Interview with THOMAS ABRAHAM

THOMAS ABRAHAM ("TA") interviewed on Saturday, 21 May.

Could you please tell us about your experience as a designer, artist, architect or creator?

TA : I did my Honors in Architecture from Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur. I have been in the design field since 30 years. In my country, I am among the few who have risen to the top of my field, having won several national as well as international acclaims for my work. Right now, I am based in Bangalore, India where I create designs that embraces sustainability, recycling, lower carbon footprints and social consciousness. I have been featured numerous times on the press for my Environment first design policies and have received over 27 awards for the same. In addition to this, I also run a successful award winning education venture – IDeA World Design School which is India’s oldest privately run design school where I educate over 9000 designers, encouraging and mentoring them to follow sustainable and socially responsible design practices.

How did you become a designer?

TA : Since my childhood, I have always been interested in design. I wanted to go beyond the confines of just ordinary day knowledge. I wanted to, to use the cliché, be creative. The way I saw it, creativity is in a minor way, playing like a minor God because in all God’s facets, probably are the most important creation and we as human beings are giving creativity as a skill and not everybody has that skill to be able to emulate God himself. I managed to secure my place in India’s highly reputed institution Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur where I got my honors in architecture. Later on, I worked under the mentorship of Sanjay Mohe, one of India’s top architects before starting my own venture in the field of design.

What are your priorities, technique and style when designing?

TA : Call me old school but I still prefer making mock ups and physical models rather than using computer aided design and renderings. One of the advantages of this not strictly drawing method was that the design was organic, changing with the client's requirements and inspirations of the architect. However, none of the materials that were used in the original foundation or the structure was wasted. Instead, almost all were reused in the new structure. In the case of the Crystal Hall, convinced that Autocad drawings or small scale physical models would not take into effect the illusions of perspective, I often made life-size physical mock-ups of the structures in bamboo and white cloth, moving them around the site to get the proportion of each building, the spaces and volumes between the buildings right. Again, both the bamboo and the cloth were used in the actual construction with no waste whatsoever. However, what it did do was, in real-time, in real space, the client and I could see and not just visualise the actual form, proportion and spacing of various structures in the complex.

Which emotions do you feel when designing?

TA : This is a cliche but it is almost like giving birth. It actually feels like you are bringing to life, a new person, a new being. As an architect specifically, you actually feel like you are changing the face of the earth that what you design will forever change that spot on the face of the planet and you feel as if you are contributing to eudemonia - human fulfillment, otherwise a piece of building impacts lives, humbling and triumphant at the same time that you can actually impact lives.

What particular aspects of your background shaped you as a designer?

TA : Right from childhood, I have been rebellious, trying to find my own way with or without a following. This has helped me to often think outside the box, to be open to experiences and feelings and yet also highly risk taking and conscientious. These personality traits and childhood habits have helped me to always seek to break new ground, to not go by the fallen path and to put my shoulder to the plough to make it happen. Furthermore, the habits that my father inculcated in me - to widely read and thus to be widely open to new ideas, has inevitably helped me to imbibe the best inferences from the truth and conduct, irrespective of where they come from.

What is your growth path? What are your future plans? What is your dream design project?

TA : To be able to design a chapel on the hill with probably the location to be something like Christ the Redeemer in Rio de Janeiro. A place that is vantage for a city and yet can form the insignia of a civilization.

What are your advices to designers who are at the beginning of their career?

TA : One thing that is my suggestion for every designer is to stay forever young. Remember that as somebody said, this is the first day of your life as well as this could be your last. So, the day is simultaneously a day of potential and hope as well as a day when you have so much to achieve and so little time to do it. Approach everything that you do as if you are a master and everything that you do is a masterpiece. You may not always achieve it but when you go to bed, you are comforted that you are on your way. Never settle. Always reach up. Always seek to be the finest version of yourself because as Aristotle said - “An apple is nothing but the potentiality of an apple tree”. When you see an apple we should be able to visualize an apple tree. I think every designer puts from pen to paper, shows the potentiality of Michelangelo or Da Vinci or a Rafael.

You are truly successful as a designer, what do you suggest to fellow designers, artists and architects?

TA : Remember what design is supposed to be. For every design, it is must to have a philosophy, a purpose and where necessary, to serve the purpose of the body in function, serving the purpose of sensuality as well as the purpose of philosophy and concept. Finally every artist, designer and architect must remember that his end game is to design a better world.

What is your day to day look like?

TA : If you define a day as past midnight, it is probably the happiest times of my day from midnight to probably 3’o clock in the morning when I am at the computer writing stuff, designing stuff, doing stuffs that makes me feel fulfilled and then I go off to sleep by around 4’o clock in the morning. Just around the crack of dawn when other people are probably awakening and the rooster is beginning to crow, I go to sleep. Then I wake up at around 10 o clock in the morning and then I say my morning prayers. I go to church, I visit the poor, sits with them, provide them with something to eat while I have a cup of coffee myself and then I spend the next two hours delegating work and monitoring the progress that has happened the day before that. And then I am off either to site or to office, doing the necessary stuff, not the stuff that I enjoy the most but the stuff that is essential to the progress of the organization. Lunch is often a working lunch. And then I come back home to my wife who opens the door with a smile and then we lay in each others arms and we talk, cuddle, watch movies, make love and then when she goes off to sleep, I get off my bed. It is almost midnight and the clock starts again.

How do you keep up with latest design trends? To what extent do design trends matter?

TA : If I am to be honest to myself, I think the concepts of beauty, utility and stability are universally eternal and there are hundreds of scientific studies that watch for that. And yet, of course, I also understand that any piece of work should be grounded in the time and the place of its origin such that it reflects the culture of the location as well as the technology of its time. In this sense, while I am loath to follow fashions, I always instinctively go back to history of design 101, to its elements of unity, balance, rhythm, scale and proportion.

How do you know if a product or project is well designed? How do you define good design?

TA : I run a design school – IDeA World Design College where I have mentored and trained over 9000 designers. When I have to evaluate their work, the main aspect that I go for is the contribution that the design makes. Is the design sustainable? Is it socially responsible? Does it benefit the society and give back to the community? Does it fulfil the purpose for which it was made? Is it aesthetic? There are quite a few factors that ne has to judge something by. If a design is stunning in appearance but has harmed the Environment in the process and contributes nothing to the community, it would hardly qualify as good design. I always tell my students to pay attention to all these small details and not just go about making the design aesthetically pleasing.

How do you decide if your design is ready?

TA : It never is. There is always room for more and more perfection. And yet of course, we confer with the pragmatism that we have clients and timelines and budgets to keep up with. And it is these external things rather than the internal certainties or compulsions that tell us that the design is ready because eas far as I am concerned, even if the building is over, there are parts and portions which I think I could have probably done better and I am sure that it is true for every design anywhere in the world.

What is your biggest design work?

TA : My biggest work till date has to be the Crystal Hall which will always remain very close to my heart, as it pays tribute to multiple facets of my life, both personally and professionally. It was built over a span of five years and took a lot of research, resources and planning. We also had quite a few challenges in the process but the end result was worth it. We received several awards and there was a lot of press coverage and recognition that happened. It was a revolutionary landmark in sustainable architecture. It is a matter of pride, not just for myself, but also for all the people coming from underprivileged sections of India who got to be a part of it.

Who is your favourite designer?

TA : Perhaps it is cool to answer that it’s a designer whose name we have no knowledge of. Perhaps the designer of Stonehenge in England which I think is one of the perfect buildings ever made and yet the jury is still out whether it is actually a building and if it is, is it actually architecture because architecture and design are supposed to have a purpose and while the Stonehenge is often posited as having the position of serving as a temple of sorts, no one is really certain. For instance nobody knew we had a need for a smart phone until Steve Jobs invented it. or for that matter an airplane until the Wright brothers made it viable. Today none of us can do without either commuting by air or communicating by smart phones.

Would you tell us a bit about your lifestyle and culture?

TA : When I was 15 years old and soccer was my favourite game, in every game, it was inevitable to me that I would be the goalkeeper. In a way, it is the most important position in football because as far as we humans are concerned, even if we do not win, our risk aversion makes us certain that we do not want to lose. And in that sense, the goalkeeper’s role is even more critical than center forwards. It’s always been this instinct to find my own way, to be a team player and yet looking from the outside in that has inspired my entire approach to design. To see what is trending and yet not to follow the trends rather use the trend as a spring boat to go far beyond.

Would you tell us more about your work culture and business philosophy?

TA : In one word, perfection. It can of course be difficult working with perfectionists, but I also strongly believe that my team thanks me for the excellence that I bring out in them because most of them joined as uncut rough diamonds and I can say with some humility and honor that by the time they finish, many of them have skills polished and shining. And I think that while there is no substitute for talent, there is no replacement for talent plus industriousness because what is bestowed by nature is important, our nurtural history and cultural proclivities will together decide what we finally truly achieve because while the seed is important, how much sunlight it receives and how much water and manure it is fed will decide if the seed will become a fruit bearing tree or a barren one.

What are your philanthropic contributions to society as a designer, artist and architect?

TA : I strongly believe that as an artist, as an architect and as a designer, my duty is to contribute in whatever way I can to design a better world. When it comes to my work, I ensure that everything I do is Environment First Design, Sustainable, Socially responsible with zero waste generation, limited energy consumption and economically affordable. In addition to contributing whatever I can through my design, I have also guided several young designers pro bono, often going out of my way to make sure I foster young minds whether it is by giving them their first break in the design world, mentoring them or helping them with their projects. I host several workshops and even invite designers from across the world to help young designers broaden their horizons in terms of thinking as well as design. As mentioned earlier, I also run India’s oldest private design school- IDeA World Design College. I train students there with the hope that in the future, they will design a better world. Finally, I also visit the poorest villages in India and regularly volunteer with Feed India where I join the poorest in the vicinity for free communal meals, showing my solidarity without being patronizing. After all, self-respect is as vital as sustenance and equity as important as liberty.

What positive experiences you had when you attend the A’ Design Award?

TA : Winning the Designer of the Day has been a dream come true for me. It is an honor not just for me but also for the people who toiled behind the project, those who showed their support as well as my country. After all, A' Design Award is one of the World's most prestigious design accolades, with a very large jury panel of 227 established professionals, with tens of thousands of entries by participants from all major countries. So when my work was given an A’Design Award and I was awarded Designer of the Day, it felt like a lifetime achievement. So nowadays, I apply for any kind of project or commission, I tell them that I have won an Architectural the A’Design Award and often that actually turns heads. People ask me about the prize and about the project and then they want to know more about me. And that is what an award is supposed to do- open doors and in some cases even open hearts because people become more predisposed to you when they know that you have something as prestigious as the A’Design Award. And for that, I will always be grateful.

THOMAS ABRAHAM Profile