A gem was in the making as Carol Philip commenced her professional education in 2011 for a Bachelor’s Degree in Architecture at TKM College of Engineering under the University of Kerala. In 2016, she completed her course and secured 1st rank at the University level. She was also the credit topper for all University semester exams along the stretch of the five-year program. She was also the first student in the history of the University to have secured admission for her Master’s Degree before the completion of the course. She secured these admits with the City University of New York, Pratt University, University of Florida and Tulane University with significant scholarship offers.
After accepting admission to the City University of New York in mid-2016, Carol moved to Manhattan, New York. Her studio works that were completed during the fall and spring semesters, titled “Additions to the Guggenheim Museum” and “Enhancement of Broadway’s History”, respectively, were published in “City Works” (A collection of outstanding studio works collaborated by the Architectural Students of City College of New York). “Enhancement of Broadway’s History” proceeded to get selected for implementation but was held off as she had graduated the following year, completing the two-year program in a span of only one. She also obtained various titles such as the “Master of Architecture II Outstanding Design Project” and “Master of Architecture” given to graduating students to recognise their overall academic achievement and consistent excellence in design.
She moved back to India mid-2017 and launched the Carol Philip Architects firm. In early 2018, she was appreciated for her contribution to the field by ACC Cement Group as a part of their #PressForProgress program. In mid-2018, she became an Associate Member of the Indian Institute of Architects (AIIA) and Associate Member of the Indian Institute of Interior Designers (AIID). The firm’s budget home project based in Thekkady, a well renown high range in the state, had obtained wide recognition across the states of Kerala and Tamil Nadu. This project went on to be featured in
- “Designer+ Builder” magazine’s October 2018 Edition
- The “Veedu” series of Puthiyathalamurai, a Chennai-based Tamil channel and
- Manorama Online who had highlighted the exterior elegance of the project considering the budget investment involved in the construction.
A 1700 sq. ft middle-class home was built in Chunagumvely Kerala with contemporary designs and layouts that made it stand out amongst its neighbours.
The firm designed a 47000 sq. ft indoor stadium for a young group of investors looking to start a huge venture with a small budget. While keeping the expenses within the budget, the look and feel of the stadium were elevated with the use of unconventional design elements on its outer façade.
To date, the firm has handled over 80 projects across various parts of Kerala and South India in the last five years.
Carol Philip, the Founding Principal of the firm, spoke in an interview about architectural philosophies, journey, and plans to transform Kerala’s architectural landscape with an exemplary vision. The high points of that candid discussion are given herein.
Carol, please brief our audience about your firm, its USPs, and how you are currently positioned as one of the best Architectural Designing Solution Providers.
We are a cochin-based firm aiming to define spaces in the best way possible for the common people–by forming highly functional and visually aesthetic designs yet keeping the economic aspect of the project in check.
To achieve this, we work on two simple philosophies:
Economic Innovation: to ideate solutions to design, material and methods by thinking out of the box and not restricting ourselves to conventional construction and interior design methods.
Imaginative Iterations: Functions and Aesthetics are created to their highest efficiency and negate any iteration, resulting in budget expansion.
While these are our internal operating procedures for creating homes, we also hold the client as important to our processes. Our first step is to recognize and acknowledge our client’s requirements and set that as a stage for all designs to be developed.
Since our designs are for the common people–radical designs are not usually on the checklist for our clients or us. But at the same time, we intimate, educate and demonstrate the uses and advantages of modern or unconventional designs, thus bringing visual aesthetics a stronger part of the game than it would have been otherwise.
Clients are constantly involved in every iteration, and we believe the client should share a spot in the design process. We want to achieve a contemporary yet economical design–but more importantly, we hope that our team and the client will have had a learning experience from each other.
For us, it is the additional set of ideas that were formulated that we can reuse in other plans or designs, and for the client, it’s a newfound outlook on architecture and its depth.
Tell us more about your firm’s offerings and what aspects make it stand out in the cutthroat competition.
We offer residential and commercial design solutions for projects of any size, but our experience in our five years thus far has our team specialized in layouts that span at most an acre of land.
Being for the common people, our niche is to provide functional, aesthetic, and contemporary design solutions by restricting them to the economic limitations of our client.
Additionally, we are very much like a startup; thus, our valuable trait is the attention to detail given to the clients’ requests and immediate reactions to their queries. We operate the same way–by tackling the smallest of requests in the biggest of ways possible.
