Your firm has always integrated technology and Indian architecture in various ways. How did you feel when software came into the field of architecture?
Answer From Prof. Christopher Charles Benninger :
I don’t know AutoCAD: Confession. I can’t work on designs I do sketches. Before saying anything, I’d like to represent the fact that every student must know how to freelance sketch. I mean not Picassos. They must learn to sketch the site, setbacks, intrigued points, and stuff like that. What I need is architectural sketching, not artistic sketching. Then they can put it on the software. Once you have the sketch and put it up in software and have a 3-D view. What I think is there is trouble in balancing between the way your mind works and its implementation in the software.
My other confession is that I was the one to own a computer first in the Madrasa. In 1983 I bought a Hewlett Package machine and it was quite a long process to get images on the systems which scared me away from the computers. Of course, computers play 85% of the role in today’s architectural business, but free-hand sketching is like the steering wheel of the car. There is no use of the car if you don’t know how to steer it. Most of the time people get carried away. It’s with the mentors. They must always push the students to find a balance between the hand and the mind and what you can mechanically put on a computer screen.
