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Introduction Peenya is the one of the biggest industrial areas in India. The metro system has recently started running through this part of the city, connecting it to the centre Bangalore. It has recently opened up and commuters are still in the process of getting comfortable while accepting this change as well as enjoying the experiences it brings along. We, as students of Srishti School of Art, Design and Technology have been doing an extensive research in and around the area of Peenya on various aspects. This research then getting into the form of art whether expressing emotions or stating facts that relate to Peenya. Art in Transit is a project that has enabled us to take these ideas forward in many differents forms.
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Contents Part 1- The previous semester....
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Part 2- Material Explorations....
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Part 3- Ideas and experiments....
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Part 4- Execution....
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Metro Station rapid sketches Bangalore at the moment has two metro lines; the purple and the green line. Indiranagar Metro station falls on the purple line that connects MG Road to Bypanahalli. As a class exercise we divided ourselves into groups that went to the metro stations and sketched the exteriors of the station from different angles. The exercise was meant to give us an idea of the structure and the usage of the spaces around the station. This is an older line and most of us were familiar with it so we started off with this line to warm ourselves up to the metro system.
The next step was to get ourselves accustomed to Peenya Metro station so we sketched the structure of the station from different angles.
Bangalore metro system metaphor The city of Bangalore has been metaphorically compared to an adolescent teenage boy who had been waiting to grow some facial hair, which in turn is the metro station in context to the city. Bangalore is a growing city and is developing in parts, which is why it is compared to a teenager. The facial hair is like the metro system, growing in different areas and slowly gaining recognition. The book depicts various feelings that a teen would go through before and during the phase of gaining puberty. In the beginning there is anxiousness and curiosity as well as a wait to see when and how will the hair grow just like the curiosity in the minds of the people of Bangalore relating to the metro system. It shows a growing familiarity with the situation and an acceptance.
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Peenya Mapping As an individual exercise we mapped the area of Peenya in our own way.
As I walked through the lanes of the industrial are of Peenya I noticed the vehicals that passed by during the day. The range of vehicals varied in different lanes as the type of industries changed. The walk got a little scary as the sun started setting and I noticed that I was one of the only few women in the area during that period of time. I noticed the difference between the vehicals in the lanes and the fluctuation in the population of women with the varying industries in these lanes.
I could relate to the safety of women in the lanes to the kind of vehicals that passed by. The areas where the textile industries and market place grew closer had a higher number of women compared to the areas with automotive companies. After looking around and interviewing some women who worked around I found out that women did not enter those lanes with automotive industries because they felt unsafe and threatened. Hence the map shows the industries, vehicals and population of women in the area.
Gender related readings After mapping Peenya I did some research on various topics regarding the safety of women and aspects that affect it. The research led me into the direction of feminism. I read a few articles by Indian feminists and tried to understand the situation in India. Shilpa Ranade is one of the few feminists whose writings inspired me to look further into the issue of safety. Through this I came to understand that there is a communication gap between people and there is a lack of acceptance of women being in public without displaying purpose. This topic got me interested to study how men and women react to each other in a public space.
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To understand the reactions of the genders towards each other I started looking at the way there sat in the metro. I started making rough sketches of the way people picked their spot and their body language. This exercise was carrier out on the way from Peenya Metro Station to Mantri Square and back.
Observations -Women would mostly look around to spot the emptiest areas and seat themselves two o three spots away from any other person on the seating. -There wasn’t much communication between strangers. -Families stuck together. -Individuals felt a little conscious of them-
selves and their postures. -People who occupied the two seaters mostly made sure another person would not want to sit next to them either by leaving a bag on the adjoining seat or by stretching themselves out to occupy some area on the other seat. -I felt like the people were too conscious and did not interact with one another.
To understand the reactions of the gendes towards each other I started looking at the way there sat in the metro. I started making rough sketches of the way people picked their spot and their body language.
