Shirish Associates.: shirish associates work

SHIRISH ASSOCIATES.

Challenges present themselves in many ways. Many people face challenges that are set upon

them by external forces and those forces overwhelm them. Some get the opportunity through the beneficence

of their family and friends to rise above basic survival and face challenges that are not innate to the

human struggle, but are those challenges centered upon higher aspirations. I have been so blessed in my life to

have never struggled for basic survival. Never has the want of food, clothing, or shelter been a cause for me to fail. In as much as I have been blessed, humility enters my heart as I consider how so much of what I have accomplished in my life has been because of those who have lifted me up throughout my life.

So what is architecture, then? Can we even define it? At this point in my life as an architect, I suggest that architecture is like a Platonic form, meaning it is an ideal that in its physical reality can never be obtained. For a building to be called architecture, it must not necessarily reach that ideal, but be in the pursuit of excellence to a degree that exceeds the average. It is an incremental lifting of the standards. Thus, it should be better than what has gone before.