Articulating Difference Nestling scalar forces of operation
Session 3 : Negotiating Scales
ISOLA 2010
Author : Mohan S Rao
GOA CONFERENCE
LEVERAGING LEISURE
abstract
1.Paradox of Leisure ontologies of leisure – an uncomprehended notion
2.Spatlial Tectonics of Leisure persistence of the ideal from abstract to contradictory spaces
3.Reconceptualization of leisure from landskip to landschaft – spaces of consumption to productivism
4. Nestling Scales potential transitional scale that supports the formulation of a space through two complimentary strategies,
5. Differential landscapes performative categorical differentiation of spaces through project illustration
6. Catalytic Landscape
Articulating Difference
the negotiable constructed ground
ISOLA 2010
GOA CONFERENCE
LEVERAGING LEISURE
paradox of leisure
LEISURE v 1 many attempts to define leisure ……
ISOLA 2010
GOA CONFERENCE
LEVERAGING LEISURE
paradox of leisure
LEISURE v 2 many attempts to define leisure …… achieve leisure ….
ISOLA 2010
GOA CONFERENCE
LEVERAGING LEISURE
paradox of leisure
LEISURE v 3 many attempts to define leisure …… achieve leisure …. appropriate leisure ……
ISOLA 2010
GOA CONFERENCE
LEVERAGING LEISURE
paradox of leisure
LEISURE v 4 many attempts to define leisure …… achieve leisure …. appropriate leisure …… conceive leisure
ISOLA 2010
GOA CONFERENCE
LEVERAGING LEISURE
Spatial tectonics
leisure as structurally-constrained choice (or no choice);
leisure as a free choice in a world where it is defined by a possible choice against other areas of life that are more structured (for example, work);
leisure as a completely free choice in a world where structures are breaking down altogether.
Ontologies
definitions still primarily indicate the strong proposition of centering ‘freedom’, ‘choice’, ‘life satisfaction’ and ‘escape’ on leisure, which seem, on first inspection, to have escaped the control of the established order and thus, in as much as they are spaces of play, to constitute ‘vast counter spaces’ ISOLA 2010
GOA CONFERENCE
LEVERAGING LEISURE
Spatial tectonics
leisure spaces are arranged at once functionally and hierarchically and move forward to express divisions:
the division between social and mental, between sensory and intellectual and between the everyday and the outof-ordinary – rendering leisure as “spaces of exclusion” and / or as “spaces of consumption”.
Exclusions generic conceptions of ‘real experience’, ‘release’, ‘escape’ and ‘freedom’, and the presumed notion of separating leisure from the rest of life by claiming that it has unique ‘laws’,’ propensities’ and ‘rhythms’ - leisure spaces has established a dialectical relationship with the notion of urbanism – ‘the way of life. ISOLA 2010
GOA CONFERENCE
LEVERAGING LEISURE
Spatial tectonics
spatial translation of the leisure paradox, would best fit into two distinct classifications: “the protective or natural areas, where succession is allowed or encouraged to proceed into the nature, and thus stable if not highly productive”
and secondly ‘the productive area, where succession is continually retarded by human controls to maintain high levels of productivity
The ideal emerge from the Old English term landskip , which at first referred not to land but to a picture ,
ISOLA 2010
GOA CONFERENCE
LEVERAGING LEISURE
Transcending _ Spatial tectonics
Absolute spaces spaces ranging from pastoral terrains, to sacred spaces to perspective rendition of historical spaces generated what can be termed as virtual eroticization, one based on the enrishment of sexual- mystical pleasure beyond everyday meanings and local connections ISOLA 2010
GOA CONFERENCE
LEVERAGING LEISURE
Transcending _ Spatial tectonics
Abstract spaces geometric and visual formants are complimentary in their antithesis and this outcome has been achieved in several ways: the reduction of the real, to a plan existing in a void and endowed with no other qualities and on the other hand to the flatness of an image of pure spectacle ISOLA 2010
GOA CONFERENCE
LEVERAGING LEISURE
Transcending _ Spatial tectonics
Contradictory spaces spaces oriented towards leisure serve as empty abstractions in appearance only which brings back the issue of treating space as a neutralizer, the extension of capitalism to these spaces have given rise to quick popularized representations that divert and evade the dialectics involved and in fact, serve to mask the contradictions that have bought them into being. ISOLA 2010
GOA CONFERENCE
LEVERAGING LEISURE
Reconceptualization of leisure
realization as a medium to ‘construct situations’ rather represented as an object accommodated as for mere pictorial representation for actions – ‘one that is more an unfolding spatiality than surface appearance.
conceiving it is a process rather than an aestheticized composition demands that a critic understand its value less in terms of “how it looks” and more in terms of “how it works.”
situations
to be a medium which is constructed by society and also which constructs society where the strict lines of human geometry and production of efficiency are allowed to deform to incorporate, rather than neutralize, biological networks.
