AR3029 Towards a Critical Project and a Project of Criticism Situation: Sangath, Ahmedabad

AR3029

Towards a Critical Project and a Project of Criticism Situation: Sangath, Ahmedabad

Unit Assistant

Manthan Mevada

Faculty of Architecture AR3029 Spring 2021

4th Year

Abhinav J Tushar Kanoi

5th Year

Dwij Hirpara Heer Shah Kanxa Shah Shreya Sharma Nilanshi Agrawal Yashmita Rao Aakash Bala M Nikhil Makhijani Shubhra Raje Kevin Low

The prevalent discourse on architecture positions the architectural project as a singular act, made separate from the continuity and collective condition of the environment which we are (still) in obligation to share. The studio challenged this tendency to iconize the architectural project within our disciplinary discourse by a persistent curiosity to understand it as a part of the built environment, assessing its viability and limitations through a systematic inquiry into the conditions and consequences of its design.

This semester, through the discovery of relevant questions, the studio investigated Sangath, a project familiar to us through its reputation and the established narratives of its successes. Students identified problems inherent in the existing design by way of vital relationships it failed to consider. Subtle, yet profound intervention/s that resolved the identified problems followed, shifting the emphasis from design solutions derived primarily from the expression of form to that of solving problems of relevance, thereby rekindling the potential of program: the meaning of use and continuity of the built environment as an understanding of what constitutes critical architecture in service of responsibility over mere reputation

Fig 1

Faculty of Architecture Architecture UG L3 Fig 1 Nikhil Makhijani & Kanxa Shah “a dialogue with popular form - the vaults of Sangath” Fig 2: Collective Critique Examining Sangath as context Fig 3 Acts of repair: bringing proximity and specificity to the study of context and the relationships that sustain it

Nilanshi Agarwal & Heer Shah (top) -

repairing site

Abhinav Jayanti & Tu shar Kanoi (centre)

repairing plan

Nikhil Makhijani & Kanxa Shah (bottom) -

repairing form

Fig 4: Dwij Hirpara & Yashmita Rao Studies in the transformation of the garden room and the western half of the site Fig 5 Nilanshi Agarwal & Heer Shah The office goes beyond the building and engages the whole site - the garden, edges and margins Fig 6 Abhinav Jayanti & Tushar Kanoi The footprint is doubled by removing the vaults and introducing a lighter upper floor; the enclosure is detailed to caliberate the intricate relationships between habitation, light, heat, and ventilation

Fig 7 Dwij Hirpara & Yashmita Rao

“augmentation”.

Fig 2

I. The choreography of the picturesque

promenade: a pathway that reveals the setting, an idyllic garden with the building as a backdrop, merging with the ground.

II. The compositional compulsions of the

picturesque: the partially subterranean built form, depressed to a mere 600mm, elongated in the N-S direction (Fig 2.4), has been consistently posited as a subterranean typology by way of its formal evocations, rather than the careful examination of the intricate relationships that make the act of going underground appropriate to specific inhabitations, in addition to climate.

III. The consequences of the picturesque:

the building enclosure, burdened with the responsibility of bearing both the vaults and retaining earth on the garden side, creates for a restrictive enclosure that prevents a small footprint to swell and recede to accommodate the vagaries of program and the extremities of sub-tropical sun and rain The proclivity towards the architectural promenade inadvertently leads to the separation of the built from its garden, the very element it seeks to unite with.

Acts of Repair

Fig 3

the Wastern edge (left): a symbiotic relationship is established at the edge between the food vendors on the sidewalk and the meeting spaces for the office.

the Eastern edge (right): The everyday act of washing hands is far more experiential by designing the toilet as a semi open space looking out into the garden.

Fig 6

Fig 7

Samriddhi Arora

IR2027, Remodelling Residence Hamid Raj

FACULTY OF DESIGN