Di 26 | Suprio B - Precise Cuts of Light | DOMUSIndia 02/2014 by Suprio Bhattacharjee

PROJECTS

February 2014

Volume 03 / Issue 04 R200

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Author

Contributors Suprio Bhattacharjee Rishav Jain

Title

Editorial Writing as making

M Hasan Sukanya Ghosh

Confetti Making of a poet

Fritz Neumeyer

What counts in the reality of architecture?

Kenya Hara

The training of informed designers

Dilip Ranade

Prabhakar Barwe

The painter with the mind of a poet

Ruchita Madhok

Vishwajyoti Ghosh

Pages from dispersed memories

Dilip Ranade Art and museum studies

Rishav Jain

Collaborative Innovations

Ruchita Madhok Communications designer

Renzo Piano

Projects Extension of the Kimbell Art Museum

Suprio Bhattacharjee

Mathew & Ghosh Architects

Precise cuts of light

Soumitro Ghosh Nisha Mathew Ghosh

Mathew & Ghosh Architects

Dilemmas of belonging

Kaiwan Mehta

SPASM Design Architects

Fine perceptions

Frank O. Gehry Konstantin Grcic Norman Foster

Emenco: starting from a chair

Authors Soumitro Ghosh Architect

Contemporary museum for architecture in India

Nisha Mathew Ghosh Architect

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Design

Kaiwan Mehta

Photographs Arjun Jayswal Nic Lehoux Sebastian Zachariah Solachi Ramanathan

INDIA

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LA CITTÀ DELL’ UOMO

Josep Lluís Mateo

Volume 03 / Issue 04 R200

INDIA

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LA CITTÀ DELL’ UOMO

026 February 2014

February 2014

Cover: Zanav Home — this building, housing design studios and administrative offices for a textile company in Bengaluru, is an example of adaptive re-use. A previous warehouse building receives a meticulous makeover by the surgically precise insertion of lightweight steel and glass implants, creating a set of spaces luminous and delightfully liberated of any sense of mundane-ness.

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Rassegna Outdoor

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Feedback Josep Lluís Mateo’s Barcelona

WRITING AS MAKING

Kaiwan Mehta

Every month the pages of this magazine, much like many other focussed and deliberated magazines and journals, produce many words and thoughts regarding the objects of their study – in our case, it being architecture and visual forms of cultural imagination and description. Often, words are seen as the burden to get through and navigate, or the excess that revels in flourish or jargon, rather than ‘simply telling (read factual description) about the building’. Writing is then seen as the subsidiary task that has a defined job – to serve and put in words something about the building. Before venturing further, let one clarify that here one is clearly not considering fluff journalism or genuinely bad writing that hides behind flourish and jargon – but let not these negative instances be used to describe all writing and journalism. Going back to the issue of ‘writing’s job’, most often in professional circles the writer is imagined as someone who is skilled at words and their usage, rather than someone who is skilled at ‘thinking’, who then uses words to craft his thoughts into a discursive format; no doubt the former is important for the latter, but to imagine only the former produces problems. We hence fail to understand the category of the ‘critic’ who is a producer of thoughts and ideas as much as an architect is. Writing is the mode and medium that produces architecture as much as the drawing, the sketch, and the stone and aluminum produce a building. That architecture is probably one of the most (physical-) process-intensive of all artistic and cultural productions, should hint towards the values and techniques of process – its nature, role and protocols. The building is an accretion of its process/ es and the final object can be deceptive and not essentially account for its process of production. The building-object can cheat its process and produce an image for itself, and then stories are told to validate the image rather than the process of production. Production and construction in this conversation can no longer be the architectural and engineering act of putting walls and foundations, structure and facades together, but it is the construction of architecture, the production of its (architecture’s) sense and idea, in the process of building, renovating and conserving architecture. As much as this production continues in the life of architecture, the life of a building which begins once the first user enters it and starts making every space and detail of the building his/her own, or maybe rejects it. The celebrated icon is architecture, as much as the rotting wall and abused building is architecture. Every user, and abuser, of a building produces architecture, as much as the architect and contractor, engineer and mason are producing it. The architect strives to keep authorship of the process, manoeuver it, shape it, direct it, but alas the shape of architecture does not allow him/her to be the sole producer, s/he

