Di24 | Suprio B - Modest Spaces of Significance | Domus India 12/2013

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December 2013

DOMUS 24 DECEMBER 2013

Volume 03 / Issue 02 R200

CONTENTS 31

Author

Contributors Jasem Pirani Suprio Bhattacharjee Photographs Milo Reid Dipti Desai Markus Hafner Hertha Hurnaus Michael Wagner Abner Fernandes MDP Michel Desvigne Paysagiste Nigel Young Foster + Partners Xavier Boymond Harshan Thomson Sarah Mechling Mohandass Radhakrishnan

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LA CITTÀ DELL’ UOMO

András Pálffy Architect and professor

Damien Hirst

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Confetti Spot Paintings

Tapan Mittal-Deshpande

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A narrative in stones: Hampi

Manuel Aires Mateus Francisco Aires Mateus

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Time and matter

Sam Hecht Kim Colin

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Desk accessories

András Pálffy

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Between concept and design

Mario Botta

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Reflections on the development of an educational programme

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Footprints from a journey

Kaiwan Mehta Kaiwan Mehta

INDIA

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LA CITTÀ DELL’ UOMO

Volume 03 / Issue 02 R200

LA CITTÀ DELL’ UOMO

024 December 2013

Cover: Indian School of Business in Mohali; Perkins Eastman acknowledges that the design of the long horizontality of the main academic buildings sitting under a single parasol roof with a consistent structural rhythm was influenced by Le Corbusier’s Capitol Complex in neighbouring Chandigarh.

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Editorial Sensibilities in architecture

Lotus Design

Projects Capacity of spaces to transform anew

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M/s. Prabhakar B. Bhagwat

The oyster and the pearl

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Norman Foster

Redevelopment of the old port in Marseille

Jasem Pirani

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Perkins Eastman

Calculated aesthetics

Suprio Bhattacharjee

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Mancini Architects

Modest spaces of significance

Massimo Vignelli

December 2013

Title

32

Authors Tapan Mittal-Deshpande Conservation architect

INDIA

Design

Kaiwan Mehta

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Rassenga Bathroom

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Feedback The Vignellis’ New York


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Mancini Enterprises MODEST SPACES OF SIGNIFICANCE Pvt. Ltd. A vocational training institute in rural Tamil Nadu sets

an inspiring framework for a building context driven by economy, socio-economic conditions, as well as the frayed nature of our rapidly transforming rural landscape Text Suprio Bhattacharjee Photos Mohandass Radhakrishnan

In September, these pages carried a story on what can be regarded as a contemporary classic – a crematorium refurbishment project in Coimbatore by Chennai-based Mancini Enterprises Pvt. Ltd. A new vocational training academy for the underprivileged young in Tamil Nadu serves to reinforce the position of the office as a practice that engages with the locale, culture and context firmly through a stripped-down aesthetic that offers a challenging view of what the nature of our future public spaces can be. This modest building, in a village in Villupuram district in northern Tamil Nadu, for Children of the World-India, can be regarded strongly as an astute expression of economy – a response to the constraints of building meaningful public buildings in situations which offer very little room in a budgetary

Opposite page: shaped gargoyles funnel rain water into the courtyard. Above: the verandah with its large overhanging roof. Below: the building is a reinforced concrete structure, finished in an unpainted cement plaster

sense. Remarkably, instead of a mundane object, hamstrung by these restrictions, this building becomes a dignified manifestation of community. A single storey, straight-forward orthogonal layout around a central courtyard becomes the starting point for a rational approach to accommodating a programme consisting of the mandatory administration offices as well as staff rooms, dormitories, workshop spaces, classrooms and exhibition spaces. The entrance is marked by a broad verandah with a large overhanging roof, offering access to the institution and the inner courtyard through what seems like a gap in the enfilade of rooms. Across the courtyard another ‘gap’ provides access to outdoor recreational spaces. A barebones reinforced concrete structure finished in unpainted cement plaster provides the


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1 Security room 2 EB room 3 DG yard 4 Car park 5 Two wheeler parking 6 Admin room 7 Principal’s room 8 Staff room 9 Record room 10 Library 11 Store room 12 Dormitory 13 Toilet 14 Classroom 15 Artyzan 16 Garment technology 17 Catering technology 18 Verandah 19 Open to sky courtyard 20 Stage 21 Waste water treatment plan 22 Badminton court

