National Institute of Design

National Institute of Design

Documentation 1964-69
National Institute of Design was established in Ahmedabad in
1961 by the Government of India as an autonomous national
institution for advanced training, research and service in
product design, visual communication, architecture, structure
and planning and allied fields. It is a non-profit organisation and
has received generous assistance from the Ford Foundation,
Gujarat Government, Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation and
Industry. The expenditure for running the Institution is met from
Government of India grants and professional design fees.

Printed by R. K. Banerjee
at the National Institute of Design,
Paldi, Ahmedabad 7, India

© NID, Ahmedabad, 1969

Educational Programme
National Institute of Design offers
education and training at post-graduate
level in :
Product Design:
specialising in industrial design, furniture
design, ceramics, and textiles.
Visual Communication:
specialising in graphic design, typography,
photography, and short film.
The departments are not treated as
water tight compartments and trainees
are encouraged to gain acquaintance
with the problems of other design fields.
Pre-Requisite for Admission
Requirement for admission is a degree or
diploma in any of the related subjects
such as architecture, planning, graphic
design, engineering, etc. Practical
experience in addition to academic
qualifications is considered as an asset.
No minimum requirements are, however,
rigidly specified.
Duration of Training
Approved candidates are normally
required to spend three years at the
Institute. Trainees of exceptional merit
may be permitted to qualify earlier if
their performance justifies it. Opportuni-
ties are also offered to continue work at
NID for a longer period.
Special programmes of shorter duration
are arranged to meet the requirements
of candidates sponsored by semi-
government organisations and industry.
At least one year at NID is considered
the minimum necessary in such cases.
Special seminars of shorter duration are
held as well.
Evaluation
The evaluation of each trainee is based
on his capacity to learn and his ability to
perform. Those who reach the required
standard are awarded a Certificate.
Tuition fees and Fellowships
There is a tuition fee of Rs. 100 p.m.
Fellowships are awarded to those who
need financial assistance for fees and/or
living expenses.
Method
Normally the education of a designer is
accomplished in two stages. After having
completed his formal education at a
design school, he enters an office where
his training is practical and less formal. In
architecture, for example, these two
phases are generally supposed to take
about ten years. The extent of educa-
tional responsibility, however, which
professional offices entertain towards a
trainee varies considerably.
Further, the primary task of an Office is
practice, not education.
At NID, on the other hand, the primary
task is education. It utilises the practice
situation as a means of educating
potential designers. Thus the educational
programmes come into being collaterally
with professional practice projects. They
are simultaneous, not sequential. NID
seeks and accepts work from industry
and government in Product Design,
Visual Communication, and other related
fields. The design work executed by the
staff is required to be consistent with
professional standards.
To the younger members of the staff,
practice projects offer an excellent
opportunity, for there is no better way to
learn than working with more experi-
enced experts in the field.
Professional practice thus becomes a
‘tool’ for education.
Professional services offered by NID
through its staff members and guest
designers from India and abroad, include
design of objects of use, of buildings and
environment for community living,
graphic design, exhibitions and display,
photography and short film. Clients pay
normal professional fees to NID. Since
designers must have at their disposal the
requisite skills to enable them to offer
optimum solutions in the most appropri-
ate materials and processes, they need
quite a different kind of skill and training
from that of craftsmen who are special-
ists working in one material. Conse-
quently, in order that designers may
become familiar with the various
present-day materials and processes and
that they comprehend their limitations
and possibilities, NID has set up well-
equipped workshops for wood, plas-
tics, metal, ceramics, glass, textiles and
printing, as well as laboratories for
sound and photography (still and cine).
Not only are these workshops readily
available for making models and proto-
types, but they are capable, in certain
cases, of fair-sized production runs. This
furnishes another ‘tool’ for education
which enables trainees to gain first-hand
experience in understanding the interde-
pendence between a production process
and design solution.
These tools—professional practice aided
by workshop and laboratory facilities—are
employed simultaneously in the educational
programme. Two distinct analyses are
made of any project before undertaking
any design or production assignment.
The practice analysis is similar to the
usual professional office procedure and
includes a determination of staff and
facilities required, time and fee sched-
ules, etc. The educational analysis is
made to determine the kind of educa-
tional programme the proposed job will
yield.
Theoretical problems in the programme
may vary as to the extent to which they
bear a direct reference to the client-
oriented work. The problems refer to
exercises aimed at not only increasing
present skills and insights but introducing
new ones.
Subjects related to the social and natural
sciences play an important role in the
programmes. Key concepts of relevant
disciplines are presented through
reading material, analysis of case
studies, professional case presentation
and lectures by specialists. The aim is to
provide conceptual frameworks into
which some of the experiences gained
through practical work may be fitted.
And the intention is to give a first-hand
acquaintance with subjects in widely
dispersed areas to trainees. Wherever
an individual finds his interest really
aroused in any particular field or branch,
he is encouraged to go in for a deeper
study of the subject.
Programme
Each trainee is engaged in essentially
three kinds of activities : Professional
practice, manual work for acquiring basic
skills and theoretical studies.
To provide an educational programme as
broad-based as possible, NID seeks
varied professional assignments in
Product Design, and Visual Communica-
tion. The content of theoretical studies
and nature of manual skills are related to
practice projects. The richness of the
programme depends upon the capacity
of the staff to make innovations in
thought and technology.
The precise content of the educational
programme reflects the needs of the
trainees. Basic courses are offered to
those whose previous training has not
been adequate enough to prepare them
for advanced work in the design field of
their choice. The ratio of trainees to
designers is kept low in order to ensure
individual attention. Each trainee is
attached to a tutor who is responsible for
his overall supervision and guidance.
There is no rigid time-table for the three
main activities, viz. participation in
practice projects, acquiring manual skills,
and theoretical work. The emphasis
varies to suit individual needs.
As for the learning process, trainees are
encouraged to move on from the con-
crete to the abstract, from the particular
to the general, from experience to
concept, from practice to theory.
Design development is worked out with
actual materials; prototypes are evolved;
models made; working drawings pro-
duced. The use of a symbol for an object
is looked upon as an efficiency device.
Design teams led by a senior staff
member or visiting consultant are
formed for each practice project. Train-
ees are assigned tasks and responsibili-
ties commensurate with their experi-
ence and capacities as
members of a design team. The team as evaluates each individual solution. These
a whole undertakes the task of system- stages often overlap and interconnect.
atic design analysis and non-physical However, as far as responsibility to the
planning, job specifications and data client is concerned, the project head has
collection. This is done as explicitly, the final authority and responsibility to
precisely and comprehensively as make design decisions.
possible. As it is realised that not all
factors lend themselves to meaningful
measurements, that some are qualitative
rather than quantitative, an effort is
made to treat quantitative factors
quantitatively and the qualitative
qualitatively. Senior members of the
design team are encouraged to discover
their own design solutions which may
involve making production studies and
preparing prototypes or models. The
team as a whole, under the leadership of
the project head,
National Institute of Design Campus

Architects,Structural Engineers and Building

Contractors:
National Institute of Design

Structural Consultant:
Prof. G. S. Ramaswamy, 2 3
Director,
Structural Engineering Research Centre,
Roorkee 1 General view of NID
2 A view of the shell
3 A view of the opening from first floor
Site: 4 Entrance to the workshops
20 acres of land in Paldi, Ahmedabad.

Requirements:
Main complex comprising Studios,
Workshops, Laboratories, Seminar and
Lecture Rooms, Library and Offices.
Residential accommodation for staff and
students. Site development.

The aim is to provide an environment

that will encourage and foster attitudes
and behaviour consistent with the
fulfilment of the Institute’s educational
purpose; and to have buildings that are
“the most unmonumental, anonymous,
pleasant, unpretentious, workable and
unshoddy.”

Problems of architecture, structural

design and construction techniques are
interrelated and should be resolved
integrally. The solutions would be
evaluated in terms of relevance and
quality.
4
Plan:
The site is on the west bank of the
Sabarmati river. The ground level is 2.51
metres below the high flood level recorded
in 1875. Hence the entire building is on
stilts, the main floor standing 3.24 metres
above the ground level. Thus 9570 sq.
metres of floor space becomes available
on the ground floor, which is profitably
utilized as public area, common-rooms
for staff members and students, canteens,
and for the storage of raw materials such
as logs of wood, iron, steel, etc. not likely
to get damaged by the occasional flood.
All the workshops and laboratories,
administrative offices and a showroom
are located on the first floor. Each
technology (such as wood, metal, plas-
tics, ceramics and glass, printing and
photography) is assigned a separate
wing connected to the central core
(which can be used for product assem-
bly) but separated from each other by
courts. Open to sky terraces inbetween
the workshops provide outdoor work
areas. A raised earth-platform on the
west side gives direct access to work-
shops on the first floor. Provision has
been made for expansion, not only of
each workshop but for three new work-
shops in the future.
The showroom can be reached directly
from the main road on the north by a
narrow bridge for pedestrians.
Drafting studios, seminar rooms and the
library are on the mezzanine floor.
Double glazing between the studios and
the workshops enables students to
literally see what is actually happening
on the production floor, without however,
being disturbed by the noise from the
machines. Spiral staircases from the
studios provide direct access to the
workshops. The staggering of the studios
to the east and the west permits open
planning and at the same time ensures
privacy. The library has a lounge with
open book-stacks for browsing and a
separate area for quiet study. Garden
terraces attached to the library overlook
the river to the north.
All workshops and drafting studios have
a north-south orientation in order to
avoid direct sun-light in the work areas.
They also have direct ventilation.
The core of the building is structurally
separated from the workshops, so as to
eliminate vibration and material-borne
noise being carried from the workshops
to the studios.
Further, this device enables the various
components of the complex to be cons-
tructed in several stages.
Wood Workshop
A module of 1.025 metres has been
adopted throughout, a measure deter-
mined precisely to enable the use of a
standard width—1 metre—of plywood,
glass and other materials in windows,
internal partitions and the like without
any wastage whatsoever.
Structure :
Column spacings on the ground floor are
6.15 metres (centre to centre).
The workshop floor consists of a grid of
waffle beams 2.05 metres (centre to
centre) apart, with precast RCC shells
designed to carry machine loads of 1000
kg/sq. metre (including impact).
The shells are so designed that a hole
with a diameter of 15 cm. can be punc-
tured anywhere in them for fitting dust
removal trunks to machines. They are
doubly-curved and have the shape in
reverse of a piece of cloth in a square
frame hanging freely under gravity.
While column spacing and waffle beams
on the first floor are the same as on the
ground floor, reinforced brick slabs
designed for a live load of 300 kg/sq.
metre have been used instead of the
precast shells.
The spacing between columns on the
workshop floor and on the mezzanine
floor is 6.15 metres (centre to centre).
Prestressed beams were found to be
uneconomic. The roof consists of a series
of 12.30X12.30 metres doubly-curved
shells of the same shape as the smaller
shells used on the workshop floor. Stress
analysis was made on a computer. The
first few shells were of reinforced cement
concrete, but the next step was to
develop them of reinforced brick with an
RCC band at the edges. In the third stage,
the entire shell was made of reinforced
brick. The final stage of the development
was the design of a brick shell without
any reinforcement at all. The use of brick
in roof-shells as in floor-slabs was
suggested on account of the prevailing
shortage of cement in the country.
Incidentally, it is also more handsome
than concrete.
The external cladding is pre-fabricated
and consists of heat-resisting glass in
metal frames in the workshops and in
rose-wood frames in the studios. The basic
module of 1.025 metres is meticulously
followed throughout.
The flooring consists of squares of two
module length, cast in situ cement
‘patent stone’. A channel, 5 cm. wide, is
maintained between these squares.
Under-floor electric wiring is laid in these
channels and filled with ma9S concrete.
Changes in machinery layout can be
made at any time by simply removing
the mass concrete in the channels and
changing the under-floor electric connec-
tions as and when necessary without any
damage to the concrete flooring.
Electric light fixtures are an integral
part of the light-weight overhead grid
suspended from the roof beams. The
fixtures have been so designed that
additional tube lights can be fitted if
greater illumination is required. Electric
fans are also suspended from the
overhead grid.
Ducts for housing various services like
water pipes, electric cables, ventilation
and air-conditioning are an integral part
of the design of the building.
 Section through Workshop

1. Details of fan fitting

2. Details of light
fittings
3. Details of floor plan
4. Details of groove
in floor
5. Sprinkler for
cooling roof shell
6. 1230 cm. x 1230 cm.
brick shell
7. Rain water drain
8. Return air duct
9. Air condition or
humidification duct

10. Suspended
structure for lights
and fans
11. Steel cladding
12. Electrical cable,
drainage and water
supply duct
13. Wood seasoning
Plant (chamber)

Mezzanine second floors

Product Design
 PRODUCT DESIGN
 Product Design Engineering
 Textile

 Practice
 A Scheme for Mass Produced Low-Cost Furniture
 A Scheme for a Tangential Fan
 Restaurant
 Shop and Office
Product Design
Unlike the classical discipline of architec-
ture and certain areas of visual design,
‘product design’ is a relatively new
discipline to be taught at schools. As a
profession too, product design has yet to
complete its fourth decade among the
technically oriented societies of Western
Europe and North America, where it
actually originated and is better known
as ‘industrial design’.
Apart from covering the area of industrial
design, the course at NID also take into
account the special requirements of our
industrially developing country where
craft objects still have an important role in
the economy.
Product design (Engineering)
The educational programme in product
design, (Engineering) which is the first
ever to be started in this country, began
at NID in December 1966. It was started
under the guidance and direction of the
late Hans Gugelot of Ulm. The course
took many elements from the educa-
tional programme in product design at
Hochschule fur Gestaltung, Ulm.
The Students have a background in one
of the following related disciplines :
Mechanical or Electrical Engineering and
Architecture.
The 3½ year programme covers: Elements
of design, Design methodology, Introduc-
tion to Ergonomics, Cybernetics, Social
Psychology, Economics, and certain areas
of operational research. Proficiency in
model and prototype making, Acquaintance
with production techniques, and Profes-
sional procedures.
At appropriate occasions the students
participate in the practice projects at the
Institute. They also submit a research-
based project as a thesis for their diploma.
Product design (Furniture)
There is no institution in India offering a
full-time course in furniture design. The
3-year NID furniture design course aims
at training designers to produce furniture
that has excellent craftsmanship, em-
ploys machine technology, and uses
indigenous materials. The first course at
NID was started in April 1969.
The furniture design programme at NID
is being conducted under the guidance of
Prof. Arno Votteler of Bravnschweig,
West Germany. The entrance qualifica-
tion for students is a degree or a diploma
in architecture, interior design, mechanical
and/or electrical engineering. Young and
experienced cabinet makers with sound
knowledge of English are also admitted to
the course.
The 3-year programme covers :
The History of Industrial design and
architecture, Free hand drawing, Technical
drawing, Ergonomics, Cybernetics, Social
Psychology, Photography, Practical
training at the NID workshop and appren-
ticeship in Industry.
NID has well equipped wood, metal, and
plastic workshops.
The first batch of furniture produced
from the wood workshop was designed
by Mr. George Nakashima from USA.
Nakashima’s design was executed in
rosewood. The second batch of furniture
using plywood, fibre glass and metal
technologies is soon expected to go into
production.
Ceramics
The 3-year course in ceramic design lays
emphasis on industrial ceramics. While
there are certain institutions in India
which give training to ceramic technolo-
gists, there are others which train
students in art ceramics. There is no
institution similar to NID which trains
students for design and development
work in Indian ceramic industry using
mass production methods.
The entrance qualification for students is
a degree or a diploma in ceramic techno-
logy, physical chemistry, or sculpture.
Exceptionally good young craftsmen with
practical training are also admitted.
The 3-year programme covers:
Exercises in two and three dimensions,
Technical drawings, Colour composition
Photography. Ergonomics and Ceramic
technology.
The Institute has a well-equipped
ceramic workshop, and considerable work
has been done on standardizing ceramic
stains and glazing from the indigenous raw
material.
In 1961 the first professional assignment in
ceramics was accepted. NID designed
crockery for the Indian Pavilion at the New
York World Fair. This was done in collabo-
ration with the Parshuram Potteries. NID
range is now being manufactured by that
company for the Indian market.
Floor tiles and crockery are being produced
in batch production at NID workshop. The
feed back from consumers has helped in
further developing the products which one
would hope will finally be mass produced
by the Industry.
Textiles
India has a marvellous old-living tradition in
handloom weaving, dyeing and printing.
India has also a very large textile indus-
try. Whereas traditional craftsmen get
apprenticeship through a guild system,
there is no school or institution training
designers for mass production. The 3-year
NID course in Textile Design aims at
giving combined design training in
weaving and printing, in crafts as well as
mass production technologies.
The entrance qualification for students is
a degree or diploma in painting, graphic
arts or textile technology.
A textile designer has to know the
possibilities and limitations of different
kinds of textile machine—the kinds of
designs that can be produced on them
and how the design is transferred on to
them. The designer has also to be able to
make prototypes. Although considerable
technical education is given to designers
at NID, the main emphasis is on design.
The course covers:
Elements of design
Exercises based on observation of form,
colour and texture in a student’s environ-
ment. These elements are transformed
into textile designs.
Composition and colour. Experiencing
colour through basic exercises.
Basic exercises in form Drawing and
sketching, Acquiring knowledge and the
basic skills of weaving, Basic weaves
and their derivatives, 8-12 harnessed
weaves, Lino double weaves, Introduc-
tion to power loom dobby and jacquard,
Elements of design in weaving. Colour,
texture and rhythm, Colour ways and co-
ordination of weaves, Construction of
cloth.
Making a presentation of prototype
samples with detailed specifications.
Dyeing and Printing
Theory and workshop practice in direct,
basic, acid, reactive, vat, sulphur, napthal
dyes, disperse colours, cationic dyes
Making a repeat for printing designs
Preparation of silk screen, colour, sepa-
ration in silk screen printing, Roller
printing process Block printing Introduc-
tion to problems in fashion, promotion
and marketing, Designing fabrics for
apparel and furnishing.
Courses are given in photography, the use
of typography in making lay-outs and
presentations, in agronomics and costing.
The textile workshop is equipped with
hand and powerlooms, a hand knitting
machine, vat dyeing and silk screen
printing equipment. The workshop
accepts professional assignments for
fabricating small runs of material. The
Faculty Members act as Design Consult-
ants to industry.
Product Design (Engineering)
Drawing fundamental (Free hand)
1 Examples showing use of different
elements : line, space, mass, structure
and implicit and explicit three-dimen-
sionality.