Observations
Insights
There was a bench that accommodated three people at the platform and two men sat on either side leaving the seat in between empty, so I sat there and tried to notice the change in their behavior. There were little changes in their body language and and comfort levels. Over the next hour none of the men around sat on either of my sides but did sit at the edge of a pillar. There were a few women who sat beside me. After a while a group of men in their 20’s came around and two of them sat on the seats on both my sides. At this point I felt a little insecure. This got me thinking about why I got insecure.
The idea of personal space for a man and woman at a public space in India might be a little magnified or the fact that it is socially unacceptable to be in close proximity of a stranger on the opposite sex. This sort of leaves a cold atmosphere and curbs any kind of friendly communication.
At last an old couple came by and the woman sat on my right while the man stood. After around seven minutes I got up to leave and the man immediately took my place on the seat.
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The next step led me onto looking at whether women are open to communicating with people in public spaces.
Portraits of women I clicked photographs of what women would do while thy waited at bus stops and railway stations. 70% of women were busy using their phones or had earphones on while the rest were looking around. There was a slightly conscious effort of presentation as if being watched. Most women did not seem at ease or comfortable while waiting at these public places.
The body language of a woman alone and a woman being accompanied by another individual was different as the women who were alone stayed aloof and protected their personal space or even more with their body language.
The beaded wall The wall depicts the barrier people create around themselves when at a public space. This artifact is inspired by the Chennapattna Toys where the wall of beads stand up and create a barrier when the strings are pulled. I believe there is always a reason for a situation and as spoken about previously, Peenya Industry is not a very safe area for women to walk about as it is a male dominated area industrial area with very few women around. Some interviews conducted in the textile industries suggest that women are often threatened to walk through certain lanes like the bread factory lane. There are cases of eve teasing and harrasing that take place in the area. Sandal soap Factory on the other hand is a commercial area
surrounded by hotels, malls, shops and even residential settlement. The population there varies and it seems like women walk about freely without having to think twice. The wall is about the barrier that women create around themselves in Peenya due to the circumstances which are the pulling of the threads where as the fallen wall is the moving forward of Sandal Soap Factory where women do not need to create a prison of personal space because there is an open mindedness that prevails.
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The touch me not design The widrawal movement in body and mind of the people transiting through public spaces when in contact with a stranger reminded me of the touch me not plant. To counter interact this reaction of people towards each other, I have designed a seating element that is interactive and involves two people to coordinate or have some kind of interaction big or small. The leaves on the installation shut when a person sits on the seat and open up when the person gets up. The colours of the leaves are different on both sides and create an image/ pattern when shut. To see the entire image a person will have to ask someone else to sit on the seat next to him/her.
This prototype is a scaled down working model of an iteration of a mechanical design for the seating. When force is applied on the seat, the rack and pinion at the bottom of the seat shift the pair of bewel gears that turn the rods with the leaves attached to them. The prototype has spring loaded legs with a rach and pinion that turn a set of bewel gears that turn the rods that have leaves attached to them that open and shut.
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Electronic iteration of the ‘Touch me not’
Visualization
The circuit is built with a viper motor of a car that rotates according to the switch button. This switch button will be attached to the seat of the installation. When force is applied on the seat the movement of the leaves is downwards and when the force is released, the leaves move back to it original place. This circuit is powered by a 12v battery. A frame holding the leaves will be mounted onto the motor. A set of cams along with fulcrums have to be fixed onto the frame to give the leaves a pivoting movement.
This is the first visualization of the installation that I formed after designing the first prototype. It works like the domino game where segments fall in a serial dropping the next. It was a non mechanical design but not fully done with respect to the working.
Here there is tension at all points of time. This is not the working model that I will use for the final product.
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Chennapattna Toys material exploration The 1:5 mock up was made to test mechanics and to explain the idea. The entire covering opens up and closes towards the seated person to give an illusion of it growing big and small.
In the beginning of this semester, I was onto some material explorations out of which one of them was the working of the chennapattna toys. The inspiration was taken from a beaded
wall toy, an artifact I had made to depict the wall that people create between themselves at public spaces. It is also inspired by the ‘touch me not’ seating and tries to question the idea of private space and whether a person feels comfortable in an enclosed are or an open area.