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Project Artyzan Vocational Academy Location Pudukkuppam, Tamil Nadu Client Children of the World-India Architects Mancini Enterprises Pvt. Ltd., Chennai Design team J. Thamizh Arima, Niels Schoenfelder, R. Saravanan, Ganesh Venkatraman, Swati Girme, R. Velu, Suresh, A. V. Mouraougane Project Area 1,663 m2 Civil Contractors RK Constructions Carpentry RK Constructions Project Estimate `176.9 Lakhs Initiation of Project December 2009 Completion of project August 2011 Other details Structural Consultants: Auroservice Consultants Pvt. Ltd., Pondicherry Electrical Consultants: Aqua Engineers, Pondicherry Waste Water Treatment Plant Consultants: Aqua Engineers, Pondicherry


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Previous page: large overhangs along the exterior shade the walls while providing optimum protection to the windows from direct sunlight. This page: right and below, palm trees planted along a grid within the courtyard. Opposite page and bottom: the building presents a calm ordered countenance on both the inner courtyard as well as the outside

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robust spatial framework for these operations. Light is admitted into the internal spaces by clerestory windows with top-hung sashes that can be opened for optimum ventilation. Elsewhere ventilation is provided by louvres within generous openings. Lighting is provided in the most efficient manner and artificial ventilation is through the use of fans. Spaces have high ceilings to encourage air flow and stack ventilation, the roof is designed to carry vegetation providing optimum thermal mass to prevent overheating and a stable internal thermal environment, while hollow clay masonry offers insulation to heat ingress through the walls. Large overhangs forming continuous bands along the exterior shade the walls while providing optimum protection to the windows from direct sunlight. The wide verandah with a generous canopy surrounding the courtyard forms an emphatic datum that is reflected on the exterior elevations too. Shaped gargoyles funnel rain water into this courtyard – which other than becoming a secluded inner realm also forms a significant multifunctional spatial anchor – offering a space of exchange, performance, festivities, gathering as well as silence. Palm trees planted along a grid within this courtyard form a resonant

foil to the rational order of the concrete colonnade along the periphery. The horizontality of the building’s silhouette is broken by two staircase blocks that offer access to the roof. Floors are in tough Cudappah stone. The building presents a calm ordered countenance on both the inner courtyard as well as the outside. As such this composure acts as a counterpoint to the frayed nature of the surroundings. This building seems to revisit the rationalist Modernist mandate on the nature of the space of production – the workshop spaces in particular offer this ordered, structured nature with raw unfinished surfaces and a sense of robust materiality. At the same time it offers us an opportunity to engage in what an appropriate architecture for an institution should be like, as well as what the nature of an architecture meant to reinforce community pride can be like. Often it is necessary to adopt solutions that are not necessarily the most ‘exciting’ but perhaps the most engaging and efficient, and yes, even economical (the building came in at less than a thousand rupees a square foot). This is an important manifesto for a country such as ours, where the need of the hour is not necessarily to always create head-turning architecture, but rather a resonant, deep response


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to socio-economic situations. In this building, the chaos of the outside world is kept at bay and a secure inner realm is offered to the occupants, as well as to the comfort of the students’ families. At the same time, this building makes an emphatic argument for the exceptional quality of the everyday, the ‘ordinary’ – the need for an expression that is simple, straightforward and rugged, and which has no pretense other than to serve its function and programme. That is perhaps an exceptional act – a building that is less about itself, and more about what it can enable. But what sets it apart from being a mundane ordinariness is the handling of details, the low scale of the building and the humaneness of proportions. This humaneness, despite of what can be perceived as a rigid formal order, is of importance – and reflects on how this building sets an important mandate on the nature of what a future institution in socio-economic contexts such as these can be like. Despite a low budget, a low human scale, this building is able to engender a sense of formality and respect that is necessary for the community to take pride in. The building has a sense of ‘serious-ness’ that makes it a

significant emblem not only for the local population, but also for the building’s occupants and most importantly the students or apprentices that shall inhabit its raw interior. The formal seriousness is suitably tempered by the nature of the court, which becomes a space where any assumed hierarchies dissolve through interaction and exchange. A sense of austerity and silence pervades this central void – that can be seen as a profound and fundamental aspect for a space devoted to learning and individual as well as community growth. This formality is driven by a strategy of fundamental simplicity focussing on a renewed emphasis on the very basic tools that make architecture – structure, space and light. Thus a complex socioeconomic situation is handled with deft simplicity and clarity. This is perhaps the building’s most significant victory. The building’s directness and unpretentiousness, as well as its respect for the ‘ordinary everyday’ makes this a significant contribution to architect-designed spaces of learning.

This page: left, signage used to demarcate classrooms, toilets etc; below, despite a low budget, a low human scale, this building is able to engender a sense of formality and respect that is necessary for the community to take pride in. Opposite page: above, the workshop spaces offers an ordered, structured nature with raw unfinished surfaces and a sense of robust materiality; below, light is admitted into the internal spaces by clerestory windows

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