UNIYAL
In areas where sporadic development often outpaces formal planning, the landscape often becomes a mosaic of narrow, elongated plots—a legacy of generations dividing farmland through inheritance. These slim parcels, each with single-road access present unique constraints and opportunities for a home. Unlike a traditional one organized around a central courtyard or the modern one centered in-between an expansive lawn, this house unfolds itself to the user in a different spatial rhythm as they traverse the length. Interior passages that provide access to sequentially arranged spaces run parallelly to outdoor green corridors with few moments of intersections that become the release spaces of the house
Two other peculiar design possibilities come to front. First- In the act of sequentially arranging programs it becomes evident, that among the different range of public to private spaces, the kitchen best holds the center- a space with fixed and multiple moments of activation spread across the day.
Secondly, while the plot may impose limits on the floor plan, it conversely offers remarkable freedom in vertical design. The elongated form becomes an asset when viewed in section, opening up potential for varied levels and layers. Floors and roofs can step, shift, and interact along the length in ways that would be challenging in a more conventional non-linear layout.
Reflections from the sites of several projects where I had the opportunity to contribute in varying capacities - small and big - including site supervision, detailed design, consultant coordination etc.
01. SC RETREAT
Learnings :
- The development of a project from preliminary design to on-site execution provided in-depth understanding of necessary drawings, detailed specifications, and extensive coordination requirements.
- Designing exposed brick wall patterns while coordinating electrical connections and aligning the different opening and clear heights.
- Using landscaping techniques to address severe erosion on a treeless sloping site through strategic bunds, intentional land grading, interconnected ponds, earth berms, endemic vegetation, and boulder placement
- Creating landscape lighting designs that respect local wildlife in hilly areas while fulfilling required functional needs
- Designing and detailing vault roofing systems using perforated terracotta blocks
02. DELFI HOUSE
Learnings:
- learned about managing kitchen waste using mulch pits integrated with a kitchen garden
- grasped the order of executing a house - from the civil to the different finishes and fittings- in what order and how to then effectively manage the timeline.
- learned the insulation detailing for a flat RCC roof - Aerated concrete block with chicken mesh and a final layer of white rejected tiles with optimal reflectance ratio.
- figured out how electrical conduit planning and installation must precede Poured Earth Concrete (PEC) wall construction.
- Learned that segregating demolition and construction waste on the site from the project's start enables material reuse and prevents problematic mixing of different waste types
- Gained experience with hybrid solar electrical systems and requirement of proper electrical phasing throughout the house
03. ANAGAYA
Learnings:
- Techniques for repairing and touching up poured earth walls.
- Understanding ferrocement thicknesses and the execution process for creating window fins, reveals, and inbuilt shelving.
- Steps involved in the execution and finishing of IPS (Indian Patent Stone) for bathroom walls.
04. R&R HOUSE
Learnings:
- Strategies for managing water on sites with a high groundwater table, including:
- Utilizing overall land grading and earth berms to channel water effectively.
- Designing ponds of varying sizes and depths to hold water temporarily before overflow.
- Planting suitable endemic species to stabilize soil and thrive in waterlogged conditions.
Cities are getting denser. Whether reasonably so or not, they do. The density, the hurriedness, the energy of the city are demanding of its every inhabitant, and equally of their structures of inhabitation. Places can no longer afford to hold one function, but rather many things either temporally or “permanently”.
So how should homes be developed in a densifying town, to keep up with the increasing efficiency of the soon-to-be city.
The project began with a rectangular plot in a densifying gridded town and an aspiration to have a villa that can sustain itself socially and economically. The ground level is kept as a place for social interactions, private ( garden, play-area, seatings ) and public ( cafe & exhibition space ) The first two floors become rental units of varying sizes in order to maintain a good dynamic of long & short-term residents, and finally the last two floors become the villa. Villa that works with different levels within the two-floor height and external fins to create an intimate sense of nestling within the greenery.
The act of planning, of short-sighted “development”, of the complete hijack by economical and legal language, are all acts of flattening. Flattening every nuance of how lives operate in the highly charged cities of our subcontinent. A culmination of such acts was the resettlement project of Mumbai Urban Transport Project, aimed “to make the life of Mumbaikars more convenient and efficient” as stated by the world bank. People were resettled from all over the city, to its outskirts. Some besides the city’s (read Asia’s) biggest garbage dump, resettled within 72, seven storey buildings spaced 3m apart, reaching a density of 5000 individuals per hectare, a feat possible solely after discarding all building regulations..20 years since construction, people have found their ways to settle and to make life possible. To assist in this process, even before proposing to add, a lot needs to be subtracted (if not the complete reconstruction). Only then smaller interventions can be installed, as simple-first moves, as provocations of play, social gatherings and community interactions.
Geometry in architecture- It has been used to devise divine logic for beauty, as a way to formulate frameworks for design or sometimes just brute and tiresome after-process to bring artistic will into existence. Given a “green field” site, where once the question of - whether one should build? is skipped very few constraints remain visible. Geometry then can be used as an anchor, that can both set limits as well as help justify any one particular direction from the sea of possibilities that a farmhouse can be.
1. Developing a system of grid, by selectively giving value to certain attributes of the site, and then using the system to locate the house, distribute the functions, establish proportions, and articulate movement.
2. Using geometrical moves of bisecting, splitting and intersecting as gestures to shape the form of the building in an attempt to give sharp, unfamiliar and dynamic quality to its spaces (in theory)
A proposed residential development in the quaint village of succoro, aimed at making a “good” profit for a “good” design. When the country was crippling under the shock of COVID-19, goa was being flooded by anyone who could; to enjoy the susegaad life. This usual situation turned unusual, when no one retreated as the year passed by. Instead more investment entered, mindlessly inflating the speculative balloon for luxury residences, instigating a statewide obsession to make something, somewhere..A feasibility study sets the stage. A number crunch for a “good” design; how many villas, how much sqft, fits in what plot sizes? The optimum number guides the shape & size, starting the iterative process of discovering the “good” design.Once discovered, it enters the stage of facing the realities of a house, its plumbing, electricals, structure and all its excavation, however complicated this resolution gets, priority remains the integrity of the discovered design of a “good” profit.