Gajjar Akshar Shaileshkumar

1005-H

ATMOSFAIRA : The City of Ambiences

Heading towards 2030 spaces are becoming more and more flexible. And hence a single space is capable of harboring multiple functions, so all the activities related to live; work and play can be carried out in a single space itself. But human brain requires a certain atmosphere or ambiance to work in. Hence I visualized a world in 2030 where the function specificity of spaces takes a back seat and spaces become ambiance or feel specific. And so one would not talk about bedrooms and living rooms but would rather refer to them as calm space, surprising space, awe inspiring space etc. Conventionally today the dimensions of spaces are function and program specific, but dilution of function specificity of spaces led to questions like, “How to visualize dimensions?” So I visualized my world to have four fixed sizes of spaces namely small (2.5m*1.8m), medium (5m*7m), large (7m*10m), the dimensions thought were flexible enough to accommodate wide range of activities and functions. In my visualization there were a lot of diverse ambiances but for the simplicity of design process it was advisable to choose one or two specific but quite strong ambiances. Seeing a lot of utilitarian buildings coming up, the question that arose was, “Is architecture limited to function fulfillment or is there something more?” so I decided to work with Awe as an ambiance. A feeling that is a mixture of surprise as well as fear. Hence the intervention was generation of Awe in all four sizes of spaces and then incorporating work, live and play into them.


Report Content

Comic was use as a tool to visualize relationships between ambiances and people.

The intention was to design 'Awe' as an ambiance and hence 4 sizes of spaces were fixed to anchor the design process.

To understand the feelings and ambiances associated with spaces, existing spaces were sketched and the attempt was to capture the essence of them in the sketch.

Sketches were made of the visualized spaces.Various methods of generating awe were looked upon.

Narratives was used as a tool to visualize experiences in the spaces and also to effectively inhabit them while designing. They were followed by sketches that tried to capture that experience and generate the feeling of AWE

Mediums like soft pastels and charcoals render the space the feeling that might not exist the space itself and hence pen was used to inhabit the spaces more in detail. the attempt was to generate the written feelings with the use of appropriate details.

How does materials affect ambiance? Sketches exploring the same space with different materials to understand change in experience through material.

Visualizing and generating experiences in a small space was a challenge and varied mediums were tried upon to do that effectively.

The sketch above represents the same space as seen from below and from the top. The attempt here was to capture the spatial quality of the designed space from more than one perspectives.

A sketch essay was made, that took one on a walk through the entire design intervention helped with a few phrases of narratives respectively.