Type, Pattern & Material Phenomenologies

This course hinges around three ideas: building type, spatial pattern and material phenomenology. 

‘Building type’ here is a generic form made of sub-components where sub-components have specific relationships with each other. Building types have evolved over years and have consolidated through needs of climate, aspirations, patterns of living etc. A way of life and living is embedded in their configuration. As a diagram, types spatialise relationships between people. 

‘Spatial pattern’ here is referred to as the specific spatiality produced by each of the sub-components, where the articulation of the form of the sub-component shapes its spatiality – (eg. long, wide, squarish, tunnel-like, well-like, etc) This spatiality produces different possibilities of inhabitation. Hence, the spatiality of the sub-component determines the form of life that it can hold. Like type, the sub-components are themselves produced through long histories and embody in them forms of living and practices. In many ways, they stand for patterns of life. Therefore, their spatiality is referred to as spatial patterns. When seen with type, the idea of spatial pattern brings about a specificity to the experience of form. 

‘Material Phenomenology’ here is referred to as the study / understanding of phenomenon, when materiality of form becomes instrumental in the experience and phenomenon of space. Materiality here includes the actual material used as well as systems and assemblies of these materials. When seen together with type and pattern, this materiality brings about a specificity to the experience of form. 

Type, pattern and materiality are intrinsically linked to behaviour of the body in space. Specific space and form configurations afford particular possibilities and therefore have a distinct relationship to human behaviour. This course intends to build capacity in students to experiment with and explore the above three ideas, to develop spatial configurations congruent to contemporary practices of the everyday. 

This semester we studied type, pattern and material phenomenologies in Chikhali, Malusare near Mahabaleshwar, Maharashtra. Here, we will look closely at a village settlement and speculate on the various configurations of homestay facilities to promote local tourism. In order to do this we will study one village settlement closely to understand the relationships between the configurations of home and their varied relationships to inhabitation, climate and social acts. 

The course objectives and processes will be as follows: 

1. Identification of type, pattern and materiality from field studies along with the socio-cultural and physical forces that have shaped them. Also identification of specific behaviour that these promote. Here the field shall be a cluster with an intensity of a specific type of buildings. Diagrams, orthographic drawings, narratives, ethnographies, experiential drawings, etc. shall be utilised during this stage (1-1/2 weeks).

2. Scoping of the architectural engagement - How can the idea of home and its type be modified to think of homes which are temporary, for guests, as rest space? Is the type, pattern and materiality able to afford these transformations and aspirations? Based on this, the students shall be asked to recast newer relationships and architectural scopes (1/2 week). 

3. Realigning the type, pattern and materiality with contemporary everyday life.

4. Developing a conceptual spatio-material apparatus towards projecting newer imaginations of inhabitation. This stage will involve working with diagrams to understand existing types and possible shifts (1+2 week). This stage will also look at types of other temporary homes and rest stops such sarais, step wells, inns, dharamshalas, etc. through a process of diagramming in consonance with diagrams of the homes in the village. 

5. Developing an architectural intervention as a set of synesthetic spatial relationships explored through scaled drawings and models with ideas of materiality, building systems, its assemblies and their phenomenological properties (3 weeks).

6. Development of visual narratives for the projected idea of home and its lived relationships (1 week).

The course will aim at building capacities in typological engagement (through training in tools of type, pattern, phenomenon-analysis), speculating new forms of inhabitations, developing sensibilities in built environment scale and proportioning, and detailing of systems, material and assemblies.

Site Location -

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