Conserving the Sacred: Architecture for the Tigalas Final year architecture Thesis
ABSTRACT A gardener community whose history is linked with the city’s landscape is lacking in built expression of their existence. An architectural intervention that will reinforce their right to the city and conserve what is sacred to them is being explored here. OBJECTIVE One of the landmark paradigms of any tribe’s existence is architecture. It is a means of laying claims to a territory, establishing dominance and perpetuating a legacy. While a community that has strength and freedom enough on its own will naturally manifest itself architecturally, one like that of the Tigalas (most of whose occupations lie in the informal economy) whose former possession of a land has gradually faded to almost nothing will benefit from a built form that reinstates their occupation, culture and sense of community (reverse). The thesis will try to do full justice to the meaning of ‘sacred’ and explore a built form that gives back to the Tigalas who, as a community, lay the foundation for this city. The Tigalas are an ancient community of warriors-turned gardeners. DESIGN/PLANNING ATTRIBUTES While the Tigalas’ sole architectural paradigm continues to be the Dharmaraya Swamy temple, their occupation juxtaposed with urban (and largely capitalist) setting demands a highly self-protective, somewhat exclusive and hence sacred space. The built form will satisfy the functions required of the Tigalas’ original occupation. It will be a climate responsive structure that will contain a good deal of green (cultivated) space. It should be a place of refuge for these people in terms of culture, occupation and political representation. The beliefs, principles and the various demands that the Vahnikula Kshatriyas have been lobbying for (returning their land, declaring a weeklong holiday for city on account of Bengaluru Karaga) must be expressed, communicated and satisfied in the built form. SCOPE The following will fall under the scope of the design exercise – • conserving the community’s culture and customs and lifestyle as an agrarian one and as a Vahnikula Kshatriya, • Comprehending the sacred; creating a space that is sacred to the community they are tied to and sacred to the city as something that is vital for its economy and environment. FEASIBILITY As a planning initiative the program can be seen to be feasible in the light of agrarian crises across the country. Cities are hardest hit in such conditions and to offer priority to an agrarian community that has already been long-associated with the city will be economically as well as socially feasible. A city that has even the traces of the ability to produce its own food will have a longer life and its society will be more balanced. Farmer societies are predominant in India where the greatest industry is agriculture; however
these people should hold special significance in cities, esp. in Bangalore. In terms of the space this will ultimately create, it can even be said to be environmentally feasible. The foundation for this thesis draws heavily from ‘Landscapes of Urban Memory: The Sacred and the Civic in India’s High-tech City’ by Smriti Srinivas that strives to understand Bangalore through the eyes of the Tigala community and contains a deep study of the Karaga rituals. Further readings of older works concerning the region of Bangalore reveal interesting facts. Booklets and essays by Munivenkatappa and Dr M H Marigowda ascribe particular importance to the contribution of this community to Bangalore’s economy and selfreliance in food crops. In Francis Buchanan’s accounts of the then Mysore region, he identifies a ring of forts and hill formations surrounding lands largely cultivated for vegetable, fruit and flower gardens. What he’d identified was actually the home of Tigalas. Even today, their distribution is seen to be contained in these regions. The Tigalas belong to the Kshatriya or warrior class. At the point when Buddhism and Jainism became the predominant religions in India, the phenomenon of battles/ wars/defence became defunct and these people took to tilling the land and became occupational gardeners. The garden city of Bangalore was in fact a city of gardeners. Curiously, despite being denizens of an urban settlement, the Tigalas identity themselves as a rural community. They take pride in their erstwhile identity of warriors that they maintain parallelly by their practice in their garadi manes and most significantly in the celebration of Bangalore’s oldest festival – the Karaga procession. The Karaga procession is almost tragic in its uniqueness – the procession visits sites of sacred importance to the Tigalas which include gardens, temples and water bodies (some of which have diminished to little ponds, or worse, puddles) that are lost in the new urban grid that has come to take over the city. This festival is significant because it recognizes and traces the boundary of what used to belong to the community.
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Transformation of the Tigalas
Gardeners as part of early Bangalore and warriors within Karaga performance
Warrior class as part of early Dravidian kingdoms
Transformation Memory
Body
Regimes of the Body
A revival of the gardener identity combined with the entrepreneurial modernism of the informal economy
Switch to the informal economy, fading identity as gardeners
City
Kinetic and oral devices in the performance
Landscapes of Urban Memory
Political, community and public space
A MODEL OF THE CIVIC
The aim of the design solution is to create an architectural language like this rainwater harvestign structure - that will occupy territory for the Tigalas but continue to carry their philosophy of tending to the earth, gardening and conserving water and trees.
