Masters Advanced Studies in Urban & Territorial Design (1 year - MAS UTD)
EPFL - ETH Zurich, Switzerland
Bachelor of Architecture (5 years - B Arch)
SMEF’s BRICK School of Architecture, Pune, India
IB Diploma (2 years - 10+2 grade equivalent)
Mercedes Benz International School, Pune, India Physics HL - Mathematics HL Chemistry
IGCSE board (2 years - 10th grade equivalent)
YCIS international school, Chongqing, China
Student Council, YCIS, China
member (2010-12)
chairperson (2011-12)
Initiating the charity christmas shoebox drive for local schools Leading student library project at Shiban Primary school
NASA , National Associati on of Students of Architecture, India organises national architectural competitions every year
G-SEN trophy ( Oct 2014-15 winner: special mention - 20 people ) brief: gender sensitivity - safety of women in public spaces
looking at the local context to ideate, identify, engage with a public spaces through evidence based design (EBD) as a tool.
Narrowing down to pedestrain subways as a unique contextual transition public space in Pune city. Exploring the potential by selecting the Swargate subway as it has become dilapidated partly due to design
Suggested refurbishment intervention by
• seperating two wheeler - pedestrain circulation
• opening up dark corners by champering edges to allow better vision lines
• introducing hawkers within the basement to create eyes on the street and activate it as a public square
STUDIO
313 Residence
2018 Intern offset as threshold
made execution drawings for lily pond & compound wall
SURYA KAKANI
Co-Founder Kakani Associates
Prof and former Dean, Faculty of Architecture, CEPT University
presentated to Pune smart city development corporation (2018) discussion with the local government development body about the potential flaws in the current state and suggested improvements in pedestrain subways. link to the newspaper article - click here
ZONASA ( Oct 2016 - won the bid to become the host college)
Head of the trophy departmentorganised on-spot briefs for comic and dance trophies co-ordinated with various participanting colleges and held the event
ANDC trophy ( Oct 2016-17 winner: special mention - 4 people )
brief: new ways of imagination of the city / its planning / form book of Italo Calvino – Invisible Cities our memories construct innumerable subjective ways of talking about places that we see / remember / imagine. proposal for a mobile game app allowing users to interact in real time with the surroundings as they unlock clues by exploring the city.
JAAI KAKANI
Co-Founder | Kakani Associates Masters New Media study, UCLA founder S.O.A.C.H NGO
Kakani Associates is an architectural firm comprising of 10 people 2 architects, 1 civil engineer, 2 interior designers and 3-4 interns apart from the principals.
The practice established with Surya and his partner Jaai as a collaborative between architecture and design in 1995 each informing the other and subsequently informing a way of life.
Reflected in the practice’s works which include the Anand Niketan School, C.N. Vidyalaya Computer Center, CIMS hospital, Madhu Industries Corporate Office and Factory, have load bearing structure with courts for light, ventilation and insulation. At the Vadi School in Rajkot, post earthquake rubble, recycled pipes and thatch were used. In the Hyderabad Metro commercial complex at Putlibowli, the challenge was to relocate and design an appropriate space for displaced shopkeepers and vendors from a 0.8 km stretch of Sultan bazaar. The project takes the idea of the street ramping up five floors (0.7 km) with shops and vendors. The two metro lines connect at two different levels thus completing the idea of a bazaar.
SOACH NGO, Ahmedabad exposed brick bonding, timbrel vault research, construction documentation Gaudium School, Hyderabad site development plinth, dome acoustics research
Fluent Grid, Visakhapatnam plaster and texture finish, circular toilet working dwg
JANUARY,
Mud workshop 3 days exploring cob wall construction by Darshan Joshi
Brick Masonry worksh op arches, vaults and domes construction by Ar. Rahul Rawat and Ar. Ankur Kohtari
Smart Cities, IISER international workshop about Mobility and Infrastructure in the 21th century Conference,
361 degree Architectural Revolution several prominent architects from around the world engaging in thought-provoking dialogue on the reactions to the challenges of designing in the digital century. link to the publication
SEA symposium Songs of Turbulence
Five Conversations on Contemporary Architecture. link
How can we think with turbulence; of environments beyond crises, cities beyond contests and narratives of lack, difference beyond discrimination, technologies beyond fear and annihilation, and communities along with all their diversities?’
