Environmental Thresholds

Form & Space Studies

Semester 6 | A18 | 2020-21

Mentors : Ravindra Punde, Sabaa Giradkar, Dipti Bhaindarkar, Malaksingh Gill, Faizan Khatri, Shrikar Bhave, Rhea Shah, Abhijit Ekbote

-Dhruv Sachala, Dipti Bhaindarkar & Sabaa Giradkar

Semester 6 Design Module began with exploring the relationship of a built form with the ground and the surrounding context. The space question emerged from articulating the building narrative with the ground and the terrain – the socio-political context. The site was located in Veti Village in Murbad. The question was to articulate the spatial narrative for an Ashram School from primary up to Junior College. Spatial explorations on the site began with layering the programme of the school with social and cultural engagements of the villagers, the idea of education in the region, tribal lifestyle, climatic variations, seasonal changes, native architectural practices. The attempt was to build in harmony with the site, to least disturb the current natural flows and cycles. To work out cycles and flows of the built form in relation to the operational energies and maintenance costs.

Students engaged with various tools to get acquainted and oriented with the site and its physical attributes. Terrain aspect maps, models and sketches were made to understand the gradient, ridges and valleys of the site. Mind maps, web diagrams and spatial sketches were made to understand the needs and to create opportunities while ontologically questioning the idea of a school. Architectural questions which emerged through the studio were ‘How the materials evocate the nature of space’, ‘How the morphology and the context present help in intervening the space’, ‘How space can merge with the fabric of the village to form an extension of the village? How does one articulate a built form in the large context of natural flows and cycles?

The program was to design an ashram school for around 400 students accommodating primary, secondary, higher secondary and junior college students. While there were some common program requirements expected, each student contextualised the program and added relevant new programs. While designing the built-form, the understanding of unbuilt, the neighbourhood and the stakeholders were articulated. Each mentor derived their trajectories with their groups as a design process. Various concepts and spaces emerged through the process which was represented through digital renders, models and sectional perspectives to experience the nature of space.

Architecture x Nature

Neel Shah

This project set itself within nature with less built and more open spaces to maximize the contact with nature. It also argues that Architecture is not only the built form but also ground, trees, animals etc; the whole nature. There is also an attempt to understand and speculate the changes on the site for eg. looking at the whole site at intervals of 10 years and designing with respect to that. The materials used in these buildings are wood and bricks which are locally available and the form of the structure is an experiment where the existing built forms ( gable roof, Square plans, backyards etc) are taken further and create new kinds of spaces and experience. There are also experiments of looking at the ground in a different way throughout the site by modulating the ground, creating stepped ground and using the method of cut and fill; this leads to constant negotiating with the existing terrain creating dialogue with it.

The Life Inbetween

Shreya Mehta

The school is a dialogue space between humans and the nature within the vegetation surrounding them, with the builtform and the forest around, with the classrooms and the corridors, which are not only limited to the teacher-student interactions but also interacting with nature, its ecosystems like flora and fauna and also with the time of growth. Its an experience of openness and being outside with nature by being within the structure. The design intervention attempts to achieve porosity in the form language to connect and frame nature. The strategy of inversion with the inside and the outside was explored. The spaces of different open experiences become the main structures which are connected by the dialogue spaces like the corridors, pavilions, courtyards and connecting balconies. The structure sits on stilts, gently touching the ground thus releasing the footprint. The entire site is envisioned to become a forest which grows over time thus allowing the structure to frame dynamic scenes of nature.

School as Event Space

Diwakar Motwani

This school is imagined as a space which inhabits parallel events/ practices/ exchanges to nest multiple learnings and experiences along with structured courses. The school space is imagined to become a part of the village routines not only for the students but also for the villagers. Strategy for the project is to generate the architecture of the event space. To allow for its temporality to exist along with the defined programme requirements. Monoliths act as pointed inserts in the site which are the programmed structured spaces. These monoliths then allow the event spaces to anchor themselves around them, above them, across them. Thus, the event space starts framing the programmed spaces. Bamboo and straw bale composite structural strategies build a dialogue in between the inside/outside and complement the conversation of monoliths & pop-out event spaces.

Evolving Landscape

Jay Kanti

The Design approach started with the idea that Architecture is not a static object but a constantly evolving project. The Central idea was to work with Material timeframes of how the architecture would change when the plantations (Bamboo, Teak, Khair) are fully grown, when they are harvested and when they are in the process of growing and also how the structure and landscape could be transformed/modified by the people using it and how it would evolve over time. Material used majorly is bamboo which is locally available, having bamboo plantations and larger workshops within the site which would help in easy maintenance and evolution of the structure. The built form thus evolved into a phased construction along with the landscape.

Tangled Learning

Dhanvi Shah 

The design constantly questioned the idea of school, the space where learning happens and it’s system. To change, this education institute was addressed through three things – curriculum, collective consciousness and the architectural elements required to re-look built form, not define a building but a space. The research concluded, school as a self organising system where learning happens on its own. Instead of having classrooms for each grade, each subject had a dedicated space for it. After an hour the class would disperse, reshuffle to go to their next subject. In this dispersion, the site becomes chaotic, full of conservations and students would learn by exchanging knowledge in forms of dialogues, stories and other experiences.

The site was designed as a cascading celebration where the amphitheatre passed through home, creating semi public spaces; earth berms to shade the surrounding ground; and; pond and channels to value and celebrate water. The site was an amalgamation of varied objects, places around curves to ignite learning through the subconscious. Lessons are found in the most unexpected locations and ways. 

The walls were of rammed earth independent of the bamboo structural system for the roof. Different spaces were connected by pathways and corridors where one would slow down and look around, learn and absorb the coherence of nature, and other experiences. The design had dynamic roof forms, to explore space sectionally and invoke a certain experience, volume as well as levels and the cut fill strategy.

Landscape as Continuum 

Drishti Desai 

The project focuses on integrating the experience of nature with the builtform. Thus continuing it through the builtform and letting one experience the landscape not only through vision but also through smell, touch and sounds. The built form evolves with walking through the project to craft the experience at each encounter. Various users, their engagement with the built form, nature and their movement directs the language of the architecture. The emerged diagram on the site is a dialogue between users, nature and the enclosed programmed space. 

Rishabh Chajjar

Considering the context, the cultural ecology and their interdependence on each other, do they really even need an architect or just a facilitator to take care of the basic requirements? This project is made with an intention to create a model for people to aspire for. Taking decisions prudently and designing with this cautiousness, to inculcate disciplinary measures and strategise in such a way that they complete this vivid landscape. And yet in saying that not losing the essence of traditional wisdom. What kind of school should be made? What kind of education is essential? Locating the importance of education in this context by deliberating the folk narratives I have arrived to a method to think about the learning centres which are self sufficient and mobilizes all the forces in the context. An extension in their cultural ecology which expands their ideas of the world.

Play of Light

Pooja Dalal

In the context of the village Veti, people tend to wander around the village all day rather than staying in their houses. This practice gives rise to semi-open and open spaces within the school where one can wander around it without any obstructions. These semi-open spaces can have a quality of playfulness of the light. The pergola, bamboo attics can form playful shadows for the kids as well as for adults to sit and relax. The project aims to create such playful pockets formed by light where one can carry out bamboo workshops or any other group activity. The open courtyards surrounded by rooms provide and opportunity for taking classes outside the walls amidst nature.The undulating terrains helps to create connected smaller spaces with a large roof over it giving it connectivity but at the same time can be bounded by walls.The texture of the cob wall and the rammed earth flooring gives the people a sense of being within their own environment and the thermal mass of the cob wall helps in keeping the insides cool in summer and warm in winters.