Elements of Design
2 A Colour hue gradation
B Use of colour in third dimension
C Colour transformation
D Reconciliation of mass with value 1A 1B 1C

3 A Possible ways of altering the

characteristics of a two dimensional
form by manipulating radii on corners
B Manipulation of radii on corners and
edges of a three dimensional form in
order to alter formal characteristics.
First explored in form of drawings
and later Verified in 3rd dimension.
4 A Simple exercise in which two end
forms are given. Student is asked to
evolve five intermittent forms to 2B 2A
complete the transition.
B Simple transition worked out with
‘carving-in’ method between two
given end shapes—a square and a
hexagon.
C Complex formal transition worked
out with ‘carving-in’ method. More
end shapes of complex contours are
placed in space in different planes of
orientation.
D The next more complex stage of 2C 2C 2C
creating intermittent forms in
between several sets of end forms.
These sets are inter-related. The
formal transition thus generated is
proved by making cardboard cutouts
and linking them along an axis.
5 Evolution of a system in 5 stages with
the help of following elements: knob
elements, requiring 2 and 3 finger
manipulations, dial element, grille
element, switch and counter ele-
ments, graphic element.
The concept of order is brought in at
every stage by working within the
constraints of starting with the mini-
mum number of elements (knobs & 2D
graphic elements) and by keeping the
position of the elements fixed on the
panel. The object is to render each
stage a visually independent entity.
The second part of the exercise is to
make a prototype of the system to test
the ergonomic validity of elements.
6 Different grey values depicted in terms
of surface structure of equivalent
values generated by use of white and
black squares.
7 Exploration into different surface
qualities of a given material; in this
case, aluminium sheet.
3A

4A 4B 4C

3B

4D

3C

6 7
Elements of product design

8 Design of a container from point of

view of ease of storage and readabil-
ity of information.

9 Design of simple office objects from

ergonomics point of view.

10 Two solutions for a simple need of

weighing letters.

Workshop tasks 8A 8B

11 Design of a construction element

from different materials based on the
initial investigation into the scope of
tools and nature of materials. This
forms the ’Brick’ to build a growth
structure of various dimensions and
shapes. (A) Sheet metal (B) Solid
metal (C) Wood

12 Use of plaster as material to demon-

strate the exercises in constructive
geometry. 9A 9B

10 11A

11B 11C

12A 12B 12C

Product design

13 Students were asked to solve the

problem of storage in domestic situation.
Use of plastic as one of the major
materials was a constraint.

14 Design for portability. A carrying case

for travel which should accommodate
important personal necessities, food
and water for an overnight travel
(train or bus) and as an option, light
weight bedding.

15 Students were asked to design a toy

or a play ground equipment for
children from 5 till 10
13A 13B 13C
A Play ground labyrinth construction.
By repeated use of one unit made
from either moulded plywood or
fibre reinforced plastic endless
maze or labyrinth could be created.

B The growth structure with help of

flexible element and a plug type
joint element. The flexible element
can be PVC tubes of different
colour.

C Building block using a regular cube

and dividing each of the 6 square 14
surfaces diagonally either with a
straight line or a quadrant of a
circle, a definite constraint for
growing pattern is created. Building
blocks can be used for 2 as well as
3 dimensional growth.

16 Redesign of a farm equipment from

point of view of material economy,
mass production and human engi-
neering.
One such equipment is for sawing
seeds and putting fertilizer into the 15A 15B
soil simultaneously. The most impor-
tant part of the redesign is the seed
dropping mechanism.

15C 16A

16B 16C
17 Another farm equipment which has
also been investigated for possible
redesign from point of view of mass
production, material economy and
human engineering, is a thresher. The
students worked on a conventional
thresher available locally. Apart from
devising a modular method of con-
struction, they have designed also an
elevator attachment, to be used as an
option, for easy filling up of corn.

17A

17B

17C 17D
Technical design
18During the initial stage of a design
process, a systematic analysis of the
relevant existing artefacts (or system
or environments) plays an essential
role. This examination can be
synchronical (for example, contempo-
rary objects : different types in same
field of use; same type in different
fields of use) as well as diachronical
(for example, ancestral objects; here
the case history of the changes—or
otherwise—in the ‘physiognomy’ of
the product is studied.) As a part of an
introduction to the subject of design
methodology, an extensive analysis of
a portable electrical drill was carried
out by the second year students of
product design. The reason in select-
ing this product in particular was that
it offered the students an opportunity
for collecting relevant data in order to
conduct simultaneously several types
of analysis mentioned here. It also
seemed to possess just that much
amount of technical complexity so as
to warrant the technical design of its
moving component parts. As men-
tioned elsewhere, it represents an
interesting social phenomena which is
international in its character.
The design educators have grouped all
design—and related—disciplines
under three headings. The same
headings also suggest the three
consecutive stages of a typical design
process. These stages in their order of
occurrence are
Information Formation and Communication
It is during the initial part of the informa-
tion stage that all the relevant data is
collected and analysed. This is followed
with the statement of hypothesis and
constraints. Formation, which is an act
of synthesis, forms the actual core of
the problem solving process. During
this, constraints are optimised and
design decisions are taken. Communi-
cation is the stage where the solution is
documented in form of drawings,
models and prototypes. During the
initial part of designing, bulk of the time
is devoted for doing exhaustive analy-
sis and this forms the strong foundation
which yields all the relevant constraints.
In the present case, the prototype
product from only one manufacturer
was analysed, as at the moment, it
happens to be the only product of its
type manufactured in the country. For
the purpose of analysis, one particular
type of drill was chosen. This was Wolf
EC2CH 1/4" capacity drill.
Students formed groups to conduct
following five types of analysis :
1 Structural
2 Functional
3 Visual-formal
4 Economic
5 Socio-ecological
Structural and functional analysis estab-
lished the physical and functional inter-
relationships of all elements, static as well
as dynamic. The interrelationship charts
helped to arrange all relationships in their
order of importance. They also gave the
information as to which parts are abso-
lutely indispensable, which can be altered
or modified, which can be reduced in
number and which can be done away with.
The technical representatives of the
manufacturer were requested to give
information on the complexities of the
structure and function of the drill. The
functional analysis also included the
performance test and also the analysis of
all relevant ergonomical data. The investi-
gation from the point of view of ergonom-
ics covered an extensive study of the
operator using the drill. Notes were taken
of the physical, perceptual, and mental
loads experienced during the different
stages of operation. Tests were made on
the portability of the drill while it was being
used in various postures. During the course
of these studies and the tests, the improve-
ments such as weight distribution for
optimum portability, formal details to
ensure the comfortable and firm grip in all
conditions or the rationalisation of control
and display elements, almost suggested
themselves. Safety factor was considered
to be the most important one and specially
devised tests helped to record the safety
deficiencies in the existing drill.
Visual and formal aspects of the drill were
analysed to examine the validity and
integration of formal elements, visual and
psychological functions of the colour and
product graphics. Students themselves
devised the method for the visual-formal
analysis, which brought out several points
of interest. These were discussed at
considerable length. Visual appreciation
depends on the observer’s interpretation.
Purely subjective reactions, such as likes
and dislikes, have been the basis for
certain rules of aesthetic. As one notices, in
determining these rules, the factors of time
and space play an important role. On the
other hand, the public aesthetic becomes
an international phenomenon. This as a
matter of fact, is the area of preferential
behaviour and is very much the concern of
psychologists and not aesthetes. Note
should also be taken of the social mores
which decide the imponderables of a status
symbol. Coming to the tangibles, certain
factors governing preferential behaviour
which a designer can learn about, relate
to several of his own activities. This
amounts to purposefulness and
economy. Economy is not taken in its
materialistic sense, but it is the economy
of form, space, time, material etc. This is
more likely to go towards making an
optimally preferred entity which can
guide the behaviour of the observer, so
as to prefer object or not. In the visual
analysis of the drill, certain elements,
whenever they touched the areas of
ergonomics and geometry were measur-
able on logical grounds. Differenciation
of forms according to functions—includ-
ing readability of graphic and letter
forms—is one such device, Each formal
element was rendered to its basic geomet-
ric form and the extent and amount of
deformation it can or cannot -undergo to
establish the optimum formal integrity
with the adjacent element were measured.
This also gave the optimum number of
deformation required for both elements
adjacent to each other.
For economic analysis, all the available
information on the economics of produc-
tion and sales were examined. This led
students into finding out factors govern-
ing production cost, which at a later
stage can form the basis for full-fledged
value analysis. One of the sales and
maintenance personnel of the manufac-
turer also discussed with the students
certain aspects of economical and socio-
ecological analysis.
The last analysis was based on the
assumption that even though primarily
used in workshops, the product is
steadily finding place in homes as one of
the most useful tools in the home work-
shops. This alludes to a comparatively
new sociological phenomena of doing
things oneself. It will not be long even in
our country when a householder will be
performing many tasks in his home
which were once performed by a hierar-
chy of craftsmen. Besides this, such
ecological factors as the environment at
the point of sale, type of workshop using
the product, typical situations at the point
of use, frequency of use, economic and
social level of individual buyers etc.
were examined.
18A

18B

18 A Various parts of the Drill

B Structural interrelationship chart
C Solution for small scale production
D Solution for large scale production
Textile
1 Experiments in texture with fibers of
cotton, jute & bindi
2 Woven upholstery
3 And its structure on graph paper
4 Stripes & checks in shirting
5 Rhythm of stripes in weft, upholstery

1A 1B

2 3

4A

4B 5
 7

6 8

9 9
6 A blend of colours in warp cotton
upholstery

7 Rhythm in colour

8 Material for upholstery. Advanced

weaves.

9 Composition for Prints—Transformed

from photographs of butterflies

10 Composition for Print

11 The same (No. 10) in repeat

10 11
Practice
1 A Switch Gear Unit

Client:
M/s. Larson and Toubro Ltd. Bombay.

The Switch Gear Unit has domestic as

well as industrial use. The inside is
lined against dust and humidity.

2 A Series of Electronic Instruments

Client:
M/s. Systronics Ltd., Ahmedabad.

Instruments to be used in laboratories

and hospitals.
1 2
The client required the instruments to
be designed for batch production
methods, as the market at the moment
for such instruments did not warrant
series production. Glass-fibre with
reinforced plastic was suggested by
NID as material for the body as it is
tough and does not require surface
finishing. A corporate look to all the
instruments was provided by a stan-
dard colour scheme, standardized
scales, controls and information panels.

The Insulation meter illustrated here has

a clear demarcation of control and
display panels. A leather shoulder strap
has been provided for easy portability
and an extra leather case can also be
provided.

3 A Shaping Machine

Client:
M/s. Cooper Engineering Ltd. Poona.

An ergonomic investigation by NID

resulted in a new location and the
regrouping of all the controls which are 3
to be used by the operator before,
during and after the operation.
Relevant information about the opera-
tion was provided in a graphic display
panel.

4 A Food Mixer

Client:
M/s. Ralliwolf Ltd. Bombay.

The client has been manufacturing small

machine tools and compact powerful
motors. When they decided to enter the
field of kitchen equipment, they ap-
pointed NID as their design consultants.
Having been associated with the project
from the very beginning was fortunate.

Prior to designing, NID conducted an Designers

extensive survey to investigate the
following : 1) H. K. Vyas, S. Nadkarni

2), 3) H. K. Vyas
a The validity of mechanised imple-
ments in Indian kitchens. Provincial 4) H. K. Vyas, S. Nadkarni
preferences were recorded. J. A. Panchal
4
b A typical operation for preparing food
prior to cooking.
c The functions of an average mixer
which can be adopted to fulfil all or
some of these operations.
d Traditional implements which are used
for food preparations.
e Opinions of housewives regarding the
relative importance of mechanising these
operations into labour saving devices.
The survey was conducted in families
who could afford to buy a reasonably
priced mixer somewhere between
Rs. 150 and 200. It was found that cooking
was done by housewives generally in
families where the income was less than
Rs. 750 p.m.
The product design students partici-
pated in making this survey and then
the report was presented to the client.
The initial stage of design had a motor
with a blender and dry-grinding attach-
ments. It had a common cutter unit and a
collar. The dry grinding attachments were
in the form of glass bottles, several of
which were to be sold along with the
mixer. After grinding, a glass bottle could
be used as a container for the particular
type of condiment that was ground in it.
5
This would guard against the flavour was not to be connected with a running
of one ingredient getting into another. water supply but had an independent
A simple lid with a rubber seal was storage bottle fitted on the top. It had a
provided with each bottle. front panel with a recess for a drip tray
to hold drinking glasses. The casing was
The same motor unit could also be to be made from fibre glass and rein-
attached on a stand along with a bowl forced plastic.
for kneading dough for chapattis and
for beating liquids of a consistency The 5 gallon model is already in production.
thinner than dough. The basic equip-
ment could have additional vegetable
chopping and pealing attachments.
The client decided to implement NID
recommendations. The first model of
the mixer will go into production by
the end of this year.
5 A Water Cooler
Client:
M/s. Shriram Refrigerators, Hyderabad.
This scheme, as the exploded view
shows, used modular elements from
which the water cooler body was
constructed. The 5 gallon water cooler
used two elements, while 4 such
elements were utilised in a 10 gallon
pedestal type model. In both the cases
the upper tray was of fibre glass with
reinforced plastic.
In the same series a 7 gallon storage type
water cooler was suggested. This model
6 Oil engine

Client
M/s. Cooper Engineering, Satara.

Design of a 10 H.P. oil engine which is

generally used for agricultural pur-
poses. This particular design has been
worked out on the basis of material
economy and facility for easy cleaning
of the surface.

7 Radio design

Client
M/s. National Ekco, Bombay.

First proposal for a series of transistor

radios. The subsequent designs were
based on this particular scheme using
plastic cabinets and silver anodised
aluminium facia.

8 Milk feeding bottle

Client 6
M/s. Chandulal Premchand, Ahmedabad

Prior to designing this milk feeding

bottle, investigations were carried out
at hospitals and nursing homes. The
form of bottle has been carefully
worked out to ensure that the bottle
would not slip off if rested on or held
by the infant. Special cap to ensure the
hygienic condition with a special
stopper disc to stop the milk dripping
out has also been incorporated in the
design.

Designers

5) S. Nadkarni, J, A. Panchal

6) H. K. Vyas, S. Nadkarni,
J. A. Panchal

7) H. K. Vyas

8) H. V. Desai
8A 8B
9 Flatware in stainless steel

Client
M/s. Nagpal Metal Industries, Bombay

A set of cutlery specially designed to be

exported to the countries of West Asia,
South East Asia and Africa where they
have to stand competition from good
quality of German and Scandinavian 9A 9B 9C
cutlery. Photographs show the ergo-
nomic study done to arrive at final
shapes.