Talks at FEED Pune,
The LOFT forum, CEPT, Studio actively engaging in discussions/talks at various public forums/ institutions and inviting architects/structural engineers to the studio the most recent being Ar. Suhir Reddy
SACRED GROVES, AUROVILLE
MAY - JUNE 2017
A very unique hands-on experience of building a sustainable housing scheme through volunteers. we were living, eating and working in a community of diverse people as masons/ labors/ carpenters/fabricators to build prototype house
INTERNSHIP
MAY - DECEMBER 2018
To understand drafting as a means of communication with the mason/carpenter and to independantly make decisions in the best way to portray the design (plans/sections/3D). Through the various working drawings included in my internship portfolio one can notice a range of works in the process of being executed which grounded the works in a certain reality.
The highlight was the research work involving timbrel vaults where I was calculating the thrust of a thin masonry vaults and discussions with the structural consultant. We applied the theory and documented all our failures in building a prototype in our studio for the span of 4.5m. This was later taken forward and we built the timbrel vaults and shallow domes in SOACH NGO. The timbrel vault for the workshop double height space was built for the same span of 4.5m but 16m in length.
C-302, Rohan Tapovan, Gokhale Nagar, Pune - 411016, Maharastra, India
Travel Grant, Puducherry (2016-17) - 3 people
Won the travel grant to study the similarities and differences in lifestyle, culture, architecture of the French and Tamil quarters in Puducherry.
THE GAUDIUM INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL, HYDERABAD
2016 - ongoing
The design of this project endeavors to integrate the various aspects of planning that go into the making of this 27 acre campus. It also keeps with the concerns of consumption v/s conservation (of resources) and explores the aesthetics of sustainability and simplicity through a holistic framework. This approach goes a long way in providing a joyful learning environment which we fundamentally consider as Green.
COURSES WORK EXPERIENCE
BEEP, Ahmedabad
CEPT University (Nov-Dec 2019)
The Building Energy Effeciency Program was a two week workshop with the intent of making students aware of an integrated approach towards building efficiency and sustainability considering parameters of light, heat and ventilation to achieve overall comfort within a building.
During the two weeks we learned about softwares that help us calculate building effeciency and took us on a guided tour with the architect, Prof. Ashok Lal to the IIPH campus, Gandhinagar.
As the final task, we (A team of 4, including an architect, civil and IT engineers and a building simulation consultants) designed a building prototype with shading devices and analysed the net carbon footprint and operational effeciency measured through time (changing seasons).
UEE, (online)
Cornell University (Nov-Dec 2019)
The Urban Environmental Education encompassed a series of lectures with educators from accredited institutions, Mary Leou (Professor in New York University) gave us a lecture on Place-Based Education in Urban Settings
It was followed by self study peer reviewed articles references and activity based tasks every week. Click the link here for my final task
1. Joey’s ambli campus, Ahmedabad - to replicate a sense of ground in a multi-storeyed kindergarten school 2020-21 - PROJECT ARCHITECT
2. Ambli office, Ahmedabad - A private office that explore materiality through the versatility of bricks - tactility through finishes; smooth lime plaster, rough stoncrete, silhouette through bamboo screens and exposed red brick jali walls 2021-22 - PROJECT ARCHITECT
3. The Gaudium School - 27 acres sports oriented largely pedestrain campus 2018-ongoing - INTERN - PROJECT ARCHITECT
4. IITE, Indian Institute of Teachers Education - design of goverment institute focusing on teachers education - phase 1 to facelifting existing campus 2021-ongoing - PROJECT ARCHITECT
5. SOACH NGO, residence, office and workshop - to replicate a sense of ground in a multi-storeyed kindergarten school 2018-21 - INTERN - JUNIOR ARCHITECT
5. Goverment Schools, Madha Pradesh - modular classrooms across 10 schools; emphasis on contextualizing and site planning 2021-ongoing - ARCHITECT (team)
6. 361 Residence (Unbuilt) - ideation in plan types and orientating views towards neighbouring park 2020-21 - PROJECT ARCHITECT
7. Kensville Residence (Unbuilt) - an intimate entry leading to a large semi-open verandah and private court 2021-22 - PROJECT ARCHITECT
8. Competition resort and dormitory for tourist attraction - orienting row houses towards central lily pond and dormitory along plot edge 2020-21 - ARCHITECT (team)
9. Street Beautification Mozamjahi market, Hyderabad - assessing the potential of development under the new metro station within a historical context 2019 - INTERN
Gaudium School
Intern - Project Architect
bird’s eye view of campus
History is a testament in the context with which we build today. Coming from India, a secular nation which has managed to keep such a wide amalgamation of its rich and deep-rooted tradition and culture, I can say with confidence that diversity should be celebrated within society. Living in an urban agglomeration, there is a constant supply-demand dynamic where the housing market has completely surrendered to the priorities of developers and builders who are often just looking to maximize profits. We as designers need to be part of these conversations to help sustainably grow and accomodate the high demands. Through my recently completed masters project at ETH Zurich I have been able to investigate often invisible social-ecological threshold of the city by giving agency to water.
