Di 13 | Suprio B - Context Embedded Processes | Domus India 12/2012

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December 2012

Contents

13 13 • Volume 02 • Issue 02 • December 2012 / KSA Architects, Jasem Pirani, Suprio Bhattacharjee context embedded processes / Min to Max: defining the minimum existence of the 21st century / Cidade de Deus as an urban model / Gabriele Basilico common pavilions / Rishav Jain craft crossings / Annapurna Garimella a thousand pillars / Mortimer Chatterjee simple tales / Sudhir Patwardhan, Ranjit Hoskote continuities and conversations KSA, Pirani, Bhattacharjee / Basilico / Jain / Dalvi / Garimella / Chatterjee / Patwardhan, Hoskote

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13 • Volume 02 • Issue 02 • December 2012 / KSA Architects, Jasem Pirani, Suprio Bhattacharjee context embedded processes / Min to Max: defining the minimum existence of the 21st century / Cidade de Deus as an urban model / Gabriele Basilico common pavilions / Rishav Jain craft crossings / Annapurna Garimella a thousand pillars / Mortimer Chatterjee simple tales / Sudhir Patwardhan, Ranjit Hoskote continuities and conversations

India

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Op-ed K T Ravindran

The age of urban design Op-ed

13 • Decemb er 2012

India

Editorial

Cover Bamboo Symphony by Neelam Manjunath in Bengaluru exemplifies the diverse expressions that a single material can offer to an architectural space even today. An architect’s office, Bamboo Symphony, explores the idea of craft and craftsmanship through integrating bamboo in each and every detail from the flooring to roof, from the columns to the beams. This was achieved while working on site with master craftspersons and material experts alongside the architect (Photo by Rishav Jain)

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Our very own Pussy Riot

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Journal

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Photoessay Pallon Daruwala

Sight of height

KSA Architects and Planners Pvt. Ltd., Jasem Pirani, Suprio Bhattacharjee

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Min to Max

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Affordable by design

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min to max berlin Zanderroth, Jeanette Kunsmann

Cutting-edge homeowners

min to max athens P V Aureli, M S Giudici, P Issaias

From Dom-ino to Polykatoikia

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Gabriele Basilico Common Pavilions

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Rishav Jain

Craft crossings Contemporary Museum for architecture in India curated by Kaiwan Mehta, text by Mustansir Dalvi

Vistara’s wake Annapurna Garimella

A thousand pillars

Context embedded processes

min to max nyc Susanne Schindler

min to max rio de janeiro Rainer Hehl

A city within the city

Mortimer Chatterjee

Simple tales Sudhir Patwardhan, Ranjit Hoskote

Continuities and conversations Rassegna

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Finishes

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Context embedded processes Discussing three different interventions in three diverse cultural and topographical regions in India is in continuation of our conversations with the works of KSA Architects. The building as a physical entity located in a landscape works with the characteristic of being an artefact as much as it induces a sense of space within a material geography

Mandar Bhavnagar

Lonavala

Design

KSA Architects and Planners Pvt. Ltd. Text

Jasem Pirani Suprio Bhattacharjee Photos

Nemish Shah

The Mandar House located in Rajasthan is painted to contrast the thick cavity walls used as insulator to combat the extreme temperature of the semiarid region; the contrast enhances the built geometry 38

Is architecture context? Architecture is defined as architecture because it is set within a context and it has a strong and eloquent visual relationship with the environment. A building is always seen first as a part of the whole. Creating places and spaces that enrich the lives of the people who inhabit these spaces is the underlying principle that defines the work of most architects. Every building should engage in a dialogue with the beliefs and needs of a particular place. Place is to architecture as meaning is to language. A memory, a story and any other significant connection — subliminal or physical contribute to the process of architecture.

Design process most often than not is embedded in the problem/ challenge. In an urban context, there are layers of systems and built environment to rely on for contextual information.

However, in a non-urban context what is the approach? How does an architect tell a story of the place? What determines the style of architecture? Creating an environment involves designing for meaningful experiences — to do this, establishing a sense of place and engaging creatively within a community and its landscape enhances and reinforces this belief.

Mumbai-based KSA Architects and Planners has in the recent past been fortunate to have encountered three projects with varying programmatic requirements in three diverse cultural and topographical regions. All three projects have unique characteristics and site conditions that demand a site-specific response and are set in a non-urban context.

