2021-22 | Course 1 | Batch A19 | Mentors : Sabaa Giradkar, Malak Singh Gill, Faizan Khatri, Shrikar Bhave
-Tanuja Vartak, Prishita Kulkarni , Neha Dalvi , Yash Mhatre, Shriya Parab , Sakshi Maeen, Aditi Kawade, Pranjal Sancheti , Radhika Malekar , Nishith Parulekar
The 7 week course on RESOURCES , FLOWS AND SYSTEMS- was based on the discussions around Urban environment and its Architecture. Today our urban environments are generated by indifferent mega systems like in the case of Mumbai, water comes from various locations and some of them are as far as two hundred kilometers. The pipeline rips through several parched areas and the sources are fenced. In the course of its linear flow from source to destination, it moves to hide itself in the ground, disrupting a democratic relationship. These have become unmanageable as they have become rather centralized and unapproachable. This centrality is a product of the nature of our economic order.
The present popular typology in any urban setting speaks of built form that is more resistant to flows resulting in more enclosed and protected built forms and living. The idea of property, density, nuclear living, less resource availability and better energy efficiency have been the factors shaping such a language of builtform. The studio deliberated on how we can create architecture that is not resistive but enhances the experiences of flows by building compassion towards them that allow reinterpretation of resource consumption and management which resultantly demands reimagination of space through systemic spatial logics. Hence, the studio focused on discussing an environment that is made of constant negotiations between humans and natural flows like air, wind, water, light and that crafts the architecture of comfort for any given place. Flows which are cyclical and that harvest, consume and manage its resource demands to alter the nature of dependencies and call for new habitation practices and spatial configurations. The studio set inquiries into creating comfort conditions through analytical understanding for climatic parameters (temperature, humidity etc), through logics of space, scale, volume and elements of built forms.
The course began with a one-week esquisse where we studied our respective houses and mapped them for natural conditions of light, ventilation, sound levels, waste and water management. It helped us to further understand comfort conditions, and was achieved through small interventions like re-orientation of spaces/ introducing openings, vegetation , etc. that arrived from the microclimate and site conditions.
Neha Dalvi
The windows of the house face east with fewer obstructions in front of them. It receives the morning sunlight and has light throughout the day. However, this light would also bring ‘heat’ with it which would then get trapped inside the house with no other way to escape. A temporary adjustment was done by adding ‘Agro-net’ screens to the window metal grill during summers to modulate the heat entering the house. The intervention carried out over here is a double window system where the inner sliders would have bamboo louver panels which would help in modulating the heat and the outer sliders would have glass for extreme rain and wind protection. The plantation of small plants in the window would contribute to the conversion of hot air into comparatively cooler air.
Charkop, Apartment type building- Warm and Humid Climate
Yash Mhatre
The observations were based on the quantitative analysis of the sunlight entering, the resources of sound and direction of wind.
The rooms to the north experience very low lux levels due to the altitude angle of the sun and the angle of overhangs. The winds enter the south western window and obstruction leads to a tremendous use of air conditioner in the north eastern room.
The vehicles and the various activities taking place on the M.G. road become the resource of noise. The use of balconies keeps changing according to the difference in the lux levels in different balconies.
The inferences of this quantitative analysis of the apartment were the tremendous use of light and air conditioner in the northeastern room and the northern windows which are never opened to avoid the noise which leads to lack of ventilation.
Sound, Light and Wind mapping for a 2nd Story apartment in Kandivali
Shriya Parab
There was a conscious attempt to analyze why we find certain spaces in our house comfortable in terms of environmental factors like light, humidity, sound, and temperature.
What factors make it a comfortable space to occupy was the question through which we examined our homes. There was a thorough reading of all constituents that affect the human interaction with space and changes in space usage with variations in these determinants.
The study of humidity levels and their influences on human interaction with respective spaces is seen where the spaces with high humidity are occupied less and spaces with lux levels between 500-1000 lx were occupied more.
This analysis resulted in a better understanding of how the human body accommodates and adjusts to spaces of different qualities.
Mapping Light and Lux levels of the apartment
During the course, a set of readings were done to help us understand the different ideas of the environment. The readings helped us to elaborate on the brief, which eventually provoked ideas and questions for the design.
The motive was to design an artists residency for 30 occupants addressing the concerns of resource consumption and management within the built form (1200-1500sq.m) along with spatial logistics in the urban context of Powai on a site located beside a metro line and the JVLR. Hence the studio focused on discussing an environment that is made of constant negotiations between humans and natural flows.