I, Gautham Ramesh, have been actively practicing as an architect in Ahmedabad, India with Kakani Associates (prof. Surya Kakani former dean of CEPT university) for a total experience of 4 years (including 6 months of internship training) and have a firm grasp of the ingredients involved in the making of a building. Right from being able to critique and dissect the brief to understanding its core requirements and how we as designers can help to add onto it with a resource conscience framework. I am passionate and believe that design does have the ability to allow the user to equip themselves with the right tools to deal with complex problems and there are no limitations.
With a strong background in science and a keen interest in research, my first independent project was during my 12th grade IB programme I had choosen my area of interest as Physics HL for my extended essay. I explored the relationship between the height of the building with the frequency of the earthquake and looked at how traditional ingenuity of interlocked wooden joints (kath kuni - technique of construction in Himachal Pradesh, India) helped to create more resilent buildings in high sesmic zones Then, I consciously looked at the impact of the built environment during my 5 years architectural degree and again during my internship I worked on an experimental research project of spanning without steel or shuttering during the course of the 6 months. Luckily my internship came at such a time where the firm was looking at sustainable alternatives to RCC for making ‘pakka’ houses for a village setting. It came a full circle as I was most recently working on a community centre in Pindarda where the intent is to upskill local masons in the process of constructing timbrel vaults and shallow domes. I also pursued my architectural thesis looking at migrant construction workers and felt it was imperative that a space was given to them. I would like to be a part of your studio to explore the different lens of culture, built environment, policies, social and economic class and to look beyond the ‘plot of land’ to the dynamics of the street and eventually onto the city.
02 - 09
10 - 17
Thesiscommunit y and upskilling centre at labour market
Kindergartenmultistorey school as nonbuilding
18 - 25 Officeprocess as product
26 - 29
Researchspanning without steel and shuttering
THESIS - community and upskilling centre at labour market
Community empowerment using innovations in the sustainable use of technology. Medium is through providing a community and upskilling center for the naka community (unorganized labour camps) that naturally congregate on main road junctions.
Labour market refers to an informal congregation point in a city where skill and unskilled workers related to the construction industry come to in the morning looking for work. These include labourers, masons, RCC related, painters, tile laying, plumbers, etc. These points have sprung up at different parts of the city people seeking and looking for jobs connect with each other. This provides a means to:
1. Hone their existing skill (upskilling)
2. Spreading awareness of the latest technology in the construction field.
3. Providing a platform for universities to conduct hands on design workshops and allow direct interaction between students and workers through it.
4. Understanding the interventions impact in an urban setting and how this could have implications to its immediate surroundings.
First hand data collected
By Author Illustrated
By Author
Project Final year studio
Project Year 2019
Type selecting brief, narrowing context to site, research, design and detail
Location Ambawadi, Ahmedabad
The labor market here has got a unique character with the most diverse skill set available in a Naka. Supply - Demand.
