Remembering & Inhabiting

The process initiated with an intuitive exercise of representing our embodied memories and associations. This led to designing of a Secret Pit in a hypothetical 6m deep pit. Using horizontal and vertical planar elements, spaces of solitude, intimacy and congregation were created. The pit transformed into my childhood home for my family of six in the old city of Surat. Later, the house emerges out of the pit and opens up to the public domain (limited only to the super- structure). The idea is to provide a breather/ to create an urban retreat from the dense fabric of the old city. The community space is meant as a workspace or place of congregation with a terrace café connecting one to the sky. The designing process was rooted to the sense of embodied inhabitation complemented with the necessary architectural changes across the growing context in the three design stages.

Reflections- https://ar2031.in/category/participants/prasit-gandhi/