Portfolio of Works 2020-2021 Gunraagh Singh Talwar
Curriculum Vitae
I am a young architect from the School of Planning and Architecture, India. My major work of interest lies in design as an enabler of social change and innovation. I believe that design for all comes from a praxis that is both - social and sustainable.
Education & Achievements
Work Experience
Education 2016-2021 School of Planning and Architecture
Bachelor of Architecture Thesis Project: Dignifying the Margins, a Case for Affordable Housing at Bhalswa
-2015 Secondary School The Heritage School Achievements July 2021 World Resources Institute, India
Fellowship Recipient ACCESS Fellowship
May 2021 University of California, Berkeley
Third Prize The Berkeley Essay Prize Competition
July 2020 Fellowship Recipient Center for the Living OAN Grants Program City January 2019 NASA India
First Prize GSEN 2019
July-September 2021 World Resources Institute, India
Research Fellow Development of WASH based narratives at Bhalswa, Delhi
September 2020 Sukalpi Brainworks
Content Creator Design management for edtech startups
July 2020 Observation and Action Network
Fellow On-ground community upgradation at Bhalswa
February-June 2020 Studio Lotus
Architect Intern Construction drawings for Qutb Shahi Interpretation Centre
Architect Intern January 2020 Vir.Mueller Architects Design drawings for a residence in Noida May-June 2019 Rahoul Lakshmi Design Associates (RLDA)
Research Intern Urban cartography in analyzing citywide thresholds
Through the five years of architecture school, I have honed my soft skills, and dexterity with software. I have also developed a streamlined work ethic and sense of accountability having worked for some of Delhi’s premier studios.
Leading Better Bhalswa, a research and design initiative exploring urban situations around a landfill in Delhi’s Margins. Collaborating in driven team to further the scope of the project has also taught me to rely on others and align my goals to the project.
Skills & Interests
Contact Details
Technical Skills
Soft Skills
Get in touch
CAD and 3D Rhinoceros Autocad Sketchup
Collaboration Leadership Planning Problem Solving Public Speaking
Phone number +91-9650454015
BIM Archicad Revit GIS Qgis Visualization Twinmotion Lumion Vray Presentation Photoshop Illustrator Indesign Aftereffects Collaboration Miro
Languages English Hindi French Punjabi Interests Reading Travelling Photography Basketball Cycling
Email gunraagh@gmail.com
Check out my work Better Bhalswa www.betterbhalswa.com Portfolio (2016-2019) www.issuu.com/gunraaghsinghtalwar/ docs/a_d_gunraagh_pages Observe Scranton www.observescranton.org/exhibits/#15
This portfolio is a curated collection of works carried out from 2020 through 2021. Instead of presenting several projects scattered around the globe, the portfolio brings one project reflecting an ecosystems thinking apoproach - Better Bhalswa. The latter part of the curation contains professional projects worked upon through summer breaks and formal internships while at school. This, to present a broad range of projects undertaken as a part of a larger practice, and how my learning goals were aligned to the same.
Contents
Better Bhalswa
Build with Gambia
Dani Residence
School of Planning and Architecture, Bhopal Center for the Living City Urban Design Collective University of California, Berkeley World Resources Institute Architecture in Development
University of California, Berkeley Nka Foundation
Vir.Mueller Architects
Qutb Shahi Interpretation Centre Studio Lotus Aka Khan Trust for Culture
Better Bhalswa Mentors Saurabh Popli, Saurabh Tewari, Shahana Chattaraj, Samrat Basak Contributors Ipsita Choudhury, Eish Ahlawat, Niharika Gupta, Baksheesh Sachar
In July 2020, while in a nation-wide lockdown, I started exploring my own vicinity to further my understanding of my city. Understanding the systems that serve a larger people came the idea of documenting Bhalswa, a town in the North of Delhi infamous for its colossal sanitary landfill. A result of the city’s centralized waste management
Liveability Study
Tactical Urbanism
system, the ever growing mountain pollutes all around it, resulting in the worst living conditions in the city. Those who bear the brunt of it, are the 200,000 people of Bhalswa. Empathy driven through this study led to Better Bhalswa, a research and design initiative.
