Bamboo explorations

This thesis is an experimental exploration that takes the propagative potential of bamboo as a construction material seriously,as it is a rapidly renewable resource that is easily workable.Today,Split bamboo sections could find answers to many of bamboo’s problems as an industrialized material—it’s non-standardized form and limited forms.A split bamboo section offers more potential for form variation, and different ways of conceiving the structural use of bamboo altogether. Many forms of split bamboo use already exist in rural communities, in vernacular construction. But they have not been studied as a potential for contemporary, industrialized construction.

Research authors: Brinda Sonpal, Prof. Sankalpa

 

 

Bombay Blackwood

The Bombay blackwood sofa, an early colonial amalgam of British form and Indian surface,demonstrates the clarity with which two divergent ideas about furniture might be brought together.By borrowing its form and structure from British styles, and its surface ornamentation and finish from local Gujrati lore, the piece manages to become a cross-cultural product,while keeping itscultural parents completely distinct.

Research authors: Divya Jain, Dr.Abigail McGowan (guide)

Bohra cabinets of Siddhpur

This project uses the inbuilt wall cabinet as a means to demonstrate the inherently cross-cultural nature of Bohra furnishings, and to explore the factors that led to the emergence of the elaborate cabinet units, the craft involved in creating them, and the origin and evolution of their ornamentation and its expression.

Research authors : Mitraja Vyas, Jay Thakkar (guide)

Alien furniture integration in Kerala interiors

Historically, the Kerala region, like much of the Indian subcontinent, showed few traces of movable furniture in domestic settings. The introduction, and subsequent integration of separate ‘loose’ furniture pieces into the domestic Kerala setting is believed to be the result of foreign influence and cross-cultural interaction.This thesis sets out to examine the underlying factors that led to the integration of movable furniture in domestic interiors in Kerala through the study of a series of selected furniture pieces, understood through the context of pre- and post-colonial built form in Kerala.

Research authors : Varsha M.B, C.S. Susanth (guide)

 

Ornamentation in traditional wooden houses of travancore

Kerala’s unique architectural identity results from a combination of culturally specific ritual practices adopted in its architecture, highly developed local craft methods, and from a material and formal expression that responds to the climate and geography of the region. Ornamentation in the houses of Kerala , subordinate to the structure, manifested the material expression of the construction.This project examines the nuanced relationship between ornament and structure, through the elements of the constructed Travancore house, and reflects upon the changing role that these pieces, and the diminishing knowledge of their context, have withstood over time.

Research authors : Chandra Prabha Radhakrishnan, Ramaswamy Iyer (guide)

 

 

 

Generative systems - Indian temple architecture

Generative design,which is older than parametrics, is a system wherein rather than specifying the design, one instead specifies the design process, through a series of rules or constraints that guide formation of the end product, which can be any number of alternatives.It is an old approach, found developed to a sophisticated extent in ancient indian temples.Rather than attempt to grapple with the new valuation systems required for an open-ended design process, this project looks to the past to develop an understanding of an ancient practice that can inform the engagement with a very contemporary one. This project examines the spatial dimensioning systems of Shiva temples in the Chalukyan period as a means to deconstruct a generative, ruled based process of arriving at a design form, and compares this with a digital, parametric approach to the design of the same form.  

Research authors :U.P Chandini, Prof. Nithin Raje (guide)

 

 

Colour and form: local production of palaces in Jaipur

Through a detailed analysis of the colour combinations present in the major palaces of the city Jaipur, this study demonstrates that colour is as important as form in the creation of nuanced spaces.The colours present in Jaipur palaces represent the availability of various pigment sources in the region, and at the same time exemplify the vast quantum of possibility that these colours, when used in clever combination with a system of formal elements, can create.

Research authors :Saili sonar, Latika Khosla (guide)

[cart blacksmiths]

The gaduliya lohar are the traditional travelling blacksmiths of southeastern Rajasthan, who identify their ancestry as weapon makers of the Rajput rulers of Mewad at Chittorgarh. When Mogul king Akbar invaded the fort, they escaped, and ashamed at the failure of their weapons, vowed never to return to Chittorgarh until Mewad was restored. This identity has carried forward to the present, and still defines them as a community.  Throughout their history, they have travelled from village to village, repairing and selling farm and household tools. As cities have expanded and industrialized implements have taken the market, the competition is stiff and work has dwindled. But the draw of the city remains, and many lohar have set up camp in the city, for longer periods and with fewer caravan accoutrements, because ox carts are bulky and urban oxen are expensive to maintain. Yet they remain squatters, treated as outsiders wherever they are, because they are permanently camping, just temporary residents.

[camp system]

Despite their continuing inability to fit into the recognized structures of the contemporary country, the simple system they have evolved offers a potentially powerful model for the occupation of seasonal and cyclical spaces in dynamic, under-regulated, twenty-first century cities. The structure and organization of the gaduliya lohar camp is innovative in its ability to generate a complex social space on any site that fits the very basic parameters of roadside with adjacent wall, tree or fence.  This capacity is built through the simple organizational structure—a string of carts lined up one by one—with a strong base element—the cart—and a tied joint that connects elements in predefined relationships carefully to certain elements and loosely to others. The organization of horizontal planes, vertical columns, inclined columns, horizontal beams and heavy wheels on a hand-molded plinth structures the ground temporarily, forms a space occupied by a group of families, and then disappears, leaving light traces behind. At once shelter, storage, sleep space and transport, the cart unfolds and refolds in a relaxed cycle, regenerating the social and physical organization of its space as it arrives in each new context.

