DESIGN, DETAIL & LOCALISATION
Semester 6 Architectural Design Studio / School of Environment & Architecture
If space is not only the configuration of material but also that of the life which happens within it, then architecture naturally concerns itself with more than merely the tectonic resolutions of matter/materials. Bringing attention to this, we can revisit the idea of architectural detail (and ‘detailing’ as an act/verb). Architectural ‘detail’ expands to suggest a spatial detail which responds to the specificities of lived spatial and material practices from and for which it is designed. ‘Specificity’ is seen here in opposition/contrast to the generic/genericity, in that it responds to the unique instance of socio-spatial practices characteristic of the setting/site. While material and tectonic responses are part of this specificity, detailing here isn’t limited to the manipulations thereof. It deals instead with the specificity of spatial articulations as responsive to the forces of the context(social and spatial) and the program. In conceiving of institutions and their architecture this approach helps move away from the assumptions of homogeneity of the public; instead the emergent socio-spatial and material patterns are seen as generators of detail.
Spaces within public institutions and urban contexts are designed through standardised logics of such “public” but are produced and lived through several subjective contestations which often blur, defy, subvert, disregard or occupy them in awkward ways. In institutions that emerge locally over time, such as the langars, local libraries, reading rooms, khanwals, aanganwadis, community halls, such logics of unexpected occupations are often visible. What is an architecture which is localized (detail-ed) through the act of responding to and allowing for such unanticipated multiplicities?
In order to open up this idea of the institution, the studio will observe local programmes that have emerged for public activities in neighbourhoods within peri urban areas and their specific socio-spatial encrustations. Institutional spaces in smaller towns find themselves in unique programmatic conditions that occur between new kinds of transitions and aspirations tending towards development. Observations of the specific socio-spatial practices on the site will be undertaken to get a nuanced description of its lived spatial detail. These observations and propositions formulate the context for architecture of the institution, programmatically as well as typologically. Questions of material systems and services, contextual relevance, environmental and ground processes, societal issues will critically craft and imagine spaces and built form.
While addressing the above social formulations as physical design manifestations, the course will explore and expand the notion of “detail” in architecture. Detail here is understood as a structural thought that may be conceptualised at different scales and levels of abstraction that hold together the architectural idea. The exploration of “detail” may operate in the processual or material aspect of a project, it may exist in ways of representation or resolution. The focus of this studio is thus three fold - first to assimilate and understand the logic of space making in the realm of the public. Second, to be able to generate field specific programmatic responses and third, to craft the built form through social- cultural- environmental considerations including the aspects of structure, material, constructability and service systems while opening up the notion of detail in architecture.
Studio Mentors: Anuj Daga, Dipti Bhaindarkar, Freyaan Anklesaria
Site Model
Site Model
Aanganwaadi, Garbage Collection, Community Toilet & Pathology Lab
Window for the community from the street.
Blurring the verandah into the community space.
Affordances of narrow spaces and how these alleys become an extension of their domestic space and a place of social interaction with the play of light.
Spatiality of live and dead spaces, repurposing of spaces through postures, affordances created for washing activities. How different degrees of blur can be created through plinth and roof modulation creating affordances for these activities.
The facade or the skin of the house is not a flat surface, its a space which affords many activities on both the sides. How could a design be articulated such that the skin of the design can provide for both the programmes inside and provide a better space for the activities that currently happen outside.
The built form here is reimagined to negotiate the gaze, the but form slowly folds and unfolds itself to open up smaller courtyards and backyards. As one meanders through the site one finds new corners, new niches to dodge the gaze and survelliance at the same time feel safe due to visual connect
The site is seen as a collage of tarpolin, metal sheets, ropes, bamboos, plywood sheets, metal pieces and polythene sheets creating a series of temporary spaces for storage, seating and sleeping.
The structure extends itself to provide anchor points for hosting residual materials to generate multiple community affordances.
Subodh Shelke
Creating new ground lines with the help of undulating flat surfaces. Exploring how can the ‘plinth’ or this new topography help in providing a better public space.
The current built form is reimagined such that the programmed spaces have extended appendices allowing extended community activities. The pushed back community interactions and daily chores are imagined to inhabit the extended thresholds of the programmed spaces.
The swelling and shrinking of thresholds of the building to provide space for different activities.
To reimagine the community square as an extended threshold space for the community, blurring the hard edges, generating slow transitions between the inside and the outside.