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This spread: The covered walkway acts as a bridge to provide access to a range of different spaces in the house creating a narrative of transitions; as the built artefact punctuates the site, the collonade and walkway mark a measure of space and form

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The Mandar House, located in Rajasthan, is situated on flat farmland and is built for a Mumbai-based client. The house is not designed for day-to-day living but for hosting family gatherings and celebration of festivals. The response to the site and programme seems central and the process organic as spaces are organised on the eastern and western side of the courtyard connected by a walkway. From the approach, a pathway that leads to a covered walkway, that leads up to a verandah , which opens into a double-height living space that then again leads through a covered walkway, which flows along the central courtyard, creates a narrative of transition spaces from the outside public spaces to the more private spaces of the house.

These ideas offer a multitude of transition spaces in order to enrich the experience of the inhabitants and create a stronger bond between the building and its physical and sociological context. There is also an alternate path that leads directly from the main gate up a ramp to the courtyard allowing for people to enter the house directly during celebrations and larger gatherings. This naturally allows for people during large gatherings to seamlessly flow from inside to outside. Thus the inhabitants become a part of the response to the site and the building plays the narrator.

The site with not much context and the only human intervention had a path along one side for farmers to cross from the main road over to the farms beyond the site. Therefore KSA has not built a defined boundary wall so that the farmer’s daily routine is left untouched and has also provided drinking water matkas in a sheltered niche by the gate. Situated along the main state highway, a gate has been built to give the house a presence and to mark the point of entry.

With a strong connect to the site — the style here is defined by its sensitive approach and humanistic scale. It is more an architecture of the place than of the time as the built form is an extension of the environment and the ideas germinated well within the given regional context. Here various processes have been explored and the roles of perceptions and patterns in movement have been deftly executed.

In Lonavala, Maharashtra, KSA was involved with a house extension project. Here again the site was located in a nonurban context but had to adapt and reuse the existing structure. Interestingly, the site though located in Lonavala seems as though it is isolated and located in a part that is still untouched by development providing picturesque views of the hillside. Analysis revealed that the existing structure could 41

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1 Entrance Lobby 2 Living Room 3 Dining 4 Kitchen 5 Toilet 6 Bedroom 7 Balcony 8 Family Room 9 Bridge 10 Terrace 11 Covered Walkway

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mandar house Design KSA Architects and Planners Pvt. Ltd. Design Team Nemish Shah, Kumarpal Kothari, Pierre Michael Structural Engineering Subhash Manglori and Associates, Pune

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drawings Contractor Sujan Singh Deora Client Sujan Singh Deora Location Mandar, Rajasthan

1 Ground floor plan 2 North-east Elevation 3 North-west Elevation 4 Section AA 5 Section BB

fact box Project Area 278.7 m2 Construction Phase 2011—2012

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lonavala house extension Design KSA Architects and Planners Pvt. Ltd. Design Team Nemish Shah, Kumarpal Kothari, Kavita Vesvikar

drawings Client Kiran and Anita Oswal Location Lonavala, Maharashtra

1 Lower level plan 2 Upper level plan 3 Section AA

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fact box Built Area 139.35m2 Construction Phase 2010—2012

Contractors Sai Construction, Lonavala Megas ASPL, Mumbai Geeta Enterprises, Lonavala

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This spread: The east façade of the house with windows; covered walkway that stretches through the courtyard connects the bathroom and kitchen space, which are designed in a linear geometry; sketches that were part of the design process and development 44

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not accommodate the programmatic requirements of the client. With space constraints in mind, the client still expressed that they would like the house to feel like a bungalow, a wish that KSA took upon as a challenge. To meet the programmatic requirements, the existing structure’s roof was raised to the maximum allowable height as this allowed for the introduction of a mezzanine level.

The architects believed that the existing structure’s only connect to the new part of the house was through a stair block. This was reflected on the exterior as well with the level of the inverted sloping roof raised so as to accommodate the programme and the stair block.

The house most definitely has characteristics that a city dwelling does not have; views and open spaces that constantly remind one of the surroundings and informal relationships between the inside and the outside. The space constraints are reflected in the interiors where the house seems to carry the formality and cultural devices of an urban dwelling; efficiency and compactness of an apartment, the open casualness of a loft like living space and an uneasiness of the existing structure or limiting footprint.

