Undergraduate Architecture Portfolio Taruna Khatri Selected works 2015-18
This portfolio stands not just as a compilation of my architectural work but also as a translation of my inclinations, method of working, thought processes and general outlook on life. I am a person who draws inspiration from things immediately around me always in a way that helps me to grow and become better academically and as an individual, and to translate it into architectural beliefs and theories, writing, drawing and thought itself. I believe in the simplicity of dealing with things with rationality and creativity rather than conventionality and am very curious to put my person out there into professional life with a clear set of beliefs, principles, honesty and hard work. May I be seen through.
Taruna Khatri +91 8980451639 taruna4197@gmail.com 15BAR74@nirmauni.ac.in
04/01/1997 Indian Address Plot no. 1, Ram nagar Industrial Area Jodhpur, Rajasthan.
EDUCATION
Study Trips and Experiences
Ongoing - IV year undergraduate Architecture Institute of Architecture and Planning, Nirma university, Ahmedabad, Gujarat.
Vanakabara-Diu, Gujarat (2015) Study of house form and culture + photographic and measure drawing documentation
Graduated High School Sanskar International School, Jodhpur, Rajasthan
Bhutan | Thimphu-Paro-Punakha-Bumthang (2016) Study of traditonal architecture, documentation, sketching and photography
languages
Bhopal-Bhimbetka (2016) Study of space-making and environments
Hindi (Fluent) English (Fluent) Gujarati (Intermediate)
Jodhpur (2016) Study of house form and culture + photographic and measure drawing documentation
SKILLS
Film Making + Photography Course (2017) Ahmedabad city, under the guidance of Professor Parmanand Dalwadi
Software Well versed with: Autocad Sketchup + Vray Photoshop In-design Microsoft Office Intermediate Revit Rhino Basic knowledge of: Grasshopper, Diva, Illustrator, Adobe Bridge
Other: Writing Drawing Sketching Painting Photography Videography Drafting Hand-modelling
Benaras-Khajuraho-Sarnath (2018) Study of house form, culture, public open areas, ghat dynamic,historical exploration, video and photo documentation Mumbai (2018) Study of colonial architecture, CBDs INTERESTS Architecture: Landscape Sustainable Housing Adaptive Reuse Conservation
Others: Creative writing (prose/poetry/articles) Comical drawing Film-making, Photography Graphic Designing Public Speaking
@tarunabeingtaruna, @half.arted tarunakhatri.wordpress.com @tarunabeingtaruna /taruna4197 Taruna Khatri
INDEX SELECTED PROJECTS Mass Housing Low cost housing for fishermen community in vanakabara, Diu
City Hobby Centre Adaptive reuse of abandoned textile mill
6-11
12-15
Residence Dwelling for a family of 5 people at the outskirts of Ahmedabad
Technical Drawings Redesigned Residence and related drawings
20-23
CBD - Urban Form Proposed CBD for Ahmedabad 16-19
24-27
OTHER WORKS Measure Drawing and documentation Jodhpur, Vanakabara, Bhutan 28-31
Doodles Comical drawings 39
Writing Academic writing, Articles, Poetry, Creative writing
Photography and Film-making Benaras, Flower market (Ahmedabad) Stills from movie
32-35
36-38
Mass HOUSING This is a Low income mass housing Project done in pair. This project aims at creating an organic settlement for the fishermen community of the village ‘Vanakabara’, inspired by the existing dense fabric and in direct correlation with the imbibed culture.
6
Vanakabara is a small village located on the outskirts of Diu, Gujarat. It consists of various fishermen communities living together along with a variation in religion. The men spend months at the sea and place belongs to the women and the children living in a dense settlement, constructed out of local materials (stone, mud). Some of these houses are more than a century old. The form of the village consists of built mass divided by humble chowks and narrow shaded streets all opening up to the ocean lined by boats at all times. The site is a 1-hectare large piece of land, currently an open ground, behind the shacks and workshops with a gentle slops of 2 metres only, overlooking the dock activities and the sea. 7
The house form of Vanakabara\ The current house form of Vanakabara was studied as a part of the related study program with hand-made measure drawings as a result of which the arrangement of spaces and the over-all form was derived. Most of the houses in vanakabara consist essentially of 2-3 single volumes used for mutiple activites. The “Otla’’, or the frontyard serves as the most important factor for the social life of the people, especially the women as they perform their chores here including cooking too - evidence of a major community living that occurs outside of their houses - in the unbuilt.