The site is located at the heart of the city in a dense urban fabric with the likes of institutional, residential, mixed use and commercial all within a radius of 5m. The site has got 3 edges all which have a different character: residential towards west; mixed use towards south and a commercial complex towards east.
SITE ANALYSIS AND MASSING MODELS
APPROACH 2: sum of parts.
Photographed
THESIS - community and upskilling centre at labour market
Strategy was to open up the corner inviting the street onto the more public function of NGO office, daycare and healthcare center. The modular workshops stagger outwards forming a central court with the prototype mockup area as the anchor of the vocational training centre.
This vocational centre will serve to empower construction workers with tools and resources as a means of addressing architects’ social responsibility towards their own construction fraternity.
KINDERGARTEN SCHOOL - AS NON-BUILDING
An extension to meet the demand of 800 kindergarten students to an existing kindergarten campus of 250 students. The existing building was also built by our office in 2014.
The idea was to maintain the existing open ground by building vertical; two floors added to the existing building and a new basement + G+4 floors replacing the north east ground floor block.
Proyect Status : Built; Completed
Year : Phase 1 - 2014
Phase 2 - 2019-21
Role : Project Architect
Location : Ambli, Ahmedabad, India
Illustration
By Neel (intern) with guidance from Author
Illustration By Siddartha (intern) with guidance from Author
KINDERGARTEN SCHOOL - AS NON-BUILDING
By Author
By Author
An accessible double height verandah to replace the existing sloping fabrication shed between the amphitheatre and the open garden. The large connection allowed for a sandpit and open play space for the above two classes as well.
To the left is a sample of the finishes working drawings. These drawings are given right as the civil work is starting to give the site contractor enough time to plan and discuss any issues.
Photographed
KINDERGARTEN SCHOOL - AS
The planters along the edge create a much needed greenry on each floor and particular to the kindergarten, serve the purpose of scaling the corridors creating a threshold for the little ones to never experience vertigo
Understanding the existing language of the built and unbuilt and to be able work out how the two buildings will behave not only structurally (where to place expansion joints) but how they will function at full capacity.
Creating layering and depth within the larger framework of establishing anthopometry. While using scale and proportion in the campus there is an underlying thought of making unique intimate spaces that are playful - access of ground floor waiting area terrace as a reading space which the kids climb up using a spiral staircase and come down using a slide into the sandpit.
By Taha (intern)
Photographed
• To do justice to the existing language while also enriching the design of the new through introduction of planter beds.
• A conscious play of volumes and scales that create unique spaces to build activity around it
• Operable louvered screens allowing the amphitheatre to connect with the activity spaces.
Photographed By Kakani Team
Left Top, Right: Activity Room overlooking amphi Operable double height louvers on both sides of activity rooms allowing for an open verandah during good climate
Left Middle: 2nd to 4th Floor Extension on existing; Scaling the solid massing of the red staircase block with larger volume of the classroom block behind it
Left Bottom: Entrance; Play of volumes and optimizing depth perception through building up the massing towards the back
A simple plan type with a courtyard bounded on three sides by the office and one side a large pond with the brick jali wall bounding the court. the idea of the outdoors is integral to its making.
The plan was conceived as individual cabins abutting a C shaped corridor spine.
•The more semi-public spaces within the office overlook the inner courtyard; namely corridors, open plan workstations and conference rooms.
•On the other hand, the cabins paces open onto a continuous planter bed along the offset of the site. The idea was to allow each cabin space its own intimacy.
Proyect Status Built; Completed Project Year 2019-21
Role : Project Architect Location Ahmedabad, India
Tactility is explored in the walls through:
1. Smooth lime plastered walls giving off a mirror-like sheen contrasted with the rough dana (textured) plaster on the external face.
Tactility is explored in the flooring through:
2. Polished Terrazzo confining a carpet-like brown Kota stone in internal spaces and rough Stonecrete finish with riverfinished Kota stone on the external spaces
Documentation
By Kakani Team
Photographed
By Author
edited by Sanketh (intern)
By Author
Structure and Space:
A project that experiments spanning through bricks; jack arches, vaults and flat domes. The outer peripheral beams in the cabins were made upstand allowing the slab to extend out as a chajja giving a full opening from floor to roof. A conscious play of scales with corridor spaces as a continuous horizontal ribbon of 7.5 ft high entering into the voluminous cabins of 9 ft high.
