First Year Learning Portfolio

PORTFOLIO Arkdev Bhattacharyya

First Year (2015-16) School of Environment and Architecture Mumbai

SEMESTER - I

The Tunnel of organs

Wear the jacket and pass through the dark tunnel.

Come out from the other side and see number of eyes, noses, lips and ears sticking to your body!

Surface development by using a formula

Never had it occurred to me earlier that each and every thing was developed on the basis of certain codes and formulae. These codes are followed everywhere; in nature, in construction, in various processes etc. By following one such code/formula, I developed a surface, where each 1cm x 1cm unit followed the code.

Understanding and reading of scale

Reading a visual scale of the plan of a building and making it’s scaled down model was the concept of this exercise. This helped in learning how an architectural scale works. It also helped in interpreting 2-dimensional drawings to visualize the actual 3-dimensional object. Working out every detail, placement, openings etc.

The narrative drawings Observing the surroundings and sketching it proportionately as per the location gives rise to a narrative which talks about that space. There are numerous ways in which one perceives a space and derives his/her own understanding. How one feels in that space, what effect the space has on a person, what mood it creates for the person etc. contribute in making a final mental picture of that particular space in one’s mind.

The spaghetti stick bridges

This is where I was introduced to how a structure can bear a load that’s acting in it. Various members such as brackets, trusses, arches etc. can be used as support systems in between a specific clear span of a structure.

The drawing board contraptions

Making an adjustable device on which a drawing board could stand at three different angles, helped me learn the types of forces acting on various members of the device and how the load from the top gets transferred and distributed.

The prosthetic

A prosthetic device was designed to help one sleep in a crowded train. The learning process took me through various stages of studying and analysing how a human body adjusts itself in a crowded space, ultimately finding its own comfort zone.

The prosthetic was designed such that it itself could be carried easily in a crammed up space and be used without any struggle to wear it, when necessary.

The nature-derived canopy Generally it’s perceived that the growth of the trees is a random phenomenon. But when observed carefully, going through each and every detail again and again, one finds that there’s a certain pattern in the growth of the tree.

Each tree has a definite geometric pattern according to which it grows, and which is the basis of the inter-relationship between various parts of a tree.

When I observed closely at this Buddha Coconut Tree, I found a proper geometrical relationship between the major turning of the branches at different levels of the tree to circles and rectangles.

The geometric pattern could then be multiplied and used to design a canopy.

Semester - ii

Drawing And rendering softwares

Two dimensional views‌

‌To three dimensional images

The toy butterfly Making a toy whose working is completely based on mechanical movements, I came to know about how one force results in a mechanical movement. A series of such movements can be used to create a playful toy!

The gatehouse The purpose of this gatehouse exercise was to hold a 30cm x 15cm membrane with the help of skew sticks. The project helped in understanding the working of forces; how they get transferred and distributed.

The next step was to make a skeleton of the structure formed by the membrane and develop a flat surface on it.

This was to be done keeping in mind the way in which the load gets transferred from that particular surface to the ground.

understanding texts and developing a space There’re various ways in which a text about a space can be interpreted. The variation depends from person to person.

A space mentioned in a text is able to convey different meanings to different individuals.

It’s not at all necessary that the way a reader perceives a space and the way the writer sees it has to be the same.

Understanding a text and using it to design a space was the primary purpose of this exercise.

Script and set Collaborating the ideas of script writing and set building, this project made me ponder over ideas and concepts that could be applied in a script as well as depicted visually in a set.

Keeping in mind the development of both, a narrative and a space, ideas were discussed, scrapped and modified to ultimately produce a script and a set that are interdependent on each other.

The community kitchen This was the first time when I actually designed an actual structure at a given location.

Creating a small scale model of an actual space that was supposed to be inhabited by people, a proper division of spaces and dimensioning them proportionate to the human body dimensions was to be kept in mind while designing.

Aspects like culture, material, climate, direction etc. were taken under consideration while planning out the details of the design.