10 Radioisotope exhibition

Client
M/s. Bhabha Atomic Research Centre,
Trombay.

This special exhibition on the subject of

Radioisotope was designed for the BARC
as a part of their main pavilion at Madras
Industrial Fair 1968.

9D

Designers

9) H. K. Vyas

10) H. K. Vyas, S. Nadkarni

assisted by
Product Design Engineering
Students
10
A Scheme for Mass Produced Low-Cost Furniture
Design Consultants:
Hans Gugelot,
Institut fur Produktentwicklung und
Design e.v.,
Neu Ulm, West Germany

The problem was to design furniture

using: Inexpensive materials which are
commonly available.

A Minimum quantity of material.

As few components as possible, made
from standardised stock parts for
constructing different furniture pieces
such as chairs, stools; bed, etc.

A construction system that lends itself to

a quick and simple assembly.

1. The lounge chair and the low occasional

table.

2. The construction detail of the lounge

chair and low occasional table using
a standard section of hardwood.
24 cm.x 42 cm.

a. A standard section used for construct-

ing the main frame.
11

b. The same section with a groove to be

used as a cross member.

c. One circular section batton to be used

as one of the two cross members of
the frame under the seat.

d. Three rectangular section battons to

be used for gripping the seat ends; ‘c’
and ‘d’ both could be obtained from
the standard section ‘a’.

e. 4 slats obtained from one standard

section and to be used for imparting to
the fabric seat.

Two bottom members resting on the

floor are parts of two sides of the
chair. They are meant to stop the chair
sinking into the soft ground in case it is
used outdoors.

The loops at both ends of the seat

have battons ‘d’ inserted into them,
rolled and tucked into the grooves of
the cross members ‘b’. At the bottom
of the figure, is the cross section of the
seat. An inexpensive fabric (such as
canvas) was chosen and in order to
obtain a spring or a ‘give’, it was
reinforced with thin hardwood strips
‘e’. The simplest form of the tongue
and groove joint is used

12
A Scheme for a Tangential Fan
Design Consultants:
Hans Gugelot, Ernst Reichl,
Institut fur Produktentwicklung und
Design e.v.,
Neu Ulm, West Germany.
The fundamental difference between the
tangential fan and the conventional axial
fan lies in the nature of the air flow. The
principle of the former is not new and its
application in heating fans is well known
abroad. It has not been used so far as a
ceiling fan. Its advantages over the
conventional fan are:
The quality of air flow
The tangential airflow has laminar
characteristics. It has greater throwing
range; it is easier to control and can be
directed more accurately. Unlike the
turbulent air flow of the axial fans, it
does not tend to blow away light objects
such as sheets of paper lying on a table.
Structural and functional
There is less strain on the driving source
than in the axial fan. The rotor is a
cylinder turning on its long axis with
bearings at both ends. It runs smoothly
and noiselessly. It is manufactured from
high impact polystyrene. This makes the
fan lighter than the conventional one.
Versatility
1 The pedestal version of the fan, the two
pivots, one on the c-shaped frame and the
other on the pillar top, enable the fan to swivel
in several positions.’
2 A typical rotor unit comprising of a disc ‘a’ and
fins ‘b’. A complete rotor ‘c’ can be made up
by ‘hooking’ each unit at the back of the other.
The ‘open’ end of the rotor is closed with a
specially designed cooling fan ‘b’. The
complete system thus built up, is linked to the
motor ‘e’ through a joint at shafts.
3 The configurations illustrating few of the
typical ways in which the fan can be
installed. This is done in several combina
tions of a different numbers of rotor units
with the motor. The first row shows ceiling or
wall fittings. The bottom row shows pedestal
versions to be used for floor or table.
4 The typical cross section illustrates the
principle of a laminar air flow. Two compo-
nents required to produce a laminar air flow
are, a rotor ‘a’ and an air flow guide ‘b’. The
rotor is made up of fine ‘c’ which is of fixed
curvature and set at a fixed angle to the
circumference. The anti-clockwise rotation
makes the fins suck air into the hollow of the
rotor. The suction of air through the upper half
surface of the rotor is maximum at point ‘d’,
where a vortex core of turbulence ’f’ is
created due to the motion. It is this core which
is responsible for the smoothness of the
secondary admission of air at ‘e’ and for
greatly accelerated speed of the exhaust air.
1

The form of the fan is a cylinder. This has

an obvious advantage over a free stand-
ing bulbous cage or a distracting moving
projection from the ceiling, as is the case
with an axial fan. It can not only merge
more harmoniously with architectural
spaces, but combines with other service
elements such as tube lighting. The usual
irritation of moving shadows thrown by a
fan is eliminated. By fixing an attachment
with a water spray, the fan can be
converted into a “desert cooler”, or with
a cooling coil into an air conditioning unit.

4 3
Restaurant
Project:
Design for a Restaurant in the Indian
Pavilion at the World’s Fair, New York.

Client:
Ministry of International Trade, New Delhi

Designers: Dashrath Patel, NID

H. K. Vyas, NID

Requirements:
Design for the interior of an Indian
Restaurant. Whereas Indian dishes would
be served, the mode of seating and eating
would have to be primarily in the Western
fashion.
1 2
Objects specially designed by NID
included furniture, table linen, crockery,
cutlery, serving dishes, etc. and were
made in India. Draperies and carpets were
selected from what was already available.

3 4

1 Wooden Pickle bowl

2 Nickel Silver tea set with horn handles
3 Tea Cup and saucer
4 Nickel Silver serving bowl
5 Stainless steel cutlery
6 Soup bowl with rosewood finger bowl

5 6
Shop and Office
Location :
5000 Sq. ft. in Ballard Estate, Bombay.

Designer:
Arnold Wauters, NID

The job is to transform the ground floor

of an old office building into a prestige
cloth retail shop, a travel agency and a
main entrance to the offices upstairs.

Client:
Sercon Pvt. Ltd. Bombay

Retail Shop

The aim is to create a new, fashion

oriented, unstatic environment, with
different selling techniques, capable of
attracting people to a non-shopping area.

For this, the ground floor front is set back

seven feet to provide a shady arcade.
The conventional show-window is
replaced by a mirror facade with a giant
see-through logo. Inside : periodic
fashion shows, sound and light effects,
soft drinks and multi-slide shows pro-
jected on an unstatic multi-tube ceiling; a
new system of selling and storage will be
experimented.

Client:
Travelera Pvt. Ltd. Bombay.
1
Travel Agency

The agency will offer a new, very per-

sonal customer service. The office is
planned for maximum efficiency and
speed. Inside the atmosphere is of
‘travelling’, through the use of new
building materials different levels and
appropriate furniture. The corporate
graphics image is designed by Shekhar 2
Kamat, NID

1 Plan of shop and travel agency

Section A A
2 Section B B shop
3 A view of light
4 Public arcade with giant see-through logo

5 4
Visual Communication
 VISUAL COMMUNICATION
 Graphics
 Typography
 Photography

Practice
 Devanagri Script
 Animated Films
 Nehru Exhibition
 “Journey in India”: A Multiple
Projection
 A Scheme for the Indian Pavilion,
Osaka World Fair 1970
 The “World is my Family” Pavilion,
Gandhi Centenary Exhibition
 Family Planning-A Public Information
Campaign
 A Scheme for the Graphic Identity for
Indian Airlines
 A scheme for Gandhi Travelling
Exhibition
Visual Communication
There are a number of institutions in India
offering a 4-year full-time course in
Commercial or Fine Arts leading to the B.
A. (Fine) degree or the G. D. Art (Comm.)
diploma.
A typical syllabus consists of:
Applied art —Roman lettering, trade-mark,
letter-head, book-jacket, press layout,
poster design, label design, illustration,
and cinema slide. Photography, lithography,
printing, packaging and book binding.
While these courses are fairly compre-
hensive in extent, NID programme gives
stress on Studio work for systematic
development of various themes and
quality of execution. Stress is also laid on
students gaining experience in actual
production methods with a view to
acquire correct appreciation of interdepen-
dence between design and reproduction.
There are two institutions in India offering
a 3-year course leading to a diploma in
Film Technology. The subjects covered
include: History of the film,film economics,
film direction, script writing, art direction,
film editing, cinematography, sound
recording, film processing, projection
engineering and film aesthetics.
NID programme specialises in Animation
techniques.
Educational Programme at NID:
A comprehensive programme of work has
been planned to increase the understand-
ing of students and to improve the quality
of their work through graded exercises.
The Graphic Design educational
programme is conducted under the
guidance of Mr. Armin Hofmann, Allgemine
Geverbschule, Basel, Switzerland.
The Visual Communication Department is
set up for those who have completed
their training and are actively pursuing
their profession. The time is past when
study and training undertaken in youth
lasted a whole lifetime. The mental and
vocational equipment of a designer must
be constantly refurbished so that he can
make an effective contribution in his field
regularly bringing his knowledge up to
date. Today, applied art works primarily
in the service of industrial mass produc-
tion. The modernisation and rationalisation
of designing methods, the use of more
refined instruments and the introduction
of more efficient machines are not in
themselves enough to complete the
transition from production by craftsmen
to production by machines in a satisfac-
tory way. It is necessary to realign our
whole way of thinking to achieve unity
between creative idea and its realization
under the changed circumstances.
No dividing line must be drawn between
work done with aesthetic qualities in view
and work done for commercial application.
A valid form of unity can be found. There
should be no separation between sponta-
neous work with an emotional tone and
work directed by the intellect. Both are
supplementary to each other and must
be regarded as intimately connected.
Discipline and freedom are thus to be
seen as elements of equal weight, each
partaking of the other.
The Graphic Course at NID is of
3 years duration. Every year 8 new
students
are admitted.
In the first year, all students may be
doing exercises in the use of light, medium,
bold, extra bold letters. The 8 students
however would each be working on a
different letter. When a tutor discusses
the work of a student, other students
observe and sometimes participate in the
discussion.
The first, second and third years students
also work in the same studio. Students
do exercises in colour composition,
typography and work on projects. The
students work on easy and difficult
exercises according to their level of
competence.
Because of the variations that result
from this method of teaching in a class,
the students find studio work very
stimulating.
Subjects included in NID syllabus for
Visual Communication are:
Graphic Design :
Basic Design:
Composition problems with the dot, line,
and area, studies of grey values, light-dark
contrasts and texture. The combination of
plane surfaces and three-dimensional
elements.
Working on History Wall (Nehru Exhibition)
Colour:
Mixture of colour, intensity of colour,
gradation in one colour, relationship
between colours, optical illusions, colour in
relation with form, movement, and space.
Drawing:
Object, figure, animal, landscape and
abstract.
Programming:
Concept, planning, and execution.
Applied Graphics:
Advertisement, poster, book jacket,
package, film-leader, exhibition, etc.
Typography :
Theoretical :
Typographical system, general background
of lettering, history and construction of
printing types, individual letters, numbers,
sizes and character, composing rooms and
instruments,
Practical:
Hand composing, different justifications,
analysis of type area, two-coloured
composition, tabular matter, book-
composing, commercial and administra-
tive matters.
Design :
Basic typography elements with the dot,
line, and area. Design elements : compo-
sition, groups, contrasts, rhythm varia-
tion, emphasis, type and images, grade
system and colour in typography.
Applied Typographic Design:
Advertisement, book stationery,
prospectus, magazine, catalogue, poster,
exhibition, film-title, symbols, logotypes,
slogans, and work image association.
Photography :
History of photography, optics and
chemistry for photographers, photograms,
reproduction, illumination, space and
perspective, photographs of different
texture and materials, architectural
photography, experiments with unusual
processing and printing methods, photo-
montage, flash-technique, picture story,
layout and picture editing, miniature
camera technique, action photography,
micro-photography, reproduction in
colour, experimental photography in
colour and ultra-violet and infra-red
photography.

Printing :

General knowledge in printing : History of

printing, letterpress printing, offset and
silk-screen printing, graphic reproduction
techniques, paper, mechanical composi-
tion and subsidiary process. Students
work in the well-equipped Printing
workshop and process studio of NID for
the better understanding of production
techniques and inter-dependence of
1
design and technology.

The Printing workshop is equipped for

letterpress and offset printing, photo-
engraving and block making. The Workshop
is also equipped with a plastic lamination
machine and other finishing equipment.
Attempts have been made to set a stan-
dard in printing for tackling problems by
experimenting with indigenous paper and
inks with a view to maximise results.
Experiments were carried out at NID
workshop and also in Switzerland with
Indian paper and inks as well as Swiss
paper and inks. Multi -mask and tri-mask
films are used for colour separation. Finer
halftone screens with 150 lines per inch
have satisfactorily been used on Indian zinc.

The history of art and architecture is taught

to all students. They are also taught about
design in related fields, and are given
opportunities to gain working facilities in
sketching, drafting and photography.
2
Practical experience in diverse fields of
Visual Communication is sought to be
given through the acceptance of profes-
sional assignments by NID —for example,
the planning and execution of an exhibi-
tion on Nehru was undertaken to enable
the students to experience how a profes-
sional task is accomplished through all
stages of the work.

Movie:

A regular programme in the cinematog-

raphy section has not yet been formu-
lated. Staff members, however, have
been experimenting with animation and
have been making documentaries and
films for exhibitions and advertising. A
regular programme in cinematography is
expected to start by 1971.

1 Education with Armin Hofmann

2 New batch of students
3 Working on Osaka model 3
Graphics
1 Composition with line in movement

2 Composition with dots in regular and

irregular formations

3 Composition with a shower of small

straight lines contrasted to a regular
grid made up of lines

4 Composition with line in movement

5 A directional use of lines to create

forms 1A 1B 1C

6 Exercise with linear circles and their

segments

7A The same forms in (6) are rendered in

negative reverse and set in a differ-
ent composition

7B Composition using the elements in (6)

8 Art work and models for experimental

movie using coloured animation

8A A two dimensional exercise creating

2 3
an illusion of the third dimension

B Two dimensional exercises made into

three dimensional objects

C Two dimensional exercises made into

three dimensional objects

4 5 6

7A 7B 8A

8B 8C
9 The illusion of perspective created
through the use of parallel straight lines

10 Press advertisement using 3 elements—

a symbol, a contrast photograph and
copy matter

11 Alternative designs for the symbol

12 Press advertisements using total values

through the use of lines

13 A composition with diagonal lines

14 A press advertisement using a tonal

composition with diagonal lines and
matter

15 A pharmaceutical package

16 A package for sugar cubes

17 A package design for Flit

15
Press advertisements

Since a line block reproduces better than

half- tone block in most Indian newspa-
pers, the photographic and illustrative
elements of press advertisements here
have been rendered without the use of
half-tone screen.

18 A series of press advertisements for

the insecticide Flit

19 An illustrative press advertisement

20 An illustrative use of photogram

21 Three illustrative press advertisements

22 The use of three elements—the symbol,

photograph of a product and copy
matter

23 The use of three elements—a symbol,

photographs of different products
and copy matter
24 The use of symbol in three lay-outs

25 Press advertisement using an

informative photograph.

26 Press advertisements using photo-

grams of a product and copy matter.

27 Three posters for National Design

Institute The emphasis is on (a) the
relation of the black and white areas
and (b) line and mass.
 Colour

28 Interaction of colour with the central

circle having the same colour which
appears different due to its relation to
other colours
 Colour illustration for Children’s books

29 The colour of eyes

30 Rain

31 Speed

32 Radio communication through satellites

33 Size of the earth compared to the moon 29A 29B

34 Size of the moon compared to mountains

35 On nasal sounds

36 Comparative sizes of two insects

30A 30B

30C

31 32

33 34

35 36
Typography
Problems relating to page lay-outs
1 Readability

I row
Word space in relation to readability

1 Compact
2 Normal (best for readability)
3 Wide

II row
1 All lower case
2 Capital and lower case (best for
readability)
3 All capitals

III row
Readability in relation to leading (line
spacing)

1 Solid set (without leading)

2 Normal leading (best for readability)
3 Open leading

2 Width of the text in relation to readability

3 Various Justifications

4 Alternative page lay-outs for a book

in square format.

5 Double page lay-out. Points to be noted

are : Placement of the text area and the
page number in relation to the margins
6 A folder design. The emphasis is on a
simple and clear presentation of
information

7 The Design of a Form

8 Designs for an announcement of an

Art exhibition. The overall design
scheme in both the lay-outs is similar;
the format is different

Typographical advertisement

9 The four variations are based on

different arrangement of text in
relation to the title which remains in
the same place and is of the same size
in all lay-outs

10 The variations are based on different

placement of the title and the text.

