SEANEWSLETTER a bi-annual chronicle of the School of Environment and Architecture, Mumbai.
July 2018
EDITORIAL Since this newsletter is put together a semester later, I am taking the liberty to write it as both a brief reportage of the semester and also a reflection of my first year at SEA. It is one thing to find people with shared interests and another to, not only, work with them but also get the opportunity to learn with them. The pleasure of learning with such colleagues and in such environment is only comparable to those deeply satisfying experience of human life. Like its name, being at SEA does feel like being at sea. Turbulences are often high marked by several moments of bliss and pauses. One feels at home, with all its range of connotations, to notice that most of the colleagues also share great interest in post-colonial ideas, some of them even very active contributors, similar political inclinations with whom I could bounce questions and ideas with ease and without fear. The fourth year of SEA and my first year at the school have been very eventful. The school initiated several new programs this semester. First, SEA pavilions which was marked with Samir Raut’s pavilion ‘Making a House’ - constructed using cardboard L-angles and fabric. A detailed description and text on the same has been published in Domus India. A closing symposium for this event was organized in May 2017 where eight architecture offices discussed around the idea of ‘pleasure of making’. Second, SEA initiated four research programs this year. 1. Emerging Contexts for Housing 2. Post-Intensive Landscapes 3. Environment and Landscape and 4. South Asian Architecture. Four Research Associates also joined the school who contributed to the above mentioned research programs at the school.
ISSUE 5. Monsoon Semester 2017
CONTENTS 1 \ Editorial 2-3 \ SEA Pavilion 4-5 \ Selected Works 6-20 \ Student Work 6-7 History , Theory & Methods 8-9 Drawing 10-11 Technology 12-19 Form & Space Studies 20 Orientation Program 20 Urban Studies 21 \ Electives & SEA Studio 22 \ Student Exchange Programme 23 \ SEA City 24 \ Extra Curricular
Students from SEA attended an exchange studio at Tongji Design University in Shanghai under the guidance of Min Tang, visiting scholar at SEA and Anuj Daga. Several students participated in the ‘Partition Museum’ program at Godrej Culture Lab where they mapped the post-partition Sindhi refuegee settlements in Mumbai. The SEA City events like the previous years have received great response from the people of the neighborhood and city. In some sense SEA is inching towards becoming an important public event space in the city. Shreyank Khemalapure Co-ordinator
CREDITS General Editor: Shreyank Khemalapure Co-ordination, Layout & Design: Shreyank Khemalapure, Anuj Daga
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The pleasure of Making A report by Shreyank Khemlapure The symposium, ‘The Pleasure of Making’, was organised as a closing event for the first SEA summer pavilion. We had invited Robert Verrijt and Shefali Balwani from Architecture Brio, Samuel Barclay and Anna Geenen from Case Design, Ajay Sonar from A for Architecture, Nitin Barcha from Material Immaterial, Anand Patel from Anand Patel & Associates, Samira Rathod from SRDA, Teja Gavankar, and Samir Raut from Studio Eight Twenty Three. The discussion was moderated by Suprio Bhattacharjee. Each of the panelists presented their arguments through their projects and works. The gathering in many ways was a gathering of people with shared interests -interest in craft, materiality, atmosphere, slowness among many other things. From the libidinal and sensual appeal of crafted objects argued by Samira to exploring the material with playfulness by Samir, Teja and Nitin to the ideas of humility and collabourations by Samuel and Anna were the range of arguments that emerged from the initial discussions. One of the outcome of the initial arguments was the ways in which each of the practices deal with these shared interests. The following is a summary compilation of the four ideas that emerged from the symposium. 1. Humility and Labour One of the discussions in that emerged
Participants of the symposium in discussion.
was around the idea of humility. The humility of the architect as labour, the mason as labour, the quarry miner as labour, the carpenter, the craftsperson and all the forms of labour that goes in putting together the building. This was in some sense triggered by the presentation put forward by Case Design where they presented photographs of the quarries they visit to select stones, to brick kilns they visit to select bricks and so on. The architect designer wishes a certain ‘finish’ and demands a use of a certain material but, she doesn’t engage with the material sources and doesn’t engage with the conditions of labour working from those quarries and kilns. Samuel Barckley refering to ‘The Unknown Craftsman’ argued that their practice believes in the humility and dignity of labour. It is also evident in the way their office, Case Design, is also organised. At Case Design every project and case studies are put together in the form of books. Each of these books are hand-bound using very rudimentary techniques. But in that tedious rudimentary act there’s an appeal for humility and close engagement with the material and the person who is putting together the book. Similar efforts can be noted in the meticulously detailed models produced in the office. To realize that there is a horizontality in the forms of knowledge that each person brings in the process of design and construction of a building and to give up on the constructed superiority of the architect as the expert is the basic premise that Case Design seems to operate with.
