Studio 8 A place of learning in the city Monsoon Semester, 2017 CEPT University
Studio Instructor Shubhra Raje Architectural Assistant Harsh Desai
Student Rushabh Suchdev UA 2813 02
Along the lines, amongst the shapes, inside the volume. Where ground waits for the fall; there movement meets stillness. Where the robust earth protudes the hollowness just to grow the delicacy to reach the sky. From thick to thin... leaving its presence in the colours within. Brimming with life along the lines, amidst the vaccumes, covering the emptiness. 03
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Introduction
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Module 1 Constructing the site, Marishello
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Module 2 The connectors, The urban Foliage
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Module 3 Inhabitation & Architectural Environment Atman
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Introduction “...we choose to link authorship and the creative process directly to the engagement with the body; to the sense of nearness and intimacy. Here, both passionate inquiry and play are possible, and newness of form as a primary and autonomous goal is relinquished. Architectural play as a creative act of making in, and of the world.” In the studio a generic figure ground plan of the city x was given, with some rules, some specificities. Through some collective plays and collective exercises a sense and the charactrer of the city, with the intimate experiences and flashes of memories being a trigger, was generated. “Architectural play as a creative act of making in, where the rules simulate the nature and rigor of the process of design development. Allowing the students to develop their ability to invent through architectural form and ideas by understanding precedent, and then learning to find the opportunities within a given project to remake the conventional.”
The context (suggested)
The city
The structure
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“Authorship as a sense of self, and as a grounding for authenticity. As much as play needs the knowledge of rules, it needs closure. A period of detachment, before the next play unfolds. In the studio, the work within each module became part of the existing condition for the next module, providing the students with the opportunity to extend relevant critique to their own creations, as well as greater insights into it by reengaging with its specificities. It situates the product of each module within a larger process, while directing awareness to the student’s own self by making them experience the workings and methods of their practice.”
The City Post-colonial urbanity, a consequence of incremental and ad-hoc growth. Located within the Northern Tropic (23 deg N), +/- 10 deg.
was mysteriously abandoned mid-way. The rendering on a sole billboard on site suggests the structure is part of a two eightstorey block office development.
The site
The Structure
The Program
2.58 acres. 225’ wide (east-west) x 500’ long (north-south). Located within the city, straddling the commercial and residential districts. Anodyne urban conditions. An existing structure is present on the site, part of a speculative commercial development that
Concrete framework; a partially constructed office-building version of the Maison DomIno structure. No staircases, elevators or toilet blocks seem to have been constructed yet. 250’ long by 50’ wide; 12,500 sft floor plate.
An urban school, grades 1 through 12. 800-900 students. Approx. 70,000 sft / (6,600 sqm)
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Module 1
Constructing the site, Marishello The context plan for the site in City X, suggesting its morphology, infrastructure and types of use. With impressions, memories and experiences being a trigger, the module was aimed to construct visual descriptions of the context by assembling speciďŹ cities from cities/ urban environments that are evoked through the geographical and morphological conditions given. The developed context served as the context for the rest of the studio. The individual narrative, written to inhabit and grasp the imagined context helped and augmented the images of the context in this project.
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The Line map Lines representing the flow of vegeation
The sparsely distributed blocks seemed to suggest the balance between the voids and the masses, the presence of vegetation, the trees in the voids. A contrast in the city, like mass and void, the human’s and nature’s refuge, the trees and the buildings... The Narrative A walk on the first day
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...In the three patches of red, green and blue the city suffices. From the gentle curves of red earth, from the enigmatic interwoven foliages the buildings are unveiled. A city of colours that changes its colours with seasons changing and time passing. The colourful expressive sparse blocks and the dense and everchanging woods seem to define the distinct playful character of Marishello...
Vignette
Collage of the city Map - Section
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...Standing amidst all green is an escape to heart and a break to mind. The earthen routes branch the trails, pathless trails leading to the shelters taking shelter under the trees. And some sharing amity with trees. A city that obscures the human chaos with the silence of the nature, with the zest of the hues. Collage of the city Map - Plan
Vignettes
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Module 2
The Connectors, The Urban Foliage The second module was for physical connectors as well as programmatic ones. Task was to design a pedestrian connector across the railway line, as a widening to the existing vehicular overpass and as a means to provide a pedestrian pathway from the bus stop to the street level. The connector needed to be thought as moment of arrival and departure - to the site, as well as to the studio design program (the school & site). A vertical strategy for mediating the 12.5m between the bus-stop atop the yover and the street level. The video montage, created to explores the character of a vertical pedestrian connector within the developed site context. Scaled drawings of the context were made in spirit of fabrication.
