Life
Bangalore
Chennai
Coimbatore
Delhi
Hyderabad
Kochi
Madurai
Thiruvananthapuram
Some `edible' designs
A TYPICAL cocktail snack — a skewered cube of cheese and a piece of pineapple — inspired this young architect to design a house that resembled this edible titbit.
Srinath Advani of the city firm of architects, Advani and Associates, is a man always looking for innovative yet usable designs for the many buildings he designs. "For the cheese-and-pineapple concept, I designed a house of two connected cubes and it was instantly accepted by the client,'' he recalls. This house can be seen on Devanahalli Road, close to the ITC factory.
Another unique design Srinath worked on came from a cake he saw at a bakery near his house when he went to buy pastries for a party. The startling combination of brown and white streaks on icing which gave the cake a rich look caught his attention. By the time he returned home, he had already visualised a design for a client's house he was working on. The result: the icing on the cake became a pivotal point for the building with a brown and white facade; this house too is on Devanahalli Road. "For an architect like me, a design is like looking out of a window on a dark night and then patiently recreating a landscape seen during a split second of lightning,'' says Srinath. Architecture must be in his genes: his father, R.S. Advani, is a well-known architect in the city. Not all his designs have edible origins. One he is particularly fond of was designed for a mariner and has a decidedly nautical appearance; like the bow of a ship cutting through the ocean. "As people grow, their aesthetic values also develop new dimensions. But it is difficult to cater for the tastes of children, toddlers, who in their own way are very creative and always visualise their ideas,'' he says.
This was the challenge when Srinath and his team, including architect-wife Deepa had to design the building of Bumble Bee Montessori School at Sadashivanagar.
The school building has streamlined curves, reminiscent of the Art Deco school once so popular.
Srinath has a 10-year background in fine arts from the KEN School of Arts, Bangalore. He later studied architecture at the Manipal Institute of Technology and in Melbourne, Australia where he conducted research on "Minimalism and oriental philosophy."
"Architecture is to me a musical fusion of magic and reason,'' he remarks.
By K.S.
Printer friendly
page
Send this article to Friends by
E-Mail
Life
Bangalore
Chennai
Coimbatore
Delhi
Hyderabad
Kochi
Madurai
Thiruvananthapuram
|
