Walls and Walkways

Question-

Daman is going through a lot of infrastructural development lately towards tourists’ recreation. The language of circulation inside the Moti Daman fort in a grid pattern causing discomfort at several places and providing shade at several. This forms microconditions inside the fort. The lack of maintenance also results in improper waste management. The old fort wall ruins also supports the growth of vegetation over itself at various places inside the fort. Some of the microconditions are formed around these walls. How do the the walls respond to a public interface that blurs the street patterns and microconditions allowing the pauses to be more continuous and comforting?

Several microconditions formed at places inside the fort

Locations of ruins inside the fort

Built and unbuilt

Debris dumped behind fort walls

Vegetation growing on old fort walls

The design consists of a transect walkway passing through various places inside the fort connecting the Pargola garden, Maratha memorial, tall abandoned fort wall, curved fort wall, and the Dominican monastery. The two major places of pause selected are the library entrance and the extension of the curved wall as a public interface with a roof garden.

Built spaces and walkway passing through it

Initial ideas of transect walkway

Walkway creeps through spaces in the fort the vegetation over the ruins

First idea of the roof for the library entrance

Series of arches allowing an outdoor library

Idea of extending the exiting fort wall to form the entrance

Play with arches to form different spaces for the outdoor library

Initial idea of the public interface having a connect with the ground level and slowly rising up

Form of the public interface blurring the grid pattern and altering the street typology to provide a playful space under the roof garden with public facilities.

Key plan

Plan cut at 750mm

Roof plan of the library entrance and public interface connected by a transect walkway

Different programmes in the public interface, example- reading and seating spaces, public toilets, play spaces, drinking water facility, exhibit spaces/stalls

Light conditions under the roof garden

Cross sections indicating the scale of the space and people occupying it

Transect walkway details around the pargola garden

Walkway around the Dominican monastery

Walkway near the Directorate of Education building and Maratha memorial

Construction details of walkway

The library entrance has series of arches supported by a smaller arcade and connected by barrel vaults with slits for skylight. The smaller arcade is an extension of the existing walls. The square where two series of arches meet is covered by a cross vault.

Seating spaces are partially covered with the barrel vaults and arches allowing a blur between the inside and outside.

Light conditions- Library entrance

The library entrance connecting the public interface by a walkway

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