Rajvi Tarun Patel

UR2031

The Courtyard Collective

The Courtyard Collective offers an open, accessible, and community-oriented redesign of Ahmedabad’s Municipal Market. With a clear layout, peripheral parking, and a central linear plaza, the design promotes seamless pedestrian flow and leisure. However, the existing market faces key challenges—overcrowding due to unregulated street-edge vendors, a lack of seating, disorganized layouts, and frequent spillage between vehicular and pedestrian zones. Addressing these issues, the new plan repositions activity zones thoughtfully, integrates green elements for shade, and introduces structured circulation and gathering spaces to transform the market into a more organized, inclusive, and comfortable urban environment.


Report Content

Site Documentation: The Municipal Market site was documented through drawings, plans, partial plans, and sections to understand its overall layout. Additionally, aspects such as building use and typology were studied to analyze the context of the structure.

Site Documentation: Data was collected and represented for three different time periods throughout the day to understand and illustrate the dynamic nature of the market over time—such as changes in crowd density, traffic flow, human activities, and movement patterns.

Site Documentation: The main concerns and issues of the site were identified, which helped shape the design vision. A study was also conducted on both vendors and users of the market to understand how the space functions for different groups of people.

Case Study (Shees Friday Market): The Shees Friday Market in the UAE was studied to understand market functioning and inspire design. Key observations included spatial layout, vendor arrangement, visitor flow, and integration with the surroundings, offering insights for context-sensitive and community-focused market design.

Case Study (Mumbai): A site visit to Mumbai was conducted to study five market and public space sites: Crawford Market, Colaba Market, Bandra Fort, One Green Mile, and Carter Road. These sites were documented through sections, plans, sketches, and a detailed study of a specific element from each location.

Design Development: Design objectives were formulated based on the concerns identified on the site. These objectives led to the development of a set of design strategies, which served as the foundation for the overall design.

Design Development: Here’s a more concise and polished version of your text: **Hand-drawn sketches were created to explore possible shop layouts and the design of specific street edges, such as seating areas. Proportional sectional sketches were also produced to visualize and refine the design concept.

The Collective Courtyard: Proposed Plan