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SETTLEMENT STUDIES AT MIRYA
For our 1st settlement studies, we went to Mirya - a village in Konkan near the white sea beach. Before approaching the site the whole class was divided into five groups of 8 people each. PLAN, ECONOMY, HOUSES, CONSTRUCTION, CULTURAL OBJECTS.
I particularly was part of the HOUSE group.
So our first task was to find a house that has old construction specifically having Mangalore tiled roofs and not the new modern ones. For that, we first had to interact with the people there to get a sense of WHO these people are, their ROUTINES, the main source of INCOME, the BOUNDARIES of the house, and the RELATIONSHIP between the people living there.
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At first, we were told to make a plan and sections for the house we selected. Whilst I was making the detailed plan embodying the minute details, I learned so much more about the family, the house, and the village. So the house of the todankar family had 4 KITCHENS. A family of 8 living under the same roof but each part of the family had their kitchen, cooked, and eat separately. The plan spoke abt this so evidently and also about the surroundings; temporarily built structures, vegetation, way of living, and the difference between the chosen and neighborhood houses.
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PLAN
SECTIONS helped us understand the making of houses, construction details, contours, proportions, and scale of walls, rooms, furniture, and flora as compared to that of humans.
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All over our 5-day compiled study helped us understand that what we thought was fishing was the main economy of this village is not true and the economy of this village is blurred and in flux. also, the built form of this village is slowly changing into more private property forms.
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The next step after coming back to our studio was to compile the works of 5 groups as one single detailed drawing. For that pairs of one person, each from construction and group was formed to make a detailed cut axonometric view of the house which will further have to be scaled down and fitted in the main drawing.
OUR FINAL DRAWING!
SOME ZOOMED IN PARTS
DESIGN QUESTION
While all this we were also simultaneously told to tell one MAHAPURUSH story as a group and also some individual gossip of the village. Mahapurush is an energy more than a god that every villager has faith in. We spent those five days knowing more about this and trying to get a hold of it.
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HOW WILL A SHRINE FOR SEA GOD BE?
Honestly speaking the whole idea of a shrine changed for us after it. our prototype model for this was a shoe box to summarize.
To break that stereotypical notion of SHOEBOX was our main motive and also to get a sense of volume/light/intimacy/sound.. or whatever it was with us to play around with. A revelation that a shrine needn't necessarily have a deity or enclosed spaces or something that boldly represents a sea god but something that doesn't have a clear-cut motive and can have multiple uses or acts of inhabitation like a PAVILLION.
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I briefly wanted to play around with light and volume. the overall idea was driven by the idea of a structure being a walk-through having a sense of light /shadows and some kind of volumetric experience as u pass by.
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All this led to my final design which is a TUNNEL having mentioned above spatial sense to it.
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