UNDONE - From mass to lines to void.

Graphic by Kris Castelino, 5B.

ACT I — THE ORDINARY DAY

The studio stretches awake with rustling sound of tracings clinging to the floor and half built models that slouch on the table.

Someone's overcharged laptop audibly blows out warm air in the background; the sun slashes through the large glass windows, illuminating almost every corner of the open studio.

I open my laptop. I’ve been working on my “DD finaljuryfinalfinal89” model for the past 3 days. Now all that's left to do is finish adding the remaining openings and furniture. Then I can move onto setting views and renders.

I finally modelled the window I designed. I copy paste it into my model. I let out a sigh. The software window froze. My file and grades hanging in the balance

I hit Ctrl+Z, something so trivial, so common, so typical. Its strange how we put so much faith in these two keys as if undoing a mistake would undo the thought behind it.

A small action. A daily ritual.

The world continues — someone jokes about deadlines, the printer jams again, the faculty passes by with a tired smile.

But something feels slightly off.

The wall clock ticks backwards — just one tick — before resuming.

ACT II — THE FIRST LOOP

By afternoon, multiple undos later, I begin to get the feeling something’s off, unaware that after I undid copy pasting some furniture, the desk at the back of me disappeared. I noticed it only after I turned to ask for help.

My model was, in the literal sense of it, simplifying itself, details I spent hours working on disappearing every minute — the façade flattened, 3D objects unravelled into lines. Is this a virus? Am I doomed?

My friend — the one whose desk disappeared – was nowhere to be found. 

I hit undo again, that seems to help sometimes — but, NO. The few people at the other end of the studio vanished mid-laughter.

Only echoes of their ha-ha-ha hung in the stale air, like a ghost haunting me.

Panic hit me, I look around. Everything feels lighter — fewer objects, fewer sounds. Am I hallucinating? This feels unreal.

The drawings on the wall are missing, the pin-up boards even. In its place, I see chalk markouts on the wall, as if the pin-up boards never existed. People from an era long gone seemed to enter the studio. In their hands, the same pin-up board, just brand new. What IS happening?!

Lowkey freaked out, I hit undo again.

The screen glitches and blinks.

It’s dawn? Again.

ACT III — THE LOOP REPEATS

I’m back to where I was in my seat. So is my model. Only, my laptop has been replaced with an older model. The worn out desks are brand new. And me? I’m somehow younger.

Every iteration begins the same:

I cross reference my every move with my CAD drawings and then model it.

This time I press undo, a few people’s laptops vanish into thin air and so do they,... kind of?

Confused first yearites at their drafting boards — some using T-scales, some developing zoning diagrams with alcohol markers.

By the fifth undo, my building model is nothing but a wireframe.

By the sixth, the studio itself loses its color. Spray painted lockers are now their original dull blue-grey.

By the seventh, all that remains are faint graphite lines — the skeletal trace of a campus drawn on vellum. The walls turn into hatching, shadows loose depth and my own reflection is now a thin Contour line.

I realize I am inside the drawing now — a ghost rendered in a forgotten layer.

I move through paper corridors, past phantom juries and erased projects.

ACT IV — THE FALL

At last, the mechanical keyboard before me disappears. I can’t hit undo. Hell! I can’t hit redo either.

Slowly, everything sublimates into nothing.

Silence.

And then — a faint hum.

I turn and see a wall made of sketches on sketches on sketches — thousands of them, from decades of batches past.

Every erased idea, every half-finished model, every failed concept — all suspended here, shimmering like constellations of what could have been.

A voice — or maybe memory — whispers:

“Architecture was never about what we build, but what we keep unbuilt —

the residues that guide the next line drawn.”

I look at my own hands. I’m fading into linework too.

I open my mouth to scream but only graphite dust escapes.

ACT V: THE FEVER DREAM

My eyes open.

“Huh?”

I’d fallen asleep, face down on my laptop’s keyboard. Multiple keys pressed. The model was all over the place. What just happened? Was it all a dream?

What happened to the model? How am I going to make it right in time for the jury?

…

But wait? Was whatever I’ve done so far worth it? If I could undo it all, would it help? Would I do it all the same? The zoning, the drawings, the models and the force-fed concept at the end?

If I could undo all the sleepless nights and unproductive days, would I still be doing the things I’m doing, the way I’m doing them?

Is this the right way to go about things? Is there a correct way to approach design? The right design process? 

Shouldn’t design be about experience? About stories? The people that tell them? That live them? Was this out of touch process that let me reach representation faster, really any good? Shouldn’t it have been more about who I’m designing for rather than the deadline I’m designing for? Isn’t my duty more about who I design for rather than when? Maybe we've had it wrong after all…

—- THE END —-

Written by, Chaturthi Dhakare (Editorial Head) Kris Castelino (Editorial Associate)