AGENCY: WATER + RASA Muna Salah Talha Muftee Vaswar Mitra MSc Architectural and Urban Design
PREFACE
The city of Mumbai is historically and essentially a superimposed landscape of various ecologies, economies that keeps on shifting. From times when Mumbai was a collection the current palimpsest of socio-economic forces, this thesis proposes a framework spatial urban reading of classical Indian
of islands to and political based on a narratology.
Rasa as an agency of constant flux behaves as a recording medium for the ever changing experiences and climatic forces of monsoon within the existing urban landscape. Consequently this thesis proceeds to form the architecture of rasa which embraces the fluidity of Mumbai, monsoon and behaves as an adaptive interface between the forces that inform the situation.
KANHERI CAVES In order to begin understanding the amalgamation of various hydrological systems of Mumbai, we head to the site of an ancient hydrology which pre dates the city. Kanheri caves, which are now located north of Borivali in Mumbai, date as far back as the first century BCE. About a hundred and nine rock cut caves which were constructed over a decade, served as a place of studying, living and meditating for Buddhist monks. These caves predate Mumbai, a time when the region was a collection of much smaller islands and acted as a trading port between China and rest of the world. Not only goods, but Kanheri caves helped in propagation of cultures and ideas.
As of now, these caves (now located within the Sanjhay Gandhi National Park) are a preserved record of how various systems of wells, channels and caves were formed as the Buddhist settlers of Kanheri caves understood ecology of Mumbai. The Kanheri caves ecosophical object traces of water and have formed the
as a whole prove to be an worthy of study, a series of writings that over the centuries urban landscape of Mumbai.
For orientation and reference for exploring Mumbai, Kanheri Caves is denoted by K1 (site of our first spatial investigation) while K2 refers to a point in south in close proximity to Kipling’s Residence.
Images : Photography at Kanheri Caves, Sanjhay Gandhi National Park, Mumbai, India.
Location of K1 and K2 within Mumbai
Location of Caves 76 and 77
Images: Photography inside Caves 76 and 77 showing various interior spaces and water systems.
Scanned field notes from survey of the caves.
Drawings of caves 76 and 77 from the survey conducted on site.
RECORDING MUMBAI Present day Mumbai is a complex entity with territories overlapping and spilling into one another. Seemingly contradicting on the surface but as a result of centuries of growth, these juxtaposed instances within the city work as parasitic situations, feeding into one another creating new boundaries and interfaces that come and go. The city of Mumbai embodies the very dynamic, unpredictable and at times chaotic nature of Monsoon, literally as well as figuratively; the major climatic feature of this region which due to its presence deems it necessary to view Mumbai with water as the primary agency.
Mumbai known previously as Bombay started out as a series of seven islands. The first known settlers were the fishing community, the Kohlis. Over time, the islands saw many rulers and invaders until the Portuguese captured the bay later to be given to King Charles II of England which marked the start of the English rule. Throughout these different epochs, the islands grew and were developed as a unified land mass reclaiming all the swamp lands in between. The original seven islands of Bombay still have traces on present day Mumbai in the form of several fortifications located at strategic points of trade and defence.
Mangrove plantation at Sewri Fort. Mangroves are considered as non-productive by many construction projects hence removed. This plantation works as an excellent flood control zone, endangering this plantation might lead to serious ecological concerns in near future.
Bandra–Worli Sea Link, completed in 2009 is a 3.5 mi bridge which links Bandra to Worli cutting across Mahim Bay, one of the original geographical features from the time when Mumbai was a series of islands.
Water as an agency of Mumbai acts as a trace making device within the urban landscape. Revealing the old, writing over the new, tracing activities and territories to form landscapes of ink. This is where our thesis delves into the process of drawing the site of Kanheri caves as a territory of ink. To be designated as K1, it will serve as the theoritical framework for our future sites and city of Mumbai as general. As not a city of zones but of hydrologies in a state of constant flux.
