“First life, then spaces, then buildings. The other way around never works” - Jan Gehl
Cities are constantly made, by people, buildings, train routes, roads, parks, vendors, skylines, migrants, and their lived experiences, interactions and actions. The city is (y)our workshop, (y)our working ground, and (y)our field.
Cities are places of learning through observation, exploration, interaction and participation. You will venture into exciting learning experiences, working with the city’s multiple identities and platforms of interface. Engaging with communities, NGOs, public and private bodies to identify and devise innovative solutions for products, spaces, systems, services, infrastructures.
The designer of today re-establishes the long-lost contact between art and the public, between living people and art as a living thing. - Bruno Munari (1971)
How many ways can you think? What really is “thinking outside the box?” what kind of thinking is done by the hands and feet?
Experiential learning forms one of the core methods of teaching at the JSAA. You are encouraged to undertake active participation in these areas of study, along with classroom learning. Experiencing spaces through materiality, walking through streets and Mohallas, having conversations with multiple stakeholders, observing, and using varied forms of documentation are key to learning. Experiential learning at the JSAA includes working with a heterogeneous group of professionals, such as architects, artists, masons, bricklayers, contractors, engineers and storytellers.
“Everything we design and make is an improvisation, a lash-up, something inept and provisional.” - David Pye.
Can you make with what you have, and can you make it work?
How do you find your way out of an impossible situation? Is design about freedom or about working with the constraints? Is design a process or a product? At the JSAA we believe that design and making is essentially about thinking innovatively and improvising surroundings and objects for better functionality, comfort, use and longevity. In our studios and projects students dwell into local and not so local improvisational techniques. You learn from the field. You learn to innovate and to make. You learn that design is about making, about change, evolution and sustainability.
"The only interesting answers are those which destroy the questions.” - Susan Sontag
Do you want to chart your own line of Study? How to learn what you want to learn? How do you break through the existing structures of thinking and doing? How do you innovate across disciplines?
The school provides a creative, interdisciplinary and integrated atmosphere. You work across different disciplines learning to think critically and cross-sectionally, create and ask interesting questions, read extensively across disciplines, set new frame works of research and practice. You have access to an outstanding faculty group comprising architects, artists, environmentalists, urbanists, activists, anthropologists, lawyers, engineers and crafts persons. At our interdisciplinary learning centers, you develop expertise in certain aspects, with deep learning and sophistication.
Digital Centre
Students at JSAA will have fulltime access to high end workstations, 3-d printer, printer-scanner, plotters, DSLR cameras, wide-angle and telephoto lenses for developing and producing their work. They will also learn to work on various software such as Adobe Creative Suite, Autodesk, Bentley Suite, ArcGIS and ENVI.
Fabrication Lab
Here students will learn to work with various materials and give physical form to their ideas. They will be trained to work with both hand held and fixed fabrication equipment, along with 3D software.
Environment Research Lab
Here students will learn about various materials, their strengths, usability and areas of application. This will include both natural and man-made resources such as soil, wood, sand, timber, concrete, brick, cement and many others.
Construction Yard and Lab
Students will learn about various typologies and techniques of construction and structural systems. They will work simultaneously with machine equipment and software for designing structural systems.