I’ll be patiently taking my time with this new website of mine. Nothing is close to formalised. But I won’t hesitate to express my thoughts. I’ll trade perfectionism for pragmatism. The stringent pursuit of function and beauty I’ll put aside for now, as I am tasked with that enough already with my professional work.
Speaking of stringent; I have started communicating again with the structural engineer of the project I am working on, after weeks of lockdown (India is strictly enforcing the world’s largest lockdown). The engineer, whom I will call NPC for now – as his name is difficult to pronounce, and ‘NPC’ is what his company is labelled in my studio’s contact list – has managed to return to work and, surprisingly has been sending drawings almost everyday for the past week. After 8 months of working with him, I have not witnessed such activity. Thus, my part naturally involves checking over the structural drawings and making notes of what needs revisions. I am very precise in this task, perhaps too precise, as the principal architect would say.
I recently wrote NPC the equivalent of a small (yet precise) essay. I just checked the word count: 526 words. This may seem a contradiction, as I have declared myself to be precise. I mean precise in the sense that the way I write emails saves time, as it functions as a to-do-list for the engineer, which he can easily share to his junior engineers and delegate tasks accordingly to the points I make. Since I numerically or alphabetically categorise each point, it makes it easier to cut to the chase when a phone call becomes necessary. Each drawing name, detail in question, date of issue etc. is mentioned. In my opinion, these long format emails save ample time when discussing issues over the phone.
It is a habit of the studio to phone the engineer a few hours, or the next day after architectural drawings have been sent to him, mainly to make sure he’s received it and understood it well. I have witnessed more than once in regards to other projects, a phone call between the principal architect and NPC, in which it took 15–20 minutes just to figure out that they were discussing the same detail. The call that followed up my aforementioned 526 word email lasted less than two minutes. A ‘how are you?’ and a ‘yes, understood and currently working on it, goodbye,’ kind of conversation; means a job well done on my part.
I think at some point soon I will write about the time when I made what I consider to be a shameful error, in regards to communicating with the building contractor, and how I urge myself not to make similar mistakes again.
After over a month of not engaging with the the engineer and his drawings, I have realised how oddly cathartic I find checking over their structural drawings, which I previously considered to be tedious (especially when compared to design).
When I think about it, I don’t think NPC minds that I write him long emails. And I don’t mind that he writes me very short ones. I will attach below what I consider to be his longest email to me:
“Mam/Sir,We herewith attach TTR_Double storey – BM layout & Dormitary dwgs”
~ NPC
I consider this to be a good exchange of energy; he & his team are doing all the structural calculations after all.
When we called NPC three weeks into the lockdown to confirm whether he was working or not (he wasn’t), he said had spent his time reading over 200 books. By now he’s probably read double that. So, my 526 word email is just a snack for him.
I’ll clarify that I have actually met NPC, during two meetings, one at the site and the other at the studio. I find it interesting how open he is to our often unconventional, sometimes radical designs (will write about them eventually). Perhaps one day he won’t struggle to understand my Australian accent. A man can dream.