Images: Pohtographs around Mumbai including Kipling’s House (K2) and Dhobi Ghat (above)
K1 + INK Ink, in its many forms as primarily a tool for marking and writing, has been pivotal to civilization. The Buddist monastic centre that thrived at the Kanheri Caves from 1st till 10th century was an important node for trade, culture and knowledge. This link between the East and West through points such as Kanheri Caves helped in preserving historical data, ideas and give rise to new technogies. One such example is the invention of the common black ink often known as the Indian Ink which was first invented in China but later on was based on materials traded from India through major trade links, giving rise to the name “Indian Ink�.
Ink as Pigment, as Apparatus of Trace
Ink as a Political Apparatus In India, ink serves as a significant part of the democratic process. A specific formula, comprising ordinary ink with silver nitrate is used to mark the fingers of voters to prevent fraud.
Rust as a Trace of Time Various drawings of rust as traces of time over Kanheri Caves. Using water, salt and iron filings, these drawings form the start of a temporal investigation into traces of K1.
K1and Campo Marzio Our investigation of layers of ruins and traces start from our study of Italian Architect Giovanni Piranesi (17201778) and his fictional plan of Rome known as Campo Marzio based on his understanding of history and archeology. He established a correspondence to the original condition only out of it’s context, building a city from ruins. As he believed that archeological ruins are not part of the past but are parts of the living present. Unlike most historians and architects that came along Piranesi’s career who were in search for the origins of modernity -but instead was interested in capturing a moment in history while uncovering its hidden layers, by this he considers himself a recorder not an author of such an experiment. His version of Rome, a fluid dynamic state of temporal states in contrast to Nolli’s Plan of Rome which contains the trace of spatial qualities in terms of public or private, a binary system.
Piranesi’s Campo Marzio
Nolli’s Plan of Rome
(AB) Sense of Trace
The trace of Presence:
The trace of Absence:
Structures depicted as ruins, location, geography are precise and accurate
Peeled away intervening history- as though a chunk of time was subtracted.
Elasticity of Time in Campo Marzio
A selective erasure of history to make clearer the view of history. A process of examination that changes that which is being examined.
“The Selective Persistence of Trace” - Stan Allen “Decay as a paradigmatic formal method”
Varanasi- a city, where every trace of Time is still alive and simultaneous- in a way existing outside time. Imagine if Apollo, Zeus were still worshipped in their temples outside the Vatican, if the Dionysian cults were still performed.
Time given an autonomous value- it is become a formal force: It both obscures form- and gives rise to new formal conditions. This can be said to be reflected in Piranesi- a paradox where it incorporates a set of rigid rules of construction, of laws. Simultaneously letting Time – “uncontrolled play of chance and contingency”. In Civilization and Its Discontents, Freud imagines a Rome where every historical layer of Rome co-exists simultaneously. His Rome preserves history, at the same time negating it. What he projects
therefore, is an alternate history, and an alternate plausible urban landscape. It is not less real- but rather a hyper-real urbanism. Thus Sigmund Freud creates his own precursorGiovanni Battista Piranesi (17701778) This Anti-typological approach to Architecture as an act of liberation opens up new possibilities, just as how the act of scale changes the experience in architecture while stimulating imagination.
Variations on Trace and Superimpositions
AGENCY RASA In this thesis, the Rasa(s) weave together the agency of ink, the monsoon situations and the apparatus of trace. The key element of any classical Indian performance, ‘Rasa’ may translate to ‘juice’ or ‘essence’. It is part aesthetic theory, part theology, part mythological history, set out in the 15th century ‘Natyashastra’ texts. Traditionally there are 8 Rasas, or essences, in an ideal narrative. Every rasa has an associated colour.
Śrngāram : Love - Green. Hāsyam : Laughter - White. Raudram : Fury - Red. Kārunyam : Tragedy - Dove coloured. Bībhatsam : Disgust, Aversion - Blue. Bhayānakam : Horror, Terror - Black. Vīram : Heroic - Wheatish Brown. Adbhutam : Wonder, Amazement - Yellow.
