Projects | Studio
UG - BUD - Studio - 8 | Spring 2021 | Towards Transitional Learning
  • Student Shriya Dhir
  • Code UD3617
  • Faculty Planning
  • Unit L3 Studio Unit
  • Tutor/s Melissa Smith,Bulbul Vyas
  • TA Sampurna Pattanaik

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The project builds on the need to subvert the existing system of education and increase the interaction of institutional spaces with the city. There are different means to learn that can happen through – observation, play, participation, engagement, unintended encounters where there is potential of learning something new without realizing what has been learnt. Therefore, this project is an attempt to take a step towards such forms of implicit and transitional learning to expand where and how education can take place.

Re-imagining educational spaces by focussing on overt mechanisms and multiple forms of learning that are not just limited to the school building. The project aims to integrate these institutional spaces through a network by bridging gaps and inaccess that currently exist in the form of compound walls and gates. Therefore, reimagination of the wall as a space is done where access to education to the inbetween spaces is made quitable, and not just dependent on the economic structures.
The university area is located on the western side of the city and has been reserved for educational purposes which include expansion of existing universities or creation of new ones. These are consolidated chunks of land with the university area as the center.
The undefined, loosely organized, vague space that exists within the city holds the potential to re-imagine ways for its future appropriation. The cause of vacancy in Ahmedabad is a resultant of multiple factors that interconnect across different types of urban processes. For example, the land holdings by educational Trusts for institutions resulted in large vacant lands which are currently in a developmental limbo. In the case of institutional reserves, the nature of vacancy is transient. It can serve as an entry point towards radical interventions that imagine alternative ways of learning during this ‘In-Between’ phase of vagueness. When schools and universities are temporarily closed due to COVID, how do you engage communities to learn and expand where and how learning can take place?
Dispersing the educational spaces towards the edges becomes necessary to allow open access. This will help to provide learning on the go. For instance – within these arcades situated in transitional spaces, display of work/open exhibitions can happen which invoke curiousity in minds of people and expose them to new ideas. And by extending the arcade inside the boundaries of institutions, larger area of land becomes available to spill out the spaces for encounters which take place inside the institutitons.
It is important to link the potential and vacant spaces within the institutional framework. Hence, connections are established through a trail which provides access and information to reach these spaces to hold temporary events. As some of these spaces are not visible from the arcades, wayfinding kiosks become important.
The project shall begin by identifying key areas which will serve as an entry point from where the arcades will start to connect. These key areas will serve as pause points in the arcade where some have open access to institutions and some have conditional access. Eventually, a network of educational spaces will be formed.
To demonstrate the project, three varying conditions have been selected.
/Opening to the Main Street/
/Outdoor guided tour managed by LD museum/
/Exhibition space/