The Loudest Firecracker

My illustrations for The Loudest Firecracker by Arun Krishnan have been published by Tranquebar Press (January 2009). This will be the fourth book to be published with my illustrations.

Aditi Raychoudhury. Dabbawalla. 2004. Pen and Ink.

Aditi Raychoudhury. Disco Ganapathi. Pen and Ink. 2004.
Aditi Raychoudhury. Twilight Zone. Pen and Ink. 2004.

Aditi Raychoudhury. Man-Lion. Pen and Ink. 2004.

Aditi Raychoudhury. Ebb and Flow. Pen and Ink. 2004.

Aditi Raychoudhury. Death By Fire. Pen and Ink. 2004.

Synopsis:
It’s India versus Pakistan and as the excitement soars in the final over of a memorable cricket match, ten-year-old Siddharth sets off a firecracker. The blast that follows will change his life.Siddharth discovers that growing up isn’t easy: he has to handle a tragic death, his best friend is gravitating to a rightwing political party, and his film-maker father has troubles of his own as he shifts away from the commercial but lucrative world of Hindi movies. And Poona is nothing at all like Bombay.

Will tennis matches help, or can his mother’s beautifully retold myths do the trick? Will instant noodles come to Siddharth’s rescue, or will it be his old elocution standby, The Charge of the Light Brigade? In this touching, poignant and often hilarious debut novel, Arun Krishnan has created a world we all recognize, one that will appeal equally to young adults and a more mature audience.

From the Author:

“Please disregard the message on Amazon that says Ships within 1-2 months. It ships instantly, like any other order. I am working with Amazon to get this message removed.

The novel is excellent reading for friends and family, so don’t feel scared to order more than one copy. (I think the Surgeon General recommends 4).

If those friends and family, turn against you, you can use specific portions in Chapter 4 and 9 that can be read out aloud as a form of retribution (recommended by the Government as an effective alternative to waterboarding).”

Sustainable Design Criteria for Transbay Transit Center Extension Project

Location:
San Francisco, California

Author:
Aditi Raychoudhury, Architectural Energy Corporation, San Francisco, California.

Client:
HOK, San Francisco, California.
URS, San Francisco, California.

Architectural Rendering of Transbay Transit Center Development (Source: HOK, 2005

The scope of the Transbay Transit Center Extension project is anticipated to generate 125,000 trips a day through the center that will support a dynamic mixed-use neighborhood. The development plan provides a pedestrian environment with services, restaurants, entertainment and retail for use primarily by financial district workers, commuters and the local residents. In addition, a proposed tower will accommodate hotels and offices. Needless to say a project of this scale would have an enormous environmental impact and part of the process involved setting a sustainable design standard for the participating designs.

I developed a series of sustainable design goals, concepts, case studies and guidelines to create the sustainability framework and approach for the project. The sustainable design criteria were integrated with other general design concerns (such as revitalization, and providing pedestrian space).

I also developed a matrix-based scorecard to simplify the process of evaluating the sustainability commitment of the competing design proposals for the new Transbay Transit Center Building Project.

These guidelines and matrix were included in the Request For Proposal to promote innovation, communication and provide a working tool that would aid potential project designers in planning, design, and construction of new buildings and renovations with an appropriate level of attention to economic, ecological, and social concerns.

Oakland International Airport Terminal 2 Expansion and Renovation Project

Location:
Oakland, California.

Sustainable Design Assistance and Energy Analysis:
Aditi Raychoudhury, Architectural Energy Corporation, San Francisco, California.
Erik Kolderup, Architectural Energy Corporation, San Francisco, California.

Client:
Port of Oakland Authority, Oakland, California.

Oakland International Airport in Oakland, California, is one of the three airports serving the San Francisco Bay Area. As one of the nation’s fastest growing airports, a $1.4 billion dollar expansion project was launched to renovate and expand Terminal 2 to improve operation and add of five gates to Terminal 2. It also included the addition of a new mechanical building to house the additional services to serve the renovated and expanded Terminal 2.

Oakland Airport. Source: http://www.flyoakland.com/media_photos.shtml

I was involved with the analysis, design and recommendation of appropriate sustainable design strategies to lower operating energy costs, improve daylight and indoor air quality, and reduce carbon emissions. The resulting recommendations reduced the energy consumption by 36% relative to the proposed design before energy analysis and recommendations.

Some of the prominent sustainable design strategies that were recommended included:

-Daylight design with the use of appropriate glazing, light shelves, clerestories, and skylights to extend and maximize daylight distribution deep into the space

-Efficient lighting design and controls, including the use of daylight controls to control the level of electric lighting based on daylight availability

-Efficient air-conditioning strategies such as variable air flow regulated by air-conditioning demands, reduced energy fan operation through reduced pressure in the air supply and return system by using appropriate air duct and filter design, carbon dioxide sensors to regulate supply air flow based on number of occupants, and optimizing chiller size, and reducing chiller energy consumption with variable demand controlled water flow.