2. Craft The practices present at the symposium could be perhaps loosly categorised in two large groups. 1) Workshop Model Practices have a workshop component to the studio where they test making objects through specific materials like wood, cement, various types of metals, stone, pigments, fabric and so on. In some sense the texture of their practice and their buildings is heavily influenced by the works that are carried in their workhsop-studio. 2)Material exploration model: These are practices which work with specific materials but not necessarily engage in the workshop mode. These strive for an exploration and experimentation of material. This is often acheived by carefully chosing the team of crafts persons who have a thorough understading of the material at hand and can render that desired finish to the materials. One can think of SRDA, Architecture Brio, A for Architecture Material Immaterial and Anand Patel and Associates and similar practices who are well known for this approach. But nonetheless the idea of craft is something that ties these practices very closely. 3. Calmness The arousing idea of calmness and tranquility is invoked in each of these practices through a juxtaposition of ‘natural elements’ like trees, rain, water, light and shadow, dew, brick, earth, timber etc. and spatial configurations such as courtyards, terrace gardens, wall, frontyard, panaromic windows, chairs, pools, etc. What do these bodies at rest tell
sea pavilion 3
4. Slowness Perhaps best put forward by Robert Verrijt through the idea of ‘moss’, slowness was another idea that emerged as a clear idea from the symposium. Like the moss that takes years to grow and slowly and steadily engulf the form of the building and transform the experience of the space over the period of time. Like the difference between a space with a nacent plant and the same space experienced after several
years after the plant has grown into a huge tree that can now offer shade to the space. Essentially Robert’s argument can be interpretted that architecture evolves and changes over time and perhaps even become architecture only over a long duration of time and not immediatly on the completion of the designed object. To push the logic of the Moss futher it appears that a building becomes architecture only in its decay or in its process of becoming a ruin. Of course, it is not universally present in all projects of all the practices but nonetheless almost every one at the table had thier affinity towards slowness and long terms engagement with the parctices of making space and objects.
to clarify a certain episteme that losely binds these practices which often remain unaddressed. Infact it was releaving to notice that most of the practices had clear arguments and thesis to locate their practice within some of the contemporary contexts -either physical, sociological, political or economical.
The symposium in some sense was able
Images on this page: 1. Detail of the cardboard angles’ joinery . 2. Interior of the Pavilion 3. Case study models. 4. Rupali Gupte, Neera Adarkar and Samir Raut discussing over the case study models. 5. Model Detail. 6. Pavilion as seen from the road adjoining the school.
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Photo Credit: Sachin Powle
us? Calmness is a burden that we seem to have inherited, its lineage remains unclear, but doomed to never fully achieve. It is as if the realities of urbanity are too harsh, restless and intense that there is a longing for calmness. All the architects from the panel weighed the experience of calmness as the primary intention of architecture.
4 modules
Instalation from Sabih Ahmed’s Art History Module with 5th semester students.
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A sample drawing from the 1st semester Drawing module exploring geometry in islamic patterns
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History Theory and Humanities 1st sem
3rd sem
The first year began with the orientation week that ran parallel with the ‘history, theory and methods’ module. The advantage of having these two projects run parallel was the freedom to bounce fresh ideas that led to intermingling and also to question certain evolutions by reflecting on the current scenarios. In the beginning, we would all have very informal discussions about whichever subjects came up in the course of the studio time. It was a way to loosen up our strings and get rid of certain very rigid ideas that all of us clung to. These discussions would eventually culminate into questions that none of us had ever asked before. From this informal setting, came up the first assignment of writing down a 200-word question. These questions were read out during discussions that varied from ‘why are fingerprints unique for everyone?” to “are glass buildings in cities really necessary?” and some that questioned very fragile threads like “why do we lie?” or “how do we prove the existence of God?” These questions further accelerated a timeframe from where we started studying the history of humankind right from its birth to the stone age, the valley civilizations, the renaissance, the colonialism, the modern days in term of specific foregrounds like culture, settlement type, art and architecture and social status. The study of these various periods invited number of open discussions and detailed conversations about related books, films, clippings and archives.