The house form is slowly becoming more compartmentalised in the village. The derived unit design is a result of trying to provide amenities they lack currently with a proper infrastructure along with trying to maintain the single volume and an introdution of courtyards to inculcate the open chowk into the houses inviting the culture in, so the house behaves not just as a utility as is the studied scenario.
8
Staggering of units to result in hierarchical chowks.
Integration of 3 income groups as the difference between is not very large and the community-living compensates for it. Common connections from private frontyards to inculcate more interaction.
9
Arrangement of levels Direct replication of the units on the ground floor is avoided to have terraces performing as chowks on the floors above and serving as spaces for community gatherings and activities. The units on the second floor and few on first have the advantage of private terraces and courtards.
Street in levels The concept of sky walk s and terraces is introduced as means of increasing potential of interaction on higher levels. The ground serves the most free space, as is the existing scenario, that free space is shifted vertically upwards to make up for the loss of being away from the ground.
Second floor Cluster Plan Reduced amount of units accessed by Common staircase but having courtyards and private terraces.
First floor Cluster Plan Units accessed by common staircase connected to the sky walks ad intermediate common terraces.
Ground floor Cluster Plan Mix of 40 and 60 sq.m units
10
11
City Hobby Centre This project deals with the adaptive reuse of an abandoned textile mill/office complex on the edge of the Sabarmati river, Ahmedabad. “City hobby centre� is introduced as the new program and the existing built mass is studied and appropriated accordingly.
12
Adaptive Reuse Approach The site lies on One of the most prominent connecting roads from the west of Ahmedabad to the east. The context has Islamic, Colonial and vernacularly built masses of various functions - religious, amenities and institutions. The first step was to study the existing structures for strength and utility, if any. The mill consisted of partly dilapidated single-volume brick storage units and one concrete office building in perfect shape, made only in 1988 used only for 4 years thence.
The program derivation has been done as a result of the physical needs from the context, as well as what the city lacks. The resulting built form comes methodically in the adjacent manner. This was both to identify the physical form and the functionlity.
13
14
Study of existing built mass and spatial organisation on the site was conducted. Further, 3 categories of performing an adaptive reuse were adopted, which was identifying masses - To demolish, To retain, To Refurbish Most of the the built mass and positioning was retained and altered for cost benefits.
Breaking down of mass and walls, retaining the structure resulting into semi open spaces and pavilion typology to have maximum informality
Conversion of current, stringent organisation into inter-related spaces responding to each other as well as central open ground
15
CBD for Ahmedabad This project, done in a group of 4, intends to propose a Central Buisness District for the city of Ahmedabad at its prime commute, Ashram Road, currently a major commercial and buisness zone.
16
The site lies along Ahmedabad’s current buisness and economic zone Ashram road, one of the major connecting roads of the city; and stretches perpendicularly to the Sabaramati riverfront to the East and an abandoned railway track on the west (to be converted into a metro line). The program is to propose a CBD on one vertical patch such that it could be replicated throughout the given site.
Design Principles
Process includes identiying areas with least existing vegetation, important existing buildings to be retained eventually adding the elements of landscape and water leveraging with the required amount of floor space index.
Major focus is to redefine the idea of a CBD as not just a organisation of building blocks divided by connecting pathways but as space bringing people together as a community. The stringency in the indivduality of the built environment is tried to be broken down by undefined land plots with landscape as an important part of developement along with the built. Variation in program includes marketplaces, cafes and informal sitting spots along with gardens to cater to maximum amount of people.
Mixed use comes up as a major factor in pertaining the usability of space at maximum hours of the day.
17
The final design consists of a combination of office buildings, a mall, hotels facing the riverfront, an informal marketplace, a metro station over the existing train station, to be reopened in the future - all divided (or rather, connected) by green community space with natural as well as built landscape including water bodies with both informal and formal sitting, eating and gathering plazas.
18
Parking solution
Parking on ground is minimised, instead providing underground parking chunks uptil 3 levels - undefined by building blocks, instead by negative of the green/ open area. These parkings are directly accessible from the exits on the edge of the main commute road and vehicles do not enter the premise of the built and unbuilt enviroenment. Building orientations and heights render the unbuilt space shaded and available for occupancy at maximum time of the day.
