Constituents of creative environment

Constituents of a creative environment A version of university of design & technology -CEPT. Cultivating Architectural Critiques M. Arch - 2018 Instructors : Shubhra Raje / Manuel M de las Hera

Hari Krishna .P PG 180319

CONTENTS 1. Studio brief & Process.........................................................................................

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2. Transformation of studio space ......................................................................

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3. Points of investigation - Thresholds with distinct characters ...................

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4. Campus mapping ................................................................................................

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5. Design Tools used to understand the campus ...........................................

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6. Critiques generated out of this enquires .....................................................

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7. Re-constituting the thresholds of campus and iterations ........................

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8. Architectural attributes implemented in the project ................................

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- Creating seamless thresholds in the propositions

- Diminished building footprint - (Transparent ground structure)

- Front doors of the projects, and control points

- A shift of materials

- Multivalence

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9. Revitalization of open spaces and plazas .....................................................

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10. Ground plane articulation ...............................................................................

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11. Incurse - Places where the project latch on to context .........................

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12. Project drawings & Models..............................................................................

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13. References/Readings..........................................................................................

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Instructors : Shubhra Raje / Manuel M de las Heras

STUDIO BRIEF Most architectural projects begin with a concept which is understood as an abstract idea, often diagrammatic, to which the subsequent design process is beholden to. This need for abstraction, inherited from post enlightenment critiques, maintains that design excellence can only come from a freedom from everyday practices, obligations and constraints.

And in many cases, as evidenced by lectures and publications of architectural works globally, the end­result is presented as though it is inevitable; the work of architecture becomes a reduction to an isolated “a­ ha” moment of inspiration. All live­ness is evened out, flattened, and a formal distancing is established.

The studio reconsiders this distancing.

In order to engage with context with the desired intimacy, we recast the architectural process as a form of serious play; here play is not a frivolous act, but an active manifestation of curiosity **, operating from a position embedded within the context. To play, or to put something in play requires action and commitment, in seeking a goal through transformation and change. It is neither removed from life, nor a diversion, but a consistent inquiry into the possibilities and potentials of architecture to question and to have an effect.

It is, however, impossible to play without rules, and we see the task of the architectural studio is to establish conditions where play can begin, and where the rules of engagement are analogous to practice, simulating the nature and rigor of the process of design development. Allowing the student to build up to a coordinated physical solution, finding development through the lens of profound relationships that remake the conventional, rather than that of purely expressive shape and space making.

The studio methodology, therefore, is based on a willingness to exploit any particular and peculiar conditions in a situation or opportunity. The basic logic of this method is to find a way in which the inherent constraints, limitations and restrictions that invariably constrain the architectural project can be utilized, or rethought, and manipulated to become the generators of the design proposition.

The familiar as a site of investigation Students were required to examine familiar architectural programs (a studio, a lecture hall , alibrary, a workshop, storage and circulation) in order to dissect and reconfigure them, asking what rituals and opportunities are available exclusively within physical spaces of learning.

Through the discovery of questions regarding what a school is, rather than what it should look like, students were required to produce a version of their university of design and technology (CEPT), through intervention/s in the existing campus that extend critical discourse on the constituents of a creative environment.

In the process they created projects that draw their power from an oscillation between the recognizable and the surreal.

Questioning the conventions and norms of contemporary architectural design, the students sought to challenge the seemingly endless preoccupation with styles (continuing established ones, or finding new ones), arguing instead that the greatest potential for architecture rests on an imaginative examination of what we take for granted.

** Curiosity...it evokes “concern”; it evokes the care one takes for what exists and could exist; a readiness to find strange and singular what surrounds us; a certain relentlessness to break up our familiarities and to regard otherwise the same things; a fervor to grasp what is happening and what passes; a casualness in regard to the traditional hierarchies of the important and the essential.