This year, Anuj had formulated a method to study architectural history through the lens of type and typology. We had 10 formal types through which we entered the historical and global studies of these ten types. These types included: 1) Cell 2) Shed 3) Hall 4) Theatre 5) Corridor 6) Courtyard 7) Pavillion 8) Garden 9) Villa and 10) Tower
Text: Nikeita Saraf
Text: Shreyank Khemlapure
Students were expected to be able to read various diagrams present in these types and how these diagrams manifest in various projects and buildings. Students produced the diagrams for some of the projects discussed in the lecture. In the theory course we discussed and opened up the ideas around modernity, nation building, modernism and ways in which ideas travel between cultures. The module was conducted by Anuj Daga, Rupali Gupte, Dushyant Asher, Suprio Bhattacharjee and Vinit Dharia.
Diagram of distrubution of Buddhist Caves at Ajanta.
The Semester 1 History Theory Methods module was conducted by Prasad Shetty.
this page: 1. Time line of various Spatial Types in Architecture on opposite page: 2. South Asian Architecture Timelines prepared by students of Third year. 3. Timeline of Building Codes in Mumbai
Diagram of Gandhi Smarak, Charles Correa
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5th sem
Text: Shreyank Khemlapure South Asian Architecture & Urbanism The South Asian Architecture & Urbanism project grew out of an emerging concern through rigorous reformulation of the history theory methods course conducted at the School of Environment and Architecture over the last three years that was formerly called “Culture and Built Form”. The course “Culture and Built Form” compelled us to think of architecture as a material practice within the expanded field of culture studies. In our close reconsideration of histories and historiographies in ascertaining the questions that should be asked by students studying architectural history in the south Asian subcontinent, we have come to identify a huge lacuna in the availability of coherent content on the built environment in south Asia. Such an issue got articulated through multiple vectors. A number of surveys and books have been produced, often by non-native scholars, for the South Asian sub-continent. While the distance from a certain culture under observation offers critical objectivity, the material output invariably caters to an audience outside its own context and content. Such knowledge also has an alienating tendency for the natives in its consumption, because one is channeled to think through a methodology that may not be one’s own way of reading and understanding one’s context. In the lack of or absence of articulation of one’s own “method” – an epistemological notion that is deeply embedded in tenets of modern scholarship – often these ways of seeing are accepted as default.
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As part of the 5th semester History Course we worked with the students to put together a compilation on works in South Asian architecture. Students looked at the countries of Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Nepal, Bhutan, Burma, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Maldives. Through secondary and tertiary archives, students put together a repository of built work in South Asia, principally over the last cenutry in the form of individual timelines mapping political and architectural markers. Further, the ‘blog’ was initiated as a medium to engage larger public of south Asia in dialogue with each other,
which also is an active online repository for our ongoing research. We also invited Sabih Ahmed, cultural theorist and archivist, to conduct a course on art history. Sabih chose to look at history and theory as a ‘feedback loop’ signal which need not necessarily be historical. Through that lens he provoked the students to revisit the cultural material from anywhere between the avant garde art movements to popular culture references and make them current or present by using contemporary digital devices to remix with looping as a technique. The module was conducted by Anuj Daga, Rupali Gupte, Shreyank Khemalapure and Sabih Ahmed
7th sem The intention of this module was to familiriaze students to the history of the planning and codes in Mumbai. The overview of the current development plan, its considerations and shortcomings were addressed by Mr. Gopal Chiplunkar through a lecture series. As part of the assignment students undertook a historical survey of planning and the institutions needed to support the planning activites. The module was conducted by Gopal Chiplunkar
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Drawing 1st sem The module is imagined as an introductory course on drawing and model making in architecture. Among many things in the world architecture also shares a close relationship with geometry. But drawing architecture with precision drawing tools has its specific history. The use of the drafting tools like the compass, divider, t-scale, set-squares etc. produce a certain understanding of space and form and they seem to have also been developed to confirm and promote a certain established ideas of geometry. The fact that several of these geomtrical ideas are also shared commonly by several cultures is telling of either the universality of these ideas or the acceptance of these ideas by several cultures. Nonetheless, several cultures, especially those that of the Islamic traditions or those traditions emerging in the present Middle-Eastern belt appear to have mastered applying geometrical understandings to art, craft and architecture.
a process drawing in learning geometrical constructions
Ronak Soni
Hidden in the idea of geometry is the idea of organization and distribution - A circle potentially embeds radial organisation and distribution and a square gridlike and diagonal. However, the repititon of these basic forms may produce varing forms of organization, nonetheless with strictness of a certain order. Although, the contemporary drawing softwares, our precision drafting tools, have their basis in algebraic understanding, thier application, in many cases, appear to be in the making of forms that are compliant with basic geometric principals. To that extent, the thourough practice of working through basic geometric forms seems crucial in constructing ideas for space, form and organization.