-Some of the learnings and questions that we framed from specific books are
Sustainable Architecture- Cities for a small planet, Richard Rogers –
Overtime, public spaces often become a place for hawkers and shopkeepers who claim a part of that space. Does this mean that they privatize it for themselves? How does it affect the publicness of the space?
London : The Humanist City – Cities for a small planet, Richard Rogers –
In an existing free-growing city like Mumbai, how do you then think of city planning catering to the primary ideas of publicness, sustainability, energy efficiency? Do we build more?
Do we add a prosthetic layer to it? Or do we unbuild?
This book presents observations about some basic aspects of urban form and urban design that can contribute to more sustainable and resilient communities and healthier and happier lives for the people who live in them.
While we focused on our built spaces this book brought some light to the importance of microclimate arrangement outside the built space as well. It brings forth the essence of the social and cultural fabric of the place.
Soft City- David Sim
While you are trying to create spaces for encounters with nature, or when you’re trying to create cultural and recreational spaces by trying to get the flow, there’s a lot of resources used up in the building of it itself, so then where do you draw that line?
We understood that while designing we should consider the flows such as light, ventilation, sound etc. as a fundamental prerequisite of considerations for the basic functioning of a building and these shape our designs.
Sakshi Maeen
Inspired by a small scale factory I visited a few months back where the migrant textile artisans live in the factory itself while working for the contractor. Thus I decided to build a coworking space. These artisans follow a certain process for their work and also are good at adapting spaces thus crafting a space according to that was one of the key point. The varying scales of the places range from intimate for the workspace to a larger volume for the exhibition space. The entire built form is connected through the modulating roof which is made of bamboo mesh and thatch coated by line plaster for it to help modulate water along with the timber framework for the structural part. The ground parts are made as a connection between the main road and the builtform. Functioning as a market for the outside local vendors under it, which is pillared and also can be adapted according to public needs for various occasions and purposes. Therefore trying to keep most of the public spaces on the ground and the residency raised above.
Artists Residency
Aditi Kawade
How does nature in terms of vegetation influence the built form and shape the interaction between the built and the unbuilt? This design question becomes the entry point for designing the artist residency. When does nature happen was an important question to address as the site had very few trees. It was a conscious decision to have vegetation on the periphery and the central part of the site. While the built form could be designed in the in-between part so that the vegetation acts as a backdrop when one is inside the space. The artists who want to spend time or work with nature would be invited. There are
three scattered built forms which include dining, studios, and residential areas with the exhibition space. The curved form of the structure goes well with the physical and biological flows on the site. There are a series of open, semi-open and enclosed spaces in the design of each structure. The design also influences the idea of co-living spaces. Timber is the dominant material which makes the structure look light and blend with the vegetation. The use of glulam trusses provides the freedom of long span. The studio has foldable glass doors so as to adjust with the microclimate which also gives a sense of enclosure and visual accessibility. The residential area has an external brick façade to create comfort conditions and a give sense of privacy.
Axonometric view of the Residency
Pranjal Sancheti
The project works around the idea of environment as ecology and tries to develop the capacity to engage with and develop alternative imaginations and spatial configurations of the build and the unbuilt that address questions of harvesting, consuming and managing of environmental flows. The vegetative approach and ecological centrality brought in the floral and the landscape artists as a user group of the artist residency. The residency comprises multiple non-orthogonal buildings which are recessed from each other to create a flow of vegetation around them which eventually results in an experience of being in ecologically sound space, creating a capacity to imagine and locate architecture in the larger urban fabric. All the units are ground floored with varying heights to allow proper flow of wind. The exposed brick structure makes itself grounded to the earth. The built environment tries to craft experiences of flows to create comfort conditions which create newer spatial logics of inhabitation.
Views of the Non-orthogonal residency
Radhika Malekar
The project addresses the separation between builtform and vegetation as these modern ideas of separation and cleanliness leave no space for negotiations and friendships. The artists for whom I designed are botanists, researching plant species in powai and dye artists who use flowers and insects to make their dyes. The materials with which I worked are a steel framework, wooden panels acting as walls and stone as the flooring. These materials allowed the built form to be porous. The structural system is of a lattice of bracing of steel members. This lattice allows for various possibilities of openings and enclosures. These various possibilities of solids and voids facilitate multiple configurations of shared and intimate spaces.
A residency for botanists and Dye-artists
The studio questioned the architecture of harnessing resources for buildings and tried to establish the nature of spatial configurations that reduces the demand on these resources and becomes a part of the experience of life and living.
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