Shashankamouli Dwibhashyam

HR4000

Invisible Details of a Temporary Workplace

In the Theorising Architectural Production Studio, we looked at a set of twelve buildings from Bhopal (one building per person), all built between the 1980s and 90s, and wrote about their histories, looking at them through unique points of view and frameworks.  The framework that I have chosen to see my building through is the strange details framework, where I look at certain architectural details within my building that “standout”, compared to normal details. I use the book Strange Details by Michael Cadwell as a guide for methodology, where I contextualise and describe the inherent strangeness of the details.

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In the Theorising Architectural Production Studio, we had to choose one building from a group of buildings in Bhopal, and write histories of the building, while also documenting it and looking at it through a choice of frameworks to question and understand the building. I chose the Strange Details framework, where, using Michael Cadwell's book "Strange Details" as a guide for methodology, I look for unusual details within my building and contextualise them within the building, while deducting and trying to understand how and why it was done.

The three details that I have chosen to write about are repeating details that form an identity of the building through an expression of the materials that were used in making them. Each detail, specifically, acts as an aesthetic choice and a structural choice - the first detail is stepped concrete roof beams disguising roof flashing, then slab-extensions hide slip joints, and finally, multiple parallel chord trusses that act as one.