Devanshi Thakkar
The second part of the module was to establish another important practice of architecture, that of model making. Students made a scaled model of some of the key architectural projects of the 20th century. The Semester 1 Drawing Module was conducted by Anuj Daga, Dushyant Asher and Pratik Dhanmer
Study of Tadao Ando’s Church of Light by Parth Solanki, Ronak Soni, Abhilasha Patil, Gauri Sarang & Yamini Patil
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3rd sem
5th sem
7th sem
This semester a new sub-module was introduced called Material Sense. The objective here was to explore the plastic nature of cement and its various possibilities through close engagement with the material. This helps in not just distantly reading about cement through books but mainly to know the material personally and intimately. It is consistent with one of the core intentions of the school, Riyaz. A small booklet recording the outcome of the studio titled ‘Material Sense’ was put together which can be accessed in the library.
As an institution we believe we should offer a wide range of skill training to the students. To that end we introduced the 3d modeling and drafting software Revit to the students.
Making of approval drawings, writing specifications, bill of quantities and tenders are among several meticulous things that an architect interested in building processes should be equipped with. Students were given a task to draw approval drawings and write specifications for the primary construction materials like concrete, brick, floor finishes etc. For their reference students studied the standard tender and specification documents as prescribed by PWD.
The Semester 3 Technology sub-module was conducted by Samir Raut & Milind Mahale
Revit, today, has become almost a industry norm in architectural production which enable integration of material, structure and various services in the same model and there by streamlining the building process to make it more efficient and precise. The Semester 3 Drawing sub-module was conducted by Dipti Bhaindarkar
The Semester 7 Drawing sub-module was conducted by Arun Kale & Gauri Joshi
Precedent Studies by Nirmohi Kathrecha
Precedent Studies by Nirmohi Kathrecha
Objects produced in the Material Sense Module
House modelled using Revit by Nirmohi Kathrecha
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technology 1st sem A major part of the technology module was conducted in Dahanu. Students documented and analysed a small house in a pastoral setting. The goal of this field based study is to make students aware and sensitive to the material assemblage of our built environment. This is carried out by undertaking exercises such as tracing the process of production of building materials, their sources, their compositions, life spans, environmental impacts, strenghts and weaknesses and ways to put them togeter to produce a building. Social relationships and constructs are also clearly visible in the form of labor a particular group of people are engaged in the building process.
project by Abhilasha Ambhire, Neha Kesari
Study by Veeravalli Vikram
3rd sem In the repetition of the process of producing the built environment what differences are we creating? How many various resources does it take to put together a building? Who’s building these houses? How do people deal with each other? What are the underlying social constructs and orders in these societies? These questions were addressed during the course of the field visit where the students traced the sources and supply chains of building materials used in the building. The Semester 1 Technology Module was conducted by Pratik Dhanmer and Milind Mahale
How to understand concrete? What are the formal potentials of Reinforced Cement Concrete? How does a RCC structure behave? How to build a RCC building? These are some of the questions that were addressed in the 3rd semester technology module. The learnings were carried out by site visits to building construction sites. By making working models of reinforcements, drawings to understand the laying of reinforcements, structural behavior of a framed structure. The second part of the exercise was to explore the formal possibilities or plasticity of RCC. The Semester 3 Technology Module was conducted by Malak Singh Gill and Suhas Chande
by Chinmay Gandhi, Somesh Nadkarni, Riddhi Chavan and Sanjana Habde
Exploring Plasticity
Structural Model of a RCC Framed Structure
EXTERNAL PLASTER 18MM
INTERNAL PLASTER 12 MM
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STONE PEDIMENT
5th sem
7th sem
GLAZED SHUTTER DOOR
THIRD FLOOR
There were three components to the 5th semester technology module. 1. To develop an ability to conjecture construction systems and material details of a building. This is done through a study section of an external wall of an exisiting building from the city. 2. To study lighting and acoustics of through material studies and using current electronic/ digital tools to measure lighting and sound qualities in existing spaces. Students visited from Prithvi theater to an underpass to conduct these surveys. 3. Precedent studies of long span buildings were undertaken by way model making and analytical diagrams. Scaled functioning models of details were also produced. 4. Students were to design a long span structure in a different sociopolitical and climatic context in the world. They had to work out the materiality, climatic response and construction details for the project.
