Dr. A. Srivathsan

My view is that the committee should function primarily and fundamentally as a resource and a referral center. The starting point is to acknowledge that there are more than one way as to how things work or can work. There are many perspectives to engaging technology. Hence, instead of I or we being prescriptive it would be useful to be critical and function as an enabler. The best way to initiate ourselves into this is to throw open a position paper on digital technology and education for discussion. I propose we meet and work out the issues this paper may address and then draft and circulate It. CADDRIA discussions would be a useful starting point. Later, we can hold a meeting where an invited group can discuss this. I like to explore the possibility of holding it in Chennai and give it a late August time frame. Out of this meeting we can draw a broad frame work and publish it as a document for debate.

Simultaneously we can engage in collecting a series of debates and writings about digital opportunities in architecture. This can be ranging from theoretical to that of project and anecdotal. It may double to be a reader and teaching material.

We can follow this by a collection of goals and methods and means from institutions that have creatively engaged digital technology in their curriculum. We can also include and look at wider range of things like courses in Media art and technology to DDRL kind of set up research based studio setup.

Through this we can make distinctions between instrumental role that is skills and tools and critical thinking digital opportunity engenders. It is like saying what architecture can become not only in the sense of better but also different. If shifts in architectural thinking and practice is mapped and understood it would allow one to make a choice as to what kind of architecture an institution wants and seeks. Does one look at education as a form speculation focusing on architecture to be or look at doing well what one knows or thinks one knows. From here on each institution decides what trajectories they want to follow. One may wish to leap frog and jump start. Another may follow some minimum or model structure. We have to facilitate both. One might only like to focus on empirical investigation the other address issues of design. It is here a publication of a reader will be useful. I have already half way through this. I have been working on for last two years and happy to and discuss and collaborate.

We have to look at flexible devices and structure that may address many contingencies and peculiarities of each school and region. This however does not stop us from saying what we do not want or see what one considers inefficient. For example, as discussed in CAADRIA we can say no software center teaching, we can say tools should be in the service of thinking and not looked as a vocational training. We may take a position not to encourage a skill based vocational training but look at more critical thinking and creative opportunities

We need to be exhaustive and recommendatory as to what kind of infrastructure we need. We may come up with different kind of modules performing different kids of roles. We have already discussed some of this. I am here referring to the digital kit we discussed last year.

We also require some sort of voluntary benchmarking of the programmes. Not necessarily accreditation but something closer to that. I am personally against any penalizing approach as followed in the undergraduate accreditation process.

To sum up, shall I say a position paper, a reader, sample curricula, infrastructure kit , do and dont(s) or better FAQ’s - are the things one can work with.