ISOLA 2010
GOA CONFERENCE
LEVERAGING LEISURE
Reconceptualization of leisure
Landskip
to
Landschaft landscape as an occupied milieu, the effects and significance of which accrue through tactility, use and engagement over time .
landscape as contrivance, primary visual and sometimes also significant
A return to complex and instrumental leisure space strategies that involves more organizational and strategic skills than those of formal compositions per se, more programmatic and metrical practices than solely representational
ISOLA 2010
GOA CONFERENCE
LEVERAGING LEISURE
Nestling Scales
Negotiate Forces a potential transitional scale that supports the formulation of a space through two complimentary strategies, which together produce dynamic relationships . overlay or the introduction of the ‘transitional scale’ of operation recognizes that all scales of engagement are internally differentiated, and that while hierarchies of scales exist, they are not fixed or singular. ISOLA 2010
GOA CONFERENCE
LEVERAGING LEISURE
Nestling Scales
Differential Space space of productivism and moves toward interpretive infinity, for the effect of resisting fixity is not insignificance, but semantic plurality. Here leisure as a spatial vocabulary looks out on new social circumstances: a dispersed and differentiated reality that marks the end to the utopia of homogenization, to a certain extent. ISOLA 2010
GOA CONFERENCE
LEVERAGING LEISURE
Nestling Scales
instrument ‘optimized instrument’ is then neither a local cultural resistance, nor a divergence but most specifically emergence brought about by the ‘expansion of alternative experiences centred around respect for singularity, and through the continuous production of an autonomizing subjectivity that can articulate itself appropriately in relation to the rest of the society . ISOLA 2010
GOA CONFERENCE
LEVERAGING LEISURE
Nestling Scales
‌heterogenesis is an expression of desire, of a becoming that is always in the process of adapting, transforming and modifying itself in relation to its environment. ‌. able to install itself simultaneously in the realms of environment, in the major social and institutional assemblages, and symmetrically in the landscapes and fantasies of the most intimate spheres of the individual. ISOLA 2010
GOA CONFERENCE
LEVERAGING LEISURE
Differential Space
a. Landscapes of Infrastructure negotiating between the terrain conditions, sustainable parameters and spatial attributes
b. Landscape as Correlated experience nestling of social demands against ecology and environment and moving further towards cultural and functional tendencies and adjacencies
c. Relational Landscape negotiates between specific community user groups with tangible spatial elements derived through local intelligences
d. Functional Landscape implementation of elements is more to do with individual requirements and the experience of the landscape intended
ISOLA 2010
GOA CONFERENCE
LEVERAGING LEISURE
Differential Space
Landscapes of infrastructure territory depends upon a negotiating between the terrain conditions, sustainable parameters and spatial attributes Bab Zaers , Morocco
Kamshet , Pune
ISOLA 2010
generation of landscapes happens by an instrumental engagement with ecological processes as well as with the function of infrastructure and the social and cultural needs of the community.
