Building making

Course outline

This course provided the necessary means to carry out detailed development and refinement of building design through the technical resolution of structural systems, material performance and experience, member assembly, and process of construction. It encouraged us to comprehensively resolve the design from concept to actualization and to generate a set of documents with specifications, quantities and estimation. The focus was to develop an ability to think through systems and detailing. We gained the ability to make construction documentation drawings that could be used for the construction of buildings and developed the knowledge to write specifications and generate a bill of quantities and cost estimation for a project. The course trained us in crafting built forms through the logic of spatial systems and details.

It also helped explore many ways of reading these urban spaces beyond the lenses of crisis and collapse that allows for a newer form to cater to the needs of smaller neighbourhoods formed through varied societal conditions of caste, gender etc. These denser pockets of the city open up many possibilities of patterns of inhabitation and its form that tends to everyday needs and is not a repetitive block designed through standardised logics. It pushes us to question, what are the new standards that would cater to these neighbourhoods? Can standardised logics be applied while building for such nuanced communities?

The built-form was detailed through a structural and material understanding for optimal use and the output of these interpolations was worked out. Efficient space planning and material choice guided the design as we carried out market surveys for choosing material palettes to evoke a certain spatial quality in the given context.

Site analysis

The school is the envelop between the predefined boundary wall and has been constructed over last 10 years through the material that comes in form of donations. The school ground holds public functions and the infrastructure used in building this space is stored opened mostly on the corners of the boundary wall. Also this storage spills over the plinth, under the shade space. Closed corners inside the built classrooms becomes storage space for school. storage space is also shared with the pantry inside the physic lab.The plinth also holds storage like the chairs, utensils and carpet that is used in community functions. Here all the corners becomes highlights because of storage that gets adds with the addition of space for the classrooms. The boundary wall of the school becomes surface to put household storage of the connected galils.

What do I see as I enter? stored chairs and stacked benches, tucked in decks and rolled carpets, utensils and play objects, sofas upside down on the plinths, here is where the school happens.

Conceptual design sketches and model

Design Iteration

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)

Design details

The language of the built form is to make the storage point not as residual spaces but the most emphasized site. since this points of storage are the regulators or the functional members for the site hence, it would be an effort to make this sites legible. The system used then is to bring about to make it more efficient and the massing of these space is curated through what is stored, how it is stored and how frequently it needs to be accessed. The pattern of the built form would arrive by almost inverting the idea, where the storage gets designed first and then the programmed space later.

Construction documentation

Working Dawings

GENERAL NOTES :

ALL DIMENSIONS ARE IN MILLIMETERS UNLESS OTHERWISE SPECIFIED.
ALL THE WRITTEN DIMENSIONS ARE TO BE FOLLOWED.
DRAWINGS TO BE SEEN WITH RESPECT TO ALL OTHER DRAWINGS.
P.C.C. IS IN THE RATIO OF 1:3:6 (CEMENT : SAND COARSE AGGREGATE).
ALL LEVELS SPECIFIED IN METERS.
ALL DECISIONS REINFORCEMENT CALCULATIONS NEED TO BE TAKEN BY STRUCTURAL ENGINEER.
DO NOT SCALE THE DRAWING.
ALL DISCREPANCIES SHALL BE BROUGHT TO NOTICE TO THE ARCHITECT BEFORE THE COMMENCEMENT OF ANY WORK.
RICHER CONCRETE MIX TO BE USED FOR THE FOUNDATION AND M:30 MIX TO BE USED FOR THE SUPER STRUCTURE, ALL MIXES SHALL BE SUGGESTED, EXAMINED AND APPROVED BY THE STRUCTURAL ENGINEER.
VERIFY FIELD CONDITIONS AND COORDINATION WITH THE PROJECT DOCUMENTS PRIOR TO PROCEEDING WITH THE WORK.
WORK WITHIN THE FIELD BOUNDARIES AS SPECIFIED IN THE PROJECT DOCUMENT AND COMPLY WITH ALL THE APPUCABLE BUILDING CODES, REGULATIONS AND ORDINANCE REQUIREMENTS.
OCCUPANTS ON THE ADJACENCIES TO THE PROJECT AREA SHALL CONTINUE UNINTERRUPTED/UNDISTURBED OCCUPANCY DURING THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE PROJECT.