The design process implemented here is comprehensive as it looked at designing the building core and connecting it to the site and addressing the interface between the inside and the outside keeping the constraints and tolerances in mind. As opposed to designing traditionally the design here is responsive.

Architecture, here plays a mediator — between the body and the landscape to meet the needs and desires of the body. It is the characteristics of this built environment that define and pronounce the identity of a place. An essential challenge of architecture and what differentiates it from sculpture and painting is to house and accommodate needs as well as aspirations and desires. A response that integrates both the quantitative and qualitative programmatic elements and engages with the landscape directly is a constantly evolving style.

For MICS’s office project in Bhavnagar, Gujarat, KSA approach was a linear and investigative process. The architects initially were planning to build an inward looking building with an internal courtyard, one that looked away from the workshops and the labour quarters as is the case for most buildings and private spaces in the country. Work first began with the refurbishment of the workshop and the labour quarters.

Following which the architects revaluated and envisioned the office building as a part of the whole rather than it being a separate element. In the new design the building was pushed back from the road, which created an open space in the front and the office looked out towards the rest of the site.

Clients were a big part of the decision-making process and worked with the architect as a team to create a building that was economically sustainable. Jaisalmar sand stone was locally sourced and after a long investigative search to get the right grain, colour and texture — logs of wood were brought and cut on site. The process was linear — each successive step was explored and investigated following which the team would proceed to the next step.

In contrast to the earlier two projects there was built context and existing structures on site to consider. The site located south of the city centre has been witnessing rapid industrial development. Again the internal to external connect here is a key player in an open landscape with little or less human intervention. Material and geometry relations have been explored and transformed such that geography has become architecture. Geometry plays out not just in plan but along the façade as well with critically planned large openings and clad surfaces. Material and geometry unfurl a dramatic narrative that reveals a story and behavioural elements. The façade framework plays the drama manager and the content is designed to evoke a response and tell a story.

A timeless story of the inside outside relationship is told — one that resonates both at the conscious and subconscious level with the body and the environment. A sensitive approach only enhances the experience rather than alienate. When organic 45

Context embedded processes

This spread: Material details, and a measured set of grids against light and landscape form the underlying principle for this house design; set against the green Kotah stone wall the suspended steel staircase is painted in bold red and spans the hallway below in the house in Lonavala, Maharashtra

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processes are undertaken by architects like this then the end result only adds value and when that happens is the style of architecture significant? Or can that style even be defined or categorised? A visually pleasing piece of architecture is critical but one that has an impact on various levels is more successful, as Thom Mayne once said, “Architecture is understood as a series of intimate engagements, as something experienced haptically, by operating or moving through it, rather than via an intellectual or visual conceptualisation.”

Through the above three projects KSA architects and planners have illustrated that there is no one size fits all approach for creating places. Unique characteristics of a location and its community demand individualistic and unique responses.

Processes can be as varied as investigative, organic, linear or responsive but the end result must be human-centric.

The elements of this nature grow from and connect to the landscape. Such processes optimise materials to perform at their optimum. And most important of all, it celebrates people and their stories. KSA is a process-focussed practice. The buildings they create can be simple or intricate. But above all they are honest in their approach, putting people at the centre of the equation, calling on all processes, materials and systems to rise to the occasion.

— JASEM PIRANI Architect

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It may not be possible to begin to review these projects by KSA without looking back at last month’s delightful feature project, the Army Rowing Node in Pune, by the same practice.

Those set of buildings struck a tense dialogue between what is nature and what is artifice. The strangeness of the brutal incision of the rectilinear water-channel in the landscape seemed to hint at the nature of the architecture that would straddle it — an architecture simmering with a raw, unbridled energy. The buildings themselves — unique as they are in their programmatic conception — become exercises in sheer polychromatic structural revelry and tectonic prowess — culminating in the totemic and uncannily red-and-whiteConstructivist assembly of the Finish Tower, reminiscent of the Vesnin brothers’ conception for the Pravda building in Moscow.

But where these buildings make their strongest statement is in the spartan treatment of the structural details and their material articulation, and a rational architectural carapace that shapes a dramatic promenade architecturally. This is the kind of architecture one wishes to see more often. An architecture that cannot be wrenched free from the conditions that have formed its very nature.