Mud and Bamboo building workshop- Thannal I attended a mud building and bamboo workshop in the start of the semester where we experiences a life size project and participated in the building of a house. Here we studied the structural strength of the materials as well as craftsmanship that goes into the building. There were talks about the different uses of bamboo and the procedure of making bamboo furniture too. It was interesting to learn about the flexibility and rigidity of these materials.
Shail and I designed a wall mural that captures all the visible aspects of the farm and carved it out on the mud walls of the house. We tried to create a map of the area with simple motifs of trees, plants and architectural elements. Though the project was left incomplete, it taught me a lumpsum about materials and inspired me to explore different techniques of building.
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Insights at the platform An exercise was carried out at the platform to open up the space to ideas. It was conducted by our facilitator Amitabh Kumar and a few peers Akshaya, Ishita and Veda were part of it. The exercise brought about changes to how we all looked at the platform. It helped me understand the space and think about possible interventions and experiments that could be carried out. Some of the insights were: •
Looking at the space as an area that holds potential energy that can be activated and can
transform the environment of the site. •
The first section of the platform is not in use by the metro rail and is a long walk to the
waiting area. While walking down this section there are times when a person misses the train but a few minutes later another train arrives. This brings in the idea of repetition and reliving a moment while being in a loop. The question that arose was whether this thought could translate into a lapse of time. •
Coding the platform into sections.
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The platform has many signage’s that instruct people to move a certain way or not to
touch an object or what to do during an emergency. Apart from these, the guards continuously directed the floe of people and asked them to stay within the yellow lines. The CCTV cameras watched over 24x7. The environment is controlled and there is very little freedom. Some observations were: •
The architecture of the platform included reflective materials that made the space very
bright. •
It was very noisy as the sounds echoed off the road.
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It was cold and windy.
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People sat on the pillars.
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The colour schemes are dull, mostly greys and blues.
These insights and observations translated into the final project and built it up.
Initial raw ideas for the project
1. The next seat When a person sits on the first seat, the second one automatically moves up. Here the next person is forced to sit right next to the first person as it is the only available seat.
2 Slider The slider seat is an extraction of the observation of how most people prefer leaving a seat from a seated person. It gives the traveller the opportunity to pull the seat away or towards the seated person. Here the person is not forced to interact with another person but it facilitates interaction.
3. Group rocking chair The movement of one person affected the movement of the rest. This is more of a forced interaction.
4. Abacus chairs These two chairs could be placed at different points along the platform and the movement of one chair makes the beads shift towards the other chair and vice versa. It was inspired by a ping pong table where the back and forth movement of the beads play the role of interaction initiators.
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5. The fan The fan seat has two levels of seats that rotate around the pillar. These seats are of different forms that encourage interaction among strangers
The Slider selection The slider provides the traveller with the opportunity to place a seat at any point across the channel. A person is not forced to interact with another person but has the space to. I have selected this intervention because 1. it is not forceful 2. The form is extracted from the existing architecture of the platform. 3. The ideas for interaction can be added to the simple form without creating an intimidating impact on the users.
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First iteration of technical sketches The first iteration of the seats have a singular wheel in the centre and two lines of cables running through the boxes. The whole box has an internal frame for support. The cables anchor themselves around he existing pillars at the platform. The wheels run on a singular Aluminium channel.
Materials The turnbuckle and cable were the first functional possibilities that I looked at. At this point the seats were a group of seats that moved back and forth in one direction.
The second iteration of technical sketches This iteration had two sets of wheels hence it would run on two channels. The cable and turnbuckle mechanism remained the same.
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The experiment Four seats of different sizes proportionate to each other were placed between two pillars at the platform. These seats mimic the form of the existing pillar seats at the platform to create familiarity in the minds of the passengers as well as merge into the architecture of the station. The experiment was carried out at different times of the day through the duration of three days. This covered the first level of my process which was to get people to interact with the seating. There were interesting insights and observations that came through during the experiment. The images above are colour visualizations and the image at the bottem is the actual experiment that adopted the colours of the pillars to fit into the architecture of the space.