Michel Foucault, The Masked Philosopher

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PROCESS Module I: Constructing the Site Constitute Through mapping, an understanding of the campus focusing on meetings, junctions and relationships that bind the various constituents of the campus - material and programmatic. Primary Scales of investigation - 1:500 / 1:50 Seminar: “Mappings” Module II: The Logic of Inquiry & Finding Relevance Formulating design strategies that probe the relationship between learning, making and discovery. Exploring specifically the meaning of use, and an economy of means. Primary Scales of investigation - 1:500 / 1:250 Seminar: “Paradoxical Pleasures - Unexamined Possibilities within Known Programs” Mid Semester Reviews (2018.09.24) Guest Critics: Riyaz Tayyibji, Kaiwan Mehta, Sankalpa Module III: Inhabitation Engineering the detailed resolution of places of learning, of making, of play, of meeting and of performance such that each aesthetic and functional assumption of a task is reassembled into a more relevant whole. Primary Scale of Investigation: 1:20 (section) / 1:50/ 1:100 (plan) Module IV: “ What are you a part of ” ?

Reconstituting the CEPT campus by critically examining how each student’s project has affected the existing campus. In other words, remaking the “site plan” in the spirit of Module I. Primary Scale of Investigation: 1:250 Final Reviews + Exhibition (2018.11.21) Guest Critics: Kevin Mark low , Riyaz Tayyibji, Gauri Raje, Surya Kakani.

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Campuses are places where different kind of people come together in order to

share their ideas on common platform in different means. The formal interaction between students and mentors is not only restricted to the classrooms but purculated into various spaces of campus.

Education combines the abstract and real. Ultimate aim is to house creative

learning facilities encouraging students to solve problems and not just creating a beautiful objects. In this process of problem solving students have to use different tools for design investigation, the campus should act as a incubator of learning. the campus should have boundaries metaphorically and also it should accommodate the large set of programmes and activities. The architecture of campus has to extend the formal learning attitude from studio/classroom level to campus level.

Students have to encounter these facilities , without any effort. Nothing but these

facilities have to part of their daily activities. In such spaces students must be admist by these spaces, rather than isolated. For instance what if the referencing facility is designed in such a way, student can physically be with books. The physical tactile nature of the book is very important. While coming the model making activity, the facility should encourage the extreme level of in making the prototypes making is mainstram interms of exploring design.

In the learning process students have to encounter different tools to improve their own design thinking. Space should encourage the occurance accidents. The campus must have multiple openspaces. Rather than having one strong heart. Campuses should have certain kind of boundedness to keep the spatial orientation intact, and thresholds must be strong at the campus level.

Thresholds

with distinct characters Next page ( pg 14) contains site plan marking the locations of thresholds.

“Open spaces acting as thresholds. With their own material expression�

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Evident thresholds created by raised platforms from the ground plane

“Spaces where light acts as a threshold

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Thresholds mapping at campus level

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1.North Entrance 2.Walkway 3.North Lawns 4.Central Open Ground 5.School Of Architecture 5.A.campus Development Office 5.B.stationery 6.Copy Shop 7.South Lawns 8.Faculty Of Technology 9.New Library 10.South Entrance 11.“Hussain - Doshi Güfa” 11.A.herwitz Gallery 12.School Of Interior Design 12.A.textile Workshop 13.Community Science Centre 14.“S.i.d Plaza” 15.“Hutheesing” Visual Art Centre 16.Amphitheatre 17.“Kanoria” Centre For Art

17.B.Sculpture Studio 18.Canteen 19.West Entrance 20.Future Auditorium Extension 21.New Workshop

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CAMPUS MAPPING

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Enquiry through photographs

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Using series of photographs on either side of the thresholds of campus, as a tool to understand the context better.

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Critiques generated out of this enquires

boundedness - Campus should need to have certain kind of boundedness !

In the cept campus most of formal learning activities are bounded by the seamless thresholds. These continuous seamless threshold are dividing the main campus area from rest of the surrounding areas.