tries to be the sole interpreter but again alas the user and the critic do not let him/ her do that either! Having destabilised the authorial position of the architect, one still has to explain the key role that an architect plays. The architect remains at a position to translate ideas and thoughts into a material product – the building, primarily. S/he has historically balanced the scales between styles/structures of thinking and styles of building – manifesting forms that speak through their imagery, spatial properties and details of material. And then one could say that history of architecture, has been a story of which of these take primacy in different conditions, under changing scenarios, and so on. Hence the architect himself stays in a state of flux as much as s/he strives towards a utopia – of clarity of job as well as vision. What is an architect supposed to do? And, more importantly how does he achieve that – that which is arrived at as an answer to the former question. The architect to be able to function, has to always balance between the process of questioning and the utopia that production can be capable of achieving; this architect is the intelligent producer – of thought and material-objects, both in a constant state of conversation – a dialectics of productions. Surely there will be many architects who either allow the material production capacity to take over their working, or those, who only revel in the world of ideas without engaging them with making and production, which allows ideas to fruition, even if temporarily or only partially successfully. The one who struggles with the duality of thought and material production is what defines the architect of cultural, contemporary and historical consequence. In this ongoing battle of skills and arguments, the architect-author has the critic (the writer) as the co-traveller. For the architect, the skill sets s/he is trained at takes prime position, but the need for space outside that skill-set, yet appreciating and understanding that skill-set, is important. That space outside is the weighing scale of structures of thinking and protocols of making (rather than making itself). The critic, through procedures of arguments and processes of writing, produces for architecture a landscape to view/review and write/ rewrite itself. The critic, in the process of writing, is reproducing a building, maybe with newer structures and images than it apparently holds. The underlying arguments within the architect’s process, often subconscious to the final object, are excavated – not in the sense of an investigator but rather to produce a discursive sense. As much as the making becomes the discursive space for the architect, writing is the discursive space that the critic generates – and these two discursive spaces will overlap as well as stand in creative argument – producing architecture in rich and vibrant ways – in buildings as well as with essays.

With these thoughts we approach the production of this issue, starting with a house of ‘liquid stone’ designed by Mumbai-based SPASM Design Architects, where the subconscious of the building and the narrative that the architects construct around it are critically evaluated to tell the story of a typology, as well as the building itself. The relationship of architecture and nature is as old as architecture itself, and the use of natural material as well as the building’s relationship with its topography are much more nuanced than simply being questions of context – this house helps raise some of these questions. The building for Zanav Home by Bengaluru-based Mathew & Ghosh Architects, gets one more, time into the question of reworking with existing architecture and the idea of reworking with materialities. The case of what it is to rewire buildings to a new use, renovate-design them, has been an old question, but in the contemporary context where we binge on demolition and new construction constantly and insistently, projects of design through renovation and reuse are important reminders of the lives and avatars a building is capapble of managing and adapting to. We also look at the process of Mathew & Ghosh Architects through their own essay on Dilemmas of belonging – which interestingly outlines many expected suspects but within very personal sets of references, through doubts and ponderings. The essay constantly references artists and works of art, as the site to evaluate one’s own thinking and working, and then reviewing their own projects in the light of these conversations. This crossreferencing is an idea that one sees as important towards a creative and discursive engagement with architecture, and which is also the reason Domus India consistently looks at visual cultures, artistic and design practices across mediums. This is the third time in two years that Domus India has looked at the process in practice of a young (also couple) firm – the earlier two being Dcoop Architects’ Quaid Doongerwala and Shilpa Ranade and SAV (Studios Amita Vikrant) Architects’ Amita Kulkarni and Vikrant Tike. In this issue we again visit the works and journey of a master – Prabhakar Barwe – much like we visited the laboratories and studios of Mohan Samant and Atul Dodiya in the last issue. A review-essay looks at the narrative form and structure of graphic story-telling – bringing to the fore ideas in line and page-space, visual form and memory, visual sequencing and ‘thick descriptions’, as we also closely observe craft and furniture design too. This is an issue that hints at a variety of practices and forms but centrally aiming at questions of producing a discursive space – the act and art of writing across and about objects, producing a nuanced space for the discursive production on the protocols of ‘making’. km

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28 EDITORIAL 70 PROJECTS

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PRECISE CUTS OF LIGHT Mathew & Ghosh Architects

The transformation of a warehouse into a design studio and offices for a textile company becomes a meticulously surgical act of inserting technically expressive, delicate and lightweight implants of steel and glass Text Suprio Bhattacharjee Photos Solachi Ramanathan, Arjun Jayswal

The upper floor consisting of lightweight steel and glass implants overlooks a new rooftop terrace garden strewn with pebbles interspersed with randomly placed (and sized) cylindrical humepipe troughs

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This page, and next spread: sketches and drawings by the architect

REMOVAL OF RCC FRAME & MASONRY FROM INHERITED STRUCTURE

ADDITIONS IN STEEL

Below: this building, housing design studios and administrative offices for a textile company in Bengaluru, was previously a warehouse

BISON PANEL SKIN

Above: entrance lobby; far left: the terrace overlooking the buyer’s space; left: the administrative offices, lodges itself transversely across the front of the building

SECTION INDICATING LIGHT AND AIR DISTRIBUTION

A little, perhaps, needs to be done to breathe life back into buildings that have outlived or no longer serve the purpose they were built for in the first place. They may have served their function well. Or may not have. Buildings built for industry are subject to these trials often. Rapid advancements in technology bring in obsolescence quickly. Spaces designed for specific equipment or machinery may no longer be conducive to these changes. Large sheds may be able to accommodate these changes. Humbler buildings are destined to be razed to the ground, or can be subject to interesting exercises of ‘re-engineering’ that adapt them to new programmes. This building, housing design studios and administrative offices for a textile company in

Bengaluru, is an example of such adaptation. A previous warehouse building receives a meticulous makeover by the surgically precise insertion of lightweight steel and glass implants, creating a set of spaces luminous and delightfully liberated of any sense of mundaneness. Cut into a warehouse building with an orthogonal plan, the new programme consists of essentially two large spatial entities – a set of spaces for the administrative offices, and another set of spaces, taller and voluminous, that will hold the company’s design studio. A third space, smaller in scale, is a new rooftop volume that in addition to serving as a large vitrine, also serves as a floor meant for prospective buyers.

