Building Making
Systems, Details and Drawings
Course Outline
Spaces within public institutions and urban contexts are designed through standardised logics of public but are produced and lived through several subjective experiences which often blur, defy and occupy them in awkward ways. The preceding studio, titled 'localisations' attempted to rethink local programmes that have emerged from public activities in the context of smaller neighbourhoods and their affordances that critically crafted the space and the built-form.
This course continued the previous design to further articulate detailed development stages for the built form through technical resolution of structural systems, material performance and experience, threshold-enclosure details and process of construction. Further, it allowed to bridge the gap between the design from concept to actualization and generate a construction documentation set along with specifications, quantities, estimation and putting together different materials and their assemblies in a manner that is conceptually coherent with the overall idea of the building.
The project was located in Cheetah camp, which is a transit camp located in Trombay. The students closely observed and documented two public institutions, a primary school and a community toilet and the everyday nuances of self-shaped spatialities in order to become spaces of active exchange.
Successful completion of this course shall ensure that the student is ready to participate in a building-making project.
Course Discussions & Questions
The process followed, certain norms and regulations abided to and the output of said process defines whether the built form is formal or informal. In alignment with this, informal settlements are often defined as poor conditions of infrastructure but in popular use it is referred to as encroachment or informal settlements. However these denser pockets of the city open up many possibilities of building type, patterns of inhabitation and its form that tends to everyday needs and is not a repetitive block designed through standardised logics.
The course helped explore many ways of reading these urban spaces beyond the lenses of crisis and collapse that allows for a newer form to cater to the needs of smaller neighbourhoods formed through varied societal conditions of caste, gender, etc. We understood that physical space is not neutral; it is a fixed resource with many interests that are formed through the networks on site, dependencies and linkages which at large contribute towards constructing the urban form.
Keeping these urban nuances in foreground the preceding course introduced the process of building design, starting from site study and scoping till the completion of the project. The process involved many steps like deciding the programme keeping in mind the multiple agencies at play, this course followed up on the previous design project to articulate how the construction would be carried out and what resources would be required for the same.
It helped to develop the ability to write specifications, generate bills of quantities and cost estimation for the project. The course oriented us towards the crafting of built form where the logics of spatiality are based on systems and details along with understanding the practices around construction documentation and project management.
The built-form was detailed through a structural and material understanding for optimal use and the output of these interpolations was worked out. Efficient space planning and material choice guided the design as the students carried out market surveys for choosing material palettes to evoke a certain spatial quality in the given context.
Two questions which emerged through this course were
What are the standards of built-form that would cater to these smaller dense neighbourhoods?
Can standardised logics be applied while building for such nuanced communities?
this work was produced during the building making course conducted in the third year of bachelor of architecture programme
at the School of Environment and Architecture(SEA) for the academic year 2022-23.