Rasa and Monsoon The monsoon surface is interpreted as a ‘performance’ - using the ‘Rasa’ to understand the different phases of the season, the interplay of the phases and their manifestation upon a dynamic landscape.
Creating the Rasa territories of the Monsoon surface.
Adbhutam : Wonder
V朝ram : Heroic
Hāsyam, Kārunyam and Bhayānakam: Laughter, Tragedy and Horror
Śrngāram : Love
Raudram : Fury
B朝bhatsam : Disgust
Spatializing the Rasas using various methods such as drawings, models and animated projections. These drawings will set out new urban territories for K1.
The model is re-constructed in 3D modelling software to identify the architectonics of the Rasas. Individual spatial elements will help in formulation of the urban landscape.
‘Vastu’ or plot, the structure imminent in a classical Indian theatrical narrative here acts as the armature for urban intervention. The Vastu plan derived from Rasa drawings highlight zones of maximum entropy where monsoon is most active. These nodes and zones then become points of architectural intervention. Which result in setting out of the hydrological, architectural and ecological schemes.
Programmatic Framework The Rasa and Vastu drawings superimpose to set up the operation of FAB program: in short the Factory, Amenity and Bed (Residential) apparatuses.
The Factory Apparatus
The Amenity Apparatus
The Residential Apparatus
Hydrology Plan Derived from the previous Vastu Plan, the Hydrology Plan shows the flow of water through the site
Ecology Plan Plan showing the plantation patterns corresponding to the hydroponic systems.
Hydroponic Systems The hydroponic systems extend the functions of FAB units as well as make use of the excessive Moonsoon water. By storing it in resorvoirs around K1 and using it for different flowering plants providing new semi covered public spaces with regulated micro climates.
Rasa Nolli Plan The monsoon interacting with hydroponic systems cause new spatial temporalities to emerge and remain in a state of flux. The resulting figure ground diagrams keep transforming throughout the year.
INK FACTORY
PUBLIC GRIEVANCE COURT
RESIDENCE
K1 Master Plan
HYDROPONIC CAGE
RAINWATER COLLECTION TANKS
OUTDOOR GAMES FACILITY
RECREATIONAL SPACE
HYDROPONIC CAGE
DINING HALLS
HYDROPONIC CAGE
STORES AND SERVICES
OUTDOOR DINING SPACE RESIDENTIAL APARTMENTS
RESERVOIR
HYDROPONIC CAGE
Residential Details
WATER TREATMENT UNIT
RAINWATER COLLECTION TANKS
RESIDENTIAL FACILITES
HALL 3
INTERNAL COURT
HALL 2
OFFICES
HALL 1
PUBLIC PLAZA
LIBRARY
Amenity Details - Public Grievances Addressal Facility Provision for interface between government servants and the public. Converted to Vote Counting Centre during elections.
AGENCY WATER + RASA Drawing K1 as a landscape of Rasas based on classical Indian narratology gave rise to an informed spatial urban planning which acted as an ever evolving interface between Mumbai and Monsoon. To further expand on that framework, it is necessary to focus on another site within Mumbai which will be denoted as K3. A new point of deployment near K2 where the Rasas from K1 will be appropriated based on new context and conditions helping us understand the role of Monsoon even more.
K3 MAHIM FORT When Mumbai was a group of islands, various fortifications were made at strategic locations to help with trade and defence. The forts were constructed over a very long period of time by different rulers, forces and settlements. As the islands merged into one another, these forts (or traces of) offer an opportunity to view Water as an integral agency within the urban landscape of Mumbai. One of these forts known as the Mahim Fort is an intriguing PARA-situation with a complex agglomeration of layers which keep changing over time, like the Rasas of K1.