[cart in place]

Because they move around, the gaduliya lohar are pushed uncomfortably into India’s contemporary systems of governance, which fails and ultimately they are marginalized. Without a home, without land, with a history of dependence on the goodwill of neighbors and of trade in kind, they are ill-equipped to function with the common denominator of money and ownership. The cart has become a relic, yet its presence defines the space as it did before, essentially a pinned down version of the roadside settlements. Still occupying the in-between land, this time between buildings rather than road and boundary wall, carts stand at the back of the site, anchoring the storage, while wide verandahs approach the path, and a chula (stove), helped by a blower, which is cemented into the finished floor. Walls and columns replace tent stakes and IPS (Indian Patent Stone, or poured cement floor) replaces packed earth plinths.

[cart as identity]

The draw of the city and the push of the urban slowly strips away everything but the memory—of who they are, where they are from, and what they once did. The response to this loss is manifested in the exaggerated position of puja on the cart. What once occupied a small, protected opening on the cart body, now extends onto the shaft, across the surface and even off the cart into whole room installations. As they move further from the continuous journey, and are drawn into the apparent permanence of urbanity, the symbolism of the element that once carried them grows stronger, a relic—gaadu—and a name—gaduliya—necessary to define their identity as they slip into the life of the city.

excerpts-

In the Indian subcontinent, architecture has always been rooted in the simplicity of details. Many heavy structures relied on mortarless joints, and lightweight frames on exposed brackets. In these simple connections, the range of elaborations through carving and joinery brought voice to the variation in local craft, according to material. Idiosyncrasies grown upon a basic form, rooted in the artisan, expressed on surface as volume.  As time continues, these variations remain with the architecture, though they may no longer be permanently integrated. What was once carved in wood and stone now floats in cement, plastic, paper, steel and light.

globalization

In the context of the levelling force of globalization, architecture across the globe becomes increasingly polarized between two extremes: an extreme global chic, buildings directly exported and importaed, reproduced almost identity regardless of place, and another of the purely local architecture of rural, remote or resistant areas, one whose limitation of material and cultural isolation allows it to continue apart from the world outside. But the majority of Indian architecture operates in another system—one in which global expectation and experience influence the type of space created, but do not entirely take over. Those who create this space struggle with the balance of things that are fundamentally universal—the sense of gravity—and combine it with changing expectation and exposure, to produce it in a local climate for people of local temperament, and built with local craft. The result is sometimes grotesque and sometimes transcendent—an imperfect translation of universal aspirations for local application.

schizophrenic translations

In the translation of globalized ideas to local form, some meanings are lost or changed, and some realities are simplified, traded or complicated by local influence, which cannot be entirely wiped out.  As the climate is local, so are many materials—at least in their availability—as well as craft and rituals. Some of these translations don’t make sense, or the thread that connects them is so thin it might be hard to recognize the connection. Others are obvious, but ugly. Still more are earnest attempts to reproduce a Western style, which fall short on workmanship.  These weird results come out of the local application of sleek expectations—they are the problems of the reality of construction.

unexpected applications

The influence of globalization is not necessarily ugly, odd or misguided. Beautiful congruences also emerge, in which the influence of a mainstream aesthetic or system, foreign to the regional type, dovetails seamlessly with changing expectations, though not necessarily working as intended. Massive industrial elements are shipped for construction, welded with precision but wrapped in dented corrugated galvanized iron sheets and chains, and because the speed of transit is so slow, the leisurely movement accommodates a more personal detail than the type wide load flag.  Plastic casings for fibre optic installation double as flexible tent poles for installers’ temporary tube houses. Steel structures for regional power lines serve as support for vegetable vendor shades, and widely available plastic sheets lead to innovative drains on ancient wooden pushcarts.

imperfect links

Along with adapted influences from outside, local users adopt the newer, barren structures as canvas for their own expression. The nature of the modern building, which has arrived under the advent of globalization, at a basic level is extremely relatable. And perhaps this is why it has been consumed so intensely by people of all strata of the population. The bare form becomes culturally significant: local grows over it like lichen. The concrete frame that houses glass and aluminium clad façades can also be plastered and filled with brick, carry an additional shade of galvanized aluminium corrugated sheets, and most importantly, can very easily be altered. It is a simple, blank frame, which gets filled in by its users, whomever they may be. Thus the bare form gains cultural latitude—local identity—either through the translations in the construction process, or afterwards when people move in.

beautiful remnants

As hopeful actors in the building process, we want to see and encourage the beautiful remnants of an aspiration imperfectly matched with local conditions. It is in this incompleteness where a notion of Indian architecture might exist. In this void, nothing goes to waste. It is loosely perfect—ready to adapt, almost like an ever-evolving jungle of trees and animals, where every column acts like a tree trunk under foliage and in every wall comes the opportunity to form a roof. Ideas have travelled, but their implementation is not yet mobile enough to influence the local responses to universal problems of defying gravity and making shelter for climate.  The flatness of a globalized world has arrived in abstract, but the concrete reality has yet to level itself, whether by design or lack of it. It is here, rocking in the tension of heady ideals and dirty sites, where architecture, particularly in India, is at its best, evolving ad hoc and ingenious solutions alongside elegant designed responses to the hot white sun, dusty streets, and global outlooks.