Cheeta Camp,
Trombay, Mumbai,
Maharashtra

Spaces within public institutions and urban contexts are designed through standardized logics of “public” but are produced and lived through several subjective contestations which often blur, defy, subvert, disregard, or occupy them in awkward ways. In institutions that emerge locally over time, such as the langars, local libraries, reading rooms, khanawals, aanganwadis, and community halls, the logic of unexpected occupations is often visible. To open up this idea of the institution, the studio observes local programmes that have emerged for public activities in the Cheeta Camp neighborhood in Trombay. Observations of the specific socio-spatial practices on the site are undertaken to get a nuanced description of its lived spatial detail. These observations and propositions formulate the context for the architecture of the institution, programmatically as well as typologically. Questions of material systems and services, contextual relevance, environmental and ground processes, and societal issues critically craft and imagine the spaces and the built form. While addressing the above social formulations as physical design manifestations, the course also explores and expands the notion of “detail” in architecture.