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Re-thinking K R Market 3rd year architecture studio
After I learnt to appreciate the volume of the market building, I realize how big the site area is. The people of any place shape it. And the more homogeneous they are, the stronger is the clarity in their identity - not that it makes things any simpler – but this establishes that the people here are an important consideration. What could come up at market? (The BDA says higher FARs and the Metro rail for sure) Maybe the higher FARs could become higher and higher till it looks like something of Corbusier’s ideal city. Incredibly tall buildings, so tall they almost float leaving ground space free. I do not see merely a market at the place. I envisage a space that is ‘multipurpose’ (in a manner of speaking). Where the people decide what happens. And when they execute that decision, they must find the place invisibly morphing into what they wanted. Something like the Room of Requirements (from Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix).
An urban public space that does not stop people in their tracks, but seeks to keep mobility alive. I like to call it moment of inertia. A space that has a moment of inertia. A market + a station =? A market + higher FAR=? A market + higher FAR + station=? What do we design (not how do we design) such that so and so conditions are met? What are the conditions? Moment of inertia. Its polarity. People trouble. Obeying FARs, by-laws. Integrating the station. I guess this could be a task in creating a task. This project is more an exploration of what the city market building could become and how it would look rather than the realities of how it would function and so on. This proposal suggests a model of the building based on the analogy of a box. The current market building is like a closed box. What if it were to be opened up and its volume exposed to the city? What then would happen to its form and what would happen to the city?
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MOD Institute Berlin | Bangalore
political rallies
information system THE EMERGING AFFLUENTS
information system THE FRAGILE MIDDLE CLASS
word-of-mouth, hearsay local dailies
blogs newspapers religion/castebased communities
24x7 news
independent journalists/newspapers
growing middle class URBAN-RURAL NEXUS
Farmers/landowners on the city’s fringes.
radio
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fragile middle class
emerging affluents
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Former farmland owners move to the city having sold their agricultural land. Ironically the resulting urban sprawl does not house them but pushes them to the core of the city’s problems and to the fringe of the society - one of many cases of the fragile middle class.
Former landowners forced into the city 13
The New Middle Class was presented in Berlin at the Weltstadt conference in May 2014 by MOD Institute. The Weldstadt conference’s theme was ‘Who Creates The City?’ and MOD Institute was to talk about the new middle class in context of India and our NextBangalore (nextbangalore.com - crowdsourcing the city’s vision) project. Above are a few slides from the talk given - the talk says that there are is in fact a schism within the so-called middle class. There is the upwardly mobile ‘emerging affluents’ and the weaker ‘fragile middle class’. The emerging affluents often masquearde as the middle class and communicate in their name due to their wider reach to media. But it is in fact, the fragile middle class - who have risen above the poverty line but are in constant danger of falling back into poverty - that we must really be concerned about. Who are they and what are their information sources and networks? These were some of the questions it threw up and tried to answer.
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05. ProPosal
City Laboratory Bangalore
Figure 5.1B: Interactive corner; digital display center; multiple perspectives of the city.
satellite image scale -1:1250
Figure 5.1C: Possible locations of stand-up 3D model display
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11 Bangalore is expanding rapidly. The census stated its population as 9.6 million people in 2011, up 47% from 2001’s 6.5 million people. The Government has attempted to create a cohesive plan for sustainable development. However there is a dissonance between the vision document it has put forth and the planning processes it has undertaken.
By proposing a centrally located urban laboratory that will house an up-to-date city model, we hope to provide a planning tool for multiple stakeholders to create a conversation around urbanisation, that promotes bottom-up city planning. The City Laboratory, located off M G Road will be accessible to all citizens irrespective of class and ethnicity. It will begin as a floor-wide (20m by 14m) digital satellite image, with 3D models for the city’s central areas. It will have facilities for observation and tactile interaction, as well as educational and curated ward-specific exhibits. It will be staffed by a team of researchers, documentation experts, technical and administrative support staff, who will collect, create and share data in order to promote participatory and flexible planning. A first of its kind in India, this project will serve as a best practice model for planning future cities. Patrick Geddes Outlook Tower was a maor source of inspiration for this project. My role in this project: concept and philosophical grounding of this project, identifying funders and applying for grants & funds, handling publications and events. The City Model Project is a crucial tool to accurately visualise, observe, and understand urban development in Bangalore. A living city lab, this project will create resources and actively drive conversation between experts, stakeholders, citizens and institutions regarding the future plan- and development of this city. The initial grant money will be used to set up the team, the space and furnish a prototype physical model and exhibit. Following this it will be sustained by grants and non-monetary contributions elicited from various collaborating institutions and actors.
