The Sanjay Gandhi National Park area is located in the northern suburbs of Mumbai and it has a long history dating back to the 4th century BC. The Kanheri Caves in the center of the park were an important Buddhist learning center and pilgrimage site sculpted by Buddhist monks.
There are 13 settlements inside the national park. The one we studied is called the navapada settlement. It is 1.6kms inside from the main gate. The settlement is 150-200 years old and 8 generations of people have said to live here. They also have a river that flows adjacent to the settlement
The settlement has a unique type of inhabitation and that is very much in coordination with the natural environment. We tried to cater to the needs of the people living in the settlement through sensitive interventions and creating a juxtaposition between the forest and people through architecture. (Contemporary home, materiality, program,).
exploring through the labyrinth, we can evidently see the resources piled up all around which play an important part in their daily lives. basically wood, Mangalore tiles, and stones. Every cluster of 3-4 houses has a common area where these are piled up where they equally share the resources according to their needs.
the navigation into the settlement can be in many ways in which one may want to wander around and explore or conversating with people around and moving forward, for me it was by navigating into the settlement through sounds. sounds of fauna existing into the settlement.
talking about the fauna, as the settlement is itself in the forest there is a huge variety of animals in which some animals move around freely in the settlement and some which are enforced into a habitat. In the above observation, the blue highlighted footsteps of animals are the animals freely roaming and on the other hand the animals in the brown are closed or entrapped into a habitat.
people in the settlement have different ways of living varying from children to elder people. the elder people in the settlement due to their age tend to occupy spaces where they have backrests while sitting and raised plinths where they can sit comfortably.
the big trees have large boulders around their periphery which automatically becomes a space for having conversations for adults under the tree, at the same time the trees also become a part of the adventure for kids for climbing and playing.
the kids don't have a specific area or a place to habitat or play they play on different ground levels, wooden logs, grounds plinths, etc.
the women in the settlement are independent and work, participate in all activities. The majority of the time occupies semi-open spaces where they can work peacefully at the same time having conversations within the group.
in the settlement, the fauna plays a major role in the ways they occupy spaces. here the humans and animals both live together holding hand in hand. each animal in the settlement has their own unique ways of occupying the habitat.
the dogs mostly occupy verandas or the raised plinths around the house, the cats usually occupy roofs at different levels as the majority of the time they sleep, they can be only seen on the ground when they are looking for food. the hens will be found near the places where these abandoned or fallen logs of wood basically become shelter at the same time source of food as it is a homing ground for insects.
after exploring the settlement the one thing I was curious was about when does the settlement come together as one, as I could see all the activities separately. the only time they used to come together as one was at festivals such as Ganapati and Navaratri.
so I came up with a program where I want to provide a temporary mandap/pavilion where every activity and the experience of the space come together which then makes the people interact with each other and also participate in each other's activities.
so this is the site of intervention that I thought would be the best place to implement my program.
these are earlier iterations in which I was exploring possibilities how the form and structure may help in shaping the experiences of the actors of navapada.
the site plan was designed taking the idea of the variation in the levels of plinths which distinct the activities from one another but at the same time bring one together intervene into each other activities and come together as one.
DESIGN MODEL
THE VARAITION OF PLINTH AND ITS LEVELS
THE FIRST SECTION
it shows how the people have different activities at different levels , and coming together as one under one roof
THE SECOND SECTION
this section also has different activities happening but it has different vantage points at each level. the spaces where the habitat is built are similar to what the fauna was experiencing in the settlement, so the pavilion also inhabits the typology of the settlement and doesn't go in contrast with the settlement.
THE THIRD SECTIO
in this section, you can see the roof is coming so low at the point where children and animals can habitat the roof. the plinth variation plays with separating the activities at different levels but is interconnected with each other that [people look into each other's activities at the same time participate in the activities happening within the same space.
above all the drawings are the construction details, the material used for the building of the pavilion was bamboo as the major element, mud, and stone for plinths, and cement concrete for the foundation.
Comments