REPRESENTING MEASURE DRAWINGS

The act of making drawings is central to architectural thinking. If one looks back into the renaissance history, the invention of perspective has a tremendous impact on the conceptualization of anthropocentric architecture. The renaissance painter also produced the art form that resonated with the spirit of the time. The drawings are an interface between imagined worlds departing from the existing one. The act of representation conceptualizes the projected reality, armed with interpretative capabilities. The history of architecture exemplifies the act of representation as a bold departure from the existing plethora of objectification. The development of successive domes to cover large space has systematically evolved in representing the ideas from history and not simply by making measured drawings. The dome constructed with packed tufa stone in the pantheon on a circular plan has been successively represented to produce dome with pendentives and orthogonal geometry.

The central argument here is questioning the need for measured drawings as a medium enough for the prime acquisition of fundamental knowledge on architecture & the culture and values system of the past?. Even the answer is yes then the question of such knowledge for architectural thinking/ architectural context learning as a projected reality is highly questionable on the ground that architecture can’t be reduced to the sum of fetishized parts put to gather. The argument gets even sharper when one brings the discourse of representation in the making of measure drawings.  It seems so natural, so inherently necessary to raise the questions as the nature of measure drawings are so obvious, so predictive because it has a role in the making of architecture.

The current medium of measure drawings is holding the making of measure drawings in a particular way, which is so intimate and becomes passive recipients of imagination in its production, especially it lacks syntactical argument. The act that enables the understanding of tactile and tectonic argument as an imagined and constructed past for contemplation is brutally obscured in the act of fetishizing measure drawing. In addition to that, the measure drawings are often fascinated by fetishism which in turn manages its enigmatic distance between reality and its projection. The technique of drawings also has a life span, it has an ability of projection. The work of Bernini, Bramante or Andrea Palladio in the classical era or  Le Corbusier,  James Sterling, Peter Eisenman of our time, are few who have projected a reality with the act of representing past with peculiarities and manage to evolved with architecture that projects, speculates and does not restrain.

The measure drawings are done so frequently by almost all the institutions and almost in the similar template that it obliterates the process of getting a distant view or conscious awareness about the broader context of possibilities of representation and historical narratives. As a result it flattens the tactile or the syntactical argument and it remains either in the domain of routine technology (flat skills with no speculative ideation) or object fetishism.

The measured drawings are conventionalized over a period of time with a parochial and narrow agenda. It needs to engage the agenda of revelation and discovery of newer possibilities and it can happen only through a grasp of dialectics between historicity and its contemplation towards contemporary architectural paradigm. The current measure drawings are based on descriptive geometry and must take steps towards representative paradigmatic tools.

Drawing Credit: KRVIA | Study Tour |Braj | 2018
The Braj documentation attempted to represent the sacred and ritual narratives through study process at KRVIA

KRVIA Masters + BreUCom (Erasmus+ program) | Urban Resilience

Quality of life is an idea that is often being discussed in various studies as a response to many issues and complexities that have recently emerged within our cities in the process of transformation. Along with that, the quality of life is also connected with the question of vulnerability and resilience. The city of Mumbai, as region at large, is vulnerable to projected climate change related disaster within given social, economic and environmental stressed conditions coupled with population growth, informal housing, and unfair land distribution & planning mechanism. In particular, the environmental issues and quality of urban living are the most recent debate that engages the planning and philosophical dimensions as methodological questions within academia. Therefore, the academic interest, directed within the urban realm are often tending towards urban development as an imagination, method as a toolkit that it employs while system as an urban component that get affected in the process. 

The question of resilience and sustainability is about addressing the urban system (the question of sustainability at building level is climatology) where KRVIA Masters Studio can begin to develop the framework as a vision for comprehensive understanding of environmental / social / economic equities with help of following areas of case studies & reseach: 

Assess the development plan to identify the key challenges -  Planning & Urban Resilience ·         

Identify the various urban systems (environment & ecology, community & livelihood, network & mobility) that are affected by key challenges -  Urban Systems & Urban Resilience

Stimulate the communities and stake holders - Participatory Planning & Urban Resilience

·       Theoretical and contextual framework for urban resilience -  Urban Theory & Urban Resilience

·   Institutional and administrative structure for urban resilience management - Policy & Urban Resilience

Each of the sub-set can be formulated as an electives & module based studio at the level of Semester III, within the tenure of BreuCom. The case studies could be supported by studio sites and findings (with due credit to KRVIA Masters) with help of extensive use GIS mapping method.

