Typology Studio, Sem IV
For the type studio, we had been to site in Mahabaleshwar situated on Western belt of Maharashtra. We studied the contour site, mapped the vegetation around, the man made retaining walls and all else things that were present on the site. The site had a steep slope and a scenic view ahead.
We also studied the local houses in the village nearby, how the space gets formed inside, presence of various plinths throughout the house. The houses had sloping roofs, most interaction used to happen in the public areas of the houses such as plinths and verandahs which the locals called 'otta' in Marathi language. It was interesting to see that the house here did not get formed by the idea of a kitchen/hall/room/living room but by the degree of publicness and interactions.
Based on the observations we did in the present houses, I identified some patterns like the play of plinths, the overlap of utility driven spaces, verandah being the most used space, space gets formed by human movement and interaction and explored them further in my design explorations.
Thinking of how these ideas can come together in an homestay for travelers which consists of 8 rooms, a caretakers house, a kitchen cum dining and a reception, I tried various iterations of how all this can come together keeping the idea of plinths and verandah in the first place.
After trying out these, I reached to a design wherein I used the existing retaining walls as one wall of my units and the caretaker's house. The sliding doors to the individual units help keeping visual connectivity of the inside-outside, the outside space of the units have sit-outs which maintain the interaction of people, every unit has verandahs and courtyards shaped around the trees. Floor of one unit becomes roof of another which is accessible and becomes the sun deck. The dorm is as an extension of caretaker's house as an idea of co-living.
The whole design becomes a continuum which follows the idea pf verandah and plinths altogether.
More analysis of the above design can be seen here.
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