03 modern mantapa

from Undergraduate Architecture Portfolio | Riddhi Agarwal | WCFA

02 cultural cooking culinary

Public Pavilion

05 sem I autumn 2021 I 12 weeks individual work

The brief of the semester was to design a pavilion or ‘mantapa’ in Srirangapatna. A Mantapa is a pillared hall with no specific function, the structure being nothing more than a floor, roof and columns. The specificity of the function comes from the manner in which the user engages with these three elements. The mantapa is essentially a mere container which embodies the void. In an Indian context, it is usually associated with temples, open on all four sides with a very distinctive plinth and roof. Its essence lies in its modularity(its potential for multiplication) and adaptability(in terms of function and regional construction techniques).

The context for intervention is on the assumption that the Sri Ranganathaswamy temple plans to expand a portion of its public functions into the maidan in front.

Location: Srirangapatna, Karnataka

Site Area: 9000sqm

Built up Area: 1500sqm

Studio Guides:

Prof. Anand Krishnamurthy

Asst. Prof. Akash Rai

Assoc. Prof. R Kiran Kumar

Asst. Prof. Shreyas Baindur

Asst. Prof. Shashank Satish

Asst. Prof. Asijit Khan

GRID EMPTY CENTRE RITUALISTIC PATHWAY

Gandhi Ashram Ahmedabad

Bharat Bhavan Bhopal grid empty centre ritualistic pathway

Jawahar Kala Kendra Jaipur

The pavilion sits as a public passageway, an off shoot of the existing street for people to traverse through. The built folds and unfolds, re-arranging itself around the corridor or the ‘ritualistic pathway’ connecting people to all the various programs whilst facilitating movement. It thereby, also creates pockets of spaces for the rural community of Srirangapatna to gather around. At the heart of the project is a water courtyard inspired from the temple kalyani, which currently remains closed and unattended, to create a break away space for the visitors to relax.

To contextualise the pavilion with the existing temple, materials used in the project are locally sourced granite with the internal walls done with RCC. The street or the Southern facade uses a porous jali granite wall which has large thermal mass to create an enclosure while also making people inquisitive about what lies inside.