Arch Syntax+ Material Systems

Course conductors: Anshu Chaudhary, Anuj Daga, Milind Mahale and Teja Gavankar

Written by: Grishma Karle and Parnavi Kulkarni

Architectural Syntax started with conversations and discussions about what one understands from the word ‘syntax’ and its association with the ways of reading and seeing in architecture and aiming to explore the techniques of developing one's language of architecture by setting the ‘rules’ of putting together space and form — which are the essential grammar of this language.

Syntax in its basic form can be understood as “A way of putting something together or in an order”, so how do you recognize this syntax in the space around you?

We began with an attempt at understanding ‘petite infrastructure’, in a context like Mumbai.. The site for the module was the 1.2 km stretch of Eksar Road in Borivali(W) where it started with walks along the street edge with the question — “How are YOU looking at the street?”. Forcing our senses to experience the life that exists; understanding the stories it holds, and making ourselves aware of the scale and proportionality of it concerning ourselves. Through this, we had to identify our sites for intervention based on the following -

1. Context: It is the social, physical, and environmental context that frames a spatial practice and its syntax. If the context changes, their syntax will change.

2. Transacting bodies: Who is using the space and how? How many people use the space and at what times? How do gender, age, and orientation play a role in the imagination of space?

3. Materials: What materials are deployed to make the environment possible? How do they come together, and what are the potentials and problems with such an assembly?

(The 1.2 km Eksar Road stretch that was put together in the studio, along with the 43 individual sites on it)

The conversations around petit infrastructure and how they craft a soft edge to the existing metropolitan context helped us create opportunities for varied programmes to come together, while also showing us the kind of programs these minor interventions brought to the street. This module focused and explored on how boundaries of architecture can be pushed to sort of rethink the potential of these petit infrastructures with more dignity and ease. Parallel presentations and discussions happened as well towards understanding better what one means by formal syntax in architecture through the works of the likes of Peter Eisenman, Robert Venturi, Bernard Tschumi, etc.

This module, for us, worked towards realizing for ourselves questions that get raised when you start thinking about the existence of these infrastructures formally; ‘How does whatever you are observing cater to its surroundings?’ ‘Can an element become a space?’ ‘How is a specific element being negotiated concerning its context and/or situation?’ and more.

What was achieved at the end of this 7-week module was a spatial enclosure that negotiated and worked with scale, proportion, and spatial context while also having the ability to be a workable project and which was being arrived at through an intense process of forming a syntax (language) for it that was generated through anything-from simply an element on-site to the social context of it- depending upon the individual’s site and the inventiveness of their programs.