SEA CITY is the School of Environment and Architecture’s outreach programme.
SEA City organizes events, lectures, symposia and exhibitions in order to engage with the larger artistic and cultural discursive sphere within and outside the city.
SEA City events are completely open to all public, and are attended by a diverse group of people including students, architects, professionals, academics and locals.
SEA CONVERSATIONS
winter 2022
STATES OF MATTER
How does architectural form and space emerge between the forest and the
factory? How does matter and materiality emerge between the kitchen and the
laboratory? We pose these questions in a discursive backdrop that has come to
implicate the material engagements of design practices narrowly in analogies of
either forest or factory, and kitchen or laboratory. Rarely do the physical and
mental, prosaic and poetic, mundane and exceptional experiences of spatial and
material explorations in the design fields, fit within the dualistic notions of
either/or. More so, a focus on materiality in the design fields often
forecloses the latent possibilities that matter, as a substance produced
between the realms of forest-factory or kitchen-laboratory, could present for phenomenological
explorations. Yet, the ambition of design explorations to engage the body,
offering phenomenological provocations - for instance, to exist within a cloud,
walk between raindrops, swim in an ocean, or run through sand dunes -
essentially traverses such latent possibilities. The other register emerging in
design thinking is of apparatuses of making through which new possibilities
open up beyond the confines of teleological trajectories of manufacturing. In
doing so, built forms essentially slide between states of matter.
States of matter is a symposium that intends to engage provocations on such latent possibilities of inhabitations between form and matter. It draws attention to the dialectical relationship between technology and phenomenology in exploring space and form as it intersects with matter and materiality. The conversations aim to open up histories of a shared technological present - to interrogate, for instance, the situatedness of craft in primordial artisanal practices; standardized production and universal culture of the factory; and, the scenographic and algorithmic logics in the digital laboratory. We delve in this series of SEA City conversations into an ‘in-between,’ not as hybrid, but as explorations into matter and material processes whose states - through their coagulation and clouding, sedimentation and decomposition, etc. - are ‘in-formation’ to shape emergent phenomenologies that could inform future design pedagogy and praxis.
speakers
16.12.22 Anubha Sood
20.01.23 Oliver Tessmann
27.01.23 Manjunath BL <<
24.02.23 Anne Holtrop
10.03.23 Teja Gavankar
24.03.23 Tomas Garcia
States of matter is a symposium that intends to engage provocations on such latent possibilities of inhabitations between form and matter. It draws attention to the dialectical relationship between technology and phenomenology in exploring space and form as it intersects with matter and materiality. The conversations aim to open up histories of a shared technological present - to interrogate, for instance, the situatedness of craft in primordial artisanal practices; standardized production and universal culture of the factory; and, the scenographic and algorithmic logics in the digital laboratory. We delve in this series of SEA City conversations into an ‘in-between,’ not as hybrid, but as explorations into matter and material processes whose states - through their coagulation and clouding, sedimentation and decomposition, etc. - are ‘in-formation’ to shape emergent phenomenologies that could inform future design pedagogy and praxis.
speakers
16.12.22 Anubha Sood
20.01.23 Oliver Tessmann
27.01.23 Manjunath BL <<
24.02.23 Anne Holtrop
10.03.23 Teja Gavankar
24.03.23 Tomas Garcia

session #3
Growing a Building
by B L Manjunath
on Fri., 27th Jan 2023 @ 5:30 PM IST
Manjunath
believes that an ability to perceive matter beyond one’s bodily scale allows an
understanding of the relation between space and matter afresh. For example, one
experiences the space under the tree in conjunction with the tunes of unseen
elements like the sound of birds, the wind, piercing light, temperature
variation etc. This is possible only when you start looking “beyond” the tree
into other dimensions. This talk enquires into the methods of perceiving the reality
of hidden forces like gravity, heaviness of earth, direction of wind, variation
of pressure and their translation into form and space.
ABOUT
B L Manjunath is the Associate Professor (Structures) at the Wadiyar Centre for Architecture. His journey started with his Master’s in Engineering (Civil) from the University Vishweshwaraiah College of Engineering in Bengaluru in 1985. In the same year, Manjunath began working with Umesh B Rao & Co, a leading structural engineering consultancy in Bengaluru, until 1994. Since its inception, Manjunath & Co. has been working on designing and detailing with specialised techniques for material handling plants. Their team has designed thermal stations, townships, hotels, industrial buildings, housing apartments and such varied projects.
This is an online series. It has been partly supported by Urban Centre Mumbai.
The events are free and open to everyone across the world.
ABOUT
B L Manjunath is the Associate Professor (Structures) at the Wadiyar Centre for Architecture. His journey started with his Master’s in Engineering (Civil) from the University Vishweshwaraiah College of Engineering in Bengaluru in 1985. In the same year, Manjunath began working with Umesh B Rao & Co, a leading structural engineering consultancy in Bengaluru, until 1994. Since its inception, Manjunath & Co. has been working on designing and detailing with specialised techniques for material handling plants. Their team has designed thermal stations, townships, hotels, industrial buildings, housing apartments and such varied projects.
This is an online series. It has been partly supported by Urban Centre Mumbai.
The events are free and open to everyone across the world.

A SEA City Initiative.
01 December/THU
SEA Dissertation Research Symposium
IMAGINATION :: SPACE :: PRACTICE with Kush Patel, Soumini Raja & Vishwanath Kashikar
SEA Dissertation Research Symposium
IMAGINATION :: SPACE :: PRACTICE with Kush Patel, Soumini Raja & Vishwanath Kashikar
02 December/FRI
SEA Dissertation Research Symposium
IMAGINATION :: SPACE :: PRACTICE with Kush Patel, Soumini Raja & Vishwanath Kashikar
SEA Dissertation Research Symposium
IMAGINATION :: SPACE :: PRACTICE with Kush Patel, Soumini Raja & Vishwanath Kashikar
03 December/SAT
SEA Dissertation Research Symposium
IMAGINATION :: SPACE :: PRACTICE with Kush Patel, Soumini Raja & Vishwanath Kashikar
SEA Dissertation Research Symposium
IMAGINATION :: SPACE :: PRACTICE with Kush Patel, Soumini Raja & Vishwanath Kashikar
04
05th December/MON
SEA ASSEMBLY: Iran Protests
SEA ASSEMBLY: Iran Protests
06
07
08
09
10
11
12th December/MON
SEA ASSEMBLY: Should Cities / Countries should run to get large games like FIFA World Cup or Olympics?
SEA ASSEMBLY: Should Cities / Countries should run to get large games like FIFA World Cup or Olympics?
13
14
15
17
18
19th December/MON
SEA ASSEMBLY: Should Indian advertisers engage in social constructs while displaying their products?
SEA ASSEMBLY: Should Indian advertisers engage in social constructs while displaying their products?
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1st January
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1st February
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24th February/FRI
SoM#4
by Anne Holtrop
SoM#4
by Anne Holtrop
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1st March
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10th March/FRI
SoM#5
by Teja Gavankar
SoM#5
by Teja Gavankar
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24th March/FRI
SoM#6
by Tomas Garcia
SoM#6
by Tomas Garcia
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1st April
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1st May
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