8 / 8
CHANDIGARH COLLEGE OF ARCHITECTURE : CHANDIGARH
ARCHO – 2011
THURSDAY, 31 MARCH 2011
ANNUAL REPORT BY THE PRINCIPAL
PREAMBLE
Good evening everyone.
On behalf of the Chandigarh College of Architecture, it is my proud privilege and honour to welcome Mr V K Singh, IAS, Finance Secretary and Secretary, Technical Education Chandigarh Administration, as the Chief Guest for today’s function. At the same time I also extend a hearty welcome to Ar Namita Singh, eminent architect, who is the speaker for the evening and also to Mr. S S Khara, PCS, Head of Department, CCA.
Mr. V K Singh is a distinguished officer of the Indian Administrative Services from the 1990 batch. With a background in Mechanical Engineering, Mr Singh went on to do his MBA in Public Service from the University of Birmingham, UK. He has held several prestigious portfolios including Secretary, Expenditure and MD MILKFED, Government of Punjab. He is credited with launching the world famous project for Environmental Conservation by reviving Kali Bein, the rivulet associated with Guru Nanak Dev and also with the restoration of heritage buildings and monuments in Kapurthala. We are fortunate to have him as our Secretary.
Architect Namita Singh is an alumnus of the 1970 batch of this college and has been since then running an internationally renowned architectural practice in the name and style of “Satnam Namita and Associates” in the city. She has been instrumental in the design of the world famous Indian Naval Academy at Cochin, about which she will elaborate later in the evening. Her architectural practice has designed several other prestigious projects the range of which extends from townships, residential settlements, entertainment centres, hotels, resorts and the like both in the country as well as abroad.
We also have amongst us today Shri S S Khara, PCS, Joint Secretary Finance, Chandigarh Administration and HOD, Chandigarh College of Architecture. Before joining Chandigarh Administration, Mr Khara has served as Additional Secretary to Government of Punjab, in various departments which include PWD (B&R), Secretariat Administration and as Additional Director, Punjab Mandi Board.
We are indeed very grateful to Mr V K Singh, Mr S S Khara and Ar Namita Singh for having agreed to come to our college – by sparing their valuable time from their busy schedule.
I welcome all the distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen present here.
Coming to today’s event, the college organizes ARCHO every year – celebrated in the month of March, when week-long sports, cultural, and art activities are organized by our students. This is the 50th ARCHO as such.
REPORT
It is customary on this occasion for me to present the annual report and to do some stock-taking of the year gone by.
UPGRADING TECHNOLOGY IN THE COLLEGE
I am happy to inform that the college campus is in the process of becoming Wi-fi enabled very shortly. We have upgraded our computer facilities and acquired state-of-the-art audio visual teaching aids in the current academic session.
Recognizing that we have a vital academic role to play at the national and international level – we constantly keep on updating our academic programmes, in keeping with the changing scenario in the field and other new impacts in the realm of technology, global concerns and societal issues.
ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENTS
I would now like to list out the academic achievements of the college. Like previous years, this year also, besides the core faculty members – we enlisted the support of a large number of established professionals from the city as ‘guest faculty’, who inject the wisdom of years into our academic world. We are grateful to them.
Besides these, we were also able to invite eminent professionals round the year. A huge international exposure was made through lectures and audio visual presentations by many foreign experts. Some of the presentations made after March 2010 are:-
1. Presentation of works by Studio Fuksas from Milan, Italy.
2. A special lecture on Urban Design by internationally renowned Italian architect Cino Zucchi.
3. A lecture on “Architecture of Bangladesh” by Mr Qazi M. Arif.
4. Ar. Jose Enrue Garci Dominquez from Spain delivered a lecture on “Bionic Architecture”.
5. Prof. Sharon Rotband from University of Tel Aviv, Israel, conducted an “Urban Design Workshop”.
6. A special lecture on “Housing and Publication” was delivered by Prof. Jasques Gubler and Prof. Gilles Barbey from Switzerland.
7. A guest lecture on “Transportation and Sustainable Development” was delivered by Ar Amit Bhatt from New Delhi.
8. An audio visual presentation was made by Ar Yatin Pandya from Ahmedabad.
WORKSHOPS
1. The college conducted a 10-week Joint Studio workshop in which the students of 8th Semester of this college collaborated with students from University of Washington, USA and worked on the theme of “Preservation and Modernity” in the context of Chandigarh. This culminated with a symposium on 10th March on which the above theme was debated upon by a panel of international personalities.
2. Another 5-day Joint Studio Workshop was conducted between the students of 6th semester this college and a group of students from Department of Architecture, University of Wisconsin, USA. Herein the students did an extensive study of Sector 17, Chandigarh, highlighting recent trends of development and its future growth prospects.
3. Architect Henrik Valuer from Denmark conducted a 5-day workshop on the theme “Global meets Local – the case of Chandigarh” .
4. Ms Daria Ogniczak from Germany conducted a 3-day workshop on “Lighting Design”.
STUDENTS ACHIEVEMENTS
As part of their 10 semester B.Arch. programme, the students are required to undergo six months practical training in an architects’ office in the 7th semester. I am pleased to inform that 15 students in the current year ( i.e. 40% of the class strength) underwent their training in architectural firms in Germany, France, Italy and Switzerland.
