Education

A Design School in Town

Promiti Prova Chowdhury
Photos: Kazi Tahsin Agaz Apurbo

Pritzker Prize winner eminent architect Glenn Murcutt says, “Touch the earth lightly." What Murcutt tries to say is to pay attention to the environment -- such as the direction of the wind, water movement, temperature and light that surround the sites before designing the building itself. This is the kind of ideology, Incrux, a newly opened interior-design institute in Bangladesh is trying to spread. “Crux” means “root” and “In” stands for “Interior," therefore, Incrux stands for the “Root of the Interior.”

With chief guest Meer Mobashsher Ali, Chairman, Department of Architecture, Southeast University, Incrux started its journey on June 23, 2011 at Panthapath in Dhaka. Currently it offers courses on Design Theory, Architectural Drawing, Construction Detail, Working Drawing, Colour Composition, Lighting Environment Design, Building Services (electrical, plumbing), Model Making, Cost Estimation and much more.

A classroom of revit Architecture at Incrux School of Design.

The very first concept that they want to familiarise the students with is the obvious difference between “Decoration” and “Interior Designing.” Anindya Pandit, an Architecture major from BUET, Faculty at South-East University and Director of Incrux says, "Firstly, we have to understand the space in order to design it with different decorations. There are some crucial factors that determine how a space should be designed. For example, the measurement of the space, how many people supposedly work there, will it be an air-tight room or not, what will be the position of the ceiling fan, the placement, intensity and shades of lights -- these are some basic important factors that should be kept in mind while designing the interior of a space. Creating an interior is actually like creating an environment. To create this environment one might think of hanging a painting on a particular wall. Another example can be the texture of colours. To decorate a children's room and to decorate an office, colour shades must be chosen wisely, because again it is the question of the environment that is being created. The shades must compliment the environment of the room."

Architecture has to deal with the whole building while interior designing deals with a smaller place, like a hall or a floor. So Interior Designing is part of the bigger picture which is called Architecture. These are the basics that students get acquainted with at the very beginning. The basic requirement to get into this design school is a Secondary School Certificate.

Alongside a rich library, computer lab with laptops for students, weekly multimedia movie shows , presentations and seminars on exhibitions by reputed designers and students, a “project wise jury system” is something that would add an extra flavour to the learning process. For example, one is assigned to design an office. After he comes up with a design, the faculties scrutinise it in a participatory way. A debate or a discussion takes place where present students and teachers exchange views. These discussions benefit many students as plenty of theories and valuable techniques are shared this way.

Incrux's vision is to create a revolution or do something different in the field of interior designing. Students can work better if they are aware of the culture prevailing in the society, says Anindya. “We believe in usage of local materials for creating local environment. Our mission is to bring about a group of efficient people who will understand their culture and design accordingly using local material. To spread this message we have created the school.” He also says that any architectural piece is a manmade object. So it is likely to harm the nature to some extent. "Our aim is to design in such a way that the adverse effect on the nature is minimised at best," he adds.

“Sketch-up” and “Autocad” are the free software trainings provided here, which are most suitable for starters. Visits at construction sites are also part of the curriculum that will provide the students with practical experiences, while making their learning stronger. Currently, they are running classes on Revit Architecture which is a specialised school for engineers.

Humayra, a student studying BBA and is in her third year at North South University is taking the course on Revit Architecture at Incrux School of Design. She says, “Through Revit software, drawing can be faster and errorless. Other softwares are time consuming but Revit is a high rank software that can take our project to another level.”

To know more about Incrux, visit www.facebook.com/incrux. For a young student, or even a working professional, learning something new should always be the objective in life.

DID YOU KNOW?

Eugene Curran Kelly

Dancer Eugene Curran Kelly was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on August 23, 1912, the middle son of five children. His father was Canadian-born and loved sports, especially hockey. Every winter Kelly Sr. would flood the family backyard and make an ice rink for hockey. Kelly Jr. later credited hockey for some of his dance steps, which he described as "wide open and close to the ground." At fifteen Kelly played with a semi-professional ice hockey team. He also played football, baseball, and participated in gymnastics. Kelly's other major influence was his mother, who loved the theater. She was the one who sent him to dancing lessons. At first Kelly did not want to continue with his dance lessons because the other students made fun of him. But then he discovered that the girls liked a boy who could dance, so he decided to stick with the lessons. Kelly's mother was the one who came up with the idea of running a dance studio and after she did, it was a huge success. After Kelly graduated from the University of Pittsburgh he taught dance for another six years. In 1937 he left for New York City. He believed that he was talented enough to find work and he was right. He got a job in theatre in his first week in New York. Kelly's big break came in 1940, when he was cast as the lead in the Rodgers and Hart musical 'Pal Joey'.

Information Source: Internet.