As a part of case study, it is necessary to define the nature of urban system that shall be researched upon, with methodological position, which in turn shall able to direct the studio methods and toolkit that are necessary to work around with.  With BreuCom approach to master’s studio and electives, it is expected to study and unfold the relationships among various influencing factors that articulate the urban resilience. It is also expected that BreuCom shall enable the students to carry out the thesis research work with improved and articulated areas of urban resilience, incorporating the economic development plans, public policies, improvement and guidelines for environmental protection, development of social and economic program with fresh approach to participatory planning and objective guidelines for sustainability.

PERI-URBAN OF MUMBAI CITY

HISTORIC CORE OF MUMBAI CITY

HISTORIC CORE OF JODHPUR CITY

GAZDHAR BANDH (SLUM) OF MUMBAI CITY

KRVIA MASTERS THESIS 2019 - PEDAGOGIC TRAJECTORIES

The masters thesis is about examination of either coordinated or unexplored coordinates of relation among various processes and spatial forms that are reproduced but not coherently articulated in urbanity at large. The political mobilization, economic transformation, ecological vulnerabilities, historic core and socio-cultural formation are some of the area of investigation as they are central to the making and shaping of cities. It it true that no single discipline can lay a claim on understanding of cities hence it requires wider perspective or trans-disciplinary methods for analysis and synthesis. 

In the era of increasing complexities of global networking in various realms, the exchange of knowledge and among diverse cultures has resulted into denser network of forces within our cities and also transforming our cities in an unprecedented pattern and pace. Under such circumstances the role of urban design and urban conservation is also becoming complex disciplines. Both the discipline are facing issues of historicity, socio-economic sustenance, culture of cities, environment and ecological threats, social equity, all at the same time. 

The KRVIA masters thesis's of 2019 has strove to articulate  urban transformation through some of the issues that are contemporary in nature yet embedded within the peculiarities of Indian cities. The SIX theses  are representative of large concern (History | Ecology | Public Realm | Collective) that has emerged over a period of ten years of masters program.

CASE I: LIVING HERITAGE AND CULTURAL LANDSCAPE

Most of the Built Heritage that surrounds us, provides the backdrop for our daily lives and indicates the vast exchange of knowledge, culture, traditions being practiced and experimented over a time. The Built Heritage are just the physical aspect, but what makes it important are the activities that adds a dimension of a life to it making it as ‘Living Heritage’. Due to loss in activity for which building is meant for, the building certainly losses its essence. Wai is a historical town dotted with numerous Temples, Wadas, Bajarpeth within its fabric, accompanied with the seven ghats along Sacred river Krishna which makes Wai, a Cultural Landscape. But what assigns a distinct character to the town are the activities that prevail within these components making this town as a Living Heritage. 

The thesis looks into identification of heritage components where the activities themselves make the setting as Living Heritage. And integrating them through framework of Historic Urban Landscape to establish the link between the components.

CASE II:  DECIPHERING PLURALITY AND PUBLIC REALM

This thesis intents to explore this phenomenon of plurality through an interpretivist approach. It deciphers the phenomenon through an analytical framework. This framework was a derivative of personal experiences and literature reviews which was then tested in two cases to derive the plurality configuration index. The inferences from the comparative analysis were demonstrated on site to exhibit the settings necessary for encouraging plurality – a different and unbiased way to befit the contemporary urban paradigms of development and modernity. By formulating guidelines and policies to support, instigate and encourage plurality, the thesis aims to allow other ways of being urban and making new kinds of urban futures which are diverse and a product of the dynamic way of life of people. The plurality theory thus draws inspiration from the complexity and diversity of city life and urban experiences; without a Western bias and focus on contextual landscapes of the South.

CASE III ROLE OF HERITAGE FABRIC IN CONTEMPORARY TIME: SURAT

This thesis will focus on preserving the built heritage of the city, it will encourage cultural practices as the structures will be restored and will in turn preserve the identity of the city. The heritage structures of a city are the evidence of the way a city have evolved and they play a significant role in the cultural significant of the city. They are also result of different ethnic groups that move in the city and the culture they bring with them. But as city evolves these structures are usually brought down to make new modern structures. Thus the city is destroying the sole identity which played important role in forming the city in the first place. So the thesis will be based on how these structures located in different settings can be used for compatible new use with some minor modifications. 

