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"During our times, we would constantly be around our neighbors, check on them, care for them and would love to socialize all the time. But my granddaughter who is around your age, does socialize haa, but also prefers privacy most of the time" says Mrs. Vaidya an elderly woman while describing her life at Bhaktiyog (The existing residential building).
Another story by Mrs. Apte a middle-aged woman dwelling with her husband and 12-year old daughter in the Bar type building shares her experiences about how the busy Chandavarkar Road went quiet during Covid lockdown. Although it felt good to them for sometime but they eventually started missing the flux of the street which had shaped their lives in many nuanced ways over the period of time.
Mrs. Vaidya and Mrs. Apte are one of the many stakeholders of Bhaktiyog whose experiences are similar to those of other members regarding the idea of life and home for their current building.
Bhaktiyog Co-op Housing society, Borivali west, Mumbai
USER GROUP DIAGRAM
Looking at different generations currently dwelling at Bhaktiyog and with the majority being an old population but at the same time there being a population of the young (the ones already living there and new) the need for completely redeveloping and creating a built form that allows to open up social relationships but also allows privacy to the younger users arises.
IMAGINATION OF THE BUILT
The home is imagined as a series of terraces opening in front of each floor. The floorplate starts gyrating at angles to form these terraces which become social spaces that hold possibilities for creating new relations amongst people living around and also are capable to afford recreational programs.
STRATERGY FOR DERIVING THE FORM
Keeping in mind these observations, the process of deriving the form started by looking at the two main roads adjacent to the site, the parking withheld in the basement.
Cafes, departmental stores, a playgroup facility are the main commercial programs on the ground floor that invite the city to flow through the built and be a part of it. The commercial zone extends a floor above holding health centers, yoga centers, reading libraries, etc. responding to the majority of the user group dwelling in the building.
The blue are the lift shafts and the red are the toilet shafts. These act as anchor points that hold the building together
Now, in order to create terraces, the floor plate starts gyrating at an angle of 30° keeping the toilet shaft as the primary anchor point. Thus, 8 different permutations and combinations are applied and repeated in a cluster of 2 and 3 to create a 23 floors high rise.
Structurally a 0° floor plate is withheld between the lift block and the toilet shaft and tied together with the help of primary and secondary beams. Since, it is a flat slab system throughout the building, the beams are embedded in the slab.
The 30° floor plate also operates on similar logics but only with an addition of a pair of columns erected to support the edge of the floorplate.
PHYSICAL MASSING MODEL
REMIMAGINED FORM OF THE BUILT
LIVED EXPERIENCE (SECTION)
The built thus starts opening up and creates new grounds for interactions and the vertical forms starts affording corridors and balconies on the inner and outer façade respectively thereby cutting down harsh sunlight and responding to the climate of Mumbai.
VIEWS
CONFIGURATION OF THE HOME
BAR TYPE CLUSTER
The cluster has 3 main configurations: The Bar type
The Angle type
The 'L' type
All three of the above have 4 houses each of 33 sq.m, 38 sq.m, 45 sq.m and 90sq.m and have an upper and lower plan since one tenement (90 sq.m) is a duplex.
Various permutations and combinations of these clusters are used to generate floor plans that are able to afford a terrace in front of each cluster.
ANGLE TYPE CLUSTER
'L' TYPE CLUSTER
PLANS
SECTION 2
NORTH ELEVATION
In the contemporary realm, wherein there are smaller plots available for a very high density of people, vertically opening up the building becomes a strategy in breaking down the large volume into smaller new ground i.e. terraces that help in maintaining the scale of the form w.r.t. to a human level and generate social relationships.
These terraces are designed such they bring in the idea of care amongst residents wherein the different tenements on each floor share common spaces amongst them which help in building new relationships and bring in the idea of care and friendships. This opening up also helps in drawing light and ventilation into the homes.
At the same time, the form of the built invites the city to flow it on the lower floors. The ground below becomes passing roads for the people of the city to walk through rather than restricting entry to a specific crowd thereby blurring the edges between the built and unbuilt.
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