Affordable Housing
Awareness Campaign
Better Bhalswa
Liveability Study The urban study carried out for Bhalswa is a human-centric attempt to understand the lives people lead around the landfill. In the architectural lens, this is done through a documentation of housing - understood as an ecosystem of life, spaces, and buildings. To further understand the urban situation is an attempt to understand the town’s history and ecologies. The Bhalswa of the past is attributed to the historic horseshoe lake, and the Grand Trunk road connecting it to a larger city. It is understood that Delhi’s hard urbanization practice placed Bhalswa at the margins through the Outer Ring Road and ultimately a location for a sanitary landfill. The landfill failed to be managed following the city’s exponential growth and expansion, today towers at sixty-two metres high. Not only does it form an image of the city, it also chokes the ecosystem around it.
Horseshoe Lake
Grand Trunk Road
Bhalswa Landfill
Outer Ring Road
Liveability Study
Swaroop Nagar
JJ Colony
Shraddhanand Colony
Bhalswa Landfill
Kalandar Colony
Rajiv Nagar
Bhalswa Village
Rajiv Nagar
Shraddhanand Colony
people/ha
people/ha
578
Rahul’s family has been living in Bhalswa Dairy for over 40 years, and claim to be its first residents. Rahul’s family are amongst the few in the area with access to municipal drinking water and an established sewer line. He blames the landfill for his livestock’s health, as he has to rely on buying hay for fodder since the soil around isn’t fertile enough to cultivate.
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Most houses in the area are no longer accessible from the ground level. Peeyush claims that a complete storey has been sunk under the ground because of the government’s insensitive development actions. Through his activism, Peeyush and a few others managed to get the municipality to lay down a sewer line through their house.
Liveability Study
JJ Colony
Kalandar Colony
people/ha
people/ha
Sabir teaches the colony’s children in an open room on their ground floor. He shares the room above with his Uncle and Aunt. The JJ colonies where he lives were developed as resettlement colonies during 2001-2002. Much to their dismay, the government has failed to deliver basic facilities like piped water and sewage systems.
Rani’s family has lived at Kalandar colony for over twenty years. Once a settlement of waste pickers, Kalandar colony suffers a direct brunt from the landfill. Leachate from the landfill has also caused the groundwater to be extremely toxic, and the family has to rely on buying water at ₹1/L everyday.
1512
2629
Vertical Incrementation Toilet Satellite Dish
Curtains Storage
Staircase
Shutter
Charpai
The conducted studies reveal Kalandar Colony for the worst living conditions. Sharing an amoebic relationship with the landfill, the settlement suffers a very direct brunt of the urban situation. It is suggested that the colony be rehabilitated to a site away from the landfill. In-situ upgradation solutions such as laying down of services and tactical urbanism is suggested for the other settlements.
In furthering the idea of rehabilitation, the existing habilitation is studied. To build Kalandar Colony better is the notion of understanding first the Kalandar way of building. The documentation reveals dwelling morphologies and spatial orders within the settlements.
Liveability Study
Chaukhat/ Threshold Gali/ Street
Chhat/ Terrace
Chowk/ Square
Chatta/ Courtyard
Aangan/ Yard
Maidan/ Ground
A seven-layer hierarchy to open spaces is documented in Kalandar Colony. These spaces, unique to their use and character form a network interlacing the urban fabric in the settlement. This spatial syntax is studied and formalized for a holistic rehabilitation with the intent that preserving it could also preserve existing social structures within.
Aangan
Chatta
Chatt Gali
Maidan
Chaukhat
Liveability Study
Tactical Urbanism Fellowship Recipient Obervation and Action Network 2020 Grants Program Work exhibited at Observe Scranton - Jane Jacob’s first city festival by the Center for Living City Currently contending at the Architecture in Development Global Challenge Jury Comments Stephen A. Goldsmith From the conceptual framework of invigorating lost space, of which we see so much around the world, to the structural framework of creating meaningful public space, this replicable intervention holds real promise for improving the quality of life for many people. Rupali Gupte I was taken in with the simplicity of the project. People through their own agencies claim city space and make it their own. This project dignifies this process with a gentle infrastructural support.
