Place for Wellness, Well-being and Mindfulness

Shreya Shridhar

AR2014

After having analysed and understood the attitudes of RCR Arquitectes, a series of exercises were conducted to understand the core and essence of these attitudes and then accordingly, suitably implement them. The main design project was a place for wellness, well-being and mindfulness at Lonavala, and was the implementation and practical application of all the attitudes studied, which had to appropriately be interpreted, applied and modified as per the requirements of the programme and the context.

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Portrait- Inspite of having three different personas when RCR Arquitectes work together, it is like spoken jazz. In all their works, the lines between landscape and built are blurred and the interior and exterior are intertwined. The optimal usage of built form and choice of material is such that it frames and highlights features of the naturally existing context. As the landscape changes over time their work too will continue to gain new character due to their choice of material.

Cube- From the exterior, the cube appears to be a solid mass, with the facades creating a sense of layering and long, vertical openings. However, the interiors are a collection of volumes within volumes in the form of voids. There are illusions of heightened volumes in spaces that have been created by the use of reflective materials. Light is brought into spaces through skylights to create a feeling of sanctity. They also create a stronger perception of depth by the formation of frames within f

Maze- The primary organizational device used in the maze is space as a datum, as well as space as an aggregator. RCR tend to use mass and volume in order to establish programmatic hierarchy, which has been represented by varying sizes of the shifting masses and volumes. The clue in order to solve the maze is alignment of frames. Once the right set of frames have been aligned to form ‘frames within frames’, that is when the right set of openings align to form a path for the ball to move through.

Trophy- In their projects, more importance is given towards the spatial and qualitative experience of a space rather than expression of constructional details. Furthermore, importance is given to treatment of surfaces as singular, individual planes. In order to achieve these clean simple looking surfaces, layers of constructional details are concealed, thereby becoming detail as no detail. The trophy is a representation or and abstraction of this idea of the layering of details in order to achi

Site plan and elevations

Ground floor plan

Basement level plan

Sections

Wall section

Views and model