Log The log is an accumulation of the data collected over three days of observing the reaction of people to the coloures seats.
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During the experiment Questions that arose
Observations
-Colour- Since the boxes were painted bluish-grey so they stood out as the other seats at the platform are black. (the grey boxes don’t completely blend in.) -Would the people feel comfortable if the boxes are made of granite? -Does the placement matter? As the seats at the beginning of the platform are used more than the others. -Did the people get confused whether the boxes were seats or something else? -Did the lack of a back rest discourage the people to sit and give them an idea that the seats would be uncomfortable? -Is the 12” seat too short? Because no one sat on it? -Will the movement in the seats add to the installation and encourage people to sit on it or will it intimidate people? -Are people unsure of the stability? (because a few people first checked if the seats were
-Children loved the coloured seats and enjoyed banging their legs against the ply to make sounds. -The smallest seat of 12” height was used the least. -The seats weren’t very noticed. -People checked if they were stable or not and -whether the paint was wet or dry. -Most passengers sat on the first set of benches at the platform. Feedback 1. The seats were not too comfortable 2. They do not stand out and are not noticeable 3. People liked the colour 4. The smallest seat was a little too short.
Attraction, Ergonomics and Interaction The observations and insights pushed me to make a priority list and take descisions in relation to the elements of attraction, ergonomics and interaction. I first looked at the aspect of attraction and ergonomics. The initial ideas were: 1. Use bright solid colours for the seats, 2. Keeping age and gender as parameters and coding them with colour, size, patten, texture or even images. 3. The smaller seats could have different materials on the sides to create sonic possibilities for children. 4. Making the seats ergonomically comfortable/ appealing. 5. Cladding the pillars to make them part of the installation instead of a start and end point.
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Kandevalli, Mumbai The Urban Vision invited Art in Transit to create art interventions at Samtanagar, Thakkur Village, Mumbai. This is an area that is undergoing redevelopment and our job as artists was to respond to site and create artworks that embrass the change. Intervention 1 I began with looking at areas that had the potential to create human to space interactions. The woman painted on a bench with a crow was a response to the bench being in the middle of the road and an impossibility of someone sitting there. Intervention 2 The second intervention was of painting women sitting under a shelter where there was no seating in comparison to the neighbouring bench without a shelter. This created a chance of interaction between people and spaces as well as activated the potential energy of the space. The colours selected were of the political majority in the area. Intervention 3 The boy climbing the wall between the shutters of two shops brought about liveliness and playfulness in the space. These interventions helped me gauge an understanding of colours using positive and negative space which in turn is something I have adopted for my final project. It helped me look at spaces that hold potential energy and activate them in a simple manner.
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Form iterations of sculptural and furniture like Tension between sculptural and furniture like pieces. The feedback about the piece was mixed and suggested that half the people knew the boxes were seats where as the other half were confused. This got me to a point where I had to decide if the piece was going to be sculptural or furniture-like. The look and feel of the pro-
ject depended on this majorly. The sculptural form would be abstract and free flowing but would confuse the passengers if it was meant to be sat on where as the furniture like piece would be ergonomically sound and would look
Networking of channels and different types of interactions The idea of networking the channels of seats along the platform was to facilitate different kinds of interactions by creating specific spaces with seats coded with gender, colour and form.
