Last week 30th October, marked 5 years since my presentation of Master Thesis at Delft where I received a degree in ‘Master in Building technology’ with an annotation in ‘Technology in Sustainable Development’ as a graduation gift.
Surrounded by friends and mentors, I remember the day as if it were yesterday. While I was reflecting on my journey after that moment, I thought of sharing it with a wider audience. I am thrilled to walk you through the short but exciting journey with some of my reflections and learnings through a series of quick-read posts.
In posts to follow, I will be sharing shorter posts about my journey, my key learnings on BIM, Sustainability, Façade Architecture, my view of working in the Netherlands and in India. Hope you enjoy reading these, and I look forward to hearing your thoughts.
5 Places lived in:
Delft, Groningen, Zwolle, (Netherlands)
Mumbai, Hyderabad (India)
5 Places worked in:
Delft, Breda, Staphorst, (Netherlands)
Mumbai, Hyderabad (India)
10 Project location cities:
Amsterdam (Netherlands),
Dublin (Ireland),
Croydon (UK),
Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Surat (India)
Right after graduation:
Initially, post graduating, I took a small break to travel around in my home country, India, and in Europe. This break was also mandatory to build a portfolio of selected works for employers’ consideration. Alongside traveling and building a portfolio, I lived and worked out of Delft, taking up freelancing works at architect’s offices via STUD- a University organization that connects students and fresh graduates with employers. These were mainly interior works, where I was helping with 3-D visualizations. A part of these freelancing works also entailed handling clients within the hospitality industry. I would realize after many years, how much this experience taught me to deal with client expectations and reading between the lines from a client language- tools important in a service industry, second to expert knowledge. There also came a requirement to work pro-bono for an NGO school in Bihar. By actively participating in the design discussions for expansion was I achieved immense satisfaction knowing that with my knowledge, I was able to provide help where it was needed.
My focus for the future, however, was to explore more into sustainability and façade techniques and this is what I build my portfolio to reflect.
Work experience in the Netherlands
I started at an SME called APS Facades, an engineering company consisting of four employees at the Dutch head office and a few more at their Bosnian office. This was my initial exposure to the real world of facades. I started out with understanding the façade systems and details and I immediately realized that there was so much to learn. It turned out to be a short stint as I have Indian nationality and the company was not registered with the government to employ foreigners.
I then moved to Rollecate, a fabrication, and installation company located at Staphorst, a countryside located in Eastern Netherlands. As a person who is born and brought up in Mumbai’s fast pace cosmopolitan life, the gradual move to Staphorst was a different experience and a fresh change. It was the first-time seeing cows and horses from the workplace. Also, the first time that I had started to converse in a language that I wasn’t raised with.
Apart from language learning, my colleagues supported me in learning also a whole world of designing, estimation, fabrication, and installation of façade systems and all the complications that come with it. The advantage of working from the head office also meant that the factory was within the campus. This provided ample opportunities to view the elements I helped in designing. The testing facilities further improved my design and estimation skills to a great deal.
During my tenure, the Rollecate also took over Kolf en Molijn, and I had a chance to visit their Factory, where saw and studied many innovative façade samples with challenging engineering. The factory also had state-of-the-art equipment for faster fabrication and larger facilities for storage. I continued working at Rollecate till February 2018, after which I decided to move back to my home country and be closer to family.
Work experience in India
I decided to move to Mumbai where my family lived. After moving back, I started with learning sustainability issues in India and cleared the examination for IGBC-AP certification. I started with consulting at Façade architectural designing, for an architect and sustainable development for holiday homes for a developer in Mumbai. I also played with ideas of implementing Urban Farming and its impact on office HVAC, with the help of professor Dr. Pradeep from IIT Bombay. I parked this thought when I got a job offer at FACET Façade consultancy in Hyderabad.
At FACET the learning continued in a holistic way of design and development of façade systems. Here, I continued working closely with architects and helping them shape their visualizations into engineered systems. I also got a larger exposure to working in India, where the design phase in projects is much faster-paced, compared to my experience in Europe. Here, the need to work much more closely with different contractors and suppliers became more evident, especially with new materials.
Since I had worked at L&T as an architect before moving to the Netherlands, some ways of working in the Indian market were known to me. Good base knowledge of facades is important within the service industry, but also the presentation of the concept to the client and architects. Being an architect myself, it was easy to understand the architectural point of view. Because of this, I was also able to guide the team so we could deliver high-quality design within the architectural framework.
With more and more clients requiring LEED or GRIHA rated buildings, my ability to visualize the façade performance requirements further improved. This also helped me in guiding the architects and clients to select a product range at the design stage.
In the posts to follow:
In the posts to follow, I will also be penning down my thoughts on my learnings about BIM, Sustainability, Façade, Architecture, working in India, Working abroad.
I am thinking aloud, and hope you enjoyed reading it. Do let me know your views, and suggestions on any topic you want me to cover.
Photodate: 30th October, 2015