Location of Mahim Fort - K3
MAHIM AND MITHI The traces of Mahim Fort go all the way back to 13th century when it was an important location for Raja Bhimdev. Since then, the fort as well as the surrounding area were witness to many wars and skirmishes. The Mahim Fort is at the bay where the Mithi River, originating from K1terminates into the Arabian Sea. Thus making K3 an important site of intervention for dealing with Monsoon. Currently the site consists of a large pump installed to reduce overflow from Mithi during Monsoon rains. One of the main reasons for this overflow is the reduced opening of Mahim causeway through constructions in recent years.
Currently, the fort itself contains a slum-like complex residential structure housing approximately 350 units. This settlement began in 1977 when a Muslim community was displaced from a construction site at Bandra. With Kohli fishing villagers living north of the fort the Mahim beach in between is a platform for festivities of different sects and religions throughout the year.
K3 and the Weak Metropolis Urban
Paradigm:
Enzymatic
Urbanism
Mumbai and Mahim specifically sets up the basis for a post-environmental ecological urbanism similar to Andrea Branzi’s (Italian Architect and one of the founding members of Archizoom Association in 1966) nonfigurative representations and no-stop city in response to CIAM’s modernist manifesto. The enzymatic urbanism examples will help in directing the design at K3 as nontype functional modules or functionoids.
“This urban condition is made up of services, information, environmental componential practice, microclimates, commercial information, and above all perceptive structures that produce systems of sensorial and intelligent tunnels that are contained within architecture, but cannot be represented by architecture’s figurative codes” -Andrea Branzi (1984) The Hot House. Thames and Hudson Ltd.
Seven Suggestions for a New Athens Charter Urban Refunctionalization Great Transformations through Microstructures The City as a High Tech favela The City as a personal computer every 20sq m Cosmic Hospitality Weak Urbanization Models Shade Borders and Fundaments
Urban Refunctionalization. Foster the reuse of the existing estates, to fit the present city to the new need of diffuse work, of mass enterprise, of creative economy, and of cultural production and consumption. Great Transformations through Microstructures. The quality of the city is made by the quality of its domestic objects, tools, facilities, products shown in the shop windows, people, flowers in their vases. The City as a high-tech favela. Avoid rigid and definitive solutions and foster reversible facilities that can be dismantled and transformed, allowing the interior space to accommodate new activities that are unforeseen and not programmed. Thus a city that considers as a value the integral liberalization of the urban system. The city as a personal computer every 20 square meters. Avoid specialized typologies, rigid facilities, and identification between form and function; create interior spaces similar to functionoids, that can host any kind of activity in any place, changing their function in real time. Cosmic hospitality. Realize (as in the Indian metropolis) the conditions for a co-habitation between man and the animal kingdom, technologies and divinity, alive and dead people. A metropolis less anthropocentric and more open to biodiversities, to the sacred and to human beauty. Weak urbanization models. Create threshold areas between city and countryside, through hybrid territories, half urban and half agricultural; productive territories, horizontal, hospitable (but without cathedrals), following seasons and weather, allowing conditions of flexible and discontinuous housing. Shade borders and fundaments. Realize architectural facilities with crossable perimeters, to create an urban texture where the difference between interior and exterior, public and private, is intended to disappear, creating an integrated territory without specializations.
Recording Mahim
Mahim Site Plan
Recording and drawings the various flooding conditions and instances of tension between the Mithi River and the Arabian Sea. The tidal levels for Mithi River vary approximately in between 5.39 m and -0.46 m relative to mean sea level. During these times different land regions and shorelines transform around Mahim Creek.
RASA TERRITORIES OF K3 The 8 Rasas from classical Indian literature and the territorial methodologies of K1 are re-deployed and re-appopriated at K3, the site of Mahim Fort and Mithi River. The emotional values that are linked to the Rasas help us identify the various forces at play and view them as a series of landscapes overlapping and interacting with one another. After identifying these “territories of spillage�, we must record the noncorporeal regions as traces of pigments with water as the main agency. Turning them into the corporeal Rasa elements that will intervene and design the new spatial urban landscape.
