The final project evolves from several research and design exercises conducted through the initial half of the academic semester. The idea of the project is to insert a pacemaker in the ageing heart of the town of Anand in Gujarat. The site selected is an abandoned factory premise which once boasted of a building larger than any other in the vicinity. The insert now hosts a large machine-like building block that houses municipal ward offices, the scattered folly that provides for outdoor reading rooms and a separate entity that acts as a Balwadi. The movement allows the public to trespass while observing the reminiscence of the past and the present. This project is a manifestation of various ideas of Time, Public and Architecture.
Visit the following website to know more about AR3024: Time, Public and Architecture
https://dwijhirpara.wixsite.com/ua2416
Image 1 - Mind maps: Architecture is political. - "Design can only be 'design' if it is with a sense of ethics and the sensibility of politics. Design as a feature of everyday life and society must combine material, philosophical, as well as political cultures. Design is about making through thinking, and thinking through making."
Image 2 -The notion of Public: Generated by people, a collective consciousness that guides the user in specific space-context. It is in continuous negotiation with one another. A good public space has the ability to negotiate. As an architect, it is our job to deal with various situations and try to negotiate and be accountable for the solutions. These solutions/ choices are based on the value system established by the architect with the site/ context.
Image 3 - Building Flashcard - Understanding the idea.A design process in itself to improve architectural language as a step towards enhancing space configurations and experience - Transition as the subconsciousness of architecture. The values of the machine including functionality, regularity, efficiency and move ability that are considered to be in opposition to those of art, can be integrated with the values of art in transformable buildings. - Architecture as an organism.
Facades eat windows! Metamorphism- An spatial effect on public imagination and architecture in Transformation. Every new material means a new form, a new use if used according to its nature. The material can be read as a sign; interpretation depends on cultural knowledge. The power of cultural associations.Activity-Event Mapping
Activities documented in my neighbourhood - Gokulwadi, Anand:
01. Street Benches
02. Garbage Spot
03. Flour Mill
04. Cobbler
05. Street benchesWalking the Neighbourhood
Defining 'Local' - Understanding the familiar
Anand
1. LOCAL: Units of the body system
This portion of the study involves the places that are associated with me directly on a daily basis. Involves the activity spaces to usual traffic jam spots.
2. REGION: Parts of the body system
Relating to the variety of areas of activity or thought and objects that define them, an interface.
3. TERRITORY: Skin of the body system
The extreme edge of the body, a direct encounter to the unfamiliar. The limit of an area of “jurisdiction” of the user in his/her context.
4.Accordion Book: My world of time
Ideas and representation of personal memory and understanding.
5.Accordion Book: Thought-Objects of time
Ideas and representation in the NeighbourhoodFolly R1 - The folly has been sensibly positioned over a fictional line of transition of the two sets of activities.Element used: The staircase as an ethereal connector of 'time', acts as a link to these concatenated activities. The handrail endures furthermore towards and above the staircase to perpetuate this notional line, standing as a contrariety between the tangible and the intangible. Folly R2 - The abandoned plot consists of crumbling walls and deteriorated structures that have been consumed by nature and human waste over a time period. The walls have been manipulated into metal sheets and the play manoeuvres the visual weight of the element into the folly to form the resultant symphony. Folly R3 - The addition of a memorial structure which is currently under-construction leaves ample opportunity for introducing the folly, extricating to new ideas in contradiction to the common memorial style employed here. The ramp unsheathes from the composition of the folly, marking a thin lMind map - understanding the programmatic brief and developing a design strategy/ process - in search of conceptual ideas with relation to the idea of Time, Public and Architecture.Introducing the Municipal ward as an idea of a machine that runs the city, its association with the idea of 'life of industrial beings and the possibility of formation of a new ethos in the neighbourhood.
From top:
01. Design development poster - revealing the deconstruction of industrial volumetric objects and introduction of various architectural elements within to form space.
02. Plan LVL 01 - Municipal Ward Office
03. Plan LVL 02 - Municipal Ward Office
01. Perspective view revealing the main access
02. Aerial view of the site edge - interaction between the machine and the people (bots)
03. Aerial front view - Understanding language and scale of the building.
04. Plan LVL 0
01.Section of the municipal ward office - Understanding the scale and the volumetric language
02/03. Other views of the final project
01/02/03. Isometric and perspective views
