Sem 04 / Form and Space Studies
Type, Space and Behaviour
Public Node and School Building in Utre, Kolhapur

Rupali Gupte 

The last course in Sem 4, focused on understanding type as a spatial configuration that has emerged from climate, culture and life forces and that in turn has an impact on behaviour and experience of its inhabitants. The course introduced concepts such as type, pattern, morphology, culture, behaviour, experience, material phenomenologies and the relationships between them.

The studio followed an intense spatial ethnographic study of the village of Utre in Kolhapur understanding relationships between builtform and culture and type, spatial configuration and behaviour. The study is archived here.

The studio asked students to draw from a pattern language at multiple scales observed in the village to apply to their own design processes of generating a new type for a public node and school in the village. From the interviews with the teachers, students and residents the students evolved a new programme for the public node and new school. From an analysis of the site, the students developed a figure ground relationship, programme distribution and zoning and a new type that was attentive to built and unbuilt spaces for the new programme. The spaces further evolved from tectonic articulation of the builtform, paying attention to material phenomenologies and how they shape behaviour and experience.

Dipraj’s project worked with a type developed from a stereotomic base and a tectonic upper level, which allowed the lower levels to be closer to the earth and modulated from the ground, while the upper level created a light playful bamboo pavilion structure replete with playful bridges, balconies and terraces that would help young students run between spaces, hovering above the ground. On the other hand Manas and Aaradhya’s project used landscape as a strategy to create informal playful places where in-between spaces created an environment of freedom for the students. Ahika’s, Udayanaditya’s and Asmi’s projects created new building types that were attentive to the modularity of built and unbuilt environments creating new affordances

While Aman’s, Upanshu’s projects and Arya’s projects worked on modulating a new terrain that was accessible from the road creating new public infrastructures for times of floods as well as everyday public programmes, Vedant’s,Viren’s and Sukhad’s projects used the existing site modulation to create new sectional strategies where a new modulated ground created experiences of intimacy.

The studio is archived here. One can see the process followed by each as they create a new spatial type for a school and public node in Utre Kolhapur, focusing on how spatial configuration shapes behavior and experience.