GOA CONFERENCE
LEVERAGING LEISURE
Landscapes of Infrastructure _ Differential Space
BAB ZAERS , MOROCCO a new urban settlement spread over an area of 3000 hectares, located 20 km south of Rabat
ISOLA 2010
GOA CONFERENCE
LEVERAGING LEISURE
Landscapes of Infrastructure _ BAB ZEARS
with the intention of making the development totally self-sufficient in terms of water needs extensive terrain analysis indexed the key slopes and valley systems to define a system of protected greenways that form the skeleton of the entire development ISOLA 2010
GOA CONFERENCE
LEVERAGING LEISURE
Landscapes of Infrastructure _ BAB ZEARS
Rather than being passive, ‘no-development-zones’, the greenways are programmed to continuously inform, guide and influence the land use pattern through the development. The greenways alternately take on the role of node, corridor and linkage based on its interaction with the mobility network. ISOLA 2010
GOA CONFERENCE
LEVERAGING LEISURE
Landscapes of Infrastructure _ BAB ZEARS
new thresholds of engagement of the greenways formulate and participate to lend an identity of ‘processing’ to the development that occurs through encounters between physical terrain, ecosystems, informational webs and social groups. ISOLA 2010
GOA CONFERENCE
LEVERAGING LEISURE
Landscapes of Infrastructure _ BAB ZEARS
how the material process of the greenways produced the site supported the conception of variously scaled thresholds of program, identities and performance of these greenways that extended outward from its physical footprint to engage its invisible boundaries
ISOLA 2010
GOA CONFERENCE
LEVERAGING LEISURE
Landscapes of Infrastructure _ KAMSHET
KAMSHET , PUNE A future ready sustainable township
ISOLA 2010
GOA CONFERENCE
LEVERAGING LEISURE
Landscapes of Infrastructure _ KAMSHET
exploring the potentials of engaging or negotiating between natural performances and program needs. The linear interface of this greenway establishment not only allows for both the expansion and contraction of events within it, but also regulating and dictating spatial performances around it ISOLA 2010
GOA CONFERENCE
LEVERAGING LEISURE
Landscapes of Infrastructure _ KAMSHET
developing a system of continuums within the development and expressing a spatial vocabulary that allowed for both determinate and indeterminate programs to operate in the field in a way that is unstable even as it reproduces the design. ISOLA 2010
GOA CONFERENCE
LEVERAGING LEISURE
Differential Space
Landscape as a correlated experience Heritage Village , Mysore
nestling of social demands against ecology and environment and moving further towards cultural and functional tendencies and adjacencies.
Hathi Gaon , Jaipur
Fezzan , Libya
ISOLA 2010
produced in these spaces of differences embeds a multiplicity of urban and ecological orders, making it difficult for any one group to exclusively appropriate the space.
GOA CONFERENCE
LEVERAGING LEISURE
Landscape as a corrrelated experience _ Differential Space
Heritage village, , mysore project, conceived to highlight the heritage and traditions of the city of Mysore.
ISOLA 2010
GOA CONFERENCE
LEVERAGING LEISURE
Landscape as a corrrelated experience _ Heritage Village
project contextually arranges according to the drainage pattern of the site and embeds within it a series of built clusters based on traditional logistics that are nestled within larger productive landscapes arranged in relation to the functioning of the clusters. This larger productive landscape not only organizes the park towards performative ends but also creates an identity that has more to do with programmatic associations than symbolic representations ISOLA 2010
GOA CONFERENCE
LEVERAGING LEISURE
Landscape as a corrrelated experience _ Heritage Village
The movement and circulation pattern through the park allows the visitor the choice of experiencing the development as a passive recreational space, a vibrant market, an entertainment area or as an art & craft complex either independently or in tandem.
ISOLA 2010
GOA CONFERENCE
LEVERAGING LEISURE
Landscape as a corrrelated experience _ Heritage Village
the constant engagement with the responsive landscape around it and further the more the constant tensions between the changing visitor and the artists organizes a juxtaposition of irreconcilable contents, a logic which allowed intense local variations to develop in adjacent clusters
ISOLA 2010
GOA CONFERENCE
LEVERAGING LEISURE
Landscape as a corrrelated experience _ Differential Space
Hathi gaon , jaipur A sustainbale elephant habitat
The conception of the project is determined as a counter effect to the leisure activities in the area - where elephants are used to take the visitors in and around the Amber fort on a daily basis and thus become subjects or materials for production of leisure for the user category
ISOLA 2010
GOA CONFERENCE
LEVERAGING LEISURE
Landscape as a corrrelated experience _ Hathi Gaon
site is structured based on the working and the water relations of several reservoirs, which not just at once negotiate between the functional users of the place i.e. the elephants but also with natural terrain and physical conditions of the site.
ISOLA 2010
GOA CONFERENCE
LEVERAGING LEISURE
Landscape as a corrrelated experience _ Hathi Gaon
Physical access and visual purview of the habitation is limited to the periphery along the public gallery conceiving the territory to operate in two distinct scales of leisure – one a more natural pattern for the elephants and the mahouts and secondly a more controlled and visual articulation of the visitor.