Each project is united teamwork from our end to connect the spatial requirements of the clients to the realistic outcomes achieved from each minute decision.
As an experienced leader, what do you think of modern technologies like AI and ML impacting your niche and how your firm adapts to the change?
The evolution of technology can be quicker, and the possibility of being trampled by it in architecture practice is a prospect that is overlooked in most scenarios. For instance, the adaptation of AI is seen to happen faster with construction companies abroad. This can result in a future possibility of vacating architects from making crucial decisions regarding the design execution and implementation. But AI can never replace architecture practice, as it has the restrained domain of influence on nature and human inclinations.
At the same time, architects can add value to their practice by integrating data and applications to warrant a sturdier business. It can be used to replace banal chores to utilize it as a not human replacement but make systems execute tasks that can be done best by them. In doing so, architects utilize time more efficiently on creative output, eventually adding value to the profession. Computational design tools like LunchBox for Grasshopper and Dynamo, including machine learning (ML) components, or even learning to run a small script in Microsoft Excel, can help architects to allot their time and money to more relevant and non-replaceable tasks. The more automation is incorporated into the design, the further the firm’s productivity and the more refined the proposal delivered to the client. The development of the visual logic can help develop workflows that investigate and refine the geometry and functioning of the design models.
We focus on integrating technology into the design process in primarily generating the hectic designs and developing the patterns utilizing scripts in Grasshopper that can not only save time in the development of the output but also leave an element of unpredictability within the design space. This often sparks a new perspective to consider in the design process, ultimately adding more value to the final product by refining it in a way that aids in generating a refined proposal in a compact time.
Considering the current scenario, what initial challenges did you face, and what are the challenges now?
As with any new firm, our initial challenges were the same. Funding and getting clients were top priorities. We confronted these challenges by portraying our digital methods of layout creation where the plan and the elevation could be shown in 3D models to the client before construction.
This enabled most clients to see what they were about to build, which was relatively new in the market.
Introducing and training our in-house staff in parametric designing was another time-intensive task. We analyzed our team members’ learning times to create procedures where new learning methods could be incorporated.
The first and final investment rounds were from Family, and the firm continues to have them as a bedrock in times of financial inadequacies.
We have now overcome the aforementioned scenarios and are currently scaling up operations by creating internal processes where the number of iterations for a client can potentially increase. This is done by stretching the current mode operations into multiple levels, which can introduce a finer looker at the details, thus ensuring quality at every turn. We are trying to find the right junior architects with the right outlook on their work and compassion for the job who can be then made in charge of these sub-processes.
This will also help us manage the current pipeline of projects, which can be hard for the team to juggle with each other.
What would be your advice to budding entrepreneurs who aspire to venture into the Architectural Designing Solution space?
The first bit of advice is to have compassion for the trade. The challenges can vary from person to person, but the factor that allows most successful architects to endure is their love of design. Always find time to practice skills and design, no matter how busy or hard it gets. By removing all the technical details of construction, we are artists. We survive only if we can continue to create new ideas, layouts and methods.
Secondly, I would encourage budding architects to understand that the time taken to create an industry-wide go-to name is quite large. Hence, persistence without focusing too much on profits would be a good outlook. The best word of mouth can be your clients and the work you create. Hence make sure there are no compromises on that.
Finally, be humble. If there are projects in which you believe you cannot contribute to the best of your ability, then it’s better to let them go. It could be chemistry with you and the client, it could be the design style that they have, it could be budget constraints, or it could be time constraints. Only commit to projects where you believe your work can truly make a difference to the client and the community or locality of the project.
How do you envision scaling your firm’s operations and offerings in the future?
At this time, we are scoping out the changes required for scaling up the firm. We aim to introduce further processes and departments, which will allow the current process of ideation and iterations to go through multiple phases and multiple people.
This will result in much better attention to detail and an increased number of project iterations. Furthermore, this enables the firm’s principal architects to look at more important matters – especially not limited to designs.
After this expansion, our next phase will include a concierge team that can handle incoming client queries and meetings, freeing up space for the technical team’s desk to enhance their focus on the iterations without worrying about handling client emotions.
In such a system, more radical and out-of-the-box methods can be thought of and incorporated into the iterations, ensuring the best possible solution for the client.
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