The first spatial entity – that of the offices – lodges itself transversely across the front of the building. The previous two-storey RCC volume is here modified to accommodate three floors, held up by a hybrid structure consisting of new structural steel elements supported off the existing RCC frame. The second spatial entity – that of the design studio, is spread across the rear portion of the former warehouse – occupying the previous tall spaces. Between these two zones, a meandering staircase offers access to the upper levels from a full-height cut into the structure, with vertical sightlines extending all the way up into the new rooftop buyer space. This three-storey light-filled chasm becomes a space where the guts of the

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PAGES FROM THE SKETCH BOOK OF THE ARCHTECT INDICATING THE VARIOUS STAGES IN THE DESIGN DEVELOPMENT

SECITON OF ROOFING SYSTEM ACROSS TURBO VENTS

Project Zanav Home — Adaptive re-use Architect Mathew & Ghosh Architects Principal architects Soumitro Ghosh, Nisha Mathew Ghosh Client Ravi Khemka - Zanav Home Structural contractor Manjunath & Co., Bengaluru Location Bengaluru, India Area 2000 m2 Design and construction phase 2009-2012 DETAIL OF GLASS SKYLIGHTS

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Opposite page: incision of a longitudinal slice along the building’s long axis, substituting concrete slabs with laminated glass (at the first floor) and cut-outs at the former terrace level brings light into the centre of the former deep plan; between the two zones – the design studio and the administrative offices – a staircase offers access to the upper levels from a full-height cut into the structure. These staircases are constructed out of thin folded steel plates held up by delicate steel stringers

This page: light is brought in along the sides with the construction of a new 'skin' of bison-board sandwiched over a steel frame set off the boundary of the RCC frame, topped by polycarbonate

building’s ‘re-architecting’ can be seen fully. Light is brought into the centre of the former deep plan by the incision of a longitudinal slice along the building’s long axis, substituting concrete slabs with laminated glass (at the first floor) and cut-outs at the former terrace level. The new buyer’s floor acts as a large vitrine filtering light into the spaces below through this incision, with skylights in the new steel roof augmenting diffused light with a more concentrated glow. The upward surge of this light-void is met with the ebullient gestures made by the delicate struts that support the new roof and vitrine. Consisting of welded angle sections, their delicate lightness offers a foil to the RCC framework, now even more robustly expressed with the slabs removed, exposing its very nature. The new steel insertions profess a sense of technical precision and clear expression, that in some ways contrast with the nature of the RCC frame, and at times seem to be wonderfully interwoven. An example is the delicate nature of the tensioned strut that holds up the now exposed longitudinal central RCC beam at the former terrace level. The seeming incongruity of this petite steel articulation ‘holding up’ a brawny concrete beam is delightful in itself. Light is also brought in along the sides with the construction of a new ‘skin’ of bisonboard sandwiched over a steel frame set off the boundary of the RCC frame, topped by polycarbonate. This embroidered surface creates a peripheral void that, in addition to bringing in light, also creates a space for ventilation. This peripheral void, in conjunction with the central void to the new metal roof housing turbo vents, creates a building that is naturally ventilated, taking advantage of Bengaluru’s salubrious climate. The upper floor vitrine aligns itself to allow

for minimum exposure to direct sunlight. It overlooks a new rooftop terrace garden strewn with pebbles interspersed with randomly placed (and sized) cylindrical hume-pipe troughs that are meant to carry wild grass in the future – patches of green in an intractable landscape. A metaphor for the regeneration of former industrial areas? Inside, the new additions posses a raw appeal, unabashedly industrial in their expression, and uninhibited in terms of material articulation and use. These spaces profess an honest identity in terms of their making and being. This augurs well for a space devoted to a domain of the industrial design profession. The interweaving of the different natures of framework – the stodgy regularity of reinforced concrete and the lithe

and over-sailing nature of steelwork, sets up a tense dialogue. Staircases constructed out of thin folded steel plates held up by delicate steel stringers cascade through this threedimensional cartesian grid, allowing for the presence of the ‘diagonal’ in an otherwise regimented spatial environment With the ingenious incision of light into the centre of a deep plan, and the clever interweaving of two generic systems of construction, this adaptive re-use of a former warehouse into the new offices of a textile company is a worthy addition to the remarkable portfolio of Mathew & Ghosh Architects, as well as an important example of the seamless integration of space and structure.

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