Building blocks

This youngster can’t wait to reach her pool car as school gives over. Picture by Bishwarup Dutta

The fourth Pidilite Award for Excellence was held at a city hotel on February 15. A market leader in consumer-specialty chemicals since 1959, Pidilite Industries Ltd has taken an initiative to promote excellence among students pursuing architecture and interior design.

Initially restricted to Mumbai and Pune, this award has now spread its wings to other cities.

Every college is allowed to nominate three candidates who are in the final year of an architecture or interior-design course. A nominee must show high involvement in design-related projects and score the highest in project work as well as in his fourth year examination. Two new award categories have been introduced this year — Best Design for Optimum Space Utilisation and Best Design for Environmental Protection. The prizes in each category include a cheque of Rs 1000, a trophy and a certificate.

Students from 10 colleges including IIT Kharagpur, BIT Ranchi, Guwahati College of Architecture and Jadavpur University (JU) bagged the awards.

The award for Best Environmental and Ecological Architecture went to Soham De of Bengal Engineering and Science University.

For one of his projects he had to design a museum. “My project incorporated the three elements: object, artery and light. I used skylights to minimise external light source,” he said.

Mahafuj Ali of BESU and Saumya Chakrabarti of JU won the awards for Optimum Space Utilisation.

Architect Dulal Mukherjee gives away the Pidilite Awards for Excellence to a student

“This award has bolstered my confidence. Such recognition brings out the best in us,” said Florina Dutt, a final year student from Jadavpur University, who bagged the award for Best Design for Ecological Architecture. Chief guest Dulal Mukherjee, an eminent architect, reminded the students of the age-old proverb, “Detailing is the God for architecture.”

He stressed on the need for creative minds to flourish with renewed dedication in the professional sphere. At the end of the programme, all Pidilite advertisements and radio shots were screened. The audience were asked to give their suggestions for better commercials. Professor Somen Chakraborty of Jadavpur University gave the rounding-off message.

“Every profession demands seriousness and dedication. If you want to be outstanding in your field, you have to push that extra bit.” he said.

Tanmoy Das Lala
Class XII, St Xavier’s Collegiate School

Bosco blasts

Don Bosco School, Bandel held parents’ day celebrations in their new auditorium that was inaugurated on February 1. This was followed by a grand send-off party organised for the students of Class XII.

Students of Class IX staged a drama — based on Saki’s play The Death Trap — on the occasion. Some students also traced the evolution of Bengali music and poetry through a musical. A Bengali play based on a parable from the Bible was also staged. On February 8, the school gave a warm farewell to the outgoing students of Class XII.

They were greeted with flowers. This was followed by a presentation, that took students down memory lane. The school band livened the evening with their rendition of Cranberries hit Zombie.

The stage was then left for the outgoing batch to perform for the last time. The fusion trio of Deep, Soumojit and Arnesh performed an original rock-jazz fusion piece while Agniva and group sang some Hindi favourites.

Arnesh Ghose
Class XII, Don Bosco School, Bandel