The Living Museum
Embedded Files
The Site Visit
The Initial Questions that were asked were
What is flowing?
Time, which for us is broken down in the intervals of 24 hours, even though it is continuous is flowing.
How is it flowing?
The people, the animals, the terrain in this place have experienced the flow of time of different rates. for the humans, they have seen the terrain turn from salt pans to mangroves. this has largely affected their livelihood across time. this makes them see the place and experiences through a longer lens than other animals.
Seasonal Flows
Flow across time
Now
Provocation: Building a space for the people such that the harsh flows of time do not affect the people living there very much and their living also helps them boost their economy.
Iteration 1: The Boat
Initially, we wanted to build a dynamic, flowing way of living to the people living there so that they move along their surroundings, but also not harm their livelihood in any manner and therefore designed this boat that could connect to other boats to create a colony and such where they could sleep, cook, fish, take people out for sightseeing, etc. it could become a restaurant/café where the people could see them fish and eat and enjoy the ocean.
Multiple iteration sketches where these boats get place in semi-permanent manners to create a structure that changes according to time.
Iteration 2: Space beyond The Boat
Here, we tried to expand the peoples space beyond just the boats but still trying to keep the impermanence of the tides and their influence on the structure.
Iteration 3: The Restaurant
Here, we tried to make a restaurant that was below the level of the bund wall and therefore putting a glass window on the side of the flowing water would make the change in tides visible to the people. But, the design did not hold any symbolism related to the information we had gathered or showcased it in any manner. also, the underwater experience would be hindered by the poor ventilation given in the design.
Iteration 4 A: The Museum
This design takes the multiple forms of buildings that the people have inhibited and tries to build a collage of ruins through it, why simultaneously being able to be inhabited by the people an facilitating their earnings.
Iteration 4B:
The previously scattered form coagulated here into this humongous chawl like structure but was based on completely demolishing their current housing and did not have all the forms we were actually taking inspiration from.
Iteration 4C:
In this iteration we tried to keep the current housing and building in the between spaces and around it.
Instead of looking at the form of these structures we were taking inspiration from, we decided to instead create a space that would invoke the experience of inhabiting them. This also included the current experience of the people living there.
Iteration 5 A: The Living Museum
Adding spaces on various levels so as to create a sense of a small space having extensions (ex. BDD chawls) and also keeping the influence of the banni houses and the salt pans.
This design also incorporated the small corridors that run Infront of a chawl or the central open common space that exists in chawls and banni villages.
This iteration also included making alterations to their current houses, i.e., making some part of their roofs see through by only keeping the framework standing or removing an entire inner side wall so that the people witness the peoples lives Infront of them, like an exhibit therefore making it an living museum.
Iteration 5 B: The Living Museum
Here, instead of building an entirely functioning structure, we decided to to turn the form into something that distinguished the present from the past. Looking at it, one could distinguish that something existed there but is no longer here. that something was in the form of an semi-open to open, interconnected framed structure.
Final Iteration
Finally, the concluding form we derived created a corridor like space between the houses and the structure, where the kitchens of the houses were given space in the built form where people could come an sit and read and interact not just with the people but also with the surrounding muddy marshes, the trees and the salt pan like structure in the Centre.
Elevation
Inspired by round nature and community spacing of Banni houses, this unit has seating and eating arrangements along with a small gathering space where the old man and his wife can be borrowed (like books) to tell their stories.
This salt pan like structure also acts as an indicator of rising tides and the levels of water at all times. therefore some level of the structure might remain under water the entire year where some would only be submerged in for a small part of it.
Conclusion: We wanted to build a space for the people living there, who have too often been displaced due to external factors that they have no control over. For example, they used to work in the salt pans of Gujarat, and moved to Mumbai during the violence of dui and daman. here as well the salt pans they worked in shut down, the workers left and forest emerged. Now the BMC plans to make a road over the houses that they are currently inhabiting. We hoped to make a space and program such that these people become vital to the entire Mangrove Park that will be built so that they don't again get displaced from the place of their livelihood and do not have to leave the forest that they have so dearly come to coexist with.
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