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The first budget Flooring Total area: 5m x 4.5m i.e 247.48sqft False flooring structure: Wooden grids- Sal wood 10ft 9ft 8ft Rs. 375/piece Rs. 350/ piece
Rs. 320/ piece
The area of 247.50sqft can be covered in a grid with the gap of 9” between each piece. 10ft 9ft 8ft 18 pieces(vertical) + 13 pieces (horizontal) 13 pieces (horizontal) 18 pieces (verticals) Rs. 6,750+ 4,875 Rs. 4,550 Rs. 5,760 Total cost of grid= Rs. 21,935 Here I have placed the different sizes wood according to the measurement of the platform. 5m x 4.5m can have a grid of 18 pieces x 15 pieces The verticals each have one piece of 10ft and one piece of 8ft. The left over is 1.58ft, which is 19”. If each of these 19” pieces is cut into two, we will have two pieces of 9.5” each. These can be used for the horizontal rows as the gap is of 9”. Hence we will have 18 of 19” strips= a total of 342”. 4.5m=177.6” So, it covers two strips of the horizontal strips. (It saves us around Rs. 2000) The horizontals comprise of 13 pieces of 10ft each and 13 pieces of 9ft each.(All the calculations take in consideration the thickness of the wood which is 2” x 2”) Plywood 18mm ply will be places on the grid. It costs Rs. 60/sqft or Rs. 1920 per 8ft x 4ft sheet. So total cost of ply is Rs. 14,531 Vinyl Rs. 10,898 to cover 242.19sqft 1.2mm thick. (I am looking for 7mm vinyl as this will not be very durable) Rubber 10mm 15mm 30mm Rs. 43,593 Rs. 54,492 Rs. 67,812 Dimensions (m) sqft Price fer sqft (Rs) 5 x 4.5 247.48 185 43,593
Total price (Rs) 10
Thickness (mm)
The installation of this in an approximation will come up to Rs. 20,000 on a lower scale. Boxes For each box: Marine ply Rs. 650 + wheels Rs. 680 + Nuts and bolts Rs. 60 +Labour Rs. 500 +exterior surfacing Rs. 400 Total= Rs. 2,300 per box The total of all of the above with 10mm rubber surfacing comes down to 1,48,000/- including transportation cost and a buffer for wastage.
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The false flooring The false flooring had to be made to hold the channels in while the wheels of the seats would run. This flooring is a raised platform sloping on all sides.
The structure of the flooring is layered as the following starting from the bottom: -18mm rubber bushes for the water proofing - 2� Sal wood to hold the structure and make the grid - 18mm marine ply to - 10mm rubber mat for the surface (not yet installed) This is the first flooring sample and underwent many changes before arriving on the final design.
A channel has been cut out to test the sample seat with wheels. There were a few problems that were encountered such as: - The channel was too wide and there was a chance of a child’s foot getting stuck, - The wheel had some free movement so it would not move in a smooth manner
The sample seat The boxes used for the first experiment were re-used to test wheels and the working of the mechanics. The first test included: 1. The amount of weight the box and wheels together could hold 2. The smoothness of the wheels with different weights 3. Both the above with one man wheel and four side wheels. The central wheel is larger than the side wheels in size as it takes most of the weight and runs in the channels that are embedded in the platform. The side wheels are small and at a higher level than the central wheel as the run on the surface of the platform supporting the seat from toppling and taking some weight off the central wheel. 1. Central wheel: • Material- Polyutherine and heavy metal with ball bearings. • Size- 4” diameter • Load bearing capacity- Up to 150kg/ wheel • Movement- moves in all directions and rotates on its own axis. • Price- Rs. 270/ piece
2. Side wheels: • Material- Local rubber and steel with ball bearings. • Size- 1½” diameter. • Load bearing capacity- 70kg/ 4 pieces • Movement- moves in all directions and rotates on its own axis. • Price- Rs. 120/ 4 pieces (These were the trial wheels. They were later replaced by better quality wheels.) 3. The replacement side wheels: • Material- Polyutherine with ball bearings. • Size- 1” diameter. • Load bearing capacity- 120kg/ 4 pieces • Movement- moves in all directions and rotates on its own axis. • Price- Rs. 150/ 4 pieces
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The puzzle The element of attraction and ergonomics was changed a little when the aspect of interaction as a puzzle came in. • The seats are block- like structures with positive and negative spaces that fit into each other like pieces of a puzzle. • The seats are a combination or red and blue solid colours with the positive and negative spaces in shades of the opposite colour. • The height of the seats are 18” which is the universal seating height.
Visualization of channels One exercise carried out was to draw the channels out on the floor of my site to check proportions and possibilities of curves.
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