I am an architect graduated from the School of Environment and Architecture, Mumbai in the year 2024. I am a curious aesthete who cherishes an ambiguous and explorative process of design. I am keen to explore how materials contribute to the creation of particular atmospheres that are imagined with empathy and craft.
EDUCATION AND TRAINING
2019-2024
School of Environment and Architecture, Mumbai B.Arch | Mumbai University
The Madras Office for Architects and Designers Internship
Nirmala College of Science & Commerce, Mumbai XI and XII Science | Maharashtra State Board
Class Representative | Treasurer Member of the Virtual Exhibition Curation Team
AWARDS AND RECOGNIZATIONS
Sensitive and Engaging Questions Consistency in Work
Sincerity and Exceptional Work
LANGUAGES KNOWN
English
Hindi
Marathi
Gujarati (Native)
Thesis Spatialities of Friendships & Solidarities 1-6
Mass Habitation Architecture of Care 7-12
What is a Home ? Home as Receptacle of Memories 13-16
Technological Sensoriums Pavilion of Light 19-20
05.
Environmental Thresholds
Wetland Conservatory 21-24
06.
Interior Design House for Two 25-28
07.
Design with Detail Textile Museum 29-32
08.
Internship
The Madras Office for Architects and Designers 33-44
The research is set in Mangaldas Market, Kalbadevi-in the inner city of Bombay. The area has been a market precinct for more than a hundred years now. It was set up during the colonial period with designated markets such as Dawa Bazar for medicines, Lohar Chawl for electricals, Mangaldas Market for clothing, etc due to close proximity to the docks along the eastern edge of the city. Over the years, the ‘type’ of markets has transformed from bazaars to shopping complexes and malls. Today most transactions have shifted to digital platforms. Yet the inner city markets continue to operate with the same footfall of people who come to buy all kinds of things. Most probably because it is a cultural node put together with so many different kinds of people and flux of activities.
Spatialities of Friendships & Solidarities
A plethora of practices hinge on each other through friendships and solidarities which emerge, dissolve, and reorganize in space to absorb the everyday forces. The terms refer to kith and kin relations which move beyond questions of property, recognizing the physical and intangible networks of support. This hypothesis is embodied through a spatial inquiry-How do friendships and solidarities shape and are shaped by urban enterprise and its spatialities? It recognizes that these ties are not neutral and aims to establish the relationship with the qualitative nature of space that can absorb them. It extends to understanding if these cause exclusions and what are its spatial experiences. Further, can certain configurations help diffuse forms of exclusions?
On the Move
Yadav migrated from Lucknow 14 years ago with four friends. He purchased a hathgadi for Rs. 2500/and began transportation work in market neighbourhood.
He reaches there by 8:00 a.m. during weekdays and even earlier on Fridays seeking work as he waits outside the Masjid (See A2) when it opens for prayer. He is connected to people over the mobile phone and moves around the city with his hathgadi to wherever people call him, making Rs 200- 500/- a day.
Stickers on his hathgadi read, ‘HA.0883, MARCH 2023’. This indicates the BMC license that is renewed after a year or two. A tin box is tied on the end of the hathgadi to keep all his belongings- a raincoat, tarpaulin sheets, among other things. His day ends at 6 p.m. and even earlier when there is no work.
He returns to his friends in Chor Bazaar, where they occupy the sidewalk after the adjoining shop shuts at 8 p.m. It has a raised plinth, which is 0.5m wide and becomes a place for them to sleep at night. Manohar locks the tin box and parks the hathgadi on the edge at night. Those were his only possessions.
Bombay Cloth Market Co. Ltd.
It is housed within a century-old chawl building of the colonial period with 450 shops, 2 main lanes, 9 alleys and 22 gates. Series of shops raised to 0.5 m from the ground form lanes that further intersect to create an active node. Each node has boards hung from the truss to direct people within the shed.
“Gopal Bhimji, aa dukan kya padse”? (Where is the shop named Gopal Bhimji?), a man asked. “Aagad thi first right, biji galli ma” (First right from here, in the second lane), a shopkeeper answered. It is an old shop widely known for cotton crushed lehenga.It is an old shop owned by Kanak Trivedi, the third generation in the family business. He reaches the shop by 11 a.m. and sets up an extended gadi seating which spills onto the alleys. It softens the threshold and creates opportunities for interactions.