While student initiatives can not aspire to take on flaws in the city’s centralized waste management system, they can work to make people’s lives better. Under tight budget considerations and time frames, tactical urbanism proves to be an effective medium. Understanding larger open spaces within Kalandar colony as lost spaces, the idea for Chhav is to provide a place in the shade - an immediate relief.
Tactical Urbanism
Water Pipes as Infrastructure
Water Pipes as Integrators
Study model built using waste material
In invigorating the maidan is the idea of doing more with less. The architectural intervention is a community space built around existing infrastructure. An empathic response also involves designing an access path and playgrounds for the community’s youth. The idea was pitched to the local government and granted working permission.
Tactical Urbanism
As architects and designers we are trained and taught how to visualize solutions. When presenting these solutions to people however, one finds a gap in how the communicated idea is received by a community. Here, the team came up with the idea of a quick prototyping exercise through the ephemeral medium of tarpaulin. The prototype created a forum for discussion with the community and furthered the community engagement intent.
The municipal government scattered reclaimed soil from the landfill at the maidan site. The change in landscape presented a setback in the initiative and led to the consideration of an alternative site for design development.
The initiative then moved towards the invigoration of an abandoned lot, a medium sized open space with the potential of flourishing playscapes for children and seating areas for women.
Tactical Urbanism
Pocket F
Affordable Housing A case for affordable housing is presented through the architectural thesis. Picking up a live project and questioning the practices of density and generalization carried out by the city. The understanding of housing is furthered by studying several models to housing. Raising the questions of liveability in said housing models, studied literature is ultimately synthesised towards a design approach. Pondering on the ideas of a soft city, housing is interpreted as an urban insert with focus on the creation of ecosystems.
Bhalswa Landfill
Horseshoe Lake
Kalandar Colony
7400 DU Housing Project
Gurudwara
JJ Colony Pocket F
Dairy Farms
Affordable Housing
Pocket F as a greenfield for housing development
Slum rehabilitation and cross subsidization
Streets as anchors to the context
Maidan as a connector between several communities
A network of open spaces within housing blocks
Built form diversity
Potential of the ground as interconnected open spaces
Community facilities in the open space network
The masterplan presents an idea of eighth distinct perimeter blocks reimagined as smaller individual buildings towards the goal of built form diversity. In
limiting the scope for the project is the idea of four, the least determinant to achieve uniqueness both at the court and the public square.
Technology
high-tech construction
Conventional Construction
Steel structure drywall infill rapid construction
RCC structure flyash bricks plaster paint finish tiled floors
Fidelity
lo-fi construction reclaimed material salvaged doors cheap material
As an attempt to break monotony associated with public housing, individual buildings are treated as interpretations of the many meanings of low-cost synthesized with the two dwelling units. These
low-tech construction cost-effective techniques low=embodied energy arches filler slabs bare walls
smaller buildings can further be taken up by several smaller architects and contractors for design development.
Affordable Housing
Ground level
First level
Second level
Third level
Affordable Housing
Chaukhat/Threshold
The generator for the housing project is an interpretation of existing spatial syntax at Kalandar Colony. The result is an open space hierarchy allowing for community spillover activities at
Chatta/Court
Gali/Street
several scales. For a consistent activation of large scale open spaces is the placement of community facilities such as police and milk booths, religious buildings, and a primary school.
Chowk/Square
Affordable Housing
Community Facility
Parking Spaces Thoroughfare
Bazaar extensions Open Space Network
Resulting from a built form diversity is the idea of a hybrid of grounded and stilted construction resulting in interconnected open spaces along the ground level. Community spaces are gently placed along these interconnections for a walkable and integrated neighbourhood.
