Green perspectives in architecture

Today's Property Plus supplement in The Hindu, Chennai edition, has readable articles on ethical decisions in modern living.

"How frugal are appliances?" That question is posed by Biju Govind, who then follows it up by providing some answers in the form of Bureau of Energy Efficiency tests on electrical appliances.

There is also a delightful article on garden houses in Chennai by Madhavi Desai, exploring the intersection of the bungalow type of building with the European villa style, resulting in a grand structure that nestles in a huge tree-filled garden with tall ceilings and a vivid white exterior.

Is it all too vulgar and elitist? Perhaps, from a historical perspective. In the latter day, can it be varied to provide aesthetic alternatives that include subaltern feelings?



Meanwhile, here is an interesting story on use of solar energy in Seville, Spain narrated by the BBC, and linked to by many architecture websites.

Chennai's suburban splendour

The real estate market in Chennai has been cooling off a little, after soaring to dizzy heights over the last year.

Some of the evidence for the slowdown is in the higher volume of advertising for upmarket properties in The Hindu's Property Plus supplement. Some of the properties on offer have been advertised now for weeks together, indicating that there may be overpriced supply, if not oversupply.

One of the big ticket builders is ETA Star of Dubai, which has been advertising Jasmine Court at the Poonamallee end of the Mount - Poonamallee Road.

Here is a view of the project being advertised by the promoter:



One of the key things to bear in mind is the absence of sewerage and piped water supply in such suburban havens. There are almost no good schools or colleges in a radius of 5 km, although this property refers to the Ramachandra Medical College and Research Institute (about 2 km away) as a facility available nearby.

When Paris Hilton is off the road

"I do not expect to be treated better than anyone else who violated probation. However, my hope is that I will not be treated worse," says Paris Hilton, as quoted by TIME magazine.

What a pity that some countries take their driving norms seriously and send people to jail for driving on a suspended licence during probation.

All that such people need to do is take a flight to India, where people are never ever penalised for the way they drive or cause accidents due to their rash and negligent behaviour. Why driving norms, in this land of holy cows, the holiest cow is the motor car! Next only in importance is the motorised two-wheeler. If you have one, you can violate all rules, starting with red lights.

What a shame that Paris has to wear an orange jumpsuit and spend time in jail, when her daddy has kept a fortune for her. India chalo bhai! Here is where you enjoy life, with S Class Mercedeses, Audis, BMWs, Honda SUVs, Toyota Camrys and many more machines all zipping through shanty towns, on dusty roads lined with open toilets.

And if you are Paris Hilton at the wheel, you can get prime time attention on all our fantastic news television channels that are desperate for celebrity sound bites. If you are caught DUI, you just fork out ten notes to the cop team and they will give you a salute. If you are too drunk to notice people and end up killing someone, just raise your compensation package a little. But never, ever, will you go to jail for such silly reasons.

"East is East and West is West. Never the twain shall meet"

An incompatible mix? Nokia PC Suite, 6101 and Dell's Dimension E520

I recently installed a Dell Dimension E520 desktop running some really muscular hardware - A dual core processor, 1 GB of DDR2 RAM, A 256 MB Nvidia DDR2 Graphics Card - all powering the new-fangled Microsoft bundled OS, Windows Vista Home Premium (aero interface).

As many of us Vista owners now know, MS has sold a product that is still work in progress. It does not add anything revolutionary to XP functionality but forces you to fork in a lot of money on additional hardware. What is worse, it has huge gaping holes where it should have had drivers for the most common devices that we use with PCs - mobile phones and MP3 players. (Microsoft acknowledges indirectly that there is a problem in this instructional article on its website). The poor compatibility of Vista with iTunes and iPods is universally known. Disappointingly, Vista does not even have drivers to recognise mass storage devices. I found that out when I tried to connect an APRO MP3 player to the new OS and was rejected. I then installed a driver from the manufacturer's website and it has worked so far.

My Nokia 6101 mobile phone experience is a new low point for Vista. I installed the latest version of Nokia's somewhat tacky PC software, PC Suite (v 6.83), which the phone makers says is compatible with Vista 32 and 64 bit editions. Not so.

The OS simply would not recognise the phone, although I had used the same phone successfully with Win XP, connecting with the same CA 42 cable (bought not from Nokia but from third party manufacturer on Chennai's famed Ritchie Street for a tenth of Nokia's rip-off price).

I then uninstalled this 'latest' compatible version of PC Suite and installed an earlier version that is pre-Vista. Voila! The phone was recognised by Vista, but it would not let me copy files from the camera's storage on to my PC. I had to open each file separately and make a copy. No Ctrl C and Ctrl V option available.

What a crummy piece of software to be touted as the world-leading OS! I think this would be a good subject for the next Get-a-Mac advertisement from Apple. And shame on a profit-hungry Nokia for producing such inferior connectivity software that obviously has not had much of an interaction with Microsoft to make it easier for the user.

Chennai's unapproved plans and multi-crore real estate speculators

These are times when land suddenly appears covered not with the arid dust of the coromandel coast, but the glitter of gold.

Almost every page of The Hindu's Property Plus has giant advertisements promising 'nirvana' to the wealthy, in the form of gated communities and villas that have tranquil pathways that disappear into misty woodland. This idyllic promise further throws in chirping birds that will wake you up, storks and swans magically appearing in azure waterbodies sending you into a dream-like state. (As many are aware, these are all stock photo images of European and other first world countrysides).

What happened to all the slums, the open sewers such as the Cooum, the Buckingham canal, the Adyar, the Mambalam canal, the human excreta on the road, the felled trees, the blistering heat of the concrete cosmos, the autorickshaws without silencers, the careening MTC buses and the insane call taxi drivers, you wonder. Is this a dream or is this a scene from the virtual world of Second Life?

Buyer, beware. This is a paradise on not even high quality paper, but on newsprint. These vistas are like scenes on Microsoft's Windows Vista aero dreamscapes, floating ethereally on your TFT screens, but never tangible.

There are big names in the real estate advertisements - Hiranandani Upscale on Old Mahabalipuram Road (what else can the projects be called but Greenwood and Bridgewood?), Palm, which offers Rs.71 lakh-plus villas in Medavakkam, Puravankara's Purva Swanlake on OMR, and Sai Surya in Pallikaranai, Chennai's chosen spot for chemical and garbage dumping and burning.

It would be wise to see if these big names have a copy of the CMDA-approved plan available at their office, before forking out your saved / borrowed money. There are reports that many builders have their applications waiting in the dark and inscrutable corridors of the "regularisation"-friendly Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority as "negotiations" go on. As we all have seen, the CMDA is an oxymoronic body that has repeatedly dealt devastating blows to Chennai's quality of life through corrupt dealings with property developers and big money interests, example the T.Nagar shopping area.

Why suffer in a property meltdown later? Property buyers are discovering in the US that they were sold houses by unscrupulous builders at inflated rates and they are now unable to repay their loans due to the economic slowdown. They are now suing the developers. But in India, it is the money bags that rule. So why burn your fingers?

Here is an extract from a Wall Street Journal story today on this issue --

As Market Cools, Home Buyers Seek a Way Out
By Michael Corkery and Ruth Simon

In the latest fallout from the housing market's decline, disputes are breaking out between builders and buyers who signed contracts for new homes and condos when the market was hot -- and now want to get out of them.

Even as many of the new buildings are completed, buyers are filing lawsuits claiming they were duped into purchases they couldn't afford, or victimized through fraudulent investment schemes. Some are scrutinizing their contracts looking for loopholes, or searching out tiny flaws in finished homes that might allow them to back out without losing their deposits.

-- So don't fall for claims. Do verify.