11 The word ‘Design Institute’ has been

given prominence by the use of a
large type face

12 The two variations are based on

different arrangement of the text and
the title
 Composition with individual
letter-forms

13 Exercises with ‘L’

14 A regular pattern created by the use

of ’T in contrast to the irregular
placement (movement) of the same
letter forms

15 Contrast between isolated letters and

mass concentration of letters

16 A The vertically balanced tower

(steadiness) uses the letter ‘E’ in
three sizes.

B The tower looses balance and starts

falling (movement) from the top

C The collapsed tower

17 A Diagonal progression with spacing

and spreading of letters

B Free progression C Spiral movement

D Contrast and gradation created by

the use of ‘H’

E Central progression

18 The use of light, medium, bold and

extra bold weight for number 1. The
4th variation makes use of only the
essential forms of the number
through the negative impression

19 A The design of letter ‘S’

B Composition with the letter ‘S’

C Disintegration of the letter ‘S’

19 D Composition with the letter ‘S’
moving into a square in four stages.
The exercise aims to emphasise the
fact that letters can be recognised
even by partial representation in
certain cases.’

E Press advertisement, using ‘S’ as a

symbol

20 Four variations in the direction and

placing of the single word.

21 A The word ‘stop’ in extra bold, bold,

medium, light and extra light
weights.

B Four weights in condensed forms

C Disintegration and distortion of the

word ‘stop’.

D Press advertisement utilizing the

designs from 21A

E Press advertisement utilizing the

design from 21B

F Press advertisement utilizing the

design from 21C

22 A Symbol design

B Press advertisement using the

symbol in size progression
 Illustrative use of words

23 Illustrative words

24 Magazine advertisement using

typographic illustration for the
Register Control Rotogravure Ma-
chine.

25 Book cover with a typographic

illustration

26 Symbol and stationery for a film

society

1 Membership card
2 Visiting card
3 Envelope
The first letters ‘T’, ‘F’ & ‘S’ indicate
movement to illustrate the notion
of a ‘movie’

27 An illustrative composition with the

word ’falling’

28 A show card with illustrative illusion

for the word ‘Film’

29 Exercise in typographic illustration

30 A Variations with letter spaces

illustrating the duration of time

B A word design in italics type in

extra bold, bold, medium and light
weights

C Press advertisement

31 A press advertisement with a map

composed with numbers.
Photography
Photogram : A direct method of making
a print without a negative

I A Photogram of a transparent object

made of glass

B Photogram of an opaque object—a

spring toy

C Tonal values achieved by the use of

different exposure timings in a
photogram
1A 1B

Space and perspective : Exercise to

show possibilities and limitation of
different lenses

2 A Left: The use of wide angle lens

Right: The use of tele photo lens

Bl The use of wide angle lens

Bll The use of tele photo lens

C Enhancing the depth of field by

swinging the front and back of a 1C 2A
view camera

D Distortion by the use of wide angle

lens

E Photograph using a fish eye lens

Architectural model photography

3 A Model of the buildings designed by

Louis I. Kahn

2BI 2BII

2C 2D

2E

3A
B Model for a school

C Photograph of a soap bubble demon-

strating the design of the most
efficient horizontal scheme between
vertical sticks

Architectural Photography

4A Photograph of NID building

(Entrance to the workshops)

B NID building seen at late evening

C Fish eye photograph of a brick shell

Exploded view

5 Photograph showing all the components

of a piece of furniture before assembly

Macro photography

6 A small component from an electronic

instrument photographed along with a
match stick to give an idea of its scale 3B

3C 4A

4B 4C

5 6
Photography of objects

The photographs show various results

got through direct, reflected and artificial
lighting

7 A Exercise in illumination with refer-

ence to light angle and light ratio

B Opaque objects

C Transparent objects (glassware)

Photographing textures and patterns

8 A Dyed cloth on the Sabarmati river

banks B Parched land C Imprints of
rubber tyres on wet sand 7A 7B

Photo montage

9 The use of two or more negatives

super imposed to make a photographic
composition

7C 7D

8A 8B 8C

9A 9B
A picture story

10 Photographs of a textile mill

11 Lay out and picture editing for a magazine
Fashion photography
12 For a Sari
Experimental photography
13 A Tone Separation
B Photograph of an object in motion
C A water drop before merging into
water
D Photograph of vehicles in motion
10 11

13A 12

13B

13D 13C
Graphic Photography

28 Tram wires
The series proceeds from simple to
complex compositions using the
elements: line, point and mass

29 Shrubs and Bushes —The series is

based on light to dark progressive
compositions in contrast

28

29
Practice
1 Symbols and trade marks
a National Institute of Design
b Gujarat Export Corporation
c Shilpi Press, Baroda
d Industrial Design Gallery, Hyderabad.
e Electronic Corporation of India Ltd.
f Redesigned logo for Saraspur Mills Ltd.
g Sarabhai Merk, Baroda
h Redesigned logo for HHEC

2 Magazine advertisement for HHEC a b c

3 Announcement card
Symbol f) Benoy Sarkar-Manu Gajjar

Symbol g) Shekhar Kamat

d e f

g h

Designers
Symbol a) Adrian Frutiger
Symbol b) Fridolin Muller
Symbol c) Armin Hofmann
Symbol d) e) and h) 2) and 3)
Benoy Sarkar
Symbol f) Benoy Sarkar-Manu Gajjar
Symbol g) Shekhar Kamat 2 3
4 5 6

7 8

9 10 11 12

13 14
4 EC catalogue and inside page

5 Annual Report for SERC

6 VMPS booklet-cover

7 GSFC monthly-cover design and double

page

8 A booklet cover for Oscilloscopes

9 Annual Report for CBRI

10 Saraspur Mills sample folder

15 16
11 A folder for PVC cables

12 A folder for Fultork Motors

13 Graphic for Central Distillery and

Chemical Works Ltd.

14 Packaging for Ralli mixer

15 Season’s greeting card for NID

16 Invitation card for a theatre

17 Poster designs for Central Distillery and

Chemical Works Ltd. 17A 17B

18 Calendar design for a watch Company

19 Cash order form—symbol and stationery

design for a Travel Agent

17C

18A

Designers
4) Benoy Sarkar
5) Ishu Patel
6) 7) and 11) Mahendra Patel
8) Vikas Satwalekar
9) 10) and 12) Manu Gajjar 18B 19

13) 19) Shekhar Kamat

Devanagari Script
Project :
Design of the Devanagari script suitable
for mechanised printing.

Consultant:
Adrian Frutiger, Paris

The Devanagari script is used by 237

millions of Hindi speaking people in India.
Many of the other scripts used by various
linguistic groups in India are derived from
Devanagari. In the context of the national
programme for mass education and
communication, the design of the
Devanagari script adopted to the present-
day technology of mechanised printing
(type-writing, type-casting and photo-
composing) therefore becomes a problem
of great importance. It calls for a
technological as well as an aesthetic
solutions.
1
Two designs of the script have been
undertaken keeping the basic calligraphic
form, the classical script is made more
suitable for punch cutting (illustration 2A),
and a modern type-face is evolved
(illustration 2B). This face is capable of
being rendered in light, medium and bold
weights, (illustration 3A), condensed and
normal type-faces (illustration 1F).The
horizontal and vertical strokes are almost
of the same thickness, provision having
been made for optical corrections.

The design is being produced by the 1 a, b, c, d, e, f. Various studies of the letter YÉ

Monotype Corporation in India and the
matrices should be available in 1971.
2a
2a The redesigned letter ^ from the classical
script shown in relation with the classical
medieval architecture.
2b The same letter in a modern type-face. The
choice of a script must be in keeping with the
illustration. The modern type-face is shown in
juxtaposition to modern architecture.
3a The modern type designed in light, normal and
bold faces.
3b Text with the new design can be rendered
satisfactorily in 12, 10 and 8 points.
2b

3
Animated Films
“The Three Boons”
Graphics and Animation : I. B. Patel

The 15-minute, 35 mm, colour film

depicts a Gujarati folk tale. The motifs
are based on block-printed temple
hangings from Ahmedabad.

Story

There was once a poor man who lived

with his wife and son in the woods. Life
was hard beyond endurance and they
offered prayers to Goddess Kali, who
granted to each a boon in answer to any
wish.

On the following day, when the husband

had gone out, the wife wished to be
transformed into a beautiful princess.
And along came a prince on his horse,
fell in love with her and asked her to be
his bride. She agreed and abandoning
her husband and child, rode away with
the prince. The husband on his return
came to know of his wife’s infidelity.
Furious, he prayed that his wish be
granted : the boon being that his wife be
turned into a witch.
The prince finding that his beautiful bride
was suddenly turned into a witch,
discarded her and rode away.

The witch then went back lamenting to

her old home and the child, full of sorrow
at her plight, pleaded for the boon
granted to him : that his mother should
again be as she was.

All the three boons were granted by this

time and the family reverted to their life
of poverty and misery.

“Swimmy”

Art direction and story:

Leo Leonni

Animation :
Giulio Gianini assisted by
I. B. Patel, M. Patel,
V. Satwalekar, and I. S. Mathur

A fifteen-minute animated film based on

Mr. Leo Leonni’s children’s book

“Swimmy”. It depicts the story of a group

of fish who in self-defence learn to swim
like one fish in order to chase a big fish.
Nehru Exhibition
Project:
Exhibition
“Jawaharlal Nehru : His Life and His India”

Client:
The External Affairs Ministry,
Government of India, New Delhi

Designed by:
National Institute of Design

Design Consultants to NID: Charles and

Ray Eames 901 Washington Boulevard
Venice, California, USA.

Alexander Girard
P.O.Box 707
Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Editorial Consultant:
H. Y. Sharada Prasad
Editor
Yojana, New Delhi.

Location:
The exhibition opened in a 10,000 sq. ft.
area in the Union Carbide Building on
Park Avenue at 49th Street, New York. It
also travelled to Washington, Los Ange-
les, London and Paris. A second copy
was fabricated for Japan and was sent to
Australia. The exhibition will be opened
at NID in Ahmedabad in September
1969and then travel to Delhi.
1
Time:
7 months in all for collecting data,
designing, transport and erection.

For the students at NID, the Exhibition

served as a major education project.

The work entailed about 18 hours a day

from September 1964 to December
1964. Two Designers were sent to New
York for erection which provided invaluable
experience.

1 Mrs. Kennedy, Mrs. Gandhi and Mr. Humphry at the

opening of the Exhibition

2 British Colonial Pavilion 2

Excerpts from “Nehru : A Visual
Biography” Katharine Kuh “Saturday
Review”, February 20, 1965
An Exhibition titled “Nehru: His Life and
His India” currently on view in New
York’s Union Carbide Building, offers
persuasive proof that a visualized
historical survey can do more than
inform the viewer. It can emotionally
involve and move him, provided its
message is urgent and its methods are
valid communicative tools rather than
ends in themselves.
An exhibition sometimes becomes a work
of art. Admittedly this happens only rarely
and does not result from streamlined or
eye-catching installation techniques.
During the last half-century, in a reaction
against fussy, crowded Victorian settings,
we have sometimes sacrificed meaning to
appearance. Stark, clean walls, dramatic
lighting, symmetrical groupings and,
deliberate color and textual surprises have
revolutionized public exhibitions.
Originally these methods were a gratify-
ing relief and a logical outcome of our
country’s art and technological experi-
ments. Lately, however, modern installa-
tions, like much of modern art, are little
more than repetitive cliches, too often
unrelated to the material displayed.
It is not only the profusion of well-chosen
photographs (more than 1200), the 30000
words (mostly Nehru’s and always poig-
nantly human), the hundreds of artifacts,
art objects, textiles, sculpture, furniture,
clothing, personal belongings, and original
documents that contribute to an under-
standing of India and its late Prime Minister,
but above all it is the way this rich, dis-
parate material has been interwoven.
Invariably, meaning dictates method. And
the meaning of Nehru’s life goes far
beyond external facts. The exhibition
probes deeply into the national and
international influences of this man,
encompassing a period of unparalleled
revolutionary turmoil. That India’s late
statesman is neither inflated by nor lost in
this welter of objects is a compliment to
the designers’ sensitivity. Nehru emerges
as a compelling leader but also as a
contradictory and lovable figure.
We are introduced first to the grandeur of
Imperial India at the time of Nehru’s birth,
this idea symbolized by an ornate canopy
used during a nineteenth-century royal
tour of India. Under it stands an exact
copy of the gold throne on which George
sat, ironic reminder of a past splendour
totally unrelated to India’s native life.
Nearby is a comparative international
chart visualizing the world’s most impor-
tant historic events from 1880 until the
time of Nehru’s death. Headlines, photo-
graphs, statements, quotations, docu-
ments, and art reproductions set the
stage for a year-by-year progression.
The story unfolds before our eyes,
condensed, inexorable, sometimes
glorious, more often frightening. Take,
for example, 1917, when America
entered the First World War, when the
Bolsheviks came to power, when Nehru
married Kamala and first met Gandhi
happenings that are simultaneously
visualized, almost like a static motion
picture.
Our schools might well take note of this
telescoped wall of history that at once
vitalizes and clarifies the interrela-
tionship of world events.
Repeatedly one is struck by the imprint
of British culture on Nehru’s aristocratic
family and on his childhood, a fact made
more significant by his subsequent
passionate discovery of India. An entire
section graphically dramatizes this
recognition of his own roots. “As I grew
up”, he noted, “and became engaged in
activities which promised to lead to
India’s freedom, I became obsessed with
the thought of India.”
The free-flowing exhibition moves from
one area to another, each evoking an
important period in Nehru’s life, but always
with larger implications. There is, for
instance, a structure that recreates the
pavilion in which Nehru was married. On
an adjoining panel one sees contrasting
reports on other Indian weddings, some
fabulously extravagant princely affairs,
others hauntingly deprived. A column,
visualizing the Amritsar massacre of 1919,
when 379 Indian nationalists were killed
and 1200 wounded by the British in fifteen
minutes again contrasts with a neighbouring
pavilion dedicated to Gandhi and to non-
violence. At every turn provocative
juxtapositions turn the political and human
story of India into vivid reality. As for
Nehru, we see him not as a sentimental,
myth-like hero but as a complicated man,
intelligent, compassionate, and selfless.
Nowhere is this better demonstrated than
in a reconstructed prison cell, typical of the
many similar cubicles where Nehru spent
3262 days of his life and where he wrote
three notable books. Here, in a claustro-
phobic compartment with brick walls
reproduced photographically, some of
Nehru’s original manuscripts and diaries
are shown. They seem far removed indeed
from the historical relics we commonly
associate with memorial exhibitions. One
feels the presence of the man himself as
we read his words about missing “many
things in prison, but perhaps most of all
one misses the sound of women’s voices
and children’s laughter”. Another
observation, this time from 1928, might
have been written today in America. “I felt
half blinded with the blows and sometimes
a dull anger seized me and a desire to hit
out. I thought how easy it would be to pull
down the police officer in front of me from
his horse and to mount up myself, but long
training and discipline held, and I did not
raise a hand, except to protect my face
from a blow.”
The interplay of words, structural ele-
ments, art, artifacts, photographs, and
textiles is on such an unprecedented scale
that a single visit seems inadequate.
Though the generous wealth of material
parallels and reinforces the magnitude of
the theme, the conception remains
eminently human. Just to stand in the
booth devoted to enlarged photographs of
Nehru’s multitudinous audiences is to
appreciate this man’s unique relationship
to his people. Every face, stretching as far
as the eye can see, is riveted on him. What
other leader in all history has spoken so
personally to so vast and devoted a
human reservoir? These photographs are
graphic evidence of words in Nehru’s will:
“many have been admired, some have
been revered, but the affection of all
classes of the Indian people has come to
me in such an abundant measure that I
have been overwhelmed by it.” And the
person who views the exhibition is, in his
turn, overwhelmed as he stands sur-
rounded by all these myriad, eager,
upturned faces.” In discussing the design
of the immense show, Eames said, “Very
often we have a tendency to arrive at a
system when planning an exhibition. In
this case a system seemed highly inappro-
priate. So the concept has become one of
no system but of a consistent attitude
towards the content.” Here, then, is an
exhibit that grew organically, that is
inseparable from the man it honours, from
the land he loved and the world he
influenced. Each detail has been chosen
con amore, each contributes to more than
a survey of history. For this intensive view
of Nehru and his India is a spiritual explo-
ration of a great man and the monumental
challenge he faced.
Excerpts from Architectural Review
Magazine, October 1965:
The installation consisted basically of
freestanding structures either in the
form of panels with end-boards or of
pavilions built up of posts and canopies,
but each structure was designed to
make its individual contribution to the
story. Some of the pavilion structures
were of plain poles, rope-lashed or fixed
with chased brass clips; others were of
turned wood or Indian silver or brass.
The display panels were lined with
various Indian printed cotton fabrics,
and the bases of the posts (since they
could not be inserted into the floor
of the hall) were supported by sandbags
similarly covered with Indian cotton-prints.

