Arriéré - An architectural approach to coastal living

The studio confronted each of our personal position on Climate Change and how the impending apocalypse is not arriving tomorrow; we are in it, breathing its air. On collective decision, these issues took up the lead to be addressed and explored in terms of Architecture: the implications and possibilities. What can Architecture become when we look at it through the window of socio-cultural-contexual stories.

architecture climate coastal research tourism marine

SENSITIVITY

Straight to the Aghanashini peninsula, the case presented is one of purity. The serene landscapes with the undulating land and the unifying sea brings together all of the senses to make us understand the precarious situation that it presently lies in. With rapid urbanisation and population expansions, the dire need for land and water continually rise. The river Aghanashini is respected and equally paid its due by the locals. This very vernacular understanding of resources is what shapes architecture.

CHANGE

The discussion of context specific architecture can undeniable be incomplete without stating the strength behind the sentence - “the only constant is change”. With climatic change being at its forefront, the inevitable changes occur within the human spectrum of responses, amongst which the built fabric plays a huge, significant role. Climate change now becomes the impetus to many of the decisions that one has to take for a progressive approach towards design. The intensifying heat and the rising sea levels pose greater challenges than ever, therefore the reactionary responses towards these through architecture becomes of prime necessity.

Site perceptions

Sectional study across peninsular India

DESIGN RESEARCH - PUBLICATIONS

PART I

DESIGN EMBODIMENT

THEORY

A single column as an object in the field maybe a point of demarcation. A grid of columns suggest a framework of totality or in parts. But what happens when this column breaks its regulating grid? For a coastal condition, this may serve as a dock for anchoring boats - when the columns are grouped together; or act as a wind break - when the columns align linearly. If one reimagines how the column maybe represented as a field condition, its per formative capabilities may also expand beyond its traditional understanding. At the same time, when the additions of materiality resurface to act upon the column, invariable opportunities for the column functioning seem to appear, appropriating the condition of coastal conditions of coastal infrastructure in India. Considering the possibility of the architectural column evolving from its typological understanding in terms of materiality, function and construction and in becoming a field condition, the programme now becomes a field condition.

DESIGN PROPOSAL

The project called for a programmatic intervention in the form a Marine Ecosystem Reseach Organization and Eco Tourism Centre that was dedicated to the coastal zones of Western Karnataka, India. In this way, concentration or the introverted nature of any particular programme is avoided, while also allowing for edge interaction among the programmes. This is achieved by creating maximum number of “borders” between maximum number of programmes to guarantee maximum permeability of each programmatic band ensuring the “pollution” of programmes to achieve programmatic mutations.

Master plan - Landscape strategy

DATUM - Introduction and integration

An inadvertent opposition between the purity of the site and the repercussions that come with the introduction of the program now forms the concern for further course of action.
The elements to address now form the basis of the architecture that starts to shape itself as a new milieu in architecture that can only be ensured by the establishment of a new relationship between the programme and the user. The elements to challenge then become the very permanence of even the most frivolous piece of architecture and the threat it poses for the stability of nature.
Coastal climatic architecture has a complicated relationship with the ground. While the built elsewhere stays put on the ground plane, the coastal built must be elevated from the ground on stilts. Here, the stilts or columns presume a dual role - they are structure as well as infrastructure. The word infrastructure comes into play as the programme deals with a larger component of public interaction forums. hence, the columns serve as the structure for the space above, but also a device to protect the space from climate change and the rising sea level.

“The land has always been a provider; producing essentials, be it crops, minerals, or other valuable resources. But the minute you place a building on top of it, it only consumes and consumes and consumes.”

- Vishwanath Srikantaiah,
(Zenrainman)
Rain water conservationist

Embodiment

New architecture is possible only with new, redefined relationships between the programme and the user. This is also brought about by creating a new relationship between column-material-function. Dense groupings of the column may support and house the public aspects of the programme, whereas the expansive, less dense grids supports the private and smaller aspects of the programme. On a larger outlook, this could help in influencing the built form of the elevated landscapes in coastal India, leveraging new equations between what is private and what is public. At a microscopic level, the architecture of climate change becomes the base for the architectural intervention in coastal infrastructure that serves their communities that feed societies. Therefore a re-look at the Post-Modernist architect who embraced landscapes, infrastructure and architecture must regain importance in order to form new relationships between the programme and the user.