19
Residence DESIGN Residence Design for a family of 5. The material used is Mud and the major element explored is the vault along with an attempt to create both private and familial spaces for the individuals. The major factor is the presence of the Sabarmati river towards the SE end of the site.
20
DERIVATION OF Shape and, location, The site lies between the city of Ahmedabad and Gandhinagar in a village called Koba, on the edge of the river Sabarmati. Possible variations to situate the built mass on the irregularly shaped sight in relation with the directions, availability of maximum area and the river.
21
The connectivity focuses on central open areas blending into semi open corridors finally ending up into individual chambers. The open areas consist of courtyards, pavilions and terraces marked by arches and landscape all looking up to the sea. Prominent use of vaults as a roofing element has been made, as an attempt to make an all-mud residence in response to the climate.
22
Vault as major roofing element. It must be noted that the structure works entirely based on the compressive strength of the material. The first floor is assumed to work sitting upon the upper surfaces of the vaults filled up and flattened. This is an experimental design and the major focus is to explore the material.
Special attention is given to creating variety in open spaces to respond to various functions such as familial or general gatherings.
Elemental Design of Staircases and Arches in order to create a hierarchy of openings and the resulting space in-between.
23
Construction Drawings Hand-drafted Constuction Drawings for redesigned residence. Main material used : Mud (rammed earth), Wood (roofing), stone (foundation, lintels)
24
Ground Floor plan 25
Longitudinal Sections 26
27
Kitchen Section 1
Staircase Section 1
Kitchen Section 2
Staircase Section 2
Brahmpuri - Part Key plan (Combined effort of batch of 80)
Measure drawing and Documentation Jodhpur, Vanakabara, Bhutan Measure drawing of Brahmpuri Area of the old town of Jodhpur city, Rajasthan, India. (Group of 3) The major focus was to draw the vernacularly designed climatically responsive house to gain insight for mass housing and community living. 28
First floor plan
Ground floor plan
Section AA’
Section BB’
Section CC’ 29
Vanakabara - Key plan (Combined effort of batch of 80)
Section 1 (H1)
Elevation (H1)
Ground Floor plan
Elevation (H2)
First Floor plan 30
BHUTAN Insight into preservation of traditional architecture and religious architecture. Exploration in terms of culture and religion and how that relates with a town’s form, function and organisation. Major focus on Dzong architecture.
31
Other Works Writing, Recreations from art, Photography and Videography, Drawings
32
Architecture of the Marginalised, an essay
In formal studies and as a normative concept, architecture is considered to be something designed very specifically considering various aspects of land, climate, people and material. What are the translations of these factors for the marginalised communities of the world? Land is where then hinge themselves for a while, climate - keeping the rain out, people - who they share their empathies and lives with with immense intimacy. As for material, what choice do they have? Their miniscule amount of money is not enough to buy roofs and erect walls and have solid floors. Despite these conditions, they live. Or survive. Some of them even send their children to schools. The community does anchor itself to certain localities where the land might not be theirs and the resources might not be plenty but they have learned to manage - like any other living organism - with that survival instinct. They are not helpless as the general notion digresses their condition to be. They work, they earn and so many things we assume think they might have collected from places are actually bought. When one looks closer into their lives, they realise that they too have a lifestyle. This essay is a result of personal interaction with one such community living on the edge of the prime office area of Ahmedabad. There are around 20 households, approximately. These houses aren’t completely kacha as one might imagine them to be. They have floors and roofs and walls - volumes and open spaces and services. Who designed them? Need is very often the answer. And how do they execute this Need of a shelter to live life in? Some of the things they use to build their small mono-volumetric houses they fetch from the waste - plastic to cover the roof, irregular stones to make floors, bamboos to build walls. They use earth to make stoves and cloth to divide spaces. It was actually surprising how much material they had actually bought. Critically speaking, this isn’t about how they build and use our waste - it’s literally how they earn, buy things and build. Now, looking at the larger picture that’s what all factions of our society do. The only major difference is how the different