By creating seamless boundary through physical form will strengthens the thresholds and immediate peripheral parts of campus boundary.and the propositions will respond to the immediate context at various scales in order to complete boundedness of campus.

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C

B

A A Faculty of architecture block

Parking Canteen

B

C

SID Plaza

Iteration-1 1:500 abstract campus model

1:200 part models

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Connections to the ground plane and to immediate built form

Vertical connections placed to respond to immediate openspaces, of the campus. The spine connected to each faculty through bridges to encourage the rigorous use of library, but later few decisions are made to remove the bridges, and the librt will continues through the canteen and faculty of architecture block. `

19 Ground level is maintained as possible as possible to create varandha space, where as in initial models most of the ground plane is covered with built spaces.

C

B

A

Faculty of architecture block

A

B

Canteen

C

1:500 abstract campus model, iteration-2

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Strategy presented during mid semester,

Main focus of the strategy is to understand and to express ground plane character, and it will be part of the proposal, In order to express the ground continuity.

Campus floor patterns are used for drawing.

Creating seamless thresholds Using light as threshold

Few punctures are created to allow light in side of the closed system,later on these punctures were converted as courtyards retaining the intended purpouse.

NID ,Ahmedabad

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Few pause points are created in the proposition. Which are 0.45mt. raised platforms, A transparent box is placed on the same. And the edges of the platform act as seating facility. The box will be an enclosed space, which can be further transformed as jury spaces, formal meeting points for faculty, places for student initiatives, and reading and working pavilions.

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NID ,Ahmedabad

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Reading pavilion and staircase all placed next to each other, so in that in the rainy season water will be a strong element where people celebrate the it, since ahmedabad is a dry state. All this distinct thresholds makes a strong space, which can considered as the strong points of the linear library spine.

Typical module exploded view

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Courtyard as threshold

Staircase

Raised plinth

1:20 scale model

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Workshop is conceived as a magnet at campus level.

One advantage of the central library is to coming together of different faculty, literally and metaphorically workshop will replace the library, i believe that people have to come together when people are making things, Attribute is replace one with the other, changed or re enforced the way architecture works.

It’s began with a surgical operation, separating and removing the base and the parts of the building no longer needed. This opened a completely novel and spectacular perspective for making facility. The separation of the structure from the ground level creates two worlds: one below and the other above the ground. The “underworld� buried beneath the topographically houses silent workshop activities like clay modeling, FAB lab, textile and print media workshop, where was above the ground , the area is divided into two major wood and metal workshops.

The pit formed by the retaining walls is further transformed , to make the building as a part of landscape.

The ground plane continues ,and people can walk through the concrete. Above floors are connected to the library, as the structural system continues on the concrete walls to make floor plates. The ground plane contine on four side of the existing

concrete blocks, and the levels connected by staircases at the central core, and a industrial lift was provided to ease the material transportation. The movement pattern in the campus, within the workshop and various points of the library create a scope for an increase in the activities of the space.

1:100 scale model

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Re-qualification Things in the design

that are happening in campus

successfully, are implemented in the proposal.

A. The linear space of the library is acts like a street of knowledge, where students encounter different kinds of books, The current studios also work on the same principle where students can see what’s happening in the other studios, interact with the happenings.

Faculty of architecture studios plan

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Importance of front door

Front doors of the individual buildings plays a major

role in campus. The space before the front doors will be

Sagara basement in Faculty of architecture block, is

utilised by the students is more in most of the cases, and

taken as key reference for refunctioning of the space in after

the common areas before encountering the front door

hours. In the proposals the entry doors for the library is placed

can be varandha spaces which will be part of the ground

in first floor, students can access to raised platform people will

plane of the surrounding landscape. If the administration is

access the staircase, and then they will encounter the firstdoor

closing the front doors of building during the festivals or in

at level one.

holidays,still students can access the common areas to to

continues their work. And these common areas will be part

can walk through the concrete elements. accessing the ground

of student informal activities, which mean the builtform will

floor of the building. First door of the workshop will be at

always ready to participate with the students.

staircase entry point.