ISOLA 2010
GOA CONFERENCE
LEVERAGING LEISURE
Landscape as a corrrelated experience _ Differential Space
FEZZAN , LIBYA strategy of water management implemented in the region attempted to string together a multidisciplinary response towards implementing suitable practices of agriculture, intercepting desertification, waste management and curating a culture for the open spaces in the settlements
ISOLA 2010
GOA CONFERENCE
LEVERAGING LEISURE
Landscape as a corrrelated experience _ FEZZAN
the intermediate scale of operation was chosen as the agriculture networks which moved beyond just its productive aspects but also regulate sustainable practices and further influence the open space vocabulary of the region that was determined by Western influences.
Agriculture practices with suitable response to the region is treated as an infrastructure of the region operates in relation to different disciplines from the environment to the social ISOLA 2010
GOA CONFERENCE
LEVERAGING LEISURE
Landscape as a corrrelated experience _ FEZZAN
through this combinational role that that the operation of this green infrastructure is realized to have the potential to mediate between the urban and the natural in order to contribute to the reconceptualization of the urban realm towards maintaining a sustainable order. ISOLA 2010
GOA CONFERENCE
LEVERAGING LEISURE
Landscape as a corrrelated experience _ FEZZAN
The open spaces articulation from large open spaces to tertiary indeterminate pockets of the settlement attempts to regulate an order by negotiating climatic conditions, human tendencies and local spatial logistics. Thus, regulating on the larger urban realm a network of correlated surfaces on which objects and spaces crystallized in relationship to the surrounding forces of the place .
ISOLA 2010
GOA CONFERENCE
LEVERAGING LEISURE
Differential Space
relational would suggest a ‘theory consisting in judging processes on the basis of the inter - human relations which they resent, prompt or produce’
Relational landscapes Infozone , Bangalore
Indus International School , Bangalore
Gulmohar Greens , Ahmedabad
ISOLA 2010
working of a terrain that negotiates between specific community user groups with tangible spatial elements or constructed spaces derived through local material as well spatial intelligences space in human relations that more or less fits harmoniously and openly into the overall system, but suggests other trading possibilities
GOA CONFERENCE
LEVERAGING LEISURE
Relational Landscape _ Differential Space
Infozone , bangalore a software park
ISOLA 2010
GOA CONFERENCE
LEVERAGING LEISURE
Relational Landscape _ Infozone
ISOLA 2010
GOA CONFERENCE
LEVERAGING LEISURE
Relational Landscape _ Infozone
ISOLA 2010
GOA CONFERENCE
LEVERAGING LEISURE
Relational Landscape _ Differential Space
INDUS INTERNATIONAL , bangalore
ISOLA 2010
GOA CONFERENCE
LEVERAGING LEISURE
Relational Landscape _ INDUS INTERNATIONAL
swale system, negotiating between natural and spatial fields primarily forms a loop of articulating the site along which physical elements such as planter boxes, shrub patterns and hardscape materials are arranged in relation to the spatial adjacencies of each cluster typology. ISOLA 2010
GOA CONFERENCE
LEVERAGING LEISURE
Relational Landscape _ INDUS INTERNATIONAL
ISOLA 2010
GOA CONFERENCE
LEVERAGING LEISURE
Relational Landscape _ INDUS INTERNATIONAL
physical elements combined and arranged by associative parameters of relations allow for experiences of the same kind which repeat themselves through different measures of space by combining smaller patterns into a larger one
ISOLA 2010
GOA CONFERENCE
LEVERAGING LEISURE
Relational Landscape _ INDUS INTERNATIONAL
elements arranged through soft construction techniques, further extend the operational field and allows for the generation of different moments (play, conversation, work, gathering) and infinite opportunities along the loop that networks the site.