Often when we learn about high-rise construction it remains only at a text book prescription of things to keep in mind for the deisgn of a high-rise building. For the 7th semester technology module, like the 5th semester module, the students were asked to study high-rise construction through constructing scaled structural models of the projects and analysing structural systems responding to various forces acting on the building.
MARBLE STONE TILE FLOOR FINISH (400 MM x 400MM x 12MM ) MORTAR 15MM
+12000 MM THIRD FLOOR
SCREEDING 25MM JACK ARCH SLAB STONE SLAB
BALCONY FLOORING
I SECTION STEEL JOIST (CANTILEVER) STONE BRACKET
STONE LINTEL
DOUBLE SHUTTER GLAZED WINDOW
STONE SIL
MARBLE STONE TILE FLOOR FINISH (400 MM x 400MM x 12MM ) MORTAR 15MM SCREEDING 25 MM LIME CONCRETE
+9000 MM SECOND FLOOR
TIE ROD
JACK ARCH FLOORING
BRICK
SECOND FLOOR
I SECTION JOISTS ISMB 250
The Semester 7 Technology Module was conducted by Suprio Bhattacharjee
+6000 MM FIRST FLOOR
FIRST FLOOR
The Semester 3 Technology module was conducted by Ravi Punde, Suprio Bhattacharjee, Dipti Bhaindarkar, Suhas Chande INTERNAL JACK ARCH
K I T A A B
MARBLE STONE TILE (400 x 400 x 12) SCREEDING
A R C A D E
K H A A N A
WATER PROOFING P.C.C BED
+750MM +600MM +450MM
STONE PLINTH
+300MM +150MM
00 GROUND
SOLING
RAMMED EARTH
Field Studies for Acoustics and Lighting PAVER BLOCKS
Detail of External Wall Section
ARCADE
Case Study Model of Turning Torso
ISOLATED STONE FOOTING FOR STONE PILLARS
THROUGH STONES
P.C.C BED 150MM SOLING 230MM RAMMED EARTH
SECTION SCALE : 1:20
Case Studies of Long Span Structures
Detail of Structural System
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Form & Space Studies 1st sem The design was the first major individual assignment of the first-year batch of 2017. The three-week long module began with an allied design assignment, wherein students were taught about contours and how each three-dimensional object can be perceived as fragments that come together to lead to its formation. With the specified material, each student had to select any two forms, regular or irregular, and represent the gradual transition from one shape to another through the method of contouring.
explore how the process of weathering impact the morphology of stone. Although extremely slow and not easily visible to naked eyes, such material transformation also tell us something about the idea of repetition, difference and stillness. In this case the stone might be still for year but it ‘repeatedly’ subjected to weathering for several years which causes slow ‘difference’ in its form and structure -it may crack over several years due to extreme change in temperatures and humidity in air or algae might grow due to extreme humidity and so on.
The second part of the module was the main assignment. On the first day, the students and the faculty met at Sanjay Gandhi National Park, where the first step of the assignment would commence with collecting as many porous natural objects as one could find and cleaning them up in the studio. After this, the students were to test the porosity of each object and note down the observations. With the understanding of how these objects are porous through sketches, diagrams and photographs, the exploration of any one aspect of each of these specimens began by decoding its geometry. For a week and a half, each student made multiple models and diagrams to represent how the geometrical configuration of these objects came together to give its form.
The last part of this module was to explore a unit out of this geometry and set parameters that will simplify its understanding. Once these parameters were decided and each unit effectively captured the essence of the studied object, the units were multiplied, in any possible way that the students found most appropriate. The only laid down condition was to carry out this multiplication of the unit without using glue, such that the unit would be used up to its utmost potential. After several experiments with materials that suited the essence of the object and ways of multiplication that majorly included interlocking, the module came to an end with a jury.