His day is punctuated by conversations with Nimesh and Dilip, who belong to the same community of traders and often come to his shop in the evenings to discuss business and other matters.
His day is punctuated by conversations with Nimesh and Dilip, who often come to his shop in the evenings. Nimesh is the current director of the board and Dilip works at a shop next to his They discuss business and other matters over a cup of tea. The board currently has over 1200 members as stakeholders and regulates matters of property and maintenance. Shops cannot be modified without an approval. He is also connected to Manohar Yadav, who works as a hathgadiwala.
Drawing from such spatial portraits, the design inquires-What is the urban and architectural form that strengthens the networks and interconnected spatial practices?
The site is a neighborhood in Santacruz, a western suburb in Mumbai. It is a mix of residential apartments, slums The slum has smaller clusters which operate through their own collectives to mobilize space.
A community based organization was formed by a group of slum dwellers, previously a friends cricket club. It maintains the public toilet built which was a joint initiative of the Municipal Corporation and the world bank. The space on top started being used by the group to run computer training workshops, tuition classes, etc. for slumm dwellers.
Meanwhile, the BMC School was demolished in 2021 and is currently used for parking vehicles. Amidst projections that it will be rebuilt in future, the CBO in keeping with their networked processes is keen on acquiring some space in the school for extended community programs.
Thus, the program is a school which also lends itself for micro programs of the community.
Section AA’
View from court
Park as a thoroughfare to connect slum to the school
Elevation A
Physical Model
Ground Floor Plan
01.
MASS HABITATION
Architecture of Care
Borivali, Mumbai
Mentor-Prasad Shetty
The studio began by identifying current housing tendencies which are dominated by logics of redevelopment that often hinder the socio-cultural affordances of space.
Bhaktiyog Co-Operative Housing Society is situated in Borivali at the junction of two roads- Baburao Paranjape Marg and Chandavarkar Road. Considering the fact that the elderly population would require to be embedded in a larger network of assistance and care, the premise of this development model is to shift the configuration of people and community spaces in order to develop new social relationships that are more reliable to sustain retired life. It emphasizes upon the following key aspects:
1) Opening up space to the city
2) Promoting mixed-use by introducing residential rental housing for students since there are several educational institutions in the neighborhood
3) Scaled common spaces for the everyday activities of people beyond the house.
Response to the Gound
Open kitchen merges with living area to maintain visual connectivity with corridor.
Rehab and student rental clusters configured on the same floor level with disconnected corridors to ensure that both forms of living are undisturbed and interact via bridges at specific places.
Overlapping bridges as extensions of the corridor to overlook the central courtyard and enable vertical interactions.
Double-height community spaces adjacent to one end of each bridge release the density along a linear access corridor.
Semi-open, open-to-sky terraces form overlooking spaces to enable different spatial affordances throughout the year.
Staggered built form creates a series of connected terraces for everyday activities and conversations to occur beyond the boundaries of a house.
02.
WHAT IS A HOME?
Home as a Receptacle of Memories
Charkop, Mumbai
Mentor-Rupali Gupte
The protagonist is a woman who is the only resident of the house. She spends most of her time on the ground floor level and in the central courtyard while the upper level is entirely claimed by her husband’s and daughter’s objects and holds traces of past events. Although these are two different levels, the experience of the space of memory and function creates a blur. She vividly recollects stories of each of these objects, a garden at the door front, and how the couple enjoyed gardening every Sunday a few years ago. Hence, home as a receptacle of memories is an attempt to create softer spaces that retain all micro activities as earlier and develop different ways to encounter or engage with these collections.
It addresses questions like What shall be the typology of a house for one person? How can the space be empathetic to one’s lived experiences?
Narrative drawing of the existing house-A Receptacle of Memories
CUT
A. entrance ramp from courtyard B. garden of memories C. slender wooden seating with supports that resemble the girth of the stem D. elliptical double height volume at the centre
E. curved wooden enclosures for workspace, sleeping F. connecting ramp overlooks the living space below
G. wooden shelves to hold objects H. balcony
Step-down plane overlooks the kitchen and frames the courtyard at the edge.
Levels supported by metal columns resemble the thinness of a stem and make the structure feel lighter.
Gradually lowering wooden enclosures provide warmth to the RCC wall in the backdrop.
03. TECHNOLOGICAL SENSORIUMS
Pavilion of Light
Bogota, Columbia
Mentor-Dushyant Asher
The most evocative examples in architectural history are those in which intimate interdependencies between the structural and spatial aspects produce distinct environments that are not simply functional but technological artIfacts. In recent building processes, there is a tendency that the container and its support infrastructure share a master-slave relationship, alienating these two aspects from each other. In order to address the above schism and explore the techno-spatial and sensorial possibilities in building envelopes, the studio emphasized upon three propositions:
1) Building as an Apparatus
2) Phenomena as an Environment
3) Space as Sensorium
Experiments with Light
The site is a park which acts as an in-between space and a shortcut that connects smaller lanes to the main road in the neighborhood. On Sundays, a part of the road is shut for activities like cycling, skating, running, etc so it becomes an extension of the road where people set up stalls, walk their dogs, eat and play while on the weekdays, it is mostly used by commuters as a path to bypass the longer route.
Apparatus of Changing Apertures
The intent was to explore how different intensities of light contribute in determining the visibility of specific layers of objects, particles, and textures. When a surface is moved, it slides and pushes other surfaces causing different degrees of illumination, thereby initiating the act of hiding and revealing.
Movement of screens along X, Y, Z axes
The apparatus extends to become a coworking space amidst a park where the movement of panels not only modulates light but also forms degrees of private, semi-private, and public spaces. During the weekend the sliding surfaces open up to form a larger public space for recreation. Moreover, people can interact and experience the everchanging play of light conditions.
Pavilion as Public Space
04.
ENVIRONMENTAL THRESHOLDS
Wetland Conservatory
Sewri, Mumbai
Mentor-Abhijit Ekbote
Historically the site served as a wharf where the ships would dock to store kerosene. What one could gather from readings and satellite imagery was that it was a barren basalt rock boulder lying beside the trans harbor construction zone.
But the notion of a ‘site’ being the clear ground completely shifted on the first visit to the place. The rock was permeable enough to be entirely covered with layers of dried twigs and shrubs. One could barely identify an empty patch of rock while walking over the undulated ground amidst trees. It had a series of stable regions which became vantage points towards the seaward side. The sight of mangrove at far meant harmony-with the tides, its roots submerged and appeared creating moist and dry surfaces. The line between ground and water didn’t really exist here. The threshold was so subtle – it almost felt that the slope gradually disappeared and softened to hold the wetness.
Inferences from the site led to the thought that space is a moment in time and that this temporality is rooted in varying experiences of the inhabitant while navigating through the built form. The intent is to explore spatial possibilities of treading closer to the threshold and engaging with its ecology rather than shying away from it. Thus, the building is conceptualized as a mass nestled between trees, cascading along the terrain to become lighter as it approaches the sea. Shifting decks can be dismantled to move along the vertical axis and evoke the experience of being closer to the ground when it is lowered.
Concept-cascading built form
Staggered central spine as an access to private spaces like admin, labs; lastly unveils the view of the sea in a double height volume framing the ecotone.
Section from admin and cafeteria
Section from
Progression of the building from partly submerged to grounded and then a stilted structure along the ridge of the sloping terrain.
Ramp to enter outdoor wetland observatory -a set of RCC plinths stepping down at intervals to become moist and dry with tidal action.
Cafeteria and admin spill out to the terrain with stone steps on the undulation for people to meander while being beneath the structure. Stilts let monsoonal water pass through the pavilion-like space creating moist surfaces at the edge while adjacent raised surfaces remain dry to accommodate respective functions.
central spine
ALLIED STUDIES
Interior Design_House for Two
Navi Mumbai
Mentor-Rucha Nikam
The house for two is conceptualised as a continuum in a one room kitchen space. The idea is to integrated different functions while creating degrees of intimacies. Foldable wooden furniture adds warmth to the backdrop of olive green wall surface.
Section through the living room and kitchen
Section through the living room and walk-in wardrobe
Section through the living room and kitchen
Section through the terrace
Terrace a semi open intimate sit-out
Living Room wooden strips add depth to the wall surface
DESIGN WITH DETAIL
Textile Museum
Paithan, Aurangabad
Mentor-Samidha Kowli
Section through the lift shaft
Section through the central courtyard
JEYPORE COLONY
Residential Apartment Stage: Tender
Physicl Model of a Typical Section
Articulation of the facade through vertical projections
GILCHRIST AVENUE
Residential Apartment Stage: Tender
Physical Model of a Typical Section
Articulation of the facade through planters, movable panels and wall projections