CASE IV INTEGRATION OF HISTORIC NAHAR SYSTEM & PUBLIC REALM: AURANGABAD

In Indian context, people have always had a relationship with waterfront, water systems and public spaces due to our cultural and social connections with these places. To study this relationship of water and public realm the city of Aurangabad has been taken as a case. The thesis research has focused on the study of the historic water system and the public realm created by it. The city has always had a unique relationship with water as there was no major source for water supply, a network of underground aqueduct was created. These generated certain public realm in the city where water was an active part whereas now it had become a passive part. With the urbanization process these connections are changing,

By studying the historic development of the city with the help of its water system certain public realm have been identified and their current condition have been studied. Based on these strategies have been derived to revive, rejuvenate and recreate connections between water, public realm and built form.

CASE V ECOLOGICALLY INCLUSIVE DEVELOPMENT : NAINA CITY.

The Indian cities are urbanizing at a rapid pace and the number of Greenfield development and urban sprawl have caused massive pressure on our environment. Such developments need to become more environmentally sensitive and responsible to avoid the loss of the values; also have an inclusionary planning process through which the ecological damage could be at its minimal. As new developments give us an opportunity to avoid the mistakes we have already committed in our old cities and build a city that is more sustainable and also cater for the needs of the future generations. This approach could form as one of the model for the future development of cities in an inclusionary way. The site selected for the research work is NAINA (Navi Mumbai airport influenced notified area) city, which constitutes of large areas of ecologically sensitive zones within its boundary and falls along the path of the Western Ghats and majorly with the kind of insensitive development being undergone for the NMIA site needs immediate attention. This study would help in demarcating sensitive zones that need to be conserved, zones that can be used for recreational activities and the ones that can be urbanized. And also by creating an interconnected systems of greens and blues to enrich the overall ecology of the region by providing appropriate urban design strategies and interventions that are inclusive and sustainable enough for the future of the city.

CASE VI: SPLINTERING URBANISM: PALLAVA CITY

Urban splintering is a phenomenon which is defined in two ways: 1) as a process; the action of breaking or separating into fragments and 2) the separation into parts which form new urban structures. The city becomes a network of connected places. Intensive insertion of infrastructure devices into the city fabric result in the separation of places and people. The thesis is based on the concept that clearly states the separation of places and people that creates a new urban form (gated communities). It reveals how new technologies and privatized systems of infrastructure provision like telecommunication, highways, urban streets are supporting the splintering of cities and how urban form changes within the cities. The Concept of NETWORK- PEOPLE- URBAN FORM forms splinters. The development of gated societies creates problems for adjacent neighbourhoods which results in spatial inequalities.

FORM BASED CODES: HOUSING THESIS 2019

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

PURIST TECHNOCRAT: I.M PEI

Kenneth Framton, in his book on "A Critical History, Modern Architecture", in chapter 4 (Place, Production & Scenography, International Theory and Practice since 1962) ,he discussed the imaginative interpretation of Fuller's  project on geodesic domes, Kikutake Marine City, Isozaki Gunma Perfectual Meuseum, Rogers & Pianos Pompidu Center & Fosters Hong Kong & Shanghai Bank. Within the chapter there is no mention of I.M.Pei's work though. However its very apparent from the chapter content that he has argued the advent of technocratic utopia as late modernist avant garde. It is this fundamental obsession led many architects producing shimmering high aesthetic, high tech architecture.The architecture of I.M. Pei resonates the similar traits in architecture, but reducing codes and quotations to scintillating forms in populist sense. It was his idiosyncratic obsessions, partly due to his training and partly due to the late modernist ideological emptiness, seeking variations in terms of modern or no modern (post modern). He remained subservient to modernist ideology (modern forms of production). His building managed to establish the fresh dialogue with what is popular yet moderately critical. During his practice he saw various shades of architectural production yet continued to remain saviour of modernism.  

His work, especially "The East Building of the National Gallery of Art, Washington DC"  showed modernist manifesto with rather soft brutal sense. The architecture of the building is like giant sculpture, boldly scooped out of monolith. The building echos the spirit of purist modern architecture of the west. The Bank of China tower is an another example of purist attempting to depict the consumerist skin through dynamic structural system and architectural system. The Luce memorial Chapel in Taichung, Taiwan, boldly explores the structure and metaphors of praying hand. The architecture is a classic example of high tech and low key in manifestation (often desirable). This projects are in sharp contrast to his contemporaries (global practice) especially Richard Rogers and Norman Foster, who continued to absorb into high technology and high key manifestation.

It wouldn't be slightly exaggeration to state that the architecture has lost its last surviving modernist. Especially in the era of architecture struggling for its position, from metabolism, productivism to post modernism, he could validate his architecture through restrained sense (un-realizable Utopian projections, validation through formal exorcism or cultural rhetorism).

