AR3006

Faculty: Sonal Mithal

Terrain-Vague Bricolage | Herbarium in an abandoned quarry at Champaner

Premise: Remodeling and reappropriation of an abandoned quarry for a research facility and bio-reserve of plant specimens of the larger regional flora using Bricolage as a design tool.
The studio examines a peri-urban landscape of an abandoned basalt quarry south of the World Heritage Site of Champaner-Pavagadh. The focus is to develop relevant architectural systems that acknowledge the ecological condition of the site.
For this, the studio focuses on mapping the spatial systems of quarries, mapping the materiality of the landscape, developing hybrid/composite building material systems using found objects such as voids and vacancy, ruination and renewal, stone, vegetation, et al. Subsequently, the studio proposes a design using bricolage as a tactical tool for reclaiming [appropriation] and rewriting the materiality and spatiality [re-territorialisation] of the quarry. Emphasis is on generating an architectural response using a construction material that is a hybrid of basalt. Herbarium here is envisaged as a geological/biological growth from within the site and not a structure placed on it.
Site: Abandoned basalt quarries in the World Heritage Site of Champaner-Pavagadh Archaeological Park.
Project: Architectural design for a Herbarium