Detractors of the project may insist that the majority of the buildings sit as glazed boxes in a landscape formed by a hot, semi-arid climate. This is not untrue — the ones that are needed to be as they are meant primarily for viewing — and therein perhaps one can (and needs to) look at these buildings as alien but not alienating — as an imposition of artifice (as much as the canal itself is) or a ‘new nature’ on a substrate of pre-existing topography that brings the ‘original’ natural landscape beyond back into sharp focus.

With these thoughts one can begin to now look at the smaller, diminutive and more private buildings that the architects have designed. The office building in Bhavnagar for a shipping machinery company is a two-storey glazed pavilion-like object that sits amidst the garden that surrounds it. A large vitrine

on the east end wraps around a double-height executive office space forming the visual anchor upon entry, with a slightly ponderous over-sailing roof that seems in stark contrast with the slenderness of its timber members, the fineness of the timber louvers and butt-jointed glass corners. This façade, exuding a sense of craftsmanship (the images show how the timber framing was hoisted into place after being assembled on ground) lends the building a tactile quality — and strangely (for a machinery company) the ‘mark of the hand’ is brought in — but does not seem distanced from the fact that the company deals in re-usable components scavenged from the ship-breaking yards of Gujarat (where most of the work is done manually).

The building has a domestic scale — with its well-crafted woodwork and a sense of open-ness within — and the details ensure that users would over time engage with the building at a more intimate level — changing the angle of the louvers, shutting the panels that separate the double-height space from the other office areas or casually running their fingers across the crafted stone wall as they use the staircase, which is also expressed as a unique element that sits within the façade. The sense of domesticity continues with the balcony on the south — where users can enjoy the outside. The glazed façade on the south is shaded by the aforementioned roof overhang, while harsh sunlight flooding through the eastern vitrine can be blocked by a large red retractable fabric awning.

The roof has a strange boat keel-like presence and understandably offers thermal mass (as does the south-west oriented stone wall) — but its broad profile and visual mass (along with that of the balcony) consume the small building — and the appreciation of the elegance of the timber façades. The eastern façade hints at the vertical dimension of the project — with the lines of the timber screen accentuating its narrow proportions. There are aspects that are shared with the Army Rowing project — the rigorous attention to detail (here of course in a much ‘richer’ way) for instance and the affinity for a 47

Context embedded processes

This spread: Sketches for the design development of the house in Lonavala, Maharashtra; the staircase as a designfulcrum of sorts

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pavilion-like presence — but one wishes for a certain lightness in the most dominant aspect of the project, that of its parasol roof — an element that is deftly handled in the Rowing project.

The house extension in Lonavala shares antecedents with the Bhavnagar project — a tall narrow volume and a sense of refined craftsmanship in the handling of its interior spaces — with a sense of spatiality that is formed by linear, orthogonal built-in elements and furniture to create a heterogeneous, collagist, city-like texture within a small volume — with ample and clever use of spaces for storage and otherwise. The strange boat-keel roof renews its presence — this time its surface visibly retained in a raw state and painted white.

But the pièce de résistance of this small project is its suspended steel staircase — painted a bold red that evokes the imagery of the Army Rowing project. Set against the background of a green Kotah stone wall as it spirals upward and into a bridge that spans the hallway below, one can infer an implicit fascination with the raw tectonic (and one dare says early-20th century architecture). But the fact that this is amalgamated within a larger spatial field of refined craftsmanship comes across as a strange and intentionally discordant juxtaposition. Yes one can suggest that there could have been a reduced material/ chromatic palette — say for instance in the way in which the staircase leads up from a set of steps built into (slightly overbearing) dark-toned furniture, that does a perceptual ‘dragging’ down rather than an emphasis on the disconnection from the floor; or the composition of dark lines on the Kotah

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Architectural tools like the play of open and close panels in a grid, dramatic sculpting of space through an engagement with light, and detailing of materials is the mainstay of design in this office project; sketches for the design development of the MICS offices

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Design KSA Architects and Planners Pvt. Ltd.

Civil Contractors Rajyaguru Constructions, Bhavnagar Puranwasi Vishwakarma, Bhavnagar

1 Ground floor plan

Design Team Nemish Shah, Pierre Michael

Client Nayan Shah, MICS Impex Pvt. Ltd.