ISOLA 2010
GOA CONFERENCE
LEVERAGING LEISURE
Relational Landscape _ Differential Space
GULMOHAR GREENS , AHMEDABAD
ISOLA 2010
GOA CONFERENCE
LEVERAGING LEISURE
Relational Landscape _ GULMOHAR GREENS
the point of interests lies in the performance of these elements based on their regional associations majorly influenced by climatic conditions. The setting of kattes amidst existing trees, as a spatial moment landscape lends a more local relation with the user of the place and allows a different spatial performance to the same ISOLA 2010
GOA CONFERENCE
LEVERAGING LEISURE
Relational Landscape _ GULMOHAR GREENS
physical elements though similar nature and functioning, when articulated in relation to user type , spatial adjacencies and climatic relations resists the homogenization of space and offers a more comprehensive matrix of spaces that extend beyond its functional and visual essence to incorporate local attributes of the concerned field of operation ISOLA 2010
GOA CONFERENCE
LEVERAGING LEISURE
Differential Space
Functional landscapes Farm House, Bangalore
Angana , Bangalore
where the micro level landscape elements dictate the functioning appropriation of the landscape. But in this category the intermediate scale or the nestled scale that allows for the implementation of such elements is more to do with individual requirements and the experience of the landscape intended
India Expo Pavillion , Shanghai
ISOLA 2010
GOA CONFERENCE
LEVERAGING LEISURE
Functional landscapes _ Differential Space
Tranquil woods , bangalore Articulating a peri urban farm
ISOLA 2010
GOA CONFERENCE
LEVERAGING LEISURE
Functional landscapes _ TRANQUIL WOODS
ISOLA 2010
GOA CONFERENCE
LEVERAGING LEISURE
Functional landscapes _ TRANQUIL WOODS
landscape elements articulated and arranged allows them to perform as catalysts to encourage participation and spatial expression
ISOLA 2010
GOA CONFERENCE
LEVERAGING LEISURE
Functional landscapes _ TRANQUIL WOODS
allow for different experiences to be generated but also generate a kind of a hierarchical relation in the landscape field
ISOLA 2010
GOA CONFERENCE
LEVERAGING LEISURE
Functional landscapes _ TRANQUIL WOODS
nestling of scales transforms these features from elements into thresholds that operate to both organize and allow the generation of ‘constructed situations
ISOLA 2010
GOA CONFERENCE
LEVERAGING LEISURE
Functional landscapes _ Differential Space
ANGANA , bangalore
ISOLA 2010
GOA CONFERENCE
LEVERAGING LEISURE
Functional landscapes _ ANGANA
ISOLA 2010
GOA CONFERENCE
LEVERAGING LEISURE
Functional landscapes _ ANGANA
ISOLA 2010
GOA CONFERENCE
LEVERAGING LEISURE
Functional landscapes _ Differential Space
I NDIA EXPO PAVILLION, SHANGHAI
ISOLA 2010
GOA CONFERENCE
LEVERAGING LEISURE
Functional landscapes _ INDIA EXPO PAVILLION
ISOLA 2010
GOA CONFERENCE
LEVERAGING LEISURE
Functional landscapes _ INDIA EXPO PAVILLION
ISOLA 2010
GOA CONFERENCE
LEVERAGING LEISURE
Functional landscapes _ INDIA EXPO PAVILLION
ISOLA 2010
GOA CONFERENCE
LEVERAGING LEISURE
Functional landscapes _ INDIA EXPO PAVILLION
ISOLA 2010
GOA CONFERENCE
LEVERAGING LEISURE
Catalytic Landscapes
articulation through the nestled scaled operation does not limit only allow for the recovery or the reconstruction of leisure spaces in particular, but in effect is a lateral strategy that counters the generic laws of urbanization
first or primary type of something that triggers further reactions, processes and events. They do not sit in isolation, but are networked into space and society
PROTOTYPE
prototype can facilitate a change and dialogue and action over time across multiple disciplines and potentialize to be situated, moved, hybridised, proliferated and deleted as negotiations progress
ISOLA 2010
GOA CONFERENCE
LEVERAGING LEISURE
Catalytic Landscapes
articulation of the urban surface that invokes the functioning matrix of connective tissue that not only organizes objects and spaces but also the dynamic processes and events that move through them.
emerging a surface that becomes a staging ground for the unfolding of new events- towards a surface that is not merely the venue for formal experiments but the agent for evolving new forms of social life
CONSTRUCTED GROUND
unfolding of programmatic events and social experiences that generates a continuous, heterogeneous prototype urban surface – that structures conditions for new relationships and interactions among things it supports.
ISOLA 2010
GOA CONFERENCE
LEVERAGING LEISURE
Conclusion _ Catalytic Landscapes
Leisure v 5 – negotiating field Through precise interventions, following from rigorous analysis that embraces the latent and accidental as well as the obvious, leisure as the prototype landscape, in the future has a real potential in the resolution of conflicts between the local and the global, not by resolving them, but by setting up the conditions from which negotiations and developments (or non-developments), may begin.
ISOLA 2010
GOA CONFERENCE
LEVERAGING LEISURE