Making, Moving, Adapting

Some Assembly Required

Course Co-ordinator : Dhruv Chavan

Devansh Bilimoria

Students assembling a full-scale modular structure as part of the design-build exercise.

The brief for the course was to build small, adaptive, modular, and movable structures. The course engaged students in working at a 1:1 scale, where each group explored how an assembly comes together. Every project was developed by the students themselves, with decisions made about the form, function, user, and mechanism to create playful structures that adapt to their environment. Five mechanisms were distributed among the groups : sliding, rolling, folding, pivot, and pulley.

The initial brief proposed designing a cabin for 1–3 people, but as groups redefined their users and functions, the idea of a small habitable space evolved. Some projects became extensions to a cycle for an urban nomad, while others transformed into a mobile shop for a fisherwoman.

The course began with mapping activities for the chosen users based on each group’s brief. We identified the various activities to be introduced in the structure, which guided its form. From there, we developed a footprint and selected materials that could be disassembled, reassembled, and easily transported to make the structures more adaptive and flexible. Moving to 1:5 models helped us understand structural behaviours such as sagging, bending, swaying, center of gravity, and weak joineries.

Market visits were integral to the process. We observed vendors, studied costs, noted the range of materials available, and asked questions to better understand their properties. The market heavily influenced design decisions, since relying only on custom fabrication would be costly and impractical. Alternatives had to be derived from available resources. For example, we initially wanted to create a ‘C’ profile channel for the wheels, with a width greater than its depth. On enquiry, we discovered that steel C-sections available in the market had the opposite proportion, greater depth than width, since their primary use was as beams, which require higher depth.

In academics, we rarely engage with materials and structures at full scale through mock-ups. This course allowed us to test material behaviour and structural logic at a scale that was tangible and easily comprehensible. We also realized that construction is far from easy,

it requires labour, coordination, and communication among groups. These assemblies made us aware of the immense effort behind construction, which architects often overlook. For instance, carrying a single 8 × 4 ft plywood sheet required significant effort and time.

Overall, the course was successful in achieving its goal of teaching how a structural assembly is created. To take it a step further, introducing the cost factor into design and material decisions could make the exercise even more grounded and impactful.