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The Sketch Exerting the strategy
The Strategy Emerging Bridge
The Sketch The ramps
The pedestrian pathway, The urban foliage, an evolving impulse branch itself from the bridge. Growing in the city like roots in the ground, flowing in the city like pollen in the air... The Video The urban foliage
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The diagram Trunks acting as columns and leading the pathway
...The tree trunks hold the elevated forest trails. Like the process of pollination it flows from a tree to tree, seldom touching ground. With its fluidic, playful and impulsive expression it acknowledges the character of the city. With its suble monotony it tries to form its identity... Part model Scale 1:200
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Site plan Originally at scale 1:500
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Site Section Originally at scale 1:200
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...Like the tree the urban foliage can grow with the newer surroundings. Like the forrest it can expand with the city’s infrastructure. A walk through the foliage, Stimulating ever new encounters and experiences with the trees and the forest on the unexplored dimension.
Site Section Originally at scale 1:200
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Part model Scale 1:20 Site model Scale 1:500
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Module 3
Inhabitation & Architectural Environment, Atman Since the city administration has subsidized the land for the school, a campus with joint use of the facilities was expected. Task was to inhabit the ruined-before-its-time concrete skeleton programmatically, and formally. As the requirements exceeded the area offered by the structure, new construction was required as an extension to the existing structure, thinking about the opportunities the ubiquitous domino offers, without puncturing or demolition the structure itself. The site strategy was the result of this module, followed by the detailed resolution of places of learning, of making, of play, of meeting and of performance in vertical urban environments, by exploring specificities and generalities, affinities, multivalence and the capacity for transformaion. With 1:200 acrylic model explorations and few timeproblems the design of a school in forest and among the elevated trails was developed. With a narrative the expression of the architecture was explained.
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The contour A divider The orthognal gesture A response to dom-ino
A meandering path A rreflection of forest
Function Public - Private relationship
Public Private
Jutted out classrooms An extension
A Dom-ino in Marishello with its ordered nature and sturdy gesture questions the surrounding, confronts the contrast. A need to respond the context and inhale the masculinity of ground and delicacy of the trees to exhale the silent contadiction... 32
The narrative A walk to emptiness
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Public Foodcourt, Library Private Classrooms Public Art Studios Public Administration
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Block model Scale 1:200
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Building gesture Thick - Thin
Thin Thick - Thin, Extending out of the earth
Acrylic and opaque model Scale 1:200 To understand the elemets participating in creating promenade
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Building gesture Negative - Positive
Thick
Thick - Thin, Rising out from the earth
Pavilions on terrace A response to the gound
Thick - Thin, Inside the school
Elevation Monolithic yet fragmented
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...Carved out blocks and a feeling of cave. Translucent windows densen to the bulky walls. A play of masses and voids. An inviting gesture, tthe non-crafted trails and elevated urban trails leave people in the meandering paths of the school. the open voids welcome the people, the trees and the forest trails. A meandering path created by the scattered walls, following the principle of confined movement and expansive freedom The heavy carved out walls hold the everyday traces of school and presence of kids, The words, the colours, the scribbles all carry the stories untold...
Upper ground floor plan Originally at scale 1:200
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Lower ground floor plan
Second Floor plan
Third floor plan
Terrace plan
Floor plans Originally at scale 1:200
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Section AA Originally at scale 1:200
...A place for all, a place of learning, a place of unlearnig... a school, and art studios. Contrasting fragile glass pavilions, made up of the paitings of unlearning are alive throuhout the year. The elements try to hold the building within just to burst and flow to the nature around. The heavy walls enfolds the stories and the activities. The translucency reflects the greens, blues and evening hues. The voids evince the ehoes of the nature... 42
Section BB Originally at scale 1:200
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Section CC Originally at scale 1:200
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Long Section Originally at scale 1:200
Section DD Originally at scale 1:200
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East Elevation Originally at scale 1:200
...A fragmented monolith, A combination of delicacy and playfullness of Marishello with its robustness. The school, atman merges with the trees arround and integrates with the red ground. With heavy to light gesture Atman rises from the ground and slowly like foliages talk to the sky. Heavy enclousers loosen up until they become light pavilions in the sky...
...all the energies, all the activities... the running, yelling of kids are translated to the silhouttes and blurred profiles, with the background music of leaves...
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...A hoowed out building and trnquility of trees. An echo of the presence of nature and a reflection of the echo. The paths inside like the trails outside. Branced voids and a gaze at marishello.
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