In the workshop the ground plane continues, people

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Diminished building footprint (Transperent ground structure)

Taking sagara basement as a reference to design ground level of the proposals, so as to draw the people in and out.

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Multivalence “All good architecture is able to adopt multitude, Multivalence is everything has to do more than one thing�

Library through Faculty of architecture block

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1

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2

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1.Structural members of the bridge supports the book stacks and book stacks has storage unit at bottom.

2.Benches for reading is a part of the structure, existing railing is used as back rest for the seating facility.

3. Typical railing is treated as support to stand.

4. Floor was done by MS L-angle, due to its porosity , which helps less maintenance.

Section showing the stack positions, and the staircase connected to main library spine

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1:20 scale model

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Section showing making of the project with respect to context

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Materials

as conscious decision.

The design adopts diverse & emerging

construction technologies in the making of its facility reflecting keen intent in understanding the construction technologies & their dynamic nature.

Consumption of the material and workforce is lot

for concrete and brick structure, and new material is added to add contrast to the architecture. The change is occur in using new materials. The strategies remains the same in generating the plans, response to the ground plane of campus.

The material palette continues demonstrating the attitude of existing material system “assembly� (Where brick is gravity based structure, concrete is like poured material, the brick and concrete has certain kind of assembly). The contrast through in terms of tectonics of the material.

Revitalization of open spaces and plazas

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Reconstituting the openspaces by extending the landscape with response to new propositions

A. Workshop platform acts like a strong threshold , where it makes existing structure monumental The platform is redesigned in such way to create scale intimacy, Steps are created directly at the main entrance, The floor patterns acts like a promenade to workshop.

Sec. - X

B. SID plaza is redesigned in a way that the library terminates seamlessly ,

The plaza acts like a continuity to the of the ground plane, rather than having a distinct character.

Sec. - Y

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B

A

X

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Y

C.

In Southlawn , currently there is a south pavilion which acts like a boundary to it. This pavilion was removed because current library acts as the boundary to south lawn, and the level difference matched with the steps which acts like seating facility.

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Considering the ground plane articulation is important aspect to create continuity.

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Incurs

At level one, library building latches to the existing context, Library will be a part of FA block , where the book stacks continues with the metal bridge, and then it connects to staircases which will further connect to the main library spine.On either side library spine continues, in order to create a loop, library will be an extention from FA block. It connects to the canteen first floor, which occupies one seminar room.Library and workshop connects seamlessly, where stacks are mainly used for the material referencing. As a extension of this connection, the librat spine extends to faculty of technology block terrace, simultaneously, the students from the workshop can access the Faculty of technology terrace from workshop.

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Proposed campus model - 1 : 500

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CAMPUS AERIAL VIEW

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Proposed campus model - 1 : 250

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References/Readings : 1. de Certeau, Michael. The Practice of Everyday Life.University of California Press (1984).

Introduction.

2. Rabinow, Paul. Michael Foucault Ethics: Subjectivity and Truth. The New Press, New York (1994).

Chapter on: The Masked Philosopher, specifically, references to the notion of Curiosity.

3. Huizinga, Johan. Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play­Element in Culture. Routeledge (1949).

Chapter XII: The Play Element in Contemporary Culture.

4. Stevens, Quentin. The Ludic City: the where and how of play.

Lecture: https://vimeo.com/54131664 5. Hyde, Lewis. Trickster Makes this World: Mischief, Myth and Art. Farrar, Straus & Ciroux (1998).

Forward & Introduction.

6. Lewis, Tsurumaki, Lewis. Opportunistic Architecture. Princeton Architectural Press (2008).

Introduction.

7. Low, Kevin Mark. small projects. Oro Group (2010).

Chapters on Context, Product as Process and the Principle of Specific Context