A trip to Cochin

It was a short trip to Kerala for a typical Mallu wedding. Guruvayur temple is one of the sacred palces for most Mallu's. This is approximately a two hour drive from cochin airport.
My trip was just 2 nights hopping from guruvayur to ernakulum. I experienced the most colourful sunset on a jetty ride one evening which is strangely named as marine drive boating. Sipping on some hot coffee which had a froth layer giving the aroma one would die for his is a must try. The banana bajiya, are a bit too sweet but best accompanied with tea and coffee. You would typically find a pleasant weather around this time of the year... we even caught our first monsoons for the year. We also visited a goddess temple which had arti timings every 15 min...this does make ur life difficult to get the darshan immediately. Overall colourful old style architectural houses and lush green landscapes are pleasant for long drives. One can even drive to Munnar and stay in a boathouse bu definately pre-bookings are recommended. Food is definately good at typical restaurants serving a variety of veg and nonveg food...especially sea food is good.
Overall one can also shop for many typical south indian things like samai (diya to light with oil), silk sarees, some heavy gold temple jewellery....dnt miss on these things while u r on a holiday.

Visual Communication

Kolor

The kolor project is a conscious way in which you look at a particular colour. Hence the word is also deliberately spelt differently.

Colour, all said and done is what you believe in. Though it carries it's own connotation and means differently in many regions. A Colour makes and breaks the way we communicate or simply want to communicate.

Let's start by sharing "How do you choose a COLOUR?"

MUMBAI inspired!

Its been a few years the buzz for eco-friendly, eco- conscious, nature friendly, energy saving...and so on has caught the conscious of a designer. Be it architects or product designers ...everyone is trying to make a difference in building a better future. But are people who are using it aware of conscious ways to handle it.

As part of the day to day living how does one manage to build in the coscious effort to do so. Living in a city like Mumbai, has been a busy life for me for past so many years (i bet all mumbaities would agree). But being nature friendly in small ways helps to contribute to the world of clutter and pollution free world. Public transport has always been a convenient way to travel for years in Mumbai... be it BEST buses or even trains. In a mega city like Mumbai why arent people designing products for public services which help in building consciousness about " simple ways to energy saving" among the public masses. There are very few people who consciously a part of this big movement, of nature fiendly items. It's not only about shopping for oraganic food and buying cotton clothes or even taking home some eco-friendly products... it's beyond this.

So i had a few ideas, which i am sharing:

1. BEST buses
A public transport bus runs on roads all season, all day (almost) in all seasons and also all throughout the year. Instead of having them run on fuel why arent there any eco friendly buses running on solar power. The top end of the bus is only used as a shelter if the solar panels are fitted on top and have them used as power to run buses on roads, it would definately do good.
Another option is also to have buses with rain water harvesting facility or else best is to make them run on water-power.

2. 2 - in - 1
Why arent solar power panels designed as part of any roof-like structure which adds value to protect from sun, generate solar power and collect rain water. These can be used in small sizes to protect patio areas and varandas or much less like balcony's or window's or a/c shelters in cities like mumbai. They can even act as solar heaters for winter seasons.

3. TRAINS
We can also design trains running on solar power and have basic ameneties like fans, lights and doors operated by them. Railway stations have more number of cables running across them than the number of trains...observe this if you ever get some time to spend on platforms. Even platforms are good solar power generating units. The scale of platforms are huge... the amount of walkover bridges and roof areas are available in big scale to make a difference.

4. BIO FUEL
To contribute to this section nothing can beat the eatery stalls in Mumbai...i mean thats what Mumbai is known for, right. Street food or wada-pav take your pick to know how much oil is being used? If one only has to think if such eateries had to collect their used cooking oil at the end of each day in a tank - collection tank. I only wonder how many tanks would we fill??? we can even add all hotels, household dabbawalas, farsan marts, wedding caterers, etc to this movement. Only if we had an oil tank collector coming to each area to collect the oils, and we all contribute to it, each lane, each household each eatery... we can make our own fuel by oil.

There are other elements which can also contribute like garbage - segregated by the conscious learner into wet and dry, metal, glass and plastic. Build a unit that helps you keep your garbage clutter free and also seggregates them to consciously use them. I mean glass when embedded into walls act as good decorative elements, gives light and controls temperature.
Schools should have eco-conscious architectural elements built-in, which help children to develop interest and enable imaginations to build something eco-friendly. One can build many things from his own garbage.

5. PUBLIC SPOTS
This section may cover many areas of a city like gardens, washrooms, busstops, parking areas can all contribute to a city to believe and live better. Semi-private areas like malls, theatres, convention halls, museums should contribute to this big movement in conscious development of our environment to better living.


There could be many more areas and mediums in which we can build a better world around us. But its important we start with ours basics, TODAY.

I will keep adding to this article for more.