Saylee Jain

IR3014

Sikkim is a land of culturally rich stories and tales that travel around with you as you traverse the state. The Teesta River, in all its simplicity and calmness, follows you as you move from a city to another and only makes you wonder of the story of its origin and life. The oral narratives have that the river was wholly and deeply in love with Rangeet, who is passionate and fierce and transcends from the same mountains. Once their courtship is accepted and blessed by the Mt. Khangchendzonga, the two rivers, in look out for individuality, diverge to their individual paths to meet as grown beings. Rangeet, while fiercer and speedier, is distracted by the guidance of its serpent while Teesta, more slower and calmer, reaches before its lover. This is bothersome to Rangeet and triggers a turbulence in the relationship. The mountains and mother earth intrude to calm down the disturbance that has been caused in the lives of nature and the earthy people. The two rivers, have now reconciled at the Sangam point and flow together till eternity. This project is a recital of the story of the two rivers. It intends to make the user experience the intangibles of the story by decoding the events and the characters into spatial attributes. The hotel designed is a manifestation of the plot following the basic principles of ‘the rising action’, ‘the conflict’ and ‘the falling action’. The functionality of the spaces have been understood as befitting the events of the story while the characteristics of the two protagonist rivers have been translated into the ambiance of the space.