Change is an inevitable part of any historic settlement and whatever we exhibit today is a result of longue durée. With the fabric of the old, the new comes along, where fragments present themselves in a wicked manner, through both explicit as well as implicit means. As one tries to relive such narratives, they appear in broken patterns, leading to questioning the assemblage of things; elements, objects, and spaces, keeping alive the curiosity towards the past. From cultural practices to building construction systems, the inquiry is about uniqueness of a place. By local we indicate characters that define similarities within a boundary, which are unique to a particular situation, marking one different from the others. This leads to questions of what has changed and to what degree; and in that process how meanings have changed. In search of the characteristics of the ‘local’, the studio will look into how the built environment has responded to the setting of a particular place, what can we learn from them and how to respond to such at present. Dealing with Vadnagar, the process will indulge in negotiating with the specific context, questioning the contribution of different agencies to its identity.
