Raghav Kohli

UR2011

unbound ambli:

  Urban villages in Indian cities undergo a transition as the city rapidly grows around them. The fast- paced transformations that follow would result in disassociation between long-time residents and village, who increasingly relocate to adjacent urban neighborhoods. As they leave, the care for village structures and spaces decreases and physical fabric suffers from decay and lack of maintenance. Ambli is one of such villages, located on the western periphery of Ahmedabad, it faces the threat of potential loss of identity. How do we then revive the collective identity without altering the associations? The design evolves through a collaborative process where the designer becomes a tool for the community. Throughout the semester, multiple interactions with the people of Ambli took place. Different experiments and exercises became a major part of these interactions, leading up to a catalog of their associations and the potential spaces of intervention. The concept, strategy, and the analysis were simultaneously discussed and developed with this stakeholder group at different points of time. The design aims at increasing inter-communal interaction opportunities amongst the people of the gaam whilst enhancing their living experience, through creating a new identity which co-exists with the collective associations, thus creating more opportunities for different user intended activities to take place in the space. These structures create spatial non-programmatic spaces which align to the immediate context and utilizes the idea of play to revive the spaces and connections.