Here drawing is not merely a means of documentation but also a means of constructing ideas. These drawings try to
The Semester 1 Form & Space Studies module was conducted by Dushyant Asher, Neera Adarkar and Prashant Chavan
Ronak Soni
Veeravalli Vikram
Aman Nahar
Nikeita Saraf
Sanjana Habde
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Niketa Saraf
Jugal Kamalia
Manthan Chandak
Somesh Nadkarni
Jugal Kamalia
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Form & Space Studies 3rd sem Typology is not only classification on the basis of technical details but also the collective memory that one registers while experiencing that particular space. Quite evidently, we humans experience the same space differently and get intrigued by different things that make us associate that feeling to the place. Historical significance has invented and evolved these typologies over the years. Conceptualizing the ideas we gathered from the narrow convoluted lanes of Mahatar Pakhadi, we developed postcards referring to the drawings of Frida Kahlo and Aldo Rossi on the basis of collective memories. These drawings where then transformed to spatial diagrams. These helped develop formal spatial strategies keeping in mind the various typologies each wished to work with. The design iterations were determined keeping not only the concept in mind but also the climatic factors and already existing objects from the site. Even the existing vegetation influenced a few projects. Interestingly the concepts that were driven by the senses of sight and smell too turned into interesting contemporary spatial configurations. Thus resulting in designs that reinvent the existing typology and add on to the existing definitions of these typologies amalgamating with light, shadows, colors and experiences.
Tanvi Savia
Saloni Soni
The Semester 3 Form & Space Studies module was conducted by Anuj Daga, Rupali Gupte, Mayuri Sisodia and Samir Raut
Vaishnavi Bhartia
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Sanika Kedar
Manish Shravane
Priyanshi Bagadia
Ankita Teli
Akshay Savla
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Form & Space Studies 5th sem Poisar is one of the many rivers in Mumbai city. The module aimed at understanding how the river has become a nullah for the communities living around it, some of which have seen it go through the downfall. The project bridged both the Landscape and the Design studios – with the foundations being laid during a weeklong landscape studio to understand the aspects related to riverine edges and systems. This was followed by a week focusing on the history, complexity and politics of water – with readings and research projects. The module was about re-envisioning a probable future relationship with the river and its landscape - its aim was to suggest how one can turn the city towards the river again, while reclaiming the river’s landscape and its ability to hold water. This would not only reaffirm the presence of landscape within the city, but also reinstate the river’s prime role in shaping communities, economy, social bonds and most importantly, the experience of living, working, and growing up in a city set within a riverine landscape. The Semester 5 Form and Space Studies module was conducted by Dipti Bhaindarkar, Faizan Khatri, Gauri Satam,Ravi Punde and Suprio Bhattacharjee
images on this page: Design Strategies by Ankita Dhal
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Design Strategies by Swaraj Dhuri
Design Strategies by Nirmohi Kathrecha
Design Strategies by Swaraj Dhuri
Design Strategies by Swaraj Dhuri
Jury Discussions
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Form & Space Studies 7th sem Emerging urban conditions across India are creating new contexts for housing. These contexts may be changes in economy, new social conditions, change in practices, emerging aspirations, environmental issues, cultural dimensions, etc. For example, cities like Kota and Vijayawada are seeing high numbers of students who come to these cities to get coached for competitive exams; cities like Mysore, some parts of Pune and outskirts of many cities have become favourite designations for the post retired life; the villages near Sriperembudur are attracting large numbers of migrants from northern and eastern parts of India who work at the Samsung and Nokia factories; there are cities that are becoming educational and health hubs; many cities of Kerala get immense remittance from the Gulf; and so on. Each of these contexts has created its own response of housing and living. This year the studio conducted field studies in Mangalore and Mysore in two groups. An extensive pre-preparation was undertaken before going to the field where each student could identify an emerging condition for housing, actors to interact with, basic quantitative understanding of population and economics, news, politcal landscape, geography, climate and other contexts. Through this initial study students scoped their field trips and identify sites to study in the respective cities.
Project by Archit Chatterjee
During the field trip students concluded thier hyptothesis based on field evidence, identified a condition and a specific location for their design interventions. As the field condition was rigorously analysed and problems identifiedthe program and design brief naturally responed to the identified conditions. Both the groups came together in Bangalore to study some specific cases from the city and to exchange notes with IIHS. At IIHS, Swastik Harish and Gautam Bhan presented to students their learnings from Karnataka. After returning from the field trip, students developed their respective design projects and concluded with a jury. The Semester 7 Form & Space Studies Module was conducted by Kalpit Ashar, Prasad Shetty, Rohit Mujumdar and Shreyank Khemlapure
Project by Kaushal Vadake
Student field visit to Mysore
Student field visit to Mysore
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Design Strategies by Yash Vadher
Concept Model by Riya Parekh
Project by Riya Parekh
Project by Sandeep Saive
Student visit at IIHS
Project by Shreyansh Gupta
Final Jury
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Orientation program 1st sem Text: Nikeita Saraf & Veeravalli Vikram
The orientation programme focused on the students’ ability to show something hidden or reveal something that was already hidden. As a start, the students were asked to design a ‘contraption’ that would allow them to do so. The topic of discussion was then amended to focus on a ‘scope’. The two ideas were combined and using them as a base, the students learned to design their own contraption. Based on the common factor of those designs, the students were organized into groups of 10 and asked to build an object or a model that could allow them to showcase something that was hidden or reveal it. They were working around ideas of ‘illusion’, ‘distortion’ and ‘density’ to name a few. The students made use of the college workshop to work with wood among other materials and experiment with them to create the object.
