Sem 03 / Form and Space Studies
Architecture as Building Systems

Milind Mahale
with studio teachers Dipti Bhaindarkar, Samidha Shah and Abhijeet Ekbote

The module explored architecture through an integrated systems approach, with the objective of understanding building systems not as technical services added to a project, but as active generators of architectural form. The redesign of the Gyansagar Amphitheatre at Borivali, Mumbai, provided a suitable context to explore this approach through a public project. The exercise encouraged students to look at the site not simply as a location for accommodating a programme, but as a field of available resources, processes, and conditions that could actively inform the design.

The project began with an understanding of the site and its available resources. Solar energy, water, earth, vegetation, and waste were identified as primary resources that could influence the architectural proposition. Instead of treating these as separate sustainability measures, students were encouraged to understand their movement, availability, transformation, and reuse and translate these relationships into spatial and formal decisions. This helped shift the design process from adding resource-management strategies to an already developed form towards allowing the resources themselves to participate in generating the form.

Student Works

Bhagyashree Nivande