As part of its campus placement initiative, four students of the final year were offered an annual package of Rs. 5.00 lacs by Hospital Services Consultancy Corporation (HSCC) (India) Limited, Noida.
A delegation of our students participated in the National Association of Students’ of Architecture Convention – “Utopia” – 2011 at Hubli. The performance of our students in this convention was extremely commendable.
The ANDC Trophy, Landscape Trophy and ATAJ Trophy entries from the college were shortlisted among the top 10 in the country. This was a huge achievement considering that more than 300 entries from all over the country 120 colleges were competing for a place in the coveted top 10.
Our college Basketball Women team won the first position in Panjab University Inter College Tournament for the session 2010 – 11.
FACULTY TRAINING AND ACHIEVEMENTS
The real strength of an academic institution lies in its continuing endeavour to update its human resources. As such, many teachers of the college attended various conferences/seminars and refresher courses. Besides presentation of papers by the faculty, teachers of the college have also been regularly sponsored for higher studies. Some of the notable conferences attended by the faculty are:-
1. Mr Sohan Lal Saharan, Associate Professor, attended the 16th Annual Convention on “Sustainable Development & Environment Concerns” at New Delhi and the international conference on “Urbanism and Green Architecture” at Hamirpur.
2. Mr Janbade Prafulla Tarachand, Assistant Professor, attended the International Seminar on “Indo British Perspectives on Planning” and also underwent a three months course on Architectural Conservation in Venice, Italy. Mr Janbade is currently supervising a national level Architectural Design Competition for schools for the Nabha Foundation.
3. Mr Manoj Kumar, Assistant Professor, attended the 16th Annual Convention and National Seminar on “Sustainable Development & Environment Concerns” at New Delhi.
4. Mr Gaurav Gangwar, Assistant Professor presented a paper at the International Conference on “Urbanism and Green Architecture” at Hamirpur. His technical paper on “Sustainable Planning of Healthcare Facilities in Urban Context” was published in the International conference on Healthy Cities 2011 at Pune.
5. Dr Sangeeta Bagga Mehta, Mr Jatinder Pal Singh, Mr Sujay Sengupta, Mrs Deepika Gandhi and Mr Gaurav Gangwar, Assistant Professors, attended Short Term Courses on professional development pertaining to various themes related to architecture and planning.
6. Mr Bheem Malhotra, Assistant Professor-in-Art, held solo shows of his water colour paintings at Triveni Kala Sangam, New Delhi and at Alliance Francaise, Chandigarh. His works figures in the permanent collection of Government Museum and Art Gallery, Chandigarh. Doordarshan National as well as the Lok Sabha TV channels made 15 fifteen minutes movie on his art works. He also designed the CCA Tableaux for Republic Day 2011.
7. I myself attended an International Lighting Seminar titled “Lights in Goa” at Goa recently.
CONSULTANCY WORKS
We believe that for a fuller growth of the students and the faculty – while the academic knowledge forms the basic core, they must be given a hands-on experience on live projects. Therefore, a major paradigm shift has been to consciously undertake consultancy projects by the college. The following projects were undertaken during the current year:
1. Preparation of DPR for Department of Tourism, Government of Tripura.
2. Master Plan and Detailed Project Report (DPR) for Ambala, for Haryana Tourism.
3. Architectural Lighting Design of the Capitol Complex buildings, Sukhna Lake and Rose Garden for Chandigarh Administration.
4. Architectural Lighting Scheme for the Memorial Complex at Jhakri, District Shimla.
5. Landscape proposal for ‘Garden of Springs’, Sector 53 and Landscape design scheme for area between Zirakpur entry point to Tribune Chowk.
6. Recent addition has been the assignment of Lighting and Illumination of Nek Chand’s Rock Garden.
GRANT-IN-AID PROJECT
Prof. Jatinder Pal Singh has been sanctioned a grant-in-aid project under which national level guidelines for Architectural Design and Planning of Oldage Homes are being prepared. The project is supported by Department of Science and Technology, Government of India for which a grant of Rs. 12.5 lacs has been released. This is a first of its kind an important achievement for the college.
FUTURE PLANS
Inspite of our track record, we are aware that the sky is quite literally the limit, for an architectural institution to grow. In our fiftieth year of existence we are forging new alliances with many architectural schools in the US and Europe.
The Chandigarh Administration has been always very supportive and encouraging in all our endeavours. I would especially like to express my deep thanks to Mr V K Singh, our dynamic Secretary Technical Education and under his astute leadership, the college is poised to achieve greater heights.
We look towards to Mr Khara, our new HOD, to inspire and support us in our forthcoming endeavours. I also thank him and Ar Namita Singh at the same time. I would be failing in my duty if I do not thank my faculty and staff for making ARCHO 2011 a grand success. This being the 50th anniversary of CCA, I take this as an appropriate moment to announce that the Golden Jubilee celebrations of the college shall be held on 7, 8 and 9 this October this year. We envisage to invite all alumnae of CCA who have passed out in the last 50 years, along with their families to grace the celebrations.
I thank all our distinguished guests for being with us today. Thank you.
********