factions literally build - One does by assigning it to the other.The other does it for the former and for itself. There lies the true impact of the architecture that is born as a result of composing a living on one’s own - that of pure conversion of need into space, the most precise and basic forms of all architecture. A person with himself as a client, his hands moving in sync with what his brain demands - a kind of direct relationship impossible to manifest when a third person designs for you (I’m keeping the argument of spatial quality and organisation at bay which we can safely assume could be better if an architect designed a house with the same material. Or could it?) Perhaps we could even learn from their ability to create livable environments out of nothing and living a cultural life. They celebrate festivals like any other part of the society. Their way of living and the contribution each family member has in the house hold is much more than the so-called “society” we live in. All women work and bring their share into the construction of these houses. That’s not something we see exclusively in a major part of the “better offs”. Some of the things they use to construct their houses are tin cans, Plastic sheets, Rope, stone, sand, cement, pipes, tarpoline and paper. Few things they even get delivered hiring some vehicles. The architecture of the marginalised isn’t considered to be designed or a kind of “suitable built environment’. It’s not a thing people study or take insight out of, but it could be - in terms of utility, the famous ‘form follows function’ may exist in most purity in these nooks and corners, in terms of brevity and what could be the most literal transfusion of bare necessities into space. 33
Other Writing A few days back my sisters visited me. And one of them said “Ahmedabad is so boring”, right when we were passing by IIM. I didn’t know how to explain to them the irony of that situation. “We are literally passing by IIM right now”. “Yes, I wish I’d done something to get an admission here”. “That is not the point.” Now I couldn’t have remotely explained the phenomenon of brick drafting for them to be fascinated by it. Ahmedabad, in certain ways can be cited as “boring” for many people but It would never be Boring for me, or any architecture student, I think (and I’m not even THAT much pro-architecture, btw). I was just telling this to one of my friends and they said “That’s what Ahmedabad is, some trees, some brick walls, and something happening behind them”. And just like that, I had a definition - at least one that suffices it to be interesting enough for me. There is so much to see in this city. Okay, there are no clubs and no drinking and no hipster stuff but some cities are more than that. The unawareness really does lead people to judge it wrongly. Every time I step into the old city it fascinates me. Only thing is it’s always told to you how great it is, how well it works, how the culture brims off it repeatedly because of which you get exhausted by it. But do this one simple thing - just walk about, look at things, look at the outline of mosques behind tiny shops at night, enter the premises of old hospitals, peek in the giant arched structures - and then try to tell me it’s boring, that there’s no “story” here. It’s wrong to judge a place as bad because of the life that happens to you there. Maybe you just aren’t exploratory enough, maybe you are kind of a couch potato, maybe you just don’t want to take the effort of expanding your lens of looking at things. Entertainment is not the prior and only thing for one to be at good terms with a city, if you try to be a part of it and extract from it what it holds in its core - you’d do just so well. Keep your eyes open and mind acceptive. Article Sonnets
Oh old age, meet me in muffled lampshades of wrinkled and weak hands, flimsy armsbefore the usherette of night fades, we shall dive in recollections’ charms.
Uncover me, expose me to your sight To grasp your residence, endless skies Until I collapse with your blinding light And blinding black it turns, the lid of my eyes.
The poor poets, oh, lousy buisnessmen of verbosity with priviledges to rekindle the burnt out wicks of pens, by substance hidden in dog eared pages.
Be gone, the sun, allow me to trespass In the promising solitude of night A walk of chores as though on prickling grass Allow me to float adrift if you might
The streams, orchards, greenery - springs of youth; Autumn, fallen leaves, tombs of the same I, the poweress of rebirth, in truth, shall keep alive, in my poetry’s name -
In the darkness I shall dream of waking Off the buzz I was since dawn of day Let go of the pains of my own making Fro the sin of a body, where I lay
You, love, and many lopsided lovers will be seen through seldom lifted covers.
Rise and coax me into another dawn And I’m bound to wake as though never gone
34
Recreation of Augute Renoir’s A Bouquet of roses in various mediums.
