22_Sujal Kothawade

SITE:

Near the local train station in Borivali West,adjacent to Sardar Patel Road, a 59-year-old shrine sits on a pedestal around a peepal tree, It houses various deities in photographs and a Shivling embedded in the pedestal.

As the shrine grew, it influenced its surroundings, which include a chali with shops for storage, retail, and services, as well as a scrap dealer, paan shop, barber, food stall, cooking units for the train station eateries, and a bar. The shrine is maintained by the owner of the chali, established by his mother, and all the shops are rented.

From the road’s recession on the claimed footpath, there’s a chain of small shops. A shared rickshaw stand next to the shrine draws people who often stop by while waiting for rides. Interestingly, the bar behind the shrine is also owned by the same person, who maintains and cleans the shrine. To reach the bar, one must pass through a narrow thoroughfare created by the chali units and the BMC boundary wall beside it.

PLAN

PLAN @ 3m

SITE ELEVATION

Collage as an argument:

These shrines grow very organically throughout the city, we normally end up not paying attention to the small micro spaces these interventions create. Them and their surroundings have a very patchy appearance which we think of as messy.

The collage becomes a way of reading the site, how the expression of the texture, form and scale of the site is placed in layers for one to understand the site and its context.

Clg1.1 Profane is the Blue

Clg:1.1: The shrine has a blend of heterogenous activities around it, they are not organized nor do they follow any particular way of being , this gives the site it's layers and patchiness, where we get to observe two strong and equally opposite forces in the area: The Bar (in blue) and the shrine (in red). A stark contrast of something which is considered pious to something so profane as the bar. Here they don't necessarily combat but help eachother.

Clg:1.2 Shrine in a crossword

Every time one looks at the shrine and its context we find something new, there is a sense of constant discovery in the site, it is like the shrine and its surroundings create a crossword for us to solve.

Collage through metaphors :

Clg:2.1 The Weaver

Clg.2.2 "Whitewash"

Clg:2.1 This collage depicts the lady who established the shrine, illustrating how her actions inadvertently embed the shrine into the city's fabric.

Clg:2.2 Here the shrine acts as a cover for the bar behind it, creating a buffer zone .The positive perception associated with the shrine overshadows or mitigates any negative view of the bar, this way the shrine almost whitewashes the bar

Clg:2.3 Mushrooms in the City

Clg:2.3 The shrine shares a symbiotic relationship with the urban context, imagine the shrine as mushrooms, and the city as its host tree, the owner of the bar maintains the shrine and does its repair, in return the shrine acts as a cover up for the bar, the shrine nourishes the allied enterprises.

Similar to mushrooms attracting bugs,the bugs here represent the share rickshaw stand next to the shrine. The owner of the chali rents these shops, but the shopkeepers become his puppets since they all give a helping hand in the cover up.

The long legged women represent the layer of the shrine and its surroundings being a very gendered space, the only interaction women have is with the shrine, they with their long legs dissociate themselves from all the activities men conduct in the surroundings.

Developing a syntax:

The tree covers the shrine, the shrine hides the small meeting area behind it, and the chali conceals the thoroughfare leading to the bar. Together, these elements obscure the bar itself. Each part of the site acts as a cover for something else, and my goal was to create a secret pathway that leads to the bar.

I chose louvres as my main element, inspired by their ability to hide and reveal. While horizontal louvres hide things at a height, I focused on vertical fins to conceal distant views. These fins are placed at 45-degree angles, with some cut out to form windows and others extruded for seating. This setup creates a screen that blocks the view of passersby and those waiting at the shared rickshaw stand.

Iterations :

On top of the fins is a pergola, which provides shade and shelter while creating a layered visual effect. The pergola allows light to filter through, casting dynamic patterns it promotes airflow and can support climbing plants.

Design Plan

My intervention was not about reorganizing this space or solving any problem but a softer nudge to the existing precinct of my site.

The seats created by operating the vertical fins become nooks for the community to interact , the overlapping of these fins help hide all the other activities which happen in the pockets created by the fins. The project becomes a waiting area for the people at the share rickshaw stand and the drivers themselves, the cabinet next to the meter box is a storage unit for the shop beside. The shrine blends into the interventions context due to the modulated plinth . The photo frames are arranged like louvers in a shelf. They are punctured to create windows this brings a sense of porosity to the space they are almost like shear curtains.

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