Excerpts from Architectural Design

Magazine, October 1965:

Government exhibitions have some

recognizable features—standardised
sentiment, overmuch respect for the
official image, a reluctance to make a
personal statement. But by entrusting the
Nehru Memorial Exhibition to the Na-
tional Institute of Design and to Charles
Eames,the Government of India saved it
from this pattern and the deadening
stamp of publicity.

To get Charles Eames meant to get for the

exhibition all his imagination, his prodigious
industry and his refusal to do with less than
what he wants. The basic problem of
design, as he puts it, is to care, and how he
cared we who worked with him could see.
Charles Eames himself took his task to be 3
one of finding out what manner of man
Nehru was, “how he got to be so”, and
what he did for his country and the world of
his time. This is the task of a biographer,
and that is what the exhibition has become,
a major biography. Since Nehru’s life has
so interacted with that of India for nearly
fifty years, the exhibition also becomes a
history of recent India.

The Institute put on the job all the resour-

ces it could muster. All the structural parts
of the exhibition (down to casting brass
clamps of Indian design) were fabricated at
the Institute’s workshop. The text was
mostly printed (on hand-made paper) at
the Institute’s press, and the major part of
the black-and-white pictures made at the
Institute’s studio. The Institute regarded
the work also as an educational project
and assigned to it several of its graduate
students. A young architect, with no earlier
specialization in photographic work,
became a first-rate darkroom man. A
graphics student became a keen re-
searcher in Indian history. The bulk of the
“History Wall”, one of the most illuminat-
ing section of the exhibition, was filled in
by these scholars.
4

3 “Satyagraha” Panel
4 “Drive to Independence” Panel
“Journey in India” : A Multiple-Projection
Project:
Multiple-projection of slides at the Indian
Pavilion at Expo-67, in Montreal
Client:
Handicrafts and Handlooms Exports
Corporation of India Ltd.
New Delhi
Design, photography and editing :
Dashrath Patel
When NID was asked to introduce India
to the Expo-goers, it designed a multiple
projection of pictures and sounds which
completely encircled the viewer.
For eight months NID photographer and
sound engineer travelled through the
country and brought back 30,000 pictures
and sound recordings. A thousand of the
best pictures from these were then
projected at Montreal.
There was a nine-screen projection,
reminiscent of the circarama. Each
screen was 14’6" x9’8" and the system
had 18 Kodak Carousel AV 900 projec-
tors with dissolve mechanism and xenon
lights. The slides and the music were
synchronized electronically.
The fifteen-minute show was divided into
3 parts of 5 minutes each. The first part
had 33 sequences (of 9 slides each)
showing the landscape and the people of
India. The second part had 42 sequences
on India’s heritage of arts and crafts,
rituals and customs. The third part of 40
sequences, presented India since inde-
pendence 20 years ago. \t high-lighted
the emerging new pattern, and the
gradual transformation.
The show opened with a colourful tour of
shops. After the introductory statement,
one saw Kanchanjunga — the world’s
third highest mountain seen from
Darjeeling. The eye travelled down to the
foot-hills of the Himalayas, and then
moved along rivers and roads to the
paddy fields, forests and deserts.
Sometimes the scene presented provided
the full view of a place, or sometimes
places hundreds of miles apart were
juxtaposed, the rich green jostling with
the dry brown.
Then followed the people who inhabit the
vast and variegated land—children, men
and women in all their moods.
The second part opened with symbols of
life and faith, and presented places of
worship and an array of India’s numerous
festivals—the Ramleela, Holi, Muharam
etc. Then there were glimpses of artisans
at work—potters, weavers, goldsmiths,
wood-carvers, embroiderers, and toy-
makers. One was then taken to Ajanta
and Ellora, to the Taj Mahal and
Fatehpur Sikri, to the temples and
towers of Konarak and to the South
Indian holy cities.
The third part showed India’s major
industries and irrigation projects, the
new cities and centres of teaching and
research, and also depicted the progress
made in public health and agriculture.
Nine screen projection at the Indian Pavilion in
Montreal
A Scheme for the Indian Pavilion, Osaka World Fair, 1970
NID was commissioned to design some
sections in the Indian pavilions at New
York and Montreal World Fairs. The
experience so gained convinced NID
designers, that if the structure and
display are integrally conceived and
adequate time is available for the
working out of the total scheme, India
could hope to achieve better results.
As part of the Educational Programme,
NID has worked for over two years on
the preliminary scheme for the Indian
pavilion at the Osaka World Fair. It
provided an opportunity for a number of
disciplines available at the Institute to be
co-ordinated into a comprehensive
scheme. The scheme was presented to
the Government of India in January
1969. Although NID proposal was not
finally selected, a great deal of educa-
tional experience was derived from the
project. We feel that those concerned
with the future planning of such national
projects should understand the need for
providing a co-ordinated and integrated
approach to the problem of structure,
display and publicity. Unfortunately this
approach is not being accepted,
Project:
A scheme for the Indian pavilion, Osaka
World Fair March, 1970.
Consultant:
Prof. Dr. Frei Otto, Stuttgart
Designer : Dashrath Patel, NID
Budget:
The budget was divided under the
following heads and was based on
international conventions :
40% to be utilised for the structure
30% to be utilised for the exhibits
and towards the performing arts
30% to be utilised for administration
and publicity
As against the above budget proposed
by NID, the actual budget allocations by
the Government were as follows :
50% structure
25% exhibition and the performing art
25% administration and publicity,
Solution :
The technology of light weight structures
is new to India. Considerable know-how
and experience are needed to evolve a
structure which will withstand earthquakes
and cyclones. NID was fortunate in
getting Dr. Frei Otto as its Consultant for
this project.
A light weight structure with a stretched
skin of coloured patch-work canvas
impregnated with polyester is proposed.
The structure was to be fabricated at NID
and erected in Osaka. It could be dismantled
and re-used for future exhibitions. The
structure calls for very advanced engineer-
ing skills, which would therefore help
create an image of a technologically
advanced India and not merely of an
India which lived on its past. The
colourful canopy of patch-work would
lend it an Indian look.
The ground was to be sculptured with the
help of bulldozers.
The exhibits were to be packed in specially
designed containers which would be used
in the pavilion as exhibition stands, for
housing the restaurant and for making a
stage for classical performances.
Provision was made for:
a A three screen cinema auditorium to
accommodate 300 people.
b An open stage for the performing
arts.
c An exhibition which would show:
Problems facing India and how they
are being tackled.
 India’s link with Japan—old and
new—Buddhism, modern technologi-
cal collaboration, etc.
d An Indian restaurant having:
 The traditional Indian method of sitting
on the floor.
 A display of Folk Art objects and live
Folk performances.
 “Windows” with back screen projections
of films recreating Indian environment.
e Shops
f A computerised information centre.
1 2

1 Cable structure of the Pavilion

2 Front view of Pavilion
3-4 Interior views
5 A usage of a Container Unit

5 4
The “World is my Family” Pavilion, Gandhi Centenary Exhibition
Client:
The National Committee for Gandhi
Centenary

Architecture and Exhibition design :

National Institute of Design

Dashrath Patel
Chandralekha
Renee Doring
Vikas Satwalekar
Sundararajan

Structural Consultants:
Structural Engineering Research Centre
Roorkee
1
Location:
16,900 sq. ft. exhibition area in Delhi.

This exhibition should give an experience

to the visitor of how Gandhiji thought and
felt and of the values he gave to India
and to the world.

This exhibition should be thought

provoking. Not just a documentation or a
cataloguing of the events of Gandiji’s life.

Through this exhibition we want to

remind ourselves that Gandhiji was a
man who lived in our own times and that
there are many of us who saw him,
worked with him, lived near him and felt
the impact of his intense life and work.

We want to convey a sense of immediacy

and minimise the distance between him
and us which we have brought about by
our attitude of glorification, so that we may
understand rather than worship him.

In the light of 20 years that have gone by

since Gandhiji’s passing away and the 2
cataclysmic changes that have happened
in India and outside, there is a need for
restatement of the basic concepts that he
gave to the world and their reversal in
our times.

Section I — Introduction

Section I is a broad-based background of

of Gandhiji’s life.

It tells of those special qualities of Gandhiji

that make him unique among men.

It builds up an environment that leads up

to his concept of the world as a family.

It states and emphasizes the events that

inform us of his affection for people and
his involvement in the vital problems that
face the people and the individual.

It uses Gandhiji’s own written and spoken

words to tell us of his philosophy of love
and his stress on human values.

It projects tenacity of his faith in man. 3

It endeavours to create a corporate
image of a man who thought and lived on
many levels all at once.

It endeavours to show the immensity of

his immortal spirit that refused to be
subdued by impediments, bullets,
prisons; by noise or numbers.

Section II —People

Section II shows people who inhabit this

world.

It portrays men and women of different

colour and creed who came in contact
with Gandhiji and were magnetized by 4
his faith and philosophy.

It shows people great and famous as well

as simple little-known folks with whom he
communicated without respite, continu-
ously writing all his life, at odd hours, from
odd places thousands of articles, 33000
letters, postcards, notes, identifying himself
with their problems, political, social,
organizational or deeply human and
personal.

It shows people who thought with him and

participated in his colossal experiment of
truth, to transform man from within.

It shows people who joined him in his

struggle for India’s freedom and his fight
to liberate man from every kind of wrong
and justice.

It shows multitudes that loved, followed

and worshipped him.

It shows people of diverse kinds and

destinies whom he unified by the ex-
ample of his spirit.
5

Section III—Gandhiji’s Involvement in Among the things that a visitor will listen
Humanity to are:

Section III is an auditorium equipped with Gandhiji’s own voice.

a triple screen projection.
It aims at creating an environment of
time. It shows Gandhiji as he walked the
earth.
It shows him walking ceaselessly,
tirelessly taking multitudes in his stride
as he walked, surcharging people from
all over the world, influencing a man
like Martin Luther King in our time.
The film shows him marching incessantly
towards a destiny he envisaged for man.
Section IV—Communication Through
Sound
Section IV is a sound area.
It aims at creating a special personal
experience for each visitor who comes to
this area.
The tributes and homages of the world to
Gandhiji.
Some anecdotes from Gandhiji’s life.
Readings from texts on a theme ‘message
of love’. The text is based on extracted
ideas from Ramayana, Bhagwat Gita, Bible,
Koran and words of Bhuddha, Sankara,
Lao-tse, Socrates, Spinoza, Ramakrishna,
Vivekananda, Tolstoy and some of the
teachers of religion and philosophy who
gave a message of love and harmony to
mankind.
1 Pavilion Roof
2 Technical data collection for the structure of the
roof
3 Four sections in the Pavilion
4 Front view
5 Interior view
Family Planning— Public Information Campaign
Family Planning has a very important
place in India’s development plan. There
is a budget of 230 crores for this
programme and approximately 46 crores
are spent yearly over publicity.
Although NID had not been approached
officially for submitting a design
programme for Family Planning publicity,
there had been several occasions on
which high Government officials had
expressed a wish that NID should play a
role in evolving and executing a
programme in this field.
In a period of six-weeks, intensive work
was undertaken and a programme
developed. The resulting work was
presented to the Family Planning Minis-
try at Delhi. It was hoped that the
programme would stimulate an interest
and would lead to a comprehensive
assignment for NID by the Government.
NID was looking for an opportunity of
working on a design problem of vital
national importance and of being able to
check the validity of its design solutions,
through the feed back one would get
from its design actually executed. NID
sought work either directly with the
Ministry of Family Planning, or through
the Directorate of Advertising and Visual 3 The display material should not attempt
Publicity, but it did not succeed in procur-
ing such a comprehensive design assign-
ment on Family Planning.
Project:
A design programme on Family Planning
Consultant:
Bob Gill
NID Designers:
Ishu Patel
Parmanand Dalwadi
1
A two-day seminar on the background of
India’s Family Planning Programme was
held at NID.
The participants represented the principle
disciplines involved in the Family Planning
Programme: medicine, sociology, demog-
raphy, psychiatry, field-work, religion, and
political science.
The discussion high-lighted many of the
problems facing graphic designers in
communicating to the masses in India.
From the discussion, the following guide-
lines evolved :
1 No single Family Planning campaign
would be effective all over India nor would
it convey all of the high-lights of Family
Planning information. Several campaigns
would have to be designed.
2 The purpose of display material (posters,
etc.) is to create a sympathetic climate for
the acceptance of Family Planning. This
material cannot adequately give details of
birth control information nor would it be
appropriate for display. This could thus be
best done in booklets, or orally by doctors
and social-workers.
to present more than one idea at a time.
4 The Family Planning symbol should be an
important element among its other mate-
rial not merely an unobtrusive signature.
5 The different types of Family Planning
signs all over the country should be
rationalised.
6 More graphic or photographic images with
which the various people of India can
more closely identify themselves should
be used.
7 Accessibility of Family Planning Centres
should be stressed.
Recommendations
This presentation did not conflict with
any basic assumptions of the existing
Family Planning campaigns.
Why then the presentation?
Even the most successful publicity, from
time to time, must renew itself with fresh
images and provocative variations of the
original theme. The presentation offered
material which could be used to comple-
ment and extend the progressive cam-
paigns. It also explored the possibility of
not only making the Family Planning
triangle a more important element in the
campaign but a more meaningful one.
Presentation
Posters and/or advertisements: Indian
imagery such as astrological signs,
marriage symbols, local foods and
costume were used to illustrate a particu-
lar Family Planning idea.
Three dimensional hand painted signs:
Simple constructions and graphic mate-
rial which any local artist can duplicate.
House Style
The design of a multi-lingual Family
Planning sign which could be consistently
used in every state was suggested. It
should accommodate each provincial
language. There was a provision at a
later stage for relating all material
connected with the Family Planning sign
in a single corporate design programme.
Films, TV and Radio
Four short films, and a radio announce-
ment each illustrating a different Family
Planning idea, but related to each other,
were produced.
1 Two short animation films
2 Ideas for posters

2
A Scheme for the Graphic Identity for Indian Airlines
Consultant:
Ivan Chermayeff

Designer:
Benoy Sarkar, NID

In 1967, the Indian Airlines Corporation

commissioned NID to design its logo.
Although the design submitted was
approved, NID did not succeed in pers-
uading the clients to adopt a consistent
design policy aimed at establishing the
graphic identity of the Airlines. NID,
however, decided to continue work in the
form of a study project, the items in-
cluded in it representing a cross-section
of the graphic identity requirements of
the Indian Airlines. The scheme was then
finally presented to the Indian Airlines.

The aim was that the diverse printed

matter the objects and equipment
connected with the Airlines, should
create a co-ordinated image. The design
should be clean, uncluttered, and appro-
priate to modern technology associated
with the Airlines. The functional aspects,
quick identification, minimisation of time
loss and errors, and the absence of
arbitrary design elements, should be the
prime considerations in the design.

1 Symbol
2 Symbol on a moving vehicle, as viewed at an angle.
Split by visual obstruction and on an undulating
surface.
3 An advertising short Animated film introducing
symbol
4 Single Column press ads.
5 Ticket design
6 Graphic drawing for the caravelle. Passenger
steps. Ground Power unit and Baggage trolley.