The heir of a Haveli,,the heir of youth spent Today I met a very old man. An heir to his guru’s haveli gifted by the king of the city. He lives in a part of his 7500 sq. Ft. land on which stands the haveli which on the first look seems to fall in the category of those old ones with a courtyard in the centre and rooms all around it. But as one progresses inside and sideways, they encounter verandahs and terraces, room after room which if they contained more than 2 people at a time would be rendered Claustrophobic, terrace after terrace, waterfalls and fireplaces and mountains carved to view the old city of Jodhpur, the stone houses dip-dyed indigo blue, the intricately carved Temples, the fort that looks down on the city like a guardian. What about the man? He didn’t hear so well, my father told me. Talk to him. Go. But sometimes I become the person who can’t talk to new people. It has happened twice recently. The man offered us Cardomom from what could be the tiniest of tin suitcases. For the sake of good behavior, My mother and I took one each. He talked to us of the temple outside the haveli. “Aapko pata hai, Ishqiya Urdu word hai?” Said the 90 year old owner of the precinct of the haveli and temple. The small temple is famous as ‘Ishqiya Gajanand’ in the town accounting to the fact that it was built only to prevent young lovers from mingling in the conspicuous corner but in turn became the spot where they started to pray for their union. “Aap Socho ki kabhi kisi Masjid ka Hindu naam hoga Kya?” He said with some pauses looking at my father. When the temple was to be registered with the municipal corporation he didn’t allow the chairman to put the Urdu name. Here was the first catch, I noticed with age the emphasis of your diction often concentrates on ‘I’. I open the temple at 5 in the morning and close it at 12:30 in the noon. Then at 5 till 8:30 in the evening. But on Wednesdays “Jo Maine subah ek baar Khola na for seedha raat ko 10 baje ho band hota hai”. This entire sequence he repeated after a while. Then out of no where, he began talking about a case against his father in law they fought for 22 years before they won it. Someone claimed to be his adopted son, when in fact he had none. “He had no sons, so I stood by him all the time.” He also gave him one of his own sons. He told us a detailed version of the story including the year (1966), date (10th March) and time (5 minutes to 3:30 PM). He told us of the splitting of southern states under Sardar Vallabh bhai Patel the names of which I have already forgotten a few hours later, of Indira gandhi’s rule and the Names of the judges and the advocates and the thoughts he had at the time in exquisite detail. Toward the end, his voice thickened. He looked at me occasionally and I nodded obediently for my mother had taught me to always nod or ‘hmm’ regularly while listening to a story. There was nothing that lead him to narrate this incident from his life years ago but the wish to share. His wife died on the 16th of January this yearw at the age of 87. He lived alone in his dark room on the edge of the haveli in front of the temple. All the time I kept thinking, how much had welled inside him that he wanted to convey it to total strangers. Or was it just that as a man grows he needs to keep reminding himself of the good things he has done or the accomplishments he has achieved on the way? When we stood up to leave, He asked my mother “Who is he?” poitning to my father. Here was someone who remembered the correct time, date, year, what festival it was, the long names of the advocates of 50 years ago and yet he has managed to forget who he had just told the tale, because that’s what was important to him at this point – to tell the tale, notwithstanding who it was that lent the ears. Later, as we ate in our regular Pav bhaji place my mother expressed her sorrow on the next generation’s loss on such stories ‘because of the way our time is’. I disagree. It isn’t always a story’s content that is a treasure to the listener but also the sheer fact that it happened in a time different than ours. Often these days, I live life in retrospection, treating present as if I was looking at it from the future. It isn’t as painful as living in the past, but intriguing in the way that everything around me I render futile. My laptop starts to seem like an ancient heavy object in the future with screens handing in the air. My working methods start to seem primitive. I feel the past in the present like how the next generation would find it in history, with fascination and awe as we do in our ancestors’. So I tell my mother our 3-Dimensional Recreation of Pablo Picasso’s Seated Nude woman to explore Cubism stories will be equally interesting, just not to us – to them. To us they will only be recollections of our sufferances or the tokens of our victories. Creative Writing
35
Stills from a small film on Benaras. Can be viewed at Here
Video Documentation Benaras - The ghats, cloth and Architecture
36
Stills from a small film on Flower Market, Ahmedabad. Can be viewed Here (IGTV)
Video Documentation Dawn among flowers.
37
38
Drawing,- Cartoons
A little window into my person - drawings and doodles done regularly based on everyday life, trying to make sense of them or sometimes, just for the humour of it. More at Half.arted
39
Thank you
for your consideration.
+91 8980451638 taruna4197@gmail.com 15bar74@nirmauni.ac.in
40