“Architecture is crying for a neutral set of alphabets” – Architect Sabu Francis
He strongly believes that the practice of architecture requires both abstract thinking and delivery on the ground. Hence he got involved in both research along with the realization of architecture projects.
Sabu Francis has carried out research in the field of architecture representation systems and discovered some mathematical principles. He was awarded the JIIA (Journal of Indian Institute of Architects) special award for research in 1991 for this work. These principles were incorporated into a software (TAD Designer Lite) that was written in Prolog with a Delphi front-end. This software is one of the oldest truly object-oriented architectural design software still in use.
His software has proved itself in the design of architecture; especially in the early design stages. He has presented his work in international peer-reviewed conferences and his work has been cited by other researchers. His work was utilized by IIT Bombay for two of their research projects in the area of energy calculations in buildings.
Today he can deliver focused solutions to complicated problems; especially solutions to those problems that straddle the fields of architecture, computing and knowledge management.
Here is a video interview with Sabu, which summarizes his work in architecture and also covers his work on the Internet in a time span of approximately 27 years.
In Sabu’s words “Architecture is possibly the last subject that is crying for a neutral set of alphabets. These alphabets have to be neutral and abstract and should not reflect anything directly in the real world. Conventional BIM and other software in architecture do not take this approach. “
He feels that “When a subject is represented by that subjects’ neutral alphabets even controversial issues in the subject can be pored over neutrally.”
