A set figure of matrix and elements are to be devised in an approving environment to synchronize with the habitual land, the rudimentary building blocks can demonstrate the need and simplicity it can carry along to make a design into a liveable and perpetual phase in its built life.
The conceptuality of the design that debriefs the phase in its journey from the initial sketch to its final form on the base, the evolution it hinders with and the cycle of repetition it carries along are innumerable to have a count. A favourable design is that of a place to which it contextually appears and expresses its value in the proximity. A set figure of matrix and elements are to be devised in an approving environment to synchronize with the habitual land, the rudimentary building blocks can demonstrate the need and simplicity it can carry along to make a design into a liveable and perpetual phase in its built life.
Jetavan, Kopargaon.
Jetavan, a spiritual and skill development center designed and constructed by the team of sP+a architects, Mumbai. Caters to a large number of people of Kopargaon, Maharashtra. The center bestows a practice of Buddhist thoughts through self- development activities such as yoga and meditation, helping to cleanse the mind and focus on the inner prospects of human life. The project brief stands on a challenge as to not uproot or uncover the foliage on the site, the built spaces shouldn’t impede with the environment around it, allowing the center to weave through the trees. The buildings on the site were split into 6 parts connecting along with 2 courtyards, this developed a motion and a play in the site, to the pavilion styled structures. The materials site were locally procured recycled materials. The load-bearing walls were made of basalt stone dust and fly-ash, wooden members of roof truss were salvaged from the ship breaking yard and Mangalore tiles for covering of the roof came through a local demolition site. The roof profile is arranged in a way to gain light through the clerestory gaps or windows, while merging the roof profile to be in a butterfly arrangement, thus raising the edges to have a visual approach to the foliage outside and having a high profile height on the inside. Local techniques were used by the craftsmen in the roof insulation system, a series of wooden batons covered by jute cloth and dipped in wet clay to reduce the impact of the direct heat gain from the outside environment — a method developed by hunnarshala especially for the project.
The construction methods were developed with a collaboration of an institute based in Bhuj, known as Hunnarshala. The bedrock of their work is mostly pointed towards the local craftsmanship and local artisanal skills and hands-on technologies used for the earthen building methods. Through this collaboration, the building on site is crafted in the earthen materials and a blend or assemblage of traditional and modern spaces developed within the spiritual and development center.
Maya Somaiya Library
Amidst the setting in an exurban area, the library has intertwined with Shri Sharda School as has merged into the landscape, figuring itself to be a mound of knowledge and caved in spaces beneath as to contribute to the students. However, the design has pushed this library’s potential beyond its concept and programmatic values influencing the locals and the young generation to communicate with the surroundings within the area. The plot has been tightly spaced under to create a space for reading, the area it gave away was small and delineated, and this acted as a change that brought a variation to the design, a vault.
Referring to earliest construction techniques, dated back in 14-century, and a Mediterranean Catalan masonry vault which would stand as a feature in the site and also generate the spaces within the tightly bound area, giving the space under the vault an unobstructed freeform area addressed as a singular space which regulates to the volume built. The outcome of the research had brought the design firm to a very different process of construction with developed technology and local material to combine into this project. Spanning across 45 x 8 meters, the roof has a thickness of about 10 centimetres. While 20 mm bricks have been used at large with a vibrant brown shade, the flooring had to be submissive and complementary to the bricks used, Kota was used as the flooring and the frames for windows were cast in aluminium and glass making them lighter and delicate to look at. The vault opens up into five different directions giving access and freedom to approach to the structure. Maya Somaiya Library has estranged itself as an identity that details technologically, locally and being reasonable to its cost. Moreover, it has brought the students together to read under one shelter locally and voicing the cause globally.
Overlooking these projects individually they stand with a reason to educate, impart knowledge and values amongst the locals, generating awareness mediating through architecture and its built forms. Spaces designed in here sow the seeds of upcoming ages and diversified thoughts that would dwell and augment the near future. The nature of architecture towards this place has inscribed and revealed that basic forms can create volumes not just in a spatial context but in an intellectual and cognitive aspect in a regional paradigm.
