Course Brief : 

This course aims to capacitate students to experience the environment as a set of interconnected networks which balance each other to constantly generate rhythmic flows of resources. These networks include the negotiations between the human, non human, socio economic, socio cultural and socio political flows that are dynamic in nature. This course seeks to ask how does architecture participate in the interconnections that alter, interrupt, break, prolong, hinder, stunt certain cycles that privilege or suppress life forms? What are its subsequent repercussions for the interspecies? How do they alter the existence of different life forms? This course will investigate and explore design possibilities that negotiate these relationships. The interventions will focus on ecologically sensitive terrain and intervene by asking ‘how can architecture be an instrument for ecologically equity?’. 

Main website:

https://sites.google.com/sea.edu.in/2022-23environmental-flows/home

Argumentative Questions -

The houses in the village near the Kalai river have crossed the CRZ line (coastal regulation zone line) due to which it exposes them to heavy floods occurring in the monsoon season. The locals complained that construction of a 5 metre wall on the  coastline did not stop the floods from destroying their houses. The wall also altered the course of the coastal winds.  This hard edge has reduced interaction between the settlement and the sea. 

What type of intervention can be made to blur this threshold created by the wall? How can the intervention improve the ecosystem around and facilitate programs which increase human activity on the coast and also help in lifting the economy of the village ?

Argumentative Drawing:

Observations:

 Program:

Rethinking the boundary wall to become porous and make it inhabitable to increase engagements with ecosystem and also lessen the impact of the tidal waves during high tides and heavy monsoons. we wanted to add an element of complexity and intimacy in the structure along with familiarity so the wall does not feel alien to the locals. 

We tried playing with platforms at different heights and creating different spaces to inculcate the programs mentioned below. 

1) Fish market for local vendors which will also draw attention of tourists. 

2) Adding plinths on different level to notify the villagers when the water reaches a certain level to take caution.  

3) Garden space for leisure 

4) Drying area for fishes 

5) Dock for the boats

Space Visualization and Strategy:

Site Model:

Conceptual Models:

Design: