amruthasree

[amruthasree]

The Chaiwallahs - A systemic approach.

The study started with studying the street vendors of Ahmedabad, further zoomed down to the Chaiwallahs who are a major part of the rich chai-drinking culture of Ahmedabad.

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The story of man and waste - Resurrection of Dumpyard.

Site plan - the experience center. The site is situated on dead/decaying dumpyard of Chennai-Pallikarani dumpyard, situated adjacent to ecologically sensitive marshland.

The journey of the visitor starts from the lobby space which also doubles up as an public auditorium arena. The proposal is a changing exhibition center, withe galleries inclusive of both indoor and outdoor spaces. The journey follows along a series alternative open and closed spaces without and linear movement.

Gallery 3 and 4 respectively depicts the life after death of any resource both as a pro and con and thus name “Stairway to heaven and Highway to hell” respectively. i - is the installation arena with a pathway through the fading trees and installation depicting the ill-effects of over consumption/de-forestation.

Apart from the visitor’s center, the proposal comprises of a weekly market platform, helping the local vendors as well as a waste-segregation model unit, that works for a radius of 1 Km. Such units depending on their respective sizes would be situated at points to segregate and prepare the collected already house-level recycled resources and further treating them/forwarding it over to the respective chain of connectivity.

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History, Connections and perceptions.

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Storage systems. Modular?

As part of the second semester’s curriculum, we got to visit the headquarters of SEWA, understand their working, the atmosphere they work in and come up with an intervention for the betetr functioning of the office. SEWA is a trade union registered in 1972. It is an organisation of poor, self-employed women workers. These are women who earn a living through their own labour or small businesses. The headquarters is located at Ellisbridge, Ahmedabad. The office consists of different departments working in a common space namely, the Labour department, Legal department, Accounts department and few NGO’s working with SEWA. The space has a frequent traffic flow of its members who are predominantly women. 

Among different issues at the office, I chose to take the issue of storage and see if i could come up with a solution for the shortage of storage.

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Steam bending attempt1.

We tried to steam a block of wood sized 70x40x700 mm by sealing a paper tube with ply on one side and allowing gap for tube to pass and steam the container (the steam being generated thorough a pressure cooker). After letting the  steaming to happen for more than hour, we removed the wood (bawad) and other smaller pieces (pine). Bawad was very strong at the same time, the paper tube become soggy and couldn’t keep in the steam.

In the next attempt, we directly steamed the steam wood slats of 3mm thick and simultaneously bending it around the form, the initial process failed.

Further we applied steam for a longer period and it worked this time.

After steam bending all the slats separately, we went about sticking them together with fevicol one after the other and it worked!

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The tipping stool

A mini studio project of semester II.

The brief of the project was to understanding the upcoming library building at the CEPT campus through drawings, visualize the space, zero down different scenarios and choose a point of intervention through a design solution. Me and my group mate Nikhila, chose the book storage space, studied and decided to come up with a unit that eases in reaching the highest book shelf.

A series of anthropometric and ergonomic study helped in deriving the dimensions of the step stool.

The study led to framing of the dimensions of the product. With this as base information, we started exploration various concepts.

1. Incorporating seating in the steps. A temporary seating such that a person gets space to glance through the book before reading.

2. Provision of a handle for moving the unit around, which acts as well as a stand to rest the books.

3. The idea of a sit stand stool.

After prototyping, we decided not to go along with this concept for 1. The aisle width being very less, the unit being a hindrance both visually and physically. 2. The orientation of sit stand stool not making the stool stable to sit on.  

The second concept was to follow the architecture of the library itself. A cube within a cube as well as making the move ability simple.

We finalized on this concept, where the step stool when pulled down becomes a seater. And, the height being to a perfect 400mm which is the minimum distance a person can reach down a shelf without squatting, thus the stool can be pushed inside the shelf in case of hindrances.

The next step included of development of a matrix of materials that can be used i.e. hardwood, metal, plywood. Further combinations led to looking at joinery details and thus, the product.

Now, presently in the stage of prototyping

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Wooden Joinery

Joinery in furniture is a tricky thing. To understand the different ways in which wooden pieces can be joint and the strength of these different joints, the ten of us split into two groups and made two cubes (400 mm x 400 mm x 400 mm ). Joining three pieces of wood at each corner of the cube, required understanding of the end grain, direction of the fibers, ways to interlock wood and team coordination.

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The funnel

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Outside - In thinking

Think outside box, is the usual sentence told by many people. But, the real challenge is working within a box. With constraints, borders and limits. Designing is much more challenging and exciting to work with constraints. I wanted to for once work within boundary and thus, the process followed by the result.

The brief was to experiment and explore the world of wood with hands. Exploration, using the tool of subtraction as a generative design process leading to understanding the material alongside reaching the desired end form. 

 The brief was to work with and understand the nature of wood by manually carving out the given wooden block measuring 4″x 4″ x 6″. The limitations were to firstly manually carve it out and secondly, retain the edges of the block visually. There was freedom of carving out anything from the provided block of wood. After a few sketches, I decided to explore the extremity that can be achieved inside a box. Thinking within boundaries. A sphere within a cuboid. 

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Tale of consumption and disposal. Part 1.

Since the start of the universe, some amount of energy is produced and passed on as time passes. There is no end for any process and thus every object has its own cycle to follow.

 Nature never had a term named “waste”, this term was found and came into presence since man started to botch with the nature’s cycle. SO, what exactly is nature’s cycle? Eg. A plant’s life, it starts from the soil, grows with the help of nature’s elements and once dead, gets back to the soil further supporting the other living beings. The similar cycle is followed by materials as well. Eg. Plastic used in creation of art/ making roads (might have other uses also), steel (from demolished buildings, but I still don’t know how). Electronic instruments, etc.,

 So, when a material that starts its journey from the nature doesn’t have an expiry period and can be re-used why can’t spaces be re-used? The same cycle that applies to materials applies to spaces as well. A kingdom once has now become cities. Agricultural lands getting converted to residential/commercial areas. The changes are being happening without foreseeing the future. It’s true that one cannot predict the future but why not design in ways that create spaces that are capable of re-using them in future. E.g. an apartment now is being converted into a restaurant and so on. As in once a function of a space has attained its saturation point, it is used for other functions. Thus, why not design a space that can be re-used once the present functioning of the space becomes absolute. One way to achieve is by creating a skeletal structure and thus providing more flexibility for its future purpose. The skeletal structure could by itself be designed to be flexible thus making the whole space much for flexible. 

The perspective of viewing this whole issue was to figure out the loophole in the system. This led to understanding the amount of resources consumed by humans. CONSUMPTION by itself is a huge problem at the source level. Why do we consume so much? What leads to increased level of consumption? What are its after effects? How can consumption be managed and the eco-system maintained? The inquisitive led to exploring the re-cycling, re-using methods, consumption and waste management processes at the city level.

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Internship blues_Architecture

“It’s a 5 year duration study, your school friends will graduate a year earlier that too with placements, you shouldn’t feel bad then..” were some of my mom’s words while getting me ready to face the coming 5 years of my life. Now, looking back, 3 and half years has passed on really quick! Well, the same situation has arrived, my engineering friends are now with a job while the twist in the story comes where even I am going to intern! That too for a year! Like a proper break from the college life (an one year’s) which my engineering friends are jealous of.

The pre-internship phase had started up as happens to all of the architecture students. The internship gala started catching fire especially during the semester exams. The confusion whether to start studying for the upcoming exams or start working on the portfolio which many had already completed started worrying many of us too much ending in neither studying nor doing portfolio. The “Hey how is your design shaping up?!” conversation starter changed to “Hey! Where are you interning?!”, “Done with your design changed?” to “ Done with your portfolio?” This is the time when we start calling up seniors for advice (which we never listen during our design discussions) over making a portfolio, joining a firm and follow them sacredly.

Making the portfolio part is the most un-satisfactory part of an architect’s life I would say. Compiling all the works, tinkering them and composing them all together into a single document. Once done with portfolio starts the real hunt! Listing down firms, looking their works, mailing them the portfolio (oh yea compressing them! Another nightmare all of us went through but finally learnt how to compress though) and here, regular checking of facebook is changed to regular checking of our mails awaiting a reply from the firms we’ve applied for. The series of interviews lined up right after is one of the major parts of the internship journey. Well, after the whole process of getting into an internship, finally waiting excitedly for the joining day at the firm and getting ready for the next journey of architectural life, The Internship.