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Visual Communication/Content Production
Annual report design for Maraa. Maraa is a nonprofit media and arts collective that works on socially conscious projects. [2013]
Graphic design layout, concept and content production for design document pitch for the design and planning of Nehru Memorial Museum in New Delhi submitted by Venkataramanan Associates. [2013] 6
COBALT BLR
concept, branding, business model and knowledge management for Cobalt - a new age coworking space.
Experience Serendipity After you check-in, you can also see who else has checked-in. Chat and meetup online or simply walk over and say hello! Co-workers will offer their skills and services in exchange for yours. And we will facilitate encounters with co-workers who you will find mututally benefitial. So be open, be curious. Respect Cobalt’s rules to make work easier for everyone; but also feel free to make suggestions or contribute to help Cobalt be a better, more fun and a more productive workspace.
Model Cobalt BLR tries to take full advantage of its central location. It functions on the concept of serendipity Cobalt’s community facilitators ensure that co-workers are able to meet other relevant people from their field or from across fields in way that is mutually benefitial to both. Co-workers therefore, often end up finding a collaborator from within Cobalt’s own pool of co-workers. Cobalt aims to be such a well-oiled networking machine and more. The ultimate goals is to be able to give back to society in terms of socially conscious documentary screenings, free workshops and more. I helped the concept, strategy and communication design for Cobalt.
What is Cobalt BLR? Cobalt BLR is a flexible meeting & co-working space that puts serendipity @ work! We are not a business centre, we are a business shelter. We understand that an ideal workspace is not just a desk and a chair. It is about brainstorming and meeting new people as much as it is about putting in the quiet solitary hours with laser-like focus. It is about being able to look upon a vibrant street for a change of scenery while still enjoying the calm of your office. At Cobalt BLR you won’t have to sweat the small details, we do that for you. Whether you’re a business or an independent professional, we can support you in the way you work best. 7
VA Communication Strategy
Concept note for Venkataramanan Associate’s digital branding and communication strategy UNDERSTANDING OURSELVES: The Shift to a Modern Architect “Architecture, the oldest access industry, is also in the information business. Take the typical architectural office. It does not deliver an object, a building, but the information needed to produce such an object. To commission an architect is to commission a brain, to buy some thinking power and the license to use some thoughts…The architect’s real expertise is in choreographing the otherwise overwhelmingly complex assemblage of heterogeneous systems of any building and precisely detailing the visual effect relative to normative codes such that it can be ‘read’…To design becomes to collectively massage a data set, blurring architecture, mechanical engineering, environmental control, acoustics, lighting, life safety, etc., in an interactive space of real-time evolution.” Having understood exactly what our value is, the shift in our portrait expresses more than just a value. We are effectively disrupting the existing market to create a new ground for ourselves. That simply this ground itself is stronger than the previous is what is expected to push us. “Projects that require first-time solutions to new problems or innovative solutions to old problems are best handled by service providers who emphasize expertise or brain power as their principal business proposition.” By shifting the image of ourselves from that of masterbuilders to that of the Modern Architect, not only are we portraying a more convincing and appealing picture, but we are also motivating ourselves towards better knowledge– sharing practices and content management which is what will inform our communication strategy. CURATING OURSELVES: The Role of Content Management “Data are facts; information is the meaning that human beings assign to these facts. Individual elements of data, by themselves, have little meaning; it’s only when these facts are in some way put together or processed that the meaning begins to become clear.”3 The process of identifying ourselves as purveyors of knowledge necessitates the involvement of massive amounts (40 years) of data. Simply put, there is little use in stating that we have 40 years of experience if all that knowledge lies buried in difficult-to-access states. VA archives on CDs, DVDs, tape drives and other backups, old sheets, scans, records, etc. The threat of this increasing pile of this data demanding to be understood is what
