Love to live every moment

Love to cherish the memories anytime

Love to savour upon the beauty

But doesn’t really happen when you want them...

When nothing is happening,

When the folks turn their backs on you,

When the light exists only at the deep end and the path gets darker for now;

Where the finish line seems to be far...

All I need is a comfort of your touch,

An encounter of your hug on my shoulder,

A stroke of yours lipstick on my cheeks,

A word of romance that you love,

I just start again to Love and Live the moments around me...

For my Mom on her B'day (July 1st)....

Acknowledgements - (Revitalising Chettinadu Heritage)

My thanks go to several people who had been very instrumental in making this dissertation into a complete material. Dr. Ranjana Mittal had always been an inspiration, not just in this programme, but from last four years. I’m very grateful to her for accepting to be my Guide in this and I thank her for the all the encouragement and guidance she had given till now. I would also like to thank Prof. Malay Chatterjee and Mr. Eino Mehta for all the advice they had given.

I would be very happy to express gratitude to Rajkumar for being my mentor in all that I do; Nikhil for all the expert advice, title page and sketches; Elango, Solachi, for getting the treasured book of “The Chettiar Heritage”; Venkatesh for all the hospitality I got during the visit to Karikudi and Mr. Sonan for being my travelling guide in those remote villages; Janany whom I haven’t even met, but received all those images and the constant enquiry through mail; Sakthi, Francis and Aasaithambi for valuable opinion and instructions during the study; Ar.Sathyaprakash Varanshi for those Pictures he took in the NASA Louis I Kahn jury; Indumathi, Chitra, Veldurai, Sankaran, Vijay, Niruban for those timely help and assistance in whatever way I needed; Gaurav Dubey for helping me take the prints; all the householders of the Chettinadu Mansions where I visited for case studies who showed their hospitality in every way; Premsun, Gokul, Rajiv, Surbhi, Aneesha, Kavery, Karthik, Shruti, Archana, Sriraj, Eldo, Manishi, Shashank, Vasanth, Aparna, Akilan for all the concern and notice they had shown; Sruti for proof reading, editing, providing inputs, suggestions, etc., without whom it would have been more difficult for the completion; and several others who contributed in this.

I want to thank my family, for the constant support in every possible way and every stage of this endeavour.

Infact I would like to be deeply indebted for all the sustaining effort given by my Lenovo laptop and Sony Digital camera without which this dissertation would have been devoid of colour and facts literally.

Maniyarasan R

President's Message 9th Jan 2007

My dear friends…..

It’s both my privilege and pleasure to warmly welcome you to this University town, for the 49th Annual NASA convention on behalf of NASA (National Association of Students of Architecture) as the President.

To start with, I would like to describe what NASA has been in the past 49 years. To explain it in brief I would say that NASA has a dual personality

It has 2 sides to it…

One part says give me a chance I’ll prove myself.

The other part says prove yourself first, then you will have a chance...

One part lives in the optimism of our hearts…

The other part lurks in the pessimism of our minds…

One part wants… The other hopes…

One part leads… The other one follows…

One part with a tiny voice at the back of the head – is looking down the bottom hesitating…

The other part is looking up in the sky and saying…it’s high time to fly.

Conversions have started to rise…

With each passing day, more and more people are coming over to our side. And quietly while the country is not looking a vibrant, dynamic new NASA will emerge… In fact it is emerging.

For nearly half a century NASA has stumbled over, fallen, dusted itself and sprung.

We had started with a handful of colleges which has today become an all student body of colleges of architecture from all over the Indian subcontinent and this number is increasing with the every passing year.

I am elated on seeing what a wonderful response it still continues to evoke. As we enter our 50^th year we will have to look what we have achieved so far, what we really want, which will give us the full view of what we still hope to achieve.

NASA has served as an interactive stage for the students throughout the country, developing a healthy competition and team work. It has provided us with an opportunity to test our skills in the fiercely competitive world.

The theme of the 49^th annual convention NASA … SYNERGY

“It means a mutually advantageous conjunction or dynamic state in which combined action is favored over the sum of individual component actions.”

“Synergy is the highest activity of life; it creates new untapped alternatives; it values and exploits the mental, emotional, and psychological differences between people.”

This clearly sheds light on the fact as to why all of us have assembled here and are thinking and working so diversely and individualistically yet towards a common motto. As the name suggests the output is definitely going to be advantageous as well as dynamic.

NASA has made great impacts in parts … but collectively we have been reticent about making a splash on a global scale.

Our steps to achieve such a splash have already started to reap rich dividends. In this light I would like to put forward one of the steps towards achieving this…

The cultural sector of the UNESCO New Delhi is planning to collaborate with the Indian schools of planning and architecture through NASA. They are interested to find ways in which the works produced by us can be stored in a sustainable way and made accessible to the entire world.

We are working on to develop a joint programme where a list of such studies can be published and thus making it accessible to everybody.

This would, for example help the cities and towns of India, currently under great development stress, to profit from the knowledge gained over many years on their built heritage, their urban fabric or vernacular architectures.

Other than which another Government body BMTPC (Building Materials, Technology and Promotion Council) is interested in inheriting new ideas from the students in their upcoming projects.

Truly these are making a leap year for NASA. To make the leap finally at the 50^th year.

We are at the inflection point. We are no longer scared to think big. Our sense is that it’s just the beginning.

Along the 50^th year, we hope with all cooperation put together through transforming ideas and solutions whose only real obstacle to progress is itself.

I’m very happy to see such an enthusiastic crowd all ready to set targets and take them on with renewed energy. I’m truly very elated to be leading this convergence. The spirit and the energy that you guys have here is simply remarkable. And I’m sure all of us are eagerly looking forward to a very high voltage and charged up convention.

“Coming together is a beginning. Keeping together is progress, working together is success”. Let’s all convert this beginning into progress and gradually mould it into success.

Signing off on this note I once again extend a very hearty welcome to all of you and wish you all a pleasant stay.

I wish everyone all the best and request your cooperation in every way.

Thank you.

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