2
 4

3 5
Background music : Jet take off sound

Commentary : Wherever you want to go Indian

Airline will take you

6
A Scheme for Gandhi Travelling Exhibition
On the occasion of the Gandhi Centenary
celebrations, the Directorate of Advertis-
ing and Visual Publicity approached NID
to submit a design for a Travelling
Exhibition on Gandhi to be shown in 29
countries. A comprehensive scheme was
submitted to the client. In principle, the
scheme was accepted. It, however, took
several months in obtaining budget
sanctions. The little time then available
for the execution of the project made it
imperative to fly some of the audio-visual
equipment from the USA and this
increased the cost. The additional cost
was not sanctioned and the exhibition
was therefore not implemented.
Project:
A scheme for the Gandhi Travelling
Exhibition
Client:
Directorate of Advertising and Visual
Publicity on behalf of the Ministry of
Education.
Consultant:
Ivan Chermayeff
The idea of an exhibition essentially
stripped of decoration and as many other
arbitrary aspects as is possible, seems to
be most consistent with the Gandhian
thought. As far as possible the structure
of the exhibition was to suggest at first
glance that there was very little to be seen.
The eye of the visitor would not be met
with the cleverness or the elegance of an
exhibition system, nor the bright colours
and patterns for which India is renowned,
but rather a ‘non-exhibition’ in which
these elements were denied.
The appeal and justification of the
exhibition that would then follow this first
impression must, to remain valid, be
crowned almost solely with the Gandhian
thoughts, his ideas, observations,
reactions and his relentless devotion to
them in a frame-work of universal as
well as national truth that made Gandhi a
truly great man.
If any individual should come away from
this exhibition having captured one single
thought which would improve his own life
and spirit, then in a Gandhian sense, the
purpose of the entire exhibition would
have been achieved. It would be the intent
of the exhibition to present as many of
Gandhi’s thoughts as possible within the
realistic boundaries of an exhibition
environment which would involve, after
all, only an hour of the visitor’s life.
In order to present Gandhi’s ideas with
the greatest force and clarity, they must
be carried forward, like the exhibition
itself with the least amount of ‘excess
baggage’.
Films are available which express with
unbelievable force some of Gandhi’s own
actions and the conditions which brought
him to them. As it is the intention of the
exhibition to concentrate only on Gandhi’s
ideas, it was thus desirable to limit
additional visual and audible material to
that which in each case directly contrib-
uted to the understanding of the idea in
question. Consequently, the exhibition
would not present a chronology of
Gandhi’s life in either sound or pictures
nor would it overwhelm the visitor with
names, dates, places, facts and figures.
These would be entirely limited to those
which are essential.
Any exhibition by definition is limited to
some degree. In the case of Gandhi, it
would be limited to an enormous degree.
Putting forward the proposition that the
exhibition must evolve around Gandhi’s
thoughts, would still leave the problem of
which thoughts one should decide to
communicate. For a man who had the
energy to write 30,000 letters amongst
his myriad other accomplishment, this
obviously becomes a difficult task, but if
conscientiously done an enormously
rewarding one.
Solutions:
A number of 8’x4' diameter and 18" high
circular basic units were designed to
accommodate all the vocabulary neces-
sary to communicate Gandhi’s thoughts
and ideas, personal objects, photographs,
film texts and sound recordings.
The quantity of these units used in any
one exhibition would depend on the
available space. Each unit would illustrate
one idea complete in itself.
Architecture
 ARCHITECTURE
 Campus for the Indian Institute of Management
 Air India Staff Quarters for 300 Families
 A Multi-Storeyed Building Comprising Offices and Flats
 Studies for Student Dormitory
 A Preliminiary Report for Palam Airport
Architecture
The Educational Status of Entering
Students :
By and large architectural training
imparted by existing schools in India
through lectures and studio work is
based on the British style with an impor-
tant difference, that whilst students in
England are required to have two years
practical training, they have none or only
six months of it in some Indian Schools.
Theoretical courses given in Indian
schools are fairly comprehensive in their
coverage. A typical syllabus includes:
Free-hand Drawing
History of Architecture
Theory of Architecture
Architectural Design
Housing
Tropical Architecture
Building Construction
Surveying
Estimating
Specifications
Services and Equipment
Architectural Acoustics
Professional Practice
Structural Mechanics
Mathematics
Statistics
General Physics
General Chemistry
History of Culture
Economics
Sociology
The degree of B. Arch. is awarded to
successful candidates on the completion
of a five-years course.
The Educational Programme at NID
No formal theoretical courses are given,
as these would duplicate the ground
already covered by students in their
undergraduate training. Special seminars
are however arranged from time to time,
to study in depth any particular subject of
relevance to the students at that particular
time.
Since architectural graduates receive
little or no practical training during their
undergraduate work, the most important
contribution that NID makes is to introduce
them to the practical aspect of their
profession, to give them opportunities to
be associated with mature practicing
architects and to participate and collaborate
with them in the resolution of real-life
architectural problems. Between 1964
and 1968 four major projects involving
building construction costing about Rs. 2
crores were executed. The projects were
of different kinds e.g. an educational
campus, a workshop building, a multi-
storeyed apartment-cum-office building,
and a residential housing estate. These
were selected in order to provide varied teach the young architect far more about
experience to the students. NID was the whole process of building than many
fortunate in having the participation of lectures.
leading architects as consultants for
these projects. The resources of NID are limited, and the
experience of the first five years in the
A good architectural solution demands the architectural section has revealed, that
synthesis of the architectural, structural perhaps it would be better for NID to
and constructional aspects of the problem. concentrate on evolving rationalised
Architects, therefore, need to collaborate planning, design and construction
with structural and site engineers at every methods, to achieve a higher efficiency
step in order to facilitate such collaborative and a better standard of living. The aim
relationship with specialist engineers. The would be to acquaint architects and
establishment of a branch office of the product designers with the main system
Structural Engineering Research Centre, in the industrialized structure and to give
Roorkee, within NID premises at the staff and students of NID an opportunity
Ahmedabad is under consideration. of learning through actual practice
i. e. to set them a ‘live project’. The ‘live
While the major part of the practical project’ would be used for applied
training is in the architectural drafting research. It would be preceded by a series
studios it is diversified by giving more of studies of relevant Indian experiences,
opportunities for architectural students to and accompanied and followed by feed
learn how their partners in the building back studies of reactions.
industry operate—the consulting engi-
neers, the building contractors, the quantity NID is trying to develop such a programme
surveyors, the building research
with the assistance and association of the
organisations, or with landscape architects Architectural Association of London. The
and town planning officers. Training in
AA would find and mobilise experienced
management includes— costs and cost people to supplement the considerable
control, methods of organisation of
know-how that is already available in
projects, from briefing to completion, the Ahmedabad.
law and ethics of professional conduct, and
the regulations about building (by-laws, At a later date NID also hopes to start a
planning,consents, etc.). The programme of programme in urban planning.
practical experience with building contrac-
tors includes the study of the builder—an
architects contract, interpretation of the
architect’s instructions by drawings,
Specifications, bills of quantity, problems of
estimating, tendering, variation orders and
completion of accounts, ordering of
supplies, planning and programme of
contracts, etc. and visits to sites for the
study of setting out planned organisations,
job planning, supervision of construction,
etc. with clerk-of-works. In this way, the
gulf between the architect and the builder
is bridged. Whatever joint consultative
machinery may be organised at the top, a
more solid and effective bridge could be
built at the bottom if young architects
spend some months of their practical
training with contractors, and learn at first
hand about the organisation and problems
of building from within. Such experience
can have a profound effect on the relations
between architects and builders, and would
bring to the young architects a greater
sense of reality.
Individual students can only secure a
variety of experiences by combining
short and long periods according to
circumstances. In some, they could make
positive contributions and benefit from
full participation over several months. In
others they would be little more than
spectators for a week or two. The benefits
of a short stay should not, however, be
belittled. A well-organised fortnight in a
contractor’s office or on site could
Campus for the Indian Institute of Management
Client:
The Indian Institute of Management,
Ahmedabad.
Architects, Structural Engineers and
Landscape Designers:
National Institute of Design
Architectural Consultants:
Mr. Louis I. Kahn, Philadelphia, USA.
Shri B. V. Doshi, Ahmedabad.
Structural Engineering Consultant:
Mahendra Raj, Bombay.
Project :
The College Campus comprising:
Main Complex, School Buildings,
Dormitories, Housing for Staff
Members.
Site development.
Site:
65 acres of land in Ahmedabad.
Budget:
First phase estimates: Rs. 85 lakhs.
(The entire campus is likely to cost about
Rs. 100 lakhs)
Requirements :
First phase:
Dormitories for 300 students ;
Housing for 110 families;
Main Complex, including class,
seminar and faculty rooms,
administration, library, kitchen and
dining halls for students and faculty.
Site development.
Second phase:
Dormitories for 60 students,
Housing for 65 families,
Site development.
Text from the Yale Architectural
Journal; Perspecta 9/10, 1965.
The plan comes from my feelings of
monastery. The idea of the seminar
classroom and its meaning of “to learn”
extended to the dormitories comes from
the Harvard Business School.
The unity of the teaching building,
dormitories and teachers’ houses—each
its own nature, yet each near the other—
was the problem I gave myself. The lake
between the student and the teacher is
one way of the distance with little
dimension. When I found this way, the
dormitories tended, psychologically, to
break away from the school, though it
has no appreciable distance from it.
A work of art is the making of a life. The
architect chooses and arranges to
express in spaces, environment and
relationships, man’s institutions. There is
art if the desire for and the beauty of the
institution is filled.
The first designs of the dormitories were
composed as houses for sixty students,
each with two stories of rooms above
open connecting porches on the ground.
The end bays of each house towards the
lake, step ten feet to a level four feet
above the water giving a two-storey
house-clubroom facing the lake. This
became the space of invitation vested in
each house and adding to the
interhospitality in spirit embodied in the
seminar idea of exchange among stu-
dents and teachers.
The dormitory rooms, in groups of ten,
are arranged around a stairway and
tearoom hall. In this way, corridors are
avoided, favouring the making of rooms
which contribute to the central idea,
calling for plan and residual spaces for
casual and seminar study.
The tea-room entrance and the position of
the stair and washroom, serve to protect
the rooms from sun and glare without
obstructing the essential through breeze.
The houses are oriented to the wind, all
walls parallel with its direction. They are
placed diagonally around a court to
enclose the court and retain the strict-
ness demanded by the orientation. If you
have a square in which everything is
normally answerable to a square, you
find that two sides are oriented improp-
erly. By taking the diagonal you form odd
conditions, but you do answer, you can
conquer this geometry if you want to.
And you must relentlessly look at orien-
tation as something that you give to
people because it is desperately needed.
That is the basis of these diagonal shapes.
In the school building, you notice I
introduced a light well. I think it is some-
what superior to the device I invented for
Luanda, because there I put a wall up to
shade the sun and modify glare, and here
the solution is an integral part. The
construction of the building is better as
well because you have less span to deal
with and the windows are not on the
exterior where you do not want them.
This is a reverse bay window, you might
say. The inner court will be shielded
during certain ceremonies by a large
canopy spanning eighty feet. What gave
me the courage to do this was the
architectural provisions made in the
courtyards of the Akbar Palace at Lahore
for the same purpose.
You know the people in India make
wonderful cloth and they have stretched
even greater distances with it. This court
is different from things I have conceived
before. It gives such joy to be the one to
discover a beautiful way of life that
belonged to another civilization.
You notice I made all these buildings
answerable to each other even though
the scale of the house, dormitory and the
school is so different.
The material of brick bearing walls and
piers with concrete floors is retained
throughout the larger spans giving rise to
arches and buttresses, the more modest
spaces simple slabs on walls. Consistent
with the order of brick construction and
the introduction of concrete, the concrete
combines with the characteristics of brick
in the making of the flat arches. In the
houses, where there is not sufficient
dimensional expanse to use a full arch,
concrete restraining tension beams are
introduced to counter the thrust of the
flat arches.
The fullness of light, protected, the
fullness of air, so welcome, are always
present as the basis for architectural
shapes. I was impressed with the need
for air when I happened, with twenty
other people, in the palace in Lahore,
where the guide showed us the ingenuity
of craftsmen who had covered an entire
room with multi-colored mirrored
mosaics. To demonstrate the mystery of
the reflections, he closed all the doors
and lit a match. The light of the single
match gave multiple and unpredictable
effects but two people fainted for lack of
air in the short moment that the room
was shut off from the breeze. In that
time, in that room, we felt that nothing
was more interesting than air.
So far work on dormitories and housing
has been completed. The basic design of
the main complex has also been com-
pleted. The project is now being handled
directly by the client.
 1

1 Sketch drawing of school building

2 Birds eye view of the model
3 A view of the Institute 3
Air India Staff Quarters for 300 Families
Client:
Air India

Architects and Structural Engineers:

National Institute of Design

Architectural Consultant to NID:

Harry Weese
Chicago, USA

Site:
9 acres of land in Santa Cruz,
Bombay

Budget:
Approximately Rs. 60 lakhs

Requirements:
Three different types of quarters

Type A:
1 bed-room, living and dining room,
verandah, kitchen and toilet.
Area 646 Sq. ft.

Type B: 1
2 bed-rooms, living and dining room,
verandah, kitchen and toilet.
Area 845 Sq. ft.

Type C:
The same accommodation as Type B.
Area 950 Sq. ft.

1 Perspective of type C quarter

2 Plans for type A, B and C quarters
3 View of the housing (model)
4 Housing in construction on other page. 3
The problem involves housing accommo-
dation for three different income groups
of the Air-India workers at the Santa Cruz
Airport, Bombay. The amount of square
feet in net room space called “carpet
space” was scheduled by the program
for each income group. The design problem
involved planning units and assembling
them in building types on the given site.

The arrangement of living spaces depends

upon local customs, the way of life, and
the income level. It also depends upon
climate since ventilation must be natural,
as well as upon how high people will climb
stairs. A further consideration is the
integration of several income groups in a
way which will be workable sociologically
and make for an interesting and logical
overall architectural arrangement.

The plans selected and the design shows a

four storey block, one room deep of coupled
end to end units, sharing open stairs in a
continuous line paralleling the thorough-
fare, acting as a backdrop to the three
storey units at 90° to the thoroughfare, the
lower buildings being in the foreground
spaced 70' apart to achieve an open feeling
allowing every part of the colony to be
visible by the passerby.
Between the four storey and the three
storey blocks is a roadway for service and
pedestrian access. Between the garden
walls of the three storey blocks is a corridor
or walkway giving access to individual front
doors leading to gardens for every unit.
From these gardens, some quite small, one
gains entry into each unit via the ground, a
straight stair of one flight, or a spiral stair
to tower terminated by a straight flight for
each of the three levels respectively.
In this way every unit has its front door on
a public way. In the three storey blocks
every family has its own way to the ground
and there is no sharing of corridors, stairs,
garbage chutes, or any of the things that
commonly give rise to management
problems; every family fending for itself. In
the four storey blocks, the stairs are shared
by eight families, but each has its own front
door in the sense that the stairs are wide
open, washed by the wind and the rain.
Verandahs are provided and arrangements
are made for protection against the
monsoon. Modern conveniences are
provided, such as stand-up kitchen sinks in
the two highest income categories. Care is
given to storage requirements and to
privacy both between units and within.
The ceiling height is reduced to 9 ft.
which has the effect of making rooms
seem larger and saves building cost
and climbing. The construction is in
brick covered with plaster to be
whitewashed after each monsoon.
Interiors are whitewashed plaster with
cement tile floors. Kotah stone is used
4
for kitchen counter tops and floors in
wash-room and toilet.
The gardens are to be used and planted
by the tenants. The site will be generously
landscaped. Street trees will provide
shade. Walks will be in brick, roadways
blacktop, compound wall whitewashed
plaster over brick. The project wall adjoins
the drainage ditch along the thoroughfare,
and earth is ramped up behind it so that it
becomes a dwarf wall on the dwelling
side. There are two entrances to the site,
each controlled, and two interior connec-
tions to the adjoining IAC project with
which future community facilities such as
schools, shops, etc., will be shared.
Garbage is collected by the management
from recessed receptacles in the garden
of each unit in the case of the three storey
blocks, and at some common collection
point at the foot of the stairs in the four
storey blocks, and taken to the mainte-
nance compound where the sewage
treatment plant is also located.
The result of this work with National
Institute of Design, is hoped to be an
example of how families of varying
incomes can be accommodated on a
small piece of land, providing for family
living with dignity and privacy in build-
ings, which will perform for many years
without becoming obsolete, and further
that a healthy community life will be
encouraged.
Harry Weese
A Multi-storeyed Building Comprising Offices and Flats
Client:
The New India Assurance Co. Ltd.

Architects:
National Institute of Design

Architectural Consultant to NID:

Dr. Enrico Peressutti, Milan.

Site:
2,477 sq. yards of land at the junction of
Mayo Road and Cooperage Road,
Bombay.

Budget:
Rs. 50,00,000 approximately.

Requirements:
12 apartments, each with 3 bed rooms
with attached bath rooms, a living room,
dining room, a kitchen and a servant’s
room with a bath room.

47,500 sq. ft. of office accommodation.

Car park for 69 cars.

1
The programme called for the housing of
twelve families displaced from the
previous building due to fire, in addition
to providing maximum rentable air-
conditioned office area.
The form of the building results from the
juxtaposition of two different functions
with completely different demands on
the interior space.

