As Amos Rappoport (1969) suggested, " if provision of shelter is the passive function of the house, then its positive purpose is the creation of an environment best suited to the way of life of people as social unit of space"
It brings about the fundamental questions on what finally decides the form of dwelling unit, their relationships, and quality of urban housing life. In recent architectural research and exploration it is very obvious that there has been attempt to explore attitude towards housing either in terms of high density and low rise as a research objects to recreate nostalgic past while some are market driven utopian in the imagination, attempting to project ideality. The result of such diverse but unchecked concerns brings about two kind of manifestation, one that is subservience to market needs in narcissistic manner and one that brings about evasive & dissident landscape to our the city.
The neighborhoods are important crucible for collective societal priorities and formation of social and cultural territories. These aspects are reflected in some of the earlier planned neighborhood across the cities, namely Parsi Colony, Hindu Colony, Shivaji Park, LIC colony etc. These examples have brings about the firm quality of urban livability (functional, social, cultural etc). The thesis attempted to articulate such quality or attributes from case studies and bring about spatial quality through relationship between building to building, building to people, building to landscape, landscape to context. These criteria are systematical analyzed and represented diagrammatically as an important form based codes for future development (redevelopment). The form based codes can be practiced either at individual building level or at cluster of several buildings or at urban scale, which eventually form a soft urban design statement, results into diverse yet unified manifestation addressing the urban livability codes.
AUTHORS STATEMENT: (KRVIA - VYOMA POPAT B.Arch Thesis)
1) Urban Scale :
Within the original precinct, many clusters have already changed to that limit that we cant get back the character, however there is a zone right at the center, that has been identified which more or less retains the original character of the precinct. So, for the design stage I would be explore in to this zone for the urban level study, where the design approach shall be demonstrated ( in the form of codes & regulations). For the same, it would be dealing with FSI, the built density/person , the amount of open spaces / person.
The form based codes are ground cover, setbacks, heights, sections, form of the building, amalgamation, building use, building context (edge, center, side, front etc), activities
2) Macro Scale :
The design demonstration shall be carried out at three scales.
- At area level where certain codes are practiced based on the situation of the existing building, its context and size of plots.
- At the street level where codes are determined by nature of social and economic activities are identified from existing typologies
- At cluster level where codes are demonstrated through ground cover, heights, sections and form.
It is expected that all three conditions are explored at various phases and situations so that the question of urban form is in evolution and able to adjust and change as required.
IMAGE CREDIT: VYOMA POPAT
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