The Theory of Thesis

When I first became an architecture student, back in first year, any thesis was good enough to leave me in a state of awe and admiration. I couldn't believe that people barely four odd years older than me could design built environments that I had never even seen in real life. Living in a developing country sometimes implies living in an R.C.C. jungle full of short, ugly, un-inspired buildings. In fact, as Indians, we are so insensitive to the wonders of architecture that we would probably be yawning and tapping our foot impatiently on a trip to Falling Waters. We sometimes don't understand good architecture when we see it and to us, the word 'architecture' basically means historical buildings. All this seems funny now, but back when we were laymen, we were, well, just like everyone else.

But then, you start studying architecture and witness your first round of thesis reviews. A class full of people design museums and monasteries and low-cost housings, and looking at their work makes architecture feel like it's full of possibilities.To us newbies, every thesis is fantastic and we're dying to learn more in order to design just as well as our fifth-year seniors. Suddenly, we are gripped by a desire to learn Photoshop and Revit and God-knows-what-else just so we can do thesis-worthy work. It's almost as if we believe that the theses are the pinnacle of creativity.

And then....we grow up.

In second year, some realities start surfacing. Now that we already know the basic softwares, helping out the seniors becomes less exciting than before. We can see that not all the projects chosen are out-of-the-box design innovations. In fact, most of them are live projects and the emphasis is on having a 'good' design and not an 'innovative' design. I don't know about you all, but I was a little bit disappointed upon discovering these simple facts about final-year thesis.

Then there's the matter of selecting a topic. In the 2014 NASA Panel discussion, I had the good fortune of acting as moderator at the academic discussion related to selection of topics for theses. The fact that the discussion was held in the first place shows that we still have no idea how to select an interesting topic for our thesis.

Today, let's just forget that we are bound by any limitations for our thesis and believe, just for one second, that we can design whatever we feel like. This abandonment of limitations is the point of my first blog post.

Over the past two years, I have thought of some things I would like to design if I had all the freedom. Some of my ideas include:

1. A housing complex just for joint families, because that's a tradition I don't want to have to forget just because of generic housing.
2. A village in a beautiful location, where both natives and tourists can stay, so that tourists can get a more authentic idea of the place they are visiting.
3. Low-cost earthquake resistance in hilly areas. This was inspired by an article in National Geographic and I don't think I'll ever actually be able to make this because of my own limitations.

So, my question for today's discussion is that if you had full freedom, what would you choose as your thesis project?

Would you go for something completely new and innovative, something that has never been seen before?

Or would you pick something small and delve deep, like doing an entire thesis of decorative windows throughout the country or types of bricks?

Or maybe you'd select a topic which is close to your heart, like a stadium if you are into sports or a children's park if you think you din't get a proper space to play growing up?

Or maybe something else....

The possibilities are limitless.

Let me know in the comments section.