By Author
Drawings
Photographed
Courtyard and curved jali wall with the conference room deck suspended over the lily pond
REFLECTIONS:
• Means to broaden research into alternate sustainable spanning techniques besides RCC slab.
• A conscious play of scales with corridor spaces voluminous cabins.
• Soft interiors contrasted with rough exteriors through tactility in finishes.
Photographed By Author
Top right: Internal Corridor; 7.5 ft height exposed vault with smooth terrazzo finish
Left: Director’s Cabin; shallow brick dome with mirror-like polished brown kota stone & terrazzo reflecting off the silloutee of bamboo
Bottom right: External Offset; bamboo screen with rough stonecrete and river finished brown kota stone finish
WHAT IS A ROHTAK DOME?
These are shallow brick domes built with a unique technique practiced by a team of masons in Rohtak, Haryana. They are almost flat, so flat that the curve is hardly noticeable.
These are shallow Haryana. They noticeable.
The construction of Rohtak domes is heavily skill dependant and limited to a small team of masons led by Azad whose father learnt the technique from Rishi Dilip Lal Birju of Kathal Gam and passed it on to his kin as a family tradition. The skill has been practiced and honed for 40 years.
Today, the team consists of 6-7 masons who have used this technique to build houses and schools and have spanned up to 32’x 32’ spaces without any steel and formwork! They have even built 4-storey structures with these domes.
heavily skill and limited to a small team of masons led by Azad whose father learnt the Lal Birju Gam and passed it on to his technique to build have spanned up to and formwork! They have even built 4-storey structures with these domes.
The team takes pride in their work and are very open to experimentation and sharing their skill. In an economy like ours, the Rohtak domes technique holds great potential in the terms of building pukka houses with local skills and materials (without steel and formwork) at low cost and with low carbon footprint.
work are very open to experimentation and sharing their domes technique holds great potential in the terms of building pukka houses with local skills and (without formwork) at low cost and with low carbon footprint.
WHY?
1) No steel needed in spanning
2) No formwork needed
3) Simple and minimal in terms of resource usage
4) With skilling a mason can construct this roof on his own
5) Reduced carbon footprint compared to conventional roofing
6) Multiple floors possible
HOW DOES IT WORK?
Loads in a dome transfer along the meridians (each meridian behaves like an arch) and along the circumference in concentric rings as hoop stresses which are compressive in the upper part of the dome and tensile in the lower.
7) Creates potential for employment opportunities and therefore social sustainability typical beam design with reinforcement
2x10 dia; remaining bars in
WHERE IS IT USED?
• Organised open house during construction and invited institutions to make the new generation aware of sustainable alternative to flat roofs.
• Youtube video (link here) - about 900,000 views - 2000 comments (pinned below)
• The masons are able to travel around the country and fully sustain themselves after people reaching out through the videos.
• Various research projects are taken up by undergraduate students which hopefully over a period of time will help to mainstream this technique.
RESEARCH ‘spanning without steel and shuttering’
WHAT IS A TIMBREL VAULT?
A timbrel or Catalan vault is a thin membrane masonry vault consisting of multiple layers of thin bricks/clay tiles held together with mortar and built without any formwork or centering
HOW DOES IT WORK?
FORM: ARCH IN COMPRESSION
HOW TO BUILD?
bricks/clay held centering light and porous) is laid with a fast layer the build and
The first layer of bricks (preferably thin, light and porous) is laid with a fast setting mortar with guides to help obtain the curve in air. The first layer serves as the formwork for the successive layers laid in cement mortar.
Timbrel vault construction was popularised in the 1800’s by Guastavino who used it to build several churches, cathedrals and public buildings. His book ‘Cohesive Construction’ talks in detail about the theories of timbrel construction.
WHERE IS IT USED?
1) 33m dia timbrel dome at St. John the Divine, New York
