Dialogues on Transformations

This is the story of the renovation of a powder room of a private residence located in Gurgaon, India; using design principles introduced by Christopher Alexander in his magnum opus — Nature of Order. I participated in a year-long course called 'Building Beauty' , the design studio of which concluded with a design and construction project. The studio faculties were Christopher Andrews, Susan Ingham, Or Ettlinger and Savyasaachi, and my studio tutor was Ana Jancar. The project brief was very simple. It was to build something in the span of 10 weeks, with a group of people and for someone other than yourself. As fate would have it, a powder room renovation project came along just at the right time and had the exact same deadline. Ms Monica Soni’s son was coming home from the States for his internship break and had a severe dust allergy, which meant the job was to be finished, including a professional cleaning within the time allotted by the studio. Considering the small scale of ...