Our projects evolve out of meaningful Convergence of People, Places, Culture, Climate, Ecology & Economics
‘The BlackBox Series’, is Collaborative Architecture’s ongoing investigations in the experimental realm of spaces; what Lalita and Mujib term as ‘experiential speculations’. These fall into the category of pure spatial speculations, the studio has been pre-occupied with to challenge the conventional means of conceiving and producing architectural spaces. Jaquar Group collaborated with Lalita to realise the first of the Black Box Series- Levitation, showcasing a selected range from Jaquar’s Lighting series.
In Levitation, Lalita explores the idea of ‘absence’, where perceptive tools are suspended, negated and manipulated, forcing the visitors to deploy new ways of identifying and perceiving the space. The space is painted with Stuart Semple’s Black 3.0, paint that absorbs 99% of visible spectrum off lights, challenging the visitors’ perceptive faculties, effectively destroying / distorting the architectural space. Water, not only acts like a ‘spatial decoder’, but, it also refers to Jaquar’s successful association with the element (Jaquar is one of the largest sanitary manufacturers in Asia)
The Amazon fire in august 2019, captivated the world, and drew our urgent attention again on the global climate crisis and its devastating effects on ecology, biodiversity, regional / global weather pattern and how our choices are enmeshed in a detrimental way in amplifying these. 2019, saw a deep spike in the Amazon fire; 84% increase, with an over-all 74,000 instances of fire. The installation draws the critical relevance of the Amazon to the planet earth, and how important is to preserve it, to prevent a catastrophic and irreversible, climate change. The Amazon rainforest holds the equivalent of 10 years’ worth of global greenhouse gas emissions. It also accounts for 20% oxygen generation on the surface of earth; an overall 6% oxygen generation on the planet’s atmosphere. The Amazon has already lost 17% of its forest cover due to anthroprocene. According to scientists, 20-25% loss would be the tipping point, where an epic ecological disaster of no return, if we do not urgently alter the course.
Who’s /steik/? looks at the probable reason for this manmade catastrophe. Interestingly, like any good riddle, the answer is the question. 80% the deforestation of the Amazon is due to cattle ranching, as Brazil has recently become the largest exporter of meat in the world. A stark reminder that how globalisation, increase in affluence in developing countries and irresponsible consumerism, devastate the planet’s ecology, in seemingly disconnected and unfathomable ways.
