! We must be
leaders in making architecture a holistic, scientific profession.
Today we stand at a critical point in the evolution of architectural education in
India. It is critical because a weak system of teaching is exploding into a
gargantuan incompetent, commercial production system that will produce an army
of unemployable misfits. Today is critical because the challenge of urbanization is

the duty of our profession to resolve; yet beyond the reach of the skills, knowledge
and sensitivities we teach
We, as students and to be architects, must have an opinion on the matter. Our
community that is a hundred thousand strong is soon set to double and the effect
that this growth will have, only time can tell for certain.

Arka.M

Dheeraj.A

Pradeepan.S

Suram.H

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