Urban Studies 7th Sem The intention of the urban studies program is to introduce to students various ways of reading urban form and the experience of the urban form. The exercise was to draw the particularities of the experience of the urban form of a neighborhood, draw the transformations that the neighborhood is undergoing and to draw speculations for the neighborhood based on the above observations. The form of the drawing could be a diagram, spatial drawings, or hybrid
drawing forms that best exemplify the experience of the urban form of the neighborhood. The same drawing methods are used to produce the speculative drawings for the neighborhood. Some of the neighborhoods that the students visited were Juhu, Lower Parel, Vile Parle, Malad and Kandivali. The Semester 1 Orientation Programme and Semester 7 Urban Studies Module was conducted by Prasad Shetty
Drawing of Lower Parel by Akshata Shenoy
Illusion Frame
Drawing of Lower Parel by Prajyot Mulye
electives & sea studio
ELECTIVES 2017 The electives for this semester included: Film Making by Prajay Shah The students developed their own movies while looking at the Aesthetics and Storytelling of Cinema. Cyanotype Printing by CONA foundation It focused on the traditional cyanotype printing method invented in the 1840’s by Sir John Herschel. The students collected various materials from garden to develop their own prints. Gardening by Julius Rego With a broad understanding of resources the workshop investigated Clea Chandmal’s Forest Floor method of
Participants of the VR workshop trying the VR head gear.
Results of the Cyanotype Workshop
SEA STUDIO soil building and growing. The students developed a landscape in the SEA premises. Virtual Reality by Kabir Punde This workshop was designed to give students an introduction to virtual reality and how we can control the technology to further understand key elements of design like scale, depth and space manipulation. Game Design by Dhruv Jani The workshop was an examination of spaces that are created and experienced within games. The students built a single interactive prototype that combined elements of Board games and first person Videogames.
ARCHITECTURE OF HOUSING Through a compilation of different types of housing, this project aims at building a narrative on different dimensions of Urban housing in India including a spatial history, a technological history, a policy history, history of the delivery systems and a cultural history of housing. This project is conceived as a two part research: A. History of Housing in Mumbai B. History of Urban Housing in India ENVIRONMENT AND LANDSCAPE The intent of the project is to study varied resource regions and contexts in Rural India. Documenting settlements to understand modes of influence through which ‘house forms’ are developed, ways in which societies engage with their resources depending upon multiple factors such as their cultural practices or belief systems. POST INTENSIVE LANDSCAPE This research, assigns the term ‘postintensive landscape’ to describe wastelands resulting from intense human activity, and tries to set-up criteria to identify the same. It aims to examine the factors that lead to the creation of such landscapes and the larger processes they symbolize. By acknowledging such lands and the circumstances of their production, the research seeks to investigate the relationship between man and nature today, and understand and challenge our current understanding of what “nature” means. It aims to examine the new spatial types and uses that arise in relation to these lands, and the architectural questions these pose. SOUTH ASIAN ARCHITECTURE AND URBANISM (SAAU) A lack of discourse and scholarship in the field of South Asian Architecture and Urbanism calls for developing an infrastructure for the Documentation and Archival of the Architecture and Built form in South Asia. Addressing this urgency, the project further attempts at formulating and developing new lenses and conceptual frameworks through which an understanding of Architecture and Urbanism in South Asia can be put together.
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student exchange
Invisible Patterns at Tongji University Text: Anuj Daga The Invisible Patterns workshop was a three-week program conducted between Tongji university, Shanghai and School of Environment & Architecture, Mumbai. The workshop was attended by students and faculty from the above colleges, and invited critics. The exchange programme aimed to look at the self-built neighbourhood geographically bracketed between Daqiao and Dinghaiqiao in Shanghai which remains under the pressure of urban development. Through a mapping and documentation exercise, the workshop aimed at deciphering “invisible patterns” that shape the ideas of “public”, “community”, “housing”, “identity” or “place”. The workshop programme was structured as mentioned below: Week 1: Field Visits The first week was structured around field visits to different parts of the city of Shanghai including visits to architecture and landscape practices within the city. A visit to the French Concession led by Min Tang introduced the students to different types of neighbouhoods that have emerged in the city, as well as the programmatic transformations within different historical
fabrics. Two days were dedicated to studying the Dinghaiqio and Dachao area closely where students understood the nature of living patterns, public space and urban form that has emerged through the self-build initiatives by residents. Week 2: Mapping Seven sites were selected within the neighbourhood between Daqiao and Dinghaiqiao area through two principal formulations: Nuclear Patterns: those which spoke of an urban morphology that is more concentric in nature which bring people together in a hub. Linear Patterns: those which focus on activities structured along a street condition, within flows.