Śrngāram and Kārunyam : Love and Tragedy - Green + Grey. These are the territories of duality of water, as the Monsoon’s quality to nourish the landscape as well as overcome resistance and turn into an element of devastation. Hāsyam and Adbhutam : Laughter and Joy - White + Yellow. These are the territories of festivals and innocence. A time of shared communal surface of celebration throughout the years. Raudram and Bhayānakam : Fury and Terror- Red + Black. The negative Rasa territories that are a result of displacement within the community and dissatisfaction projected towards outside forces trying to work against the community. Bībhatsam : Disgust, Aversion and Decay Blue. The regions of Disgust are the decaying parts of Mahim. Areas of abandonment and dying out of plantation such as Mangroves which are crucial to this part of Mumbai as a flood buffer system. Vīram : Heroism and Survival Wheatish Brown. These territories are the ones which withstood the test of time. The native Kohli fishermen and women who despite all natural and synthetic forces have survived and established themselves at Mahim. The still strive despite developments such as the pump trying to minimize their area of living.
Creating the Rasa territories of spillage at Mahim. The painting surface is controlled in accordance with varying flood conditions and shorelines
Hﾄ《yam and Adbhutam : Laughter and Joy
B朝bhatsam : Disgust, Aversion
V朝ram : Heroism and Survival
Śrngāram and Kārunyam : Love and Tragedy
Raudram and Bhayﾄ］akam : Fury and Terror
CLOUDS OF RASAS Meghduta The
Cloud
Messenger
and
the
Rasas
Kalidasa’ 5th century Sanskrit poem ‘Meghduta’ or the ‘Cloud Messenger’ becomes the device for corporealizing the Rasas. In the poem, an exiled prisoner narrates stories to passing monsoon clouds that carry his stories across the plains of India to his lover in the Himalayas. The prisoner tells the cloud about the plains of India, and what the clouds are likely to witness over their northerly journey. The Cloud in Meghduta is not just a phenomenon of precipitation, but also an incorporeal specie that is a bearer of stories. It is an agency that, by its existence, allows the Rasas to play on its surface. By bearing narratives, the Cloud itself becomes a diffuse form of the Rasa. The infrastructure introduced in the Mahim area have the quality of these Rasa-Clouds. They may grow by accretion within the fort and around the estuary. They are ‘weak infrastructure’ that may be modified easily to accommodate a variety of utilities essential to the context. As they move across the monsoon landscape, the Rasa clouds carry these utilities and infrastructure to different parts of the site.
The Fort Kitchen Grain silos and cloud structure which works as a communal platform for food storage and production. The cooperative structure can transform into food supply node for Mumbai or adapt to more immediate conditions for example helping with festivals or storing surplus for Monsoon.
PLAN
SECTION
Mangroves which are usually perceived as a non-productive species of plantation are reintroduced at Mahim beyond the Fort to act as a buffer territory for the Monsoon and to minimize the impact from forceful tidal waves causing severe damage to the Fort.
PLAN
SECTION
The Tool House South of the Mahim beach and West of the Fort, a Tool Shed and Housing is proposed to provide employment and tools for communal production efforts. This Factory module also provides additional housing in the region and has the potentiality for re-configuring itself as various activities emerge in the beach area throughout the year.
PLAN
SECTION
The Estuary The Northern part of Mahim housing the Kohli fishing community where Mithi River meets the sea is transformed into a dynamic Mangrove nursey and fishing hub. The nursery helps grow Mangrove plants in a controlled environment which can be later transferred to other regions of Mahim. The Mangrove plantation helps in modifying the shorelines to open up Mithi River similar to how it was decades ago. The Estuary also provides proper infrastructure for fishermen to dock their boats.
RASA Temporalities Since the Rasa cloud based architecture and spatial urban design potentially caters for the dynamic nature of Monsoon and Mumbai, it offers a dynamic narrative landscape not linear but like the colours of Rasa, containing all iterations within itself all at the same time, but exhbiting one territorial spatiality over the other.