3 Section AA

Structural Engineering Sunil Vasa, Bhavnagar

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Location Mamsa, Bhavnagar, Gujarat

2 East Elevation

fact box Built Area 148.64 m2 Construction Phase 2011—2012

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mics office

drawings

Design KSA Architects and Planners Pvt. Ltd.

Civil Contractors Rajyaguru Constructions, Bhavnagar Puranwasi Vishwakarma, Bhavnagar

1 First floor plan

Design Team Nemish Shah, Pierre Michael

Client Nayan Shah, MICS Impex Pvt. Ltd.

3 Section BB

Structural Engineering Sunil Vasa, Bhavnagar

2 South Elevation

fact box Built Area 148.64 m2 Construction Phase 2011—2012

Location Mamsa, Bhavnagar, Gujarat

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introspective — that brings into play the dialogue (or disparity) between the artifice and the natural, and offers one a chance to ponder on man’s place within the ‘larger scheme of things’ — in a manner that Gaston Bachelard states the house as being “an instrument with which to confront the cosmos”.

One wishes though that the handling of the building’s physical character could have been more rigorous and even sparer (the openings for instance or the clunky stone skirting along the verandah columns that detract from the stark power of the work) — such that the essential characteristics of the buildingas-artefact and its occupants’ sense-of-place within the landscape would become apparent. In any case one is reminded of Juhani Pallasmaa’s assertion that “in addition to facilitating practicalities and conveniences of dwelling, every profound house is a metaphysical device, a constructed metaphor of the world and the human condition”.

— Suprio Bhattacharjee Architect

The MICS office in Bhavnagar has a domestic scale with its well-crafted wood-work and the details that ensure the users would over time engage with the building at a more intimate level by changing the angle of the louvers, shutting the panels that separate the double-height space from the other office areas; fine detailing that generates an architecture of textures as a site for human activity to unfold

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stairwell (evoking the character of that in a haveli) leads to a bedroom that overlooks the double-height living space, as well as a ‘bridge’ (the roof of a connecting verandah across the courtyard below) that provides access to the roof of the adjacent single-storey block.

A pair of openings set within a stacked-stone wall (a traditional technique) on the recessed east façade offer the only real ‘windows’. The bathrooms are maintained as ‘outdoor’ spaces in the manner of a traditional house, accessed from a verandah opposite the entrance that stretches through a courtyard and along the adjacent single-storey block in the manner of an ‘outhouse’ (again a traditional spatial entity) which contains the kitchen and another bedroom. This is conceived as a ground-hugging linear single-storey block that acts as a foil to the vertical mass of the cube – and complements the singlestorey south wall that continues the linearity of the entrance portico with its cantilevered roof.

As a piece of building, the Mandar house has much to offer in terms of a paradigm and can be seen in continuum with a contextual stream-of-consciousness drawn from traditional architecture that includes the (albeit larger) works of the Ahmedabad-based duo of Meghal and Vijay Arya. Its no-frills approach and reduced material palette offer an opportunity to conceive of an architecture that is introverted and

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wall — which create a visual conflict with those of the staircase outline. The sense of this assembly as a dramatic alien presence is thus somewhat undermined.

Far removed from the transparent pavilion-like nature of the Army Rowing Node but sharing some aspect of the sense of mass in the Bhavnagar project is a house in Mandar, Rajasthan.

This project comes across as a stark opposite and is a welcome addition to the practice’s portfolio. Where the Pune project dwelled in a sense of light-weight ephemerality, the Mandar House can be read as an earthbound monolith shaped by a harsh climate and sited on a barren landscape. The house becomes an insular pavilion painted in an ochre colour that evokes not only the relentless daytime sunlight of the semi-arid setting, but traditional Rajasthan desert houses as well.

Few openings are offered on the south façade (to ward off the sun), and the sense of insularity is maintained on the north facade too (to ward off cold northerly winds). These are thick cavity walls providing adequate thermal mass, insulating the house against the see-sawing extremes of diurnal weather conditions. The drawings reveal the rationale of construction and spatial articulation, with the cubic volume designed as a room-within-a-room, and the gaps between parallel and co-linear wall planes filtering in the desired natural light as well as controlled cross-ventilation. A narrow-but-tall top-lit

The south elevation of the MICS office 53