Richard Saul Wurman termed Information Anxiety. Clearly, there is a need to then, to document all this, curate all this into a digestible form. Content management entails a great deal of labour in terms of documentation and archiving. But by making available all content to easy access and exchange, we are basically facilitating the process of learning from our past. Robust content management does not mean that it will lead to a loop of the design process continuously feeding from only the existing in-house knowledge. It means that knowledge-sharing can become a much more fluid process without data redundancy, without communication pitfalls, and without knowledge gaps. It also means that as much as we gain from the movement of ideas, we gain the freedom to develop resistances to particular movements4 – which is currently not the case, we fall prey to the habit of repeating ourselves sometimes. The process of managing content is long term (maybe a three year plan) - Create (content generation), Capture (documentation and archival), Share (rendering information accessible): “We needed to develop a clear methodology that could help the firm regularize how we create, capture, and share the stuff worth knowing. This line of reasoning convinced me to make “Create/Capture/ Share” the theme of my three-year IT strategy — a content management and development strategy that would become an integral part of how we deliver services.” – Bradley Horst COMMUNICATING OURSELVES: The creative work before the creative work While numerous fields are involved with the storage and transmission of information, virtually none is devoted to translating it into understandable forms for the general public. As the only means we have of comprehending information are through words, numbers, and pictures, the two professions that primarily determine how we receive it are writing and graphic design. Yet the orientation and training in both fields are more preoccupied with stylistic and aesthetic concerns.6 Having understood that content management should precede any communication strategy, it is thereafter easy to fall prey to jumping to graphic design or copywriting as the next step in communications. The apt way forward should be to inculcate information architecture as the primary field from which all communication begins. Information architecture is a lot like applying the principles of architecture and library science to information design. In our attempts to brand VA, perhaps it is wrong to try and capture this brand in words or as a certain style of
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graphic design, a certain color palette or typeface. Maybe words or pictures, though powerful complements, are not sufficient on their own to describe the brand. Or even worse, by limiting the brand to words and pictures the idea of the brand is perhaps limited, distorted or not communicated at all. By starting from information architecture, however, the brand will begin to emerge perhaps as some sort of flowchart or web of well-structured information. POSSIBILITIES VA Communication Strategy can thus inform firm’s culture: frankness, transparency and accessibility of information/processes in all spheres of the practice will inculcate in everyone a shared sense of commitment to every project (somewhat but not exactly like the RTI Act reinforcing the idea of democracy) (more fluid exchange of thoughts, ideas & information, how to estimate how long a task will take – refer old timesheets, who to ask – refer specialist matrix, who to report an issue to – refer responsibility matrix, where and what to find – CMS/ DAM, how to archive/store, discuss and report actively, etc.) -organization structure: IT team that adds value to business rather than only provide support, a public relations team of librarians, information architects and communication designers,
and users of our building design should inform and inspire how we create, capture and share our stories. In each of these instances, there will be enough freedom to craft a subtle and useful story, using information architecture, an appropriate tone of voice and graphic design. But the question we should be asking at each junction is “What is our story?” References: http://c-lab.columbia.edu/0124.html http://www.laiserin.com/features/issue03/feature02a.php The Information Age by Davis and McCormack http://c-lab.columbia.edu/0124.html http://www.di.net/articles/it_strategic_advantage/ Information Anxiety by Richard Saul Wurman http://c-lab.columbia.edu/0076.html
studios as specializing in definite areas while actively contributing to a cross-fertilization of ideas (install and deploy full-fledged CMS and DAM systems, initiate rigorous documentation & archival processes with best practices) recruitment and human resource management: a thorough picture of what to expect at VA and how to be prepared or how to apply, whom to approach, acclimatization and other way-finding measures for the newbie, exchange of information that extends into personal interests and goals to intersect with everyone’s social life with their VA life (refreshed policy manual, a company manifesto, blog, internal newsletter/intimation of interesting events to attend or participate in, etc.) client relationships: awareness at all times of the designbuild process, of all current affairs, ever-willing to communicate and inform, continuing updates on activity leading to top-of-mind awareness of VA, thorough procedure of obtaining feedback (website, newsletter, social media, blog, etc.) We allow people to see our mess or let’s say our mismanagement. We don’t hide behind closed doors. One thing that’s been noted in our work is that we can be quite transparent in our methods, even opening up the whole process of how we work on a project and what we achieve, or sometimes don’t achieve. – Julien De Smedt Our designs, our engineering, our construction, our craft
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