1 Plan
2 Building under construction 2
Studies for Students Dormitory
Client:
NID, Ahmedabad.

Site:
NID campus on the west bank of the
Sabarmati River in Ahmedabad. The high
flood level, 13 feet above ground.

Requirements:
Individual bed-study rooms and terraces
for outdoor sleeping. A bathroom and a
kitchenette to be shared by 2 students.
Through-ventilation for all rooms. The
building not to exceed 3 floors so that the
expense of installing and running lifts
may be saved.
Budgeted cost Rs. 6,000 per student.

Consultant:
Dr. Ing. Frei Otto,
Director,
Institute fur Leichte Flachentragwerke
Technische Hochschule,
Stuttgart.

The separation of the compression and

tension members of a structural system,
and the efficient utilization of appropriate 1
building materials in its various compo-
nent members, lead to economy given
under certain conditions. This study is
concerned with the examination of a
suspension structure as a basis for a 1 Profile view of the model
multi-storeyed building. 2 A sketch of the Dormitory

2
A Preliminary Report for Palam Airport
Client :
Director-General of Civil Aviation,
Government of India.
Airport Planning Consultant:
Heinrich Kosina, West Germany.
Site:
The Palam Airport Complex together
with the surrounding area,
New Delhi.
Requirements:
NID had been entrusted with the work of
preparing a report on the future develop-
ment of the International Airport at
Palam. This report would form the basis
for the future design of the airport and of
the terminal complex.
The design of an international airport to be established between the terminal
complex is a dramatic example of the buildings and the aircraft—the finger
need to consider flexibility as an impor- system, the satellite terminal building
tant planning consideration, if the struc- system or the mobile lounge system.
tures of today are not to become obso-
lete in this technologically fast-changing Based on this study, the report suggests
world of ours. Here is a case, where a an over-all master plan indicating the
non-physical plan based on a detailed locations of proposed structures, size and
study of existing conditions and informed number of runways, taxi-ways and
projection of future needs, is imperative parking aprons.
before the actual physical planning of the
airport complex can be undertaken.
The report contains an analysis of the
passenger and aircraft movements, the
daily and hourly peak loads, which would
help determine the number of gates, their
position, size and the location of the aircraft
parking apron, the location of the technical
facilities such as hangers, workshops, etc.,
and arrangement of passengers’ baggage,
freight, mail and cargo. The methods
employed for handling of emplaning and
deplaning passengers, the size and location
of facilities such as crash and fire fighting
equipment, hospital and health facili-
ties, transit hotel etc. are also dealt with.
It examines the type of connections
Landscape
Client Heavy tree plantation along the boundary 1 Residence
R. Harivallabhdas acts as a wind breaker in summer, lends 2 Entrance
privacy to the grounds from neighbouring 3 Main Garden
Designer houses and at the same time serves as a 4 Lily Pool with fountain
P. Bhagwat, National Institute of Design back-drop to the existing garden. The new 5 Paved garden
garden consists of well-defined areas— a 6 Vegetable & fruit garden
Site lawn with shrubs, flower beds on either 7 Entrance
9,800 sq. yds. in Ahmedabad side of the lawn. The lawn helps to focus
attention on the residence and at the same
Requirements time serves as an area for parties and
A garden for a private residence gatherings. A separate entrance at the far
end brings the visitor to the flower garden
Solution through a richly planted tree avenue. The
whole vista of the garden opens to the
visitor only when he enters the flower
garden. Two hillocks almost at the centre
of the plot, partition the garden. These
have been used to advantage by having a
water fountain and a lily pool. For family
gatherings, a small paved garden is also
provided. Brick paths serve as a unifying
factor in the design.
Data Sheet on Plant Material
Field work by Information on the landscape value of
P.B. Bhagwat in association with the plant material on the following lines is
Department of Visual Communication. also given in the data sheet:

The plant material data sheet is part of a structure of plant

the research project undertaken by the
Institute to collect detailed information on b texture of plant
the various aspects of plant material.
While collecting this information, needs c foliage—time of the year when new
of architects, town planners, landscape foliage comes, whether the foliage
architects are kept in mind, in addition to remains throughout the year and the
general garden lovers, so that they colour values of the foliage.
would be able to use this information
without reference to the Horticulturists d flowers—colour, arrangement of
or other specialists. flowers, when flowering takes place
and how long flowering lasts.
The country would be divided into
various sub-divisions depending on e information on fruits, their colour,
climate, soil etc., and then taking a
typical place as a characteristic basis of f horticultural requirements.
the sub-region, plant material suitable for
each sub-region are selected.

CASSIA FISTULA Family - Cæalpineae

Growth/Year
Derivation Native of India. Cassia refers to a tree having fragrant
origin bark, Fistula means pipe referring to shape of pods.

Description The tree is leafless for a very short period during March to April. New
foliage appears in April-May, which is very delicate and has copper red
colour.

Foliage Large leaves, divided into two rows, leaflets pointed, arranged in
leaves opposite p airs on either side of mid rib.

Flowers Flowers appear in late April or early May, together with new foliage.
The flowers come in large pendulous bunches, large in size and yellow in
colour. Flowering lasts for about three weeks. Stray blooms are seen
even upto August in some cases. The tree is most beautiful when in
flower. Flowering starts when the tree is about five years old.

Fruits Long cylindrical pods of 1 ½'—2' long & ¾" diameter, grow rapidly and
ripen by June-July. The pods are present when flowers appear.

Branches Two or more main branches appear at a height of about 10-12 ft. from
ground, which are further sub-divided in irregular manner. General
appearance is open, with very irregular shape.

Trunk Small, many a times twisted and irregular.

Bark The bark is smooth-green grey when young; in older trees, it turns dark
brown and rough. Exfoliating in hard scale.

Root system Strong tap root system, partly superficial.

Growth Growth rate is moderate. When young the growth is slow and
appearance of tree is scraggy. As the tree becomes old, roughly about
ten years, the growth is moderate and is more shapely.

Landscape Generally 40'—50' high with uneven spread. The tree is most beautiful
value when in flower. Due to uneven spread, and being leafless- during
summer, not a good choice for road side planting as a single species.
Very good in mixed planting or where shade is of secondary importance.
Two varieties—large leaflets with bright yellow flower, smaller leaflets
with pale yellow-flowers.

Association Does not do well on dry, rocky areas; results in stunted growth. Does well
upto 2000' elevation. Does well with most of other Cassia species.
Good for garden planting.

Uses Excellent tree for mixed avenues for roads with small widths—
ornamental purposes in gardens.

Cultural Propagation by seed. Seedlings are sensitive to frost, draught and

notes excessive moisture. Plants grown in potsctransplant well.
Tree grows on all types of soil. Does not do well in areas having poor
drainage.
Withstands draught very well. Does well in wide range of rain fall
3” to 100”.
Does well in dry areas, can withstand temperature as high as 120-F, and
in winter as low as 25’F.
Foliage is attacked by caterpillars, mostly in young stage. The pods are
attacked by insects. The trunk is attacked by borers, but no serious
damage is caused.
Research Publication
 Mata ni Pachedi
 Rural Crafts at a Village in Saurastra
Mata ni Pachedi
Mata ni Pachedi 1 Cover of the book “Mata ni Pachedi”
2 Printing a Pachedi cloth
A monograph on the Temple cloth of the 3 Seven Goddesses
Mother Goddess 4 Sacrifice to the Goddess

Compiled and printed by National

Institute of Design,
Ahmedabad.

Written by Joan Erikson, USA

Photographs by Dasharath Patel, NID

Field-work and research by Haku Shah,
Book design by Peter Teubner.

To learn to know one traditional object, to

observe it carefully, to follow its produc-
tion from beginning to end and to then be
guided to the understanding of how it is
used and why and something of the
people who make and use it, may make it
possible to grasp, however imperfectly,
one form which, as it emerges, then lends
form to the multiplicity of the whole.

Such an object is the Pachedi of the Mata,

the cloth of the mother goddess, the
goddess of a hundred names and as many
attributes—thai, prevailing deity of India 1 2
since time immemorial. Worshipped by the
poor of low caste, of which there are so
many, her cloth is dyed and handprinted
by a guild of her devotees. On the banks of
the Sabarmati River, surrounded by great
textile mills, the age-old process is
meticulously carried out in the dazzling
sunlight.

4
Rural Crafts at a Village in Saurastra
An ethnographical record, photographic
and architectural documentation and
printing of the manuscript by NID.

Field-work and manuscript:

Eberhard Fischer
Haku Shah

The project was undertaken to serve as

an experimental study on the traditional
crafts of India. Students participated in
photographic and architectural documen-
tation and in the design of its publication.
The project high-lighted the need of
specialised knowledge, in anthropology
and related other subjects.

1 Peasants decorating bullocks for the market

2 Horse Torso
3 Potter
4 Engraver 3 4
Governing Council Staff & Purchase Directing Board
Committee
Chairman Chairman Chairman
Gautam Sarabhai
Gautam Sarabhai Chairman, NID Governing Council Gira Sarabhai
Chairman, Sarabhai Chemicals,
Ahmedabad. Members Members

Members Gira Sarabhai H. K. Vyas

Chairman, NID Directing Board Design Director and Dean of Studies

Pupul Jayakar Jayakrishna Harivallabhdas P. B. Bhagwat

Chairman, Handicrafts & Handlooms Member, NID Governing Council Landscape Architect and
Exports Corporation of India Ltd., Regional Planner
New Delhi. L. R. Dalal
Member, NID Governing Council M. W. Date
S. Ratnam Workshop Superintendent
Financial Controller, Delhi Cloth & General Shrenik Kasturbhai
Mills Co., Ltd., Delhi. Managing Director Dashrath Patel
Anil Starch Products Ltd. Design Director
K. I. Vidyasagar Ahmedabad
Jt. Secretary to the Government of India, N. V. L. Narasimhan
Ministry of Industrial Development and Secretary
Company Affairs, New Delhi.

Narottam Jhaveri
Ex-officio, Mayor,
Municipal Corporation, Ahmedabad.

L. R. Dalal
Ex-officio, Chief Secretary,
Government of Gujarat, Ahmedabad.

J. J. Bhabha
Director, The Tata Industries Pvt. Ltd.,
Bombay.

Jayakrishna Harivallabhdas
Chairman and Managing Director,
Shree Ambica Mills Ltd., Ahmedabad.

M. A. Wadud
Director-in-Charge, GOVERNING COUNCIL
The Tata Oil Mills Ltd., Bombay.

DIRECTING BOARD STAFF AND

PROGRAMMES COMMITTEE

ADMINISTRATION WORKSHOPS LIBRARY DESIGN SERVICE

Stores and Purchase Wood Printing Prototype collection Design Analysis

Accounts Metal Photography Field work Development
Estate Management Plastic Cinematography Engineering
Textiles Ceramics Systems Engineering
Construction Engineering

VISUAL COMMUNICATION PRODUCT DESIGN

Graphic Design Product Design Engineering

Typography Furniture Design
Photography Textile Design
Still and Cine Ceramic Design
Exhibition Design Industrialised Architecture
Faculty
Visual Communication Visiting Instructor Technicians
• Zettler Lutz
Design Director Diploma in Ceramics (W. Germany) • Shrikant Shinde
Licenciate in Printing Technology, Madras.
• Dashrath G. Patel Technician • Vinesh Mody
Diploma in Fine Arts (Painting), Madras • P. K. Ghosh Diploma in Printing, Bombay.
Post-Graduate Diploma in Ceramics B. Sc. (Calcutta), Diploma in Ceramic • Thomas Koshy
(Czechoslovakia) Technology (Calcutta), Post-Graduate Diploma in Printing, Bombay.
Diploma in Ceramics (Leeds, UK), • Santanu Lahiri
Designers M. Phil. (Leeds, UK) L. P. G. A. Diploma in Printing, Calcutta.
• H. P. Vyasa • J. K. Basu
• Benoy Sarkar M. Sc. (Ahmedabad) L. P. G. A. Diploma in Printing, Calcutta.
Master of Fine Arts, Yale University, USA • D. P. Sen
• I. B. Patel Textiles L. P.G. A. Diploma in Printing, Calcutta.
B. A. (Fine Arts), Baroda. • D. B. Mistry
• Vikas Satwalekar Visiting Instructor S. S. C. (Ahmedabad)
B. A. (English), Bombay. • Helena Perheentupa • H. Lopez
• Mahendra C. Patel Graduate in Industrial Design (Finland) S. S. C. (Karwar)
B. A. (Fine Arts), Baroda. • N. B. Pawar
• M. C. Gajjar Technicians S. S. C. (Ahmedabad)
Diploma in Fine Arts, Baroda. • B. M. Anand • R. P. Khopkar
Diploma in Textile Technology (Punjab) S. S. C. (Ahmedabad)
Photography • H. P. Vyasa • L. B. Marshetwar
• P. M. Dalwadi M. Sc. (Ahmedabad), Diploma in Textile
B. A. (Fine Arts), Baroda. Chemistry (Ahmedabad) Library
• V. D. Sumant,
Cinematography D. T. C. (Ahmedabad). • Prem Bhalla
• I. S. Mathur B. A. (Punjab)
Diploma in Cinematography, Madras. Architecture & Planning • P. J. Augustine
S. S. C. (Kerala)
Sound Landscape Architect and Regional Planner
• I. S. Mathur • P. B. Bhagwat Part time Faculty
Diploma in Cinematography, Madras. B. Sc. (Agri.) Hons., Poona
• S. C. Sharma Dip. in Landscape Design (Durham)
Diploma in Cinema Post-Graduate Diploma in Regional Design
(Sound Engineering), Poona. Planning (Kharagpur) • Gautam Sarabhai
F. I. L. A. (U.K), A I. T. P. M. A. (Cantab)
Product Design (Engineering)
Architects Product Design (Engineering)
Design Director • M. S, Satsangi • N.G. Mavlankar, Consulting Engineer
B. Arch. (Hons), Kharagpur Dip. Ing. (W. Germany)
• H. K. Vyas • Renee Doring
M.S.I.A. (London) B. Arch. Baroda. English, French & German
• J. Pandya • Chaturlakshmiben Trivedi
Instructor B. Arch. Baroda. M. A. (Oxon)
• Yasmin F. Cambatta
• J. A. Panchal Draftsmen M. A. (English), Bombay
Diploma in Mechanical Engineering • V. S. Mistry
Ahmedabad. • J. S. Mistry History of Culture
• • Dr. Panubhai Bhatt, Ph. D.
Product Design (Furniture) Building Construction Ahmedabad.
• P. K. Dalia
Visiting Instructor Diploma in Civil Engineering, Ahmedabad Music
• Geeta Mayor
• Rolf Misol Workshops Sangeet Visharad
Post-Graduate Diploma in Furniture Marris College of Hindusthani Music,
(W. Germany) Workshop Superintendent Lucknow.
• M. W. Date
Assistant B. E. (Ahmedabad), B. Sc. (Tech.) Social Psychology and Gestalt Theory
• Nilendu K. Shah Manchester • Dr. Bhopatkar, Ph. D.
B. Arch. Baroda. School of Psychology
Printing Superintendent Gujarat University
Ceramics Ahmedabad.
• R. K. Banerjee
Designer Dip. in Printing Technology and Costing
Management (Manchester), Certificate in • S. P. Shah
• Dashrath G. Patel Photolithography and Lithography from Honorary Director
Post-Graduate Diploma in Ceramics City and Guilds Institute (London) Navgujarat Commerce & Law College
(Czechoslovakia) Affiliate Member, Printing Institute, U. K. Ahmedabad.