Adjunct programs A seminar around ‘Dialoging Urban: Mumbai Shanghai’ was arranged to compare notes on urban trajectory of the two cities which have followed similar growth pattern. The participants who presented included Anuj Daga, Harry Hartog, Prof. Nannan Dong, and Limei Li, and the session was moderated by Scholar Min Tang. The discussion brought out questions on public space and landscape, relationship between identity and place as well as housing and urbanity.
Week 3: Intervention and Design Ideas The last week was focused towards imagining ways in which the public nature of these nuclear or linear patterns could be preserved, enhanced or opened up. The design interventions were conceptualized in mediums ranging from sound, games to spatial manifests. above: Students on field trip in Shanghai.
below: SEA students at Tongji University.
sea city
sea city 2017
38. Making a house: An exploration of ideas in the process of house making By Samir Raut 8th April to 8th May 2017
43. Reading Architecture Practice Film Screening with discussion Rajeev Thakker & Shreyank Khemlapure 4th August 2017
SEA Pavilion Making a House Samir Raut 8th April
39. A Home for Us Abigail McGowan 16th June 2017
44. What does the revolt of Sediments look like? Sabih Ahmed 11th August 2017
Symposium The Pleasure of Making 6th May, 2017
40. Surface Ornamentation as a byproduct of Digital Fabrication Ashish Mohite 30th June 2017
45. Urbanism beyond the City Ravi Sundaram 18th August 2017
41. Dialoguing Urban Min Tang 7th July 2017
46. Putting Technique to Work Malak Singh Gill 8th September 2017
42. Notes on a Practice I studio 21st July 2017
47. The Cities Within Me Praveen Bavadekar 22nd September 2017
Field Visits Mangalore, Mysore & Bangalore Fourth Year Poisar River Third Year Matherpakhadi Second Year Murbad, Dahanu Second Year
Min Tang, Anuj Daga and Students from Exchange. Program to Tongji University presenting their work to the public at SEA City
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24 24 extra curricular 02 modules
Faculty News Godrej Culture Lab
Text: Vibhavari Sarangan Resonating in the gigantic entry of the Godrej One business complex are the voices of Sindh. A history too traumatic to be remembered, a history lost in the echoes and shadows of a journey so gruesome, a history that the people who survived, never wanted to talk to their children about, a history that our history classes never really delved deep into, a history made for the people by politicians and cartographers... that history is found amongst hushed tones and whispers in the meandering, bustling, busy lanes of Sindhi Camp, Chembur. With everything precious left behind, from objects to homes to
family, with bare minimum, the Sindhi Punjabi community came to India during the gruesome partition of 1947. The misery of the world’s largest human exodus is described today in simple sentences, strung together, sometimes in between tears, sometimes in chilling indifference, by survivors and their kin. We would never know the struggle, the journey that this resilient people took to become the formidable movers and shakers of society that they are today. The “Barracks”, the Sindhi Camp and
Sindhi Colonies of Chembur act as a medium to their voices. Let’s learn what we never learnt during our history classes, let’s learn to listen, let’s learn from these people’s voices and oral histories, how to rise from the ashes of a forgotten home and dead families. Because what better way to chronicle history than to let the history makers speak? ‘Echoes of Sindh’ was an audio documentary project originally produced by students of SEA for the Kochi Students’ Biennale and was represented at the Godrej Culture Lap as a part of their program on ‘Pratition Museum’
School of Environment and Architecture a joint initiative of Society for Environment & Architecture along with Suvidya Prasarak Sangh Eksar Road, near C.K.P Colony, Borivali West, Mumbai 400 091 Phone Phone+91 +9122 86550 283302156 7582 contact@sea.edu.in | www.sea.edu.in
News Clipping from Mid-day covering SEA students contribution to the ‘Partition Museum’ program initiated by Godrej Culture Lab.