Nature Retreat for Underprivileged Children

Site Plan. Children's Retreat, New Delhi, India. 1996.

Project Architect:
Aditi Raychoudhury (1994-1996) for Gautam Bhatia Navin Gupta Architects (formerly The Architecture Alliance), New Delhi, India.

Client:
The Indian Council of Child Welfare.

Published:
‘10×10′, Phaidon Press, 2000, and ‘10×10_2′, Phaidon Press, 2005.

The project was to develop a retreat on the outskirts of New Delhi, India for underprivileged children. The purpose of the retreat was to encourage informal learning and recreation in a natural setting.

Overview. Children's Retreat, New Delhi, India. 1996.

The project was envisioned primarily as a natural sanctuary where the architecture was ancillary to, and blended in with the landscape.

Overview. Children's Retreat, New Delhi, India. 1996.

Natural clearings and gentle slopes in this densely wooded and undulating site were chosen to locate small clusters of dormitories and mini-amphitheaters that used the slopes to form a lecture-hall style informal, outdoor classroom. The orientation of these clusters was determined by the lake for views and cool local breezes.

Dormitory Cluster. Children's Retreat, New Delhi, India. 1996.

Dormitory Cluster. Children's Retreat, New Delhi, India. 1996.

Covered Patio of Dormitory Cluster. Children's Retreat, New Delhi, India. 1996.

In addition, a dining hall and the administrative building mark the entrance to the retreat and enclose a terraced plaza, that formalized the natural landscape into a series of terraces and steps to form a stimulating environment for games and learning.

Children's Retreat, New Delhi, India. 1996.

A large Greek-style amphitheater was set in a natural bowl for performances.

Detail. Children's Retreat, New Delhi, India. 1996.

A combination of local bricks and random rubble masonry was used as the building material.

Malaria Dreams

Aditi Raychoudhury. Malaria Dreams. Pen and Ink. Penguin. 1996.

I don’t have the record of the illustrations inside the book, which are of a mosquito, patiently chewing away at a Corinthian column, till there is nothing left but rubble.

—-

About the Book:

‘Building a house for someone is like getting to know the person himself.’ In the course of his career, well-known architect Gautam Bhatia has designed innumerable dream houses for a cross-section of people. Some of these people had the most incredible suggestions and demands, and the writer uses these as a springboard to create a set of quasi-fictional stories involving bizarre people with equally bizarre plans and theories. We meet an eccentric Parsi millionaire who wants to run a ferry service between Bombay and the Maldives; a guru, snug in his hi-tech ashram, who prescribes Body Shop moisturizers for better health; an obsessive collector who wants a secret basement in his house for his library of first editions and manuscripts; and an NRI who wishes to shape his nostalgia into a hundred-thousand-dollar ‘caando’. At once thoughtful and funny, this collection of stories will only cement Gautam Bhatia’s reputation as one of India’s most imaginative and witty writers.

Title: Malaria Dreams And Other Visions Of Architecture
Author: Gautam Bhatia
ISBN: 014026213X
ISBN-13: 9780140262131

Binding: Paperback
Publishing Date: 1996
Publisher: Penguin
Number of Pages: 280

Watch What You Eat

This was my cover plate for Punchtantra describing the absurdities of the human condition, which is the essence of the Panchatantra.

The tree represents knowledge, the parrots – multiple generations – pass on their wisdom, through the spoken word, as was traditionally done in India for centuries. The mommy elephant – patient and wise – ignores her babies’complaints, as one is teased by his older sibling and the monkey, so that they can figure out a way to handle life.

The frogs, are so deeply immersed in gossip , that they are oblivious to the snake lurking in the grass, hungry for his supper.

The squirrel (the artist) is just hanging in there on mommy elephant’s trunk for the ride of her life – through the vulnerable jungle of humanity.

Moral: Focus on your supper, lest you want to become another’s.

Aditi Raychoudhury. Tree of Life. Pen and Ink. 1996.

About the Book:

A wacky take-off on Vishnu Sharma’s PanchatantraInspired by James Finn Garner’s Politically Correct Bedtime Stories, best-selling author Gautam Bhatia takes the men, women and animals of the Panchatantra and relocates them in contemporary India with its newly acquired nations of political correctness. So we have the fiercely vocal lesbian feminist, Yajnadatta, who leaves her husband for a woman; the expatriate dog Chitranga who flees racial persecution in the West; and a mongoose with an Oedipus complex, armed with a .45 Colt. As these characters engage with the burning issues of the day—unemployment, oppression, environmental pollution, sexual incompatibility—they lay bare the hilarious absurdities of our muddled world.

Product Details:

Title: Punchtantra
Author: Gautam Bhatia
ISBN: 0140271163
ISBN-13: 9780140271164
Binding: Paperback
Publishing Date: 1998
Publisher: Penguin Books India
Number of Pages: 232