Water bodies have always been the landscapes for civilizations to emerge. With life, space making, trade and agriculture happening around, dense communities grow. The Vasai-Virar district in the north of Mumbai has a history of numerous such sprouts of water bodies; natural as well as artificial. One of these lakes; Papdy Talao (or Hanuman Talao) in Vasai West was the chosen site of research and intervention. With a dense settlement around consisting of one of Vasai’s largest local market, a Ram mandir and its trust, a market building that was turned into a shelter for the homeless, etc the site offered one a pause to halt and observe how communities work and claim public spaces around. An attempt to intervene was made, thinking through one of the observations and was developed landscraper tries to merge the water bodies and the existing landmass. The accessible roof and the step down of the kunds create palate of scales, allowing a larger span of visual connect with both the lakes
Site Observations :
As we enter the site, one notices the multiplicity of activities that happen on this very narrow stretch of land. Upon further research, we found that the papdi talao existed as a large reservoir for the paddy fields around and that in around 1972 the low lying area created in between prompted the local government to reclaim the land and use if for humanitarian purposes, splitting the lake in two smaller lakes; Papdy Talao and Bondli Talao. As we move inwards the presence of these water bodies is often felt but seldom seen due to the high boundary created or the workshops, etc and that is where we start asking - How can a gesture strengthen the felt sense of these two water bodies through crafted visual connect?
Making this question the basis of our thought process, the typological and morphological strategies for the site are established to create an integrated design language. The intervention as a landscaper attempts to merge the water bodies and the existing landmass and the strategy developed for that is - A structural grid of planes at every 5m interval is implemented throughout. This grid then defines the columns that are resurrected from the grounds to a height of 3.5m. As the water tank on site becomes the focal center, the roof is imagined as an inhabitable entity cascading down from the center. The land starts submerging in order to create inhabitable spaces and this ground then also submerges deeper at instances to create kunds that let the water take over the structure.