Product Design (Engineering)
Product Design (Furniture)
Ceramics
Textile Design
Visual Communication
Visiting Consultants
James Prestini, B. S.
Hans Gugelot Late
E. Reichl
Herbert Lindinger
Brig. K. Pennathur
Dr. G. G. Kalthode, Ph. D.
Arno Votteler
DID, Diploma in Applied
Arts, Stuttgart.
George Nakashima
P. P. Hancock
Hans Theo Baumann
Dip. in Ceramic Design
from Salone International
Ceramics, Venice.
Tapio Wirkkala
Certificate from Industrial
Art Institute, Helsinki
S.Ray
M. Sc. (Calcutta)
Haico Nitzsche
Master’s Degree in
Ceramics (Germany)
Nelly Sethna
Graduate, Central
School of Art, London.
Diploma in Textile Design
from Cranbrook Academy
of Fine Arts, USA
Photography
Christian Staub
Robert Anderson
Assignment at NID
Professor of Design, Workshop planning and
University of California, library
Berkeley.
Lecturer, Hochschule fur Formulation of the Product
Gestaltung, Ulm. Founder, Design course
Institut fur Produktun-
twicklung, Neu Ulm,
W. Germany.
Director, Institut fur Product Development
Produktuntwicklung, Engineering
Neu Ulm, W.Germany
Institut fur Umweltgestaltung, Evaluation of the Product
Frankfurt. Design course
Former Executive Director, Ergonomics
All India Management
Association, Delhi.
Actg. Principal, Plastic Technology
V. J. Technical Institute,
Bombay.
Head, Department of Formulation of the Furniture
Applied Arts, Staatliche Design course
Hochschule fur Bildende
Kunste, Braunschweig,
W. Germany.
Architect & Furniture A Furniture range
Designer, USA from wood.
Tutor, Royal College Wood working
of Art, London.
Ceramic Designer Formulation of the Ceramic
Design course
Industrial Designer Design for Handicrafts
Finland
Former Principal, College of Technical Consultant
Ceramic Technology, Calcutta.
Assistant to Stig Lindberg, Ceramic Technician
Director, Aktiebolaget
Gustavsbergs Fabriker,
Sweden
Setting up of the
Textile Department
Lecturer in Photography, Formulation of the
Hochschule fur Gestaltung, Photography course
Neu Ulm, W. Germany
Charles Eames’ Studio, Dark-room Technique
California.
 Henri Cartier-Bresson Founder Member ‘Magnum’ Guest Photographer
Animation Film
Leo Lionni, Ph. D. Design Consultant Animation Design
G. Gianini Cameraman Animation
Cinematography
Subrato Mitra, Calcutta
Sound
David Tudor Electronic music
composition

Exhibition Design Charles Eames Design Consultant, California.

Ray Eames Design Consultant, California.
Alexander Girard Design Consultant, New Mexico.
Glen Fleck Eames’ Studio, California.
Bob Staples Eames’ Studio, California.
Deborah Sussman Eames’ Studio, California.
Ivan ChermayefF Design Consultant, New York.
Dr. Frei Otto Director, Institut fur Leichte Exhibition Structures
Flaechentragwerke, Techni-
Editorial sche, Stuttgart, W. Germany.
H. Y. Sharda Prasad
Mrs. Sheela Dhar
Miss Chandralekha

Basic Design Jesse Reichek Professor of Design, College Basic Design Course
of Environmental Design,
University of California, Calif.
Richard Berteaux
A. B. (UCLA), Basic Design Course
B. Arch. (Univ. of Calif.)

Graphic Design Armin Hofmann Head of the Department for Formulation of the Graphic
Graphic Design, Allgemeine Design course
Gewerbeschule, Basel.
Fridolin Muller Art Director, Grafiker Course in Graphics
SWB, Zurich.
I. Biesele Professor, Graphic Design, Course in Graphics
Allgemeine Gewerbeschule,
Basel, Switzerland.
Bob Gill Design Consultant and Advertising and public
Lecturer, Royal information campaign
College of Art, London.
Typography
A. Frutiger Lecturer, Ecole Estienne, Paris. Type Design
Bruno Pfaffli Teacher, Typography Design, Type Design
Mastership in Typography, Academy of Plastic Arts,
Basel. and National School, Paris.
Peter Teubner Lecturer, Typography, Typography
Diploma in Typography, Allgemeine Gewerbeschule,
Basel. Basel.
H. C. Pulver, Lecturer, Typography, Typography
Diploma in Typography, Allgemeine Gewerbeschule,
Basel. Basel.
Printing M. C. Patel
B. Sc. Bombay
Diploma in Photo Engraving
and Commercial Photogrphy
(London), AMRPS
Manfred Merz
Diploma in Printing,
Switzerland.
Eduard Schmid
Dip. in Block-making,
Switzerland.
Documentation Dr. Eberhard Fischer
Ph. D. (Ethnology), Basel.
Architecture & Structure Louis I. Kahn
F.A. I. A., A. I. A.
Claude Stoller
B. Arch. A. I. A.
California, Berkeley.
Harry Weese
B. Arch. (M.I. T.),
A.I. A, F.A.I. A.
Dr. Enrico Peressutti
Dr. Arch.
H. Kosina
B. V. Doshi
A. R. I. B. A, A. I. A.
G. S. Ramaswamy
B. E. (Hons), C. E. (Hons),
M. S. (Cal. Tech.), C. E.
(Cal. Tech.), M. I. E. (Ind.),
M. I.A. S. S.
M. Ramaiah
B. A., B. E. (Hons.),
M. Tech. (Struct. E.),
M.I. A.S.S., A.M.I.B.
(India), M. A.C.I.
Zacharia George
Dip. C. E., Dip. en B. P. M.
Soc. C. E. (France)
S. P. Sharma
B. Sc. (Engg ) Hons.,
D. I. C, Ph. D. (London)
M.I. A. S.S., A.M. I.E.
(India), M. A.C.I., M.I. A.
B.S.E..M. C.S.I.
Mahendra Raj
B. E. M. S. (Minn),
C. E. (Columbia),
M. A. S. C. E. M. A. C. I.
Research Assistant, Musee
Ethnographique, Basel.
Professor of Architecture,
University of Pennsylvania,
Philadelphia, USA.
Professor, College of
Architecture, University of
Harry Weese & Associates,
Chicago.
Studio Archittetti
BPPR, Milano, Italy.
Architect BDA, Airport
Planning Consultant,
Munchen, W. Germany.
Director, School of
Architecture, Ahmedabad.
Director, Structural
Engineering Research
Centre, Roorkee.
Scientist, Structural
Engineering Research
Centre, Roorkee.
Scientist, Structural
Engineering Research
Centre, Roorkee.
Scientist, Structural
Engineering Research
Centre, Roorkee.
Consultant
Structural Engineering,
Bombay.
Selection of Printing
machinery
Offset Printing
Process Camera, Plate
making, Block making.
Documentation
Design of a college Campus
Design of housing
Design of an office and
residential building
Airport Planning.
Design of a college Campus
Design of an Exhibition
Pavellion
Structural design of NID
building and Exhibition
pavillions
Structural design of NID
building
Structural design of NID
building
Structural design of NID
building
Structural
Engineering
Special Lectures and Seminars held at NID
Subject Name
Geodesic Structures Buckminster Fuller

Architecture to-day Maxwell Fry

Music Composition John Cage

Pop Art Robert Rauschenberg

Indian Art Stella Kramarisch

Seminar on Housing and Family Life Mrs. Manu Desai and Viswanathan.

Social Science

Devanagari Script L. S. Wakankar

Timber Engineering Capt. Masani

Client Relationship Dr. Kamala Chaudhury,

Psychology

Industrialised Building Colin Rosser

The Language of Music Dr. Narayana Menon

Beads and the role they play in human Joan Erikson

environment

Landscape Architecture Antony Womsley

Indian Paintings Dr. Anand Krishna

Painters Vision of Nature Roy C. Craven

Town Planning in England-Past and Alec Clifton Taylor

Present

Calcutta Metropolitan Dr. Zenan A. Zielinski

Planning Organisation

Experimental Films in USA Donald Richie

Industrial Design in Germany Jorg Glosennop

Family Planning Seminar Bob Gill, Design Consultant

Dr. M. S. Gore, Social Science
Indira Bhanot, Demography
Prof. I. P. Desai, Sociology
Dr. K. N. Kulshresta, Gynaecology
Dr. A.K. Rice, Human Relations
Prof. P.G. Mavlankar, Political Science
J. C. Kavoori, Community Development
Dr. Panu Bhatt, Religion
Dr. Ramanujam, Psychiatry
Dr. K. K. Anand, Psychology
Kamalani Sarabhai, Psychology
Saroj Mehta, Sociology

Bauhaus Jack Pritchard

Works of Saul Bass Saul Bass

Experiments in Art & Technology Dr. J. W. Kluver

President, EAT, New York
Plan for Education
There are a number of educational
institutions in India which offer courses in
various fields of design. NID aims at
providing experience to graduate
students which is complementary to that
gained in other institutions and not at
duplicating training in areas already
covered by them. Students who have
already received a degree or diploma
from other institutions in any of the
related subjects, e. g., Architecture.
Commercial Art, Engineering etc. are
offered further training at a post-gradu-
ate level at NID to cover the knowledge
and skill which are a necessary part of
the designer’s professional equipment.
Educational Status of Entering Students
Students who come to NID for further
training in Architecture are architectural a The following excerpt from the report of
graduates who have completed five
years of education in one of the existing
architectural departments of Indian
university. Students in the department of
Visual Communication are usually those
who have completed four years of
studies in other institutions leading to a
degree or diploma in Commercial or Fine
Arts. Product Design students are degree
or diploma holders in Engineering or
Architecture, but have had no previous
education in Product Design, as no
facilities exist in any other Indian
institution.
The standard of education offered by
other institutions in India in each of the
three broad areas of design is not
uniform. Moreover, there are seldom
opportunities for students in Architecture
or Commercial Art to participate in
programmes in other design fields.
Theoretical studies
Theoretical courses in Architecture are
perhaps the best organised. Next comes
courses in Applied or Commercial Art.
While listed courses are fairly compre-
hensive in extent, in actual practice they
often lack content and depth. As far as
Product Design is concerned, no formal
courses are offered by any Indian
institution.
Studio work
While studio work in Architecture is more
satisfactory, that in Commercial Art tends
to be limited both in the systematic
b If their horizon is to be widened, the
development of various themes and in the
quality of execution.
Skills and experience with material and
production methods
Students who come to NID have hardly
had any opportunities during their
undergraduate studies to experience at
first hand the capabilities and limitations
of present day materials and technologi-
cal processes.
Practical training
Some schools of Architecture do not
require any practical training as a
prerequisite for graduation and others
require only six months. This is not a
requirement of any of the Commercial
Art schools either.
Educational Programme at NID
Since students who come for training in
the three broad areas vary so vastly in
the degree of knowledge and skill in the
fields of specialization they wish to
pursue, the programme and content of
work at NID in the three areas has
necessarily to be planned differently.
There are, however, some basic consid-
erations common to them.
the Royal Institute of British Architects
has relevance not only to education in
Architecture but to all fields of design in
India as well:
“Architects alone of the professions
demand a full five-year academic course.
Medicine which is perhaps the profession
with the closest parallel to Architecture,
has a shorter period of academic training
separate from practice. A sense of
lassitude and unreality afflicts many
architectural students about the end of
the third year. At this stage, the course
seems interminable and remote from
life, and studio work a set of ‘pretty
pictures’.
“For the same reason, methods of
teaching and the content of the courses
are liable to produce symptoms of
anaemia. The teachers cannot assume
enough first hand contact by the students
with real design and building problems.
This makes it more difficult to bring the
teaching to life.
“It is impossible to consider the aims and
organisation of practical training outside
the schools without looking at the
relation of this to the work of the schools
themselves. The two form a part of one
indivisible and continuous process of
education and training. The present
arrangements which separate them into
watertight compartments have led to
unfortunate results.”*
programme at NID must expose stu-
dents to design problems in widely
diversified areas, while enabling them to
pursue their special interests more
intensively.
c “The interdependence between design
and production must be considered.
Today, applied art works primarily in the
service of industrial mass production.
The modernization and rationalisation of
designing methods, the use of more
refined instruments and the introduction
of more efficient machines are not in
themselves enough to complete the
transition from production by craftsmen
to production by machines in a satis-
factory way. We must realign our whole
way of thinking if we are to achieve unity
between our creative idea and its
realisation under the changed circum-
stances.”**
d There is need to encourage students to
acquaint themselves with basic concepts
of other disciplines—Systems Engine-
ering, Cybernetics, Operational Re-
search, Gestalt Psychology, Information
Theory etc.
Theoretical studies
The aim of theoretical courses is prima-
rily to produce the right attitude of mind
and not to attempt to cover all the
subject matter which a designer may
need in his practice. It would be unfruitful
duplication for students at NID to attend
courses that cover the same ground once
again as in their previous undergraduate
training. NID, therefore, seeks mainly to
provide special facilities to graduate
students of Architecture for further
studies in depth in particular subjects.
Students in the Visual Communication
Department need some additional
theoretical grounding, while those in the
Product Design Department, a compre-
hensive basic course in Product Design.
Studio work
A systematic programme of graded
exercises is planned for students of the
Visual Communication and Product
Design Departments so as to enhance
their understanding and improve the
quality of their work.
Skills and experience with materials and
processes
Since sketching, drafting and photogra-
phy are the basic languages of design, all
students have opportunities to gain
working facility in these skills.
Their understanding of the interdepen-
dence between design and production is
increased by working in the well-
equipped workshops for wood, plastics,
metal, ceramics, glass, textiles and
printing, and laboratories for photogra-
phy, animated film and sound. The aim is
not to turn out expert technicians; the
emphasis is on the acquisition of some
basic skills and familiarity with produc-
tion methods.
* The Practical Training of Architects
by Elizabeth Layton
** Graphic Design Manual
by Armin Hofmann
Practical training
NID alone of all schools in India,
provides opportunities to students to
gain practical experience which is the
most significant lack in their previous
training. In England, practical training is
provided by making students work in
design offices. “Some offices because
of their size, type of organisation or the
personal profit of some individual
members, may give admirable training.
Some students have the initiative to
train themselves, but, by and large,
offices do not give the students the
opportunities of the varied experience
they need.”* The primary task of an
office is practice, not education. The
uniqueness of the programme at NID
lies in the fact that it utilises the
practice situation as an educational
tool. It seeks and accepts professional
assignments in architecture, objects of
use, graphic design, exhibition, display,
photography and short films from
clients, as a means of giving practical
experience to students by associating
them with mature designers in the
solution of real problems. But while in
each such assignment, professional
service is rendered to particular
clients, the primary task is education
and the primary beneficiaries, the
students.
Research projects undertaken by post-
graduate students under the guidance
of consultants also provide valuable
opportunities for practical training.
The model of clinical training offered to
medical students is largely applicable to
the practical training offered to students
at NID. “During the clinical period,
students are mainly hospital-based and
are brought into contact with medical,
surgical and other categories of patients
under supervision. For this purpose,
they are attached to what are known in
hospitals as ‘firms’. These are small
groups, each headed by an established
consultant and two or three registrars
who hope to become consultants.
Groups of students move from one ‘firm’
to another to gain varied experiences.”*
The value of the programme of practi-
cal training at NID is naturally directly
proportional to the eminence of the
design consultants who are invited to
head each of the project teams.
Indian Faculty Members
It has not been easy to get Indian staff
members with the requisite qualifications
and experience for all branches of the
programme. In many instances, a
decision has had to be taken to recruit
the candidate with the best potential
and then to plan to provide him with
opportunities to broaden his base,
increase his skills and insights and to
sharpen his sensitivity. There are no
easy or standard short-cut methods of
achieving this, and the programme for
each faculty member has to be tailored
to match his needs. There is also the
added risk of a high ‘casualty’ rate
amongst those selected for training.
Foreign Consultants
There is no single university or institution
abroad for design education which lends
itself to be adopted as a model for the
Indian situation. Instead, : individual
design teachers and consultants from
abroad who have an established reputa-
tion for work in specialised fields of
design have to be located and their
assistance sought for ‘training’ future
faculty members and for assisting in
developing a programme suitable to
India’s special needs. The effectiveness
of this approach to the problem depends
on the quality of the foreign consultants.
It has been found more profitable to
invite the participation of an outstanding
design consultant even for a short
period, rather than the long-term partici-
pation of an ordinary design teacher.
When other professional commitments
in his own country make it impossible for
a prolonged stay at NID in India, his
participation is made more effective by
a Inviting the same consultant to pay
repeated visits over a period of two or
three years while the programme is
being developed and while the future
Indian teachers are being ‘trained’ on the
job at NID.
b Arranging for visits by the associates of
the design consultant specialising in
different but related fields,
c Employing an assistant of the design
consultant to work at NID for a period of
one to two years, so that continuity in
training can be maintained during the
design consultant’s absence from India,
and
d Deputing Indian staff members at the
appropriate time to work with the design
consultant in his institution abroad.
Specific steps are being taken in each of
the three fields of design for evolving a
programme of work and developing the
necessary personnel resources to
undertake the programme with Indian
staff members, some of whom have
already ‘arrived’ and others who are
being offered in-service training to
enable them to assume teaching respon-
sibilities in the future.
• The Practical Training of Architects
by Elizabeth Layton
• The Practical Training of Architects
by Elizabeth Layton