The stilts are interpreted as street extensions allowing for the facilitation of two unique streets; the thoroughfare as a vehicle dominated shortcut integrating the urban fabric; and the bazaar gali, a pedestrian empowered street with recesses as street extensions.
Affordable Housing
Campaign Fellowship Recipient WRI ACCESS Fellowship The people of Bhalswa endure the most of failing centralized waste management systems in the city. Of the 14000 tonnes of waste the city collects every day, 80% is recyclable. Yet, only 5% actually is. The remaining 91% ends up in the landfills, where accumulating, but not decaying, it chokes the entire ecosystem. The team understands that while Bhalswa bears the city’s worst, the city’s larger population is simply unaware of these consequences. Targeting this awareness gap is the idea of Sabka Bhalswa, a campaign towards a
Campaign
centralized waste management
landfill contaminated water toxic air
health concerns
citizens of delhi
people of bhalswa
Campaign
In the idea of communicating documented narratives at Bhalswa to a larger audience is the idea of a zine publicised on plastic bottle labels as part of Extended Producer Responsibility.
The team’s on-ground studies find mountains of discarded bottle labels owing to their singleuse nature. While the bottles themselves are scavenged and segregated for recycling.
The zine itself synthesizes documented narratives with established information. Its production on the underside of the label is a metaphor for Bhalswa being the city’s unseen.
It’s also a canvas for a larger campaign under a production company’s CSR initiatives. The team envisions these zines to work together as a larger public art project where drawings over the
Campaign
Build with Gambia Fellowship Recipient Berkeley Prize Travel Fellowship Contribution: Design Development, Prototyping, Community Engagement I was invited to volunteer towards the design development and construction of Kantora Arts Village, a vocational centre for unemployed rural youths in the Gambia. For the assigned dormitory structure, the project leader, Finnish architect Erika Alatalo studied traditional knowledge systems in Western Africa and found the Nubian Vault technique to be one that could endow a skillset and sustainable approach to the community.
Build with Gambia
As an early participant in the design-build program, I was involved with the design development phase involving prototyping material and construction technologies. With the dormitory building’s substructure work in process, a considerable effort was made to perfect the Nubian Vault technique through the construction of a Buntaba - a frontopen community space.
To further the prototyping state, I proposed the idea of a smaller structure, an oven which could prototype techniques such as the barrel vault and several mud and lime based plasters to test out during the forthcoming monsoon. While the oven was intended to try out the possibility of baking clay tiles, it’s intent soon changed into an oven to bake bread for community engagement.
The design development and execution of the clay oven saw the possibility of inculcating cultural sensitivities in its details such as a small notch to brew tea at the oven’s chimney. The prototyping also involved reverse-engineering construction tools and frugally interpreting them as in the case of the bucket turned plaster machine.
Build with Gambia
Dani Residence Vir.Mueller Architects Contribution: Design Drawing, Model Making, Visualization A residence for a jewelry designer’s family followed a brief seeking a basement office and separated living spaces for a couple and their parents. Work carried out for the schematic design phase for the Dani residence involved drawing out floor plans and sections while figuring out finer details and a sense of aesthetic. An interpretation in brick and concrete, the residence forms sociable and reclusive spaces for the family, all connected through a skylit court.
Dani Residence
Basement Level
Stilt Level
First Level
Second Level
Dani Residence
Qutb Shahi Interpretation Centre Studio Lotus Contribution: Construction Drawings, Prototype Drawings The Qutb Shahi dynasty ruled over the Deccan in a splendid regime lasting 169 years. What remains today is the glorious Qutb Shahi Heritage Park, a 106 acre landscape with 40 mausoleums, 23 mosques, 6 baolis (step-wells), a hamam (mortuary bath), pavilions and garden structures. Following a conservation effort in 2013, the Aga Khan Trust ran a competition inviting designs for an interpretation centre commemorating the rich legacy. Studio Lotus won the competition with the design of a 6000 m2 building that sets itself as a part of the existing landscape.
Qutb Shahi Interpretation Centre
Qutb Shahi Interpretation Centre
Portfolio of Works 2020-2021 Gunraagh Singh Talwar