To reimagine the built form as a set of connected terraces allowing for a layer of socio-cultural exchanges lifted up from the ground plane to proliferate community gatherings.
Rethinking the toilet space with the idea of scoops where the scooped spaces can afford, circulation, porosity, gardening and interaction.
Trombay Public Primary School & Community Ground
Multiplicity of spaces, gender spatiality and the idea of play. How the plinth is an emotional and physical threshold extension of a classroom making it a place of social interaction.
Rethinking the school with the Idea of continuity established by the Corridor. How the space of the corridor holds the fabric of the school.
The Multiplicity of spaces affording vision and the idea of spectatorship. How do the plinths modulate in order to form pockets overlooked by the surrounding?
edge conditions can diffuse the threshold of the corridor with, while partitions placed along the edge can create more intimate niches along with tensile shading to reducing visual boundaries with light. Intent is to place varying plinth condition in various areas of the central space to homogenize the usage of open space.
The school here reimagines the connection between the inside and the outside. It generates a dialogue with the outside by interrogating, reimagining and inhabiting the fenestrations.
To reimagine the built form through a lens of porosity of light, ventilation, movement and vision. To explore multifunctionality of spaces. The intent here is to rethink possibilities for different edge conditions affording certain behaviour and interactions.
The School is used for multiple activities. One single space needs to take up multiple activities to make the most of it. There is constant contraction and expansion of spaces. The intent is to reimagine the school as a multifunctional space.
The design intervention here is imagined as the new edge between the community and the school releasing the edges as softer articulations of play and leisure spaces for the school and the community whereas the school is imagined as one thick edge overseeing these new play courts.
Affordances of the edges corridor and corners and how the metaphor of the folding surfaces creates spatial experiences that blurs the inside and the outside. These conditions also generate spaces that brings the idea of a space through expansion and contraction.
Using inbetweens ,niches and courtyards as places of resting , circulation and contemplation. To redefine the edge condition with the settlement with these elements.
The school here is reimagined as a space where the objects of use are not tucked behind in a corner but are stored in a well curated and efficient stacking system, thus providing different experiences when these objects are stored and/ or in use. (not stored)
The idea is to blur out the margin space which has been formed due to the offsetting of the boundary wall and create a versatile space through the idea of expansion and contraction.
Linking the spaces with the functional program of the library and dead storage spaces, within these threshholds with the intent of creating more interactive space, with levels, boundries and material.
Rethinking the space by taking ahead the idea of slivered courtyards and thresholds and overlaps.
reconfiguration of the exisiting space playing with built and unbuilt areas to control light, taking into consideration edge conditions and directing intensities of activities and density theough design.
The school is reimagined as a set of interconnected - intersecting volumes weaving the different experiences. Each space thus evokes a set of emotions and directs peculiar behaviour.
The intent here is to rethink the toilet and balwadi as storage corners for the local community and to integrate storage of different forms within the built intervention.
The intent here to develop the site with the architecture of water. To smudge the edges, to penetrate the context, to flow in the neighbourhood, to mix with the landscape, to extend towards the humans and other than humans.
To imagine the built form as an extended night/ evening lantern allowing interstitial community programmes and activities to extend through evening and night. The programme timed spaces thus lend a new threshold providing the community with lit and well illuminated spaces to aid their gathering.
To create their own space for children there no one can control them. I want to design some roofs for the school. There they can bunk from the class and chill, they leave them on their own way.
The built form is imagined to be porous structure to allow play of light and shadow, with occupancy at different levels creating a vertical labyrinth, generating a transaction capacity in open, semi-open, semi-closed and closed spaces throughout the site affording public activities and interaction.
Rethinking the space with the concept of Eyes on Street, Gender Spatiality and the affordances of the Threshold Spaces.
Rethinking the idea of school through gradation of gaze and porosity through materiality and how can one blur the boundaries between classroom, courtyard and corridor . Creating interactive space which merges the inside and outside.
Reimagining the site with Water as the main element, and reconfiguring the existing builtform and creating more Water efficient enviroment s where water is not just used and stored in an effective manner but also celebrated through its form and use. The intend is to make the site an independent water sustaining space.
Rethinking the spatial experience of the school as it represents the porosity and to get proper light and ventilation and also interact with the surrounding.
Using the metaphor of Folds and Folds creating Pockets to understand the patterns in which objects/ people congregate , configure and act in public realm in the dense spatiality of Cheetah Camp