Photo Source: www.theguardian.com

Photo Credit: Manoj Parmar Architects

SMALL CHANGE: COMMUNITY & ADAPTABILITY

This blog attempts to raise some of the fundamental questions related to adaptability, formal & informal, communities, individual and collective,  while encountering everyday risk, coping capacity and way to reduce vulnerability. Very often the definition of communities in our cities are relegated through compartmentalized geographical/ policy version, namely, SRA housing, slum, suburban housing, urban community and affordable housing. Each categories have large connotation attached to it, ranging from dis-order, unsafe, to protected, legal, gentrified, marginalised. It also often defines the quality of available infrastructure and density. 

If one moves away from standard definition and examines the nature of communities from qualitative perspective, and expands the discourses of community adaptability through collective, social organization, social system, sense of belonging, social interaction, self-sufficiency and common, it may yield result that are directly connected to the issues related to various types of urban communities. As per the author Nabeel Hamid, who has worked in the specific areas of housing and argued on nature communities, small tactics and changes that one could bring about within the urban communities through various publication as follows:

Hamdi, Nabeel, Housing WIthout Houses: Participation, Flexibility, Enablement(London: Intermediate Technology, 1995). 

---, Small Change: About the Art of Practice and the limits of Planning in Cities(London: Earthscan, 2004). 

Hamdi, Nabeel, and Reinhard Goethert, Action Planning for Cities: A Guide to Community Practice (Chichester: John Wiley, 1997). 

Hamdi, Nabeel, and Jane Handal, eds., Urban Futures: Economic Growth and Poverty Reduction, Urban management series (London: ITDG Pub, 2005)

According to him, there are five types of communities, communities of interest, community of culture, communities of practice, communities of resistance, and place based communities. He argues that one has to move away from place based communities to communities of resistance, which is more relevant to the cities. He further argues that Communities of Resistance are at social unease and continue to change under oppressive and hierarchical dominance. 

Nabeel Hamdi is one of the proponent of participatory planning articulate in his book "Small Change", has been highly influential in discussing the role that informality plays in urban life. It sets out a way of thinking on cities that gives precedence to small-scale, incremental change over large-scale projects.

The transformation of informal to formal are central to housing issues within the cities. The improvement is not necessarily a physical one but rather social, economic and political one. It requires collective act towards formalizing process, this collective process is related to decision making, management related issues and importantly land tenure. This process is an important move as against the current practices because the adaptability in coming times shall not be an option but compulsion which is highly integrated to the idea of self-sufficiency, collaborative in nature. The dynamic of such process needs academic exploration which in turn may reflect on urban practice related to resilience.

SMART CITY MISSION: New Urban Paradigm of Imagination or Perception

The recent time has seen the shift in urban planning concerns of our cities, especially second tier cities. The emerging paradigm of SCM  is aspired to be moving towards formation of  reactive, reflective and knowledge-oriented society. The SCM is expected to move from functional, hierarchical formation of our cities to networked form.

The stated goal of the Smart City Mission is to promote economic opportunity, improve governance, and make cities people friendly. The attempt towards SCM is to bring digital based dissemination of information and knowledge about the city, it is also assumed to have digital based structural and functional operation of city along with controlling, monitoring and integrating critical infrastructures of the city.

Along with the management and dissemination of information about infrastructure, it is also expected to re-configure the spatial formation of urban form, new means of achieving high densities, mobility networking, leisure and occupational necessities. The outcome of such endeavor is expected to influence the areas such as participation, entrepreneurial dimensions so that it brings about an equitable growth to our cities. 

In such context, the smart is conceptual model and not technique of planning, where digital data is an asset and important planning tool. It is also envisage in form of being progressive, transparent and information oriented planning process.

Would it be a slightly exaggeration to state that the Cities are being re- engineered with Techno-Utopian discursive construct to promote neoliberal rationalities or is it narrow way of knowing urban phenomena or new planning paradigm based on rational epistemology.

If this questions have unclear answers then the  politics, technical and epistemological of smart city initiatives need to be examined & critiqued. How every day is seen in a permanent state of emergency and urgency becomes the paradigm of action or how visual technologies are central to the ontological and practical configuration of cities or how data drives the urban transformation, hierarchies and rearrangement of urban life. These are the some of the fundamental question that urban research needs to focus on for coming years.

Photogrpahs Credit: Manoj Parmar Architects

https://www.amazon.in/Divided-City-Ideological-Contestations-Contemporary-ebook/dp/B07GSL84T7l