THE ASPECT OF ENTRANCE

The transformation in Ahmedabad’s housing can be retraced through the larger happenings with respect to various architectural aspects of residential space. This series of notes focuses on the aspect of entrance and understanding how the housing typologies have changed over time and the various forces that eventually led to the certain transformation. An entrance is the welcoming space of a house and is a threshold between what is inside and outside. Looking at the changing narratives of various housing typologies in Ahmedabad through the lens of the entrance, the collected information is weaved along with a broad understanding of the city and its historical implications in the present. The term entrance is malleable in each example taken for each housing typology. In pol houses, otlos are the entrance space, and in slums, it’s just a door and an outer space buried with items from within. The notes explore the various realms of housing through the portal of entrance and how it was a medium of modification through time. Some notes are based on a broader idea of entrance being reshaped through the larger happenings, whereas some focus on a particular example of a housing typology. Each of these notes is focused on different connected factors of entrance - landscape, parking, ornamentation, doors, etc. Each of the notes includes images that help narrate the aspect and the way it changed over time. Observations are drawn from the images and the sources referred, and are linked through the various occurrences that have happened over time.