Focusing on the critical aspects of planning and design of an increasingly significant housing typology – the Student Housing in two campuses: The Mahatma Gandhi Antarrashtriya Hindi Vishwavidyala (MGAHV), Wardha and the School of Planning & Architecture (SPA), Vijayawada; are attempts at a ‘non-design’ process where, “architecture is no longer either implicitly or explicitly seen as a dominant system, but rather simply as one of the cultural systems.”
A building has much to do with the ‘immediacy’ of the many elements involved and the manner of its composition. Conceptually, the dormitory typology is an omnipresent layout in student-housing wherein individual bedrooms are connected to areas of common circulation with access to shared facilities. Typically, this allows for clustering of higher densities and lowering pressure on functions like bath and dining. Although the Student Housing at MGAHV in Wardha and SPA in Vijayawada deal with different realities in terms of density, geography as well as cultural contexts, the fundamental effort by MO-OF is to create organisational variation, change and flexibility by integrating the programmatic spaces with their non-programmatic counterparts fostering an environment of ‘social sustainability’.
When students move from their familial home, the displacement could be isolating. In these conditions the design needs to foster a ‘sense of a community’ where students can interact collectively beyond their individual space.
From this perspective, it is worthwhile to construe the individual schemes in terms of their different approaches in order to be able to appreciate the remarkably contrasting outcomes: a low-rise, low-density housing model at Wardha and a low-rise, high-density model at Vijayawada. While there are notable commonalities in the programmatic concerns, it is important to acknowledge that the process of tapping into the ethos of each institution is a complex one, and it takes time to institute the cultural appropriation that is critical to the design of a given space.
SYNTAX OF PLANNING
Spread across a sprawling 212 acres, the MGAHV Campus is situated in the inconspicuous town of Wardha in Maharashtra. A historically significant centre for the Indian Independence Movement and Gandhi’s avant-garde socio-educational experiments, the design philosophy emerges as a dual concern attributed to a Gandhian way of life encompassing communal living and the characteristic ‘rhizomatic’ organisation, wherein a rhizome is one which is unbound, heterogeneous and distributed.
In another instance of an institution situated in the hot and humid climate of one of the most populous cities of Andhra Pradesh is the SPA Student Housing. Spread across seven acres land in the heart of the city, the housing is constructed beside the School of Planning and Architecture campus building. Amidst a low-rise and high-density context, the master plan of SPA Student Housing was reassessed from the perspective of density as well as programme to create an informal learning environment beyond the classroom. Familiar with the cultural as well as academic framework of an architecture school, the architects translated these primary concerns into diagramming and envisioning of open-ended spatial possibilities.
Across the two schemes, the syntax of the planning language evidently comprises of indoor and outdoor elements that eventually tie into the overall circulation, connecting to the student rooms. Accounting for the preferred levels of privacy in such a construct, there are ‘places of refuge’ designed specifically for students to disengage and unwind, and relatively more public spaces where students have a choice in the level of participation for community activities. In their systematic precision, the configurations do not control and totalise, instead they construct porous frameworks for a community of students learning, living and sharing.
DERIVING A MODULARITY
Established to globally promote and develop the language and literature of Hindi, the MGAHV Campus attracts a diverse demographic. The student housing scheme is primarily composed of three fundamental units – single rooms, twin rooms and transit rooms for married scholars. While each of these are planned as individual personal spaces, they are connected by a common room shared by 10-12 students. “Typically,”, explain the architects, “institutional cultures adapt to a building that is already designed. Opposed to that idea, we envisioned a social construct based on community interaction.” Throughout the scheme, apparent multiplicities of the ‘non-programmatic’ spaces implicitly animate movement in different directions and within the in-between spaces.
Responding to its immediate urban thresholds, the physical composition of the SPA Student Housing like fragments of the city opens up the plan to multiple and diverse contingencies. The ground floor is an active pedestrian ground which is simulated as a streetscape on stilts transitioning between verandahs, decks and courtyards. Three module-types (Type A, B and C) are individually and collectively designed to form clusters of programmatic and non-programmatic spaces with varied configurations around the living courtyards. The intention was to render a lively neighbourhood that fosters informal interactions in a low rise, high density student housing environment. This fragmentation is continued on all floors to allow for semi-private interaction zones in the form of terraces and bridges. The ‘Common Room’ as a spatial idea is broken down and distributed across the student housing allowing for varied levels of participation within a small-scale neighbourhood.
CONTEXT & ECOLOGICAL IMPACT
Establishing a symbiotic relationship with the Central Plains of India, local materials attuned to simple construction techniques render the Student Housing in Wardha as a scheme that is contextually relatable. The architects have ensured that, “all materials used are available or manufactured within a 100-kilometer radius making them local. The project tendered cost was estimated at INR 8000 per square meter.”
The architectural language of the project has legible abstractions that can explain ecosystems. It is situated on an undulating terrain where contour ploughing is practised to minimise erosion of topsoil, reducing cut and fill in the process. The resulting scheme is fragmented with interconnecting levels creating a dramatic visual interplay. While the clustering densities are fittingly varied, there exists a pattern in the layout of these buildings. The overall design evokes a simple, frugal sensibility with rhythmically lined corridors, geometrically punctured parapet walls, stark profiles of staircases scaling double heights, recessed openings and unidirectional sloping roofs that set the tone of the architectural composition.
With temperatures rising to as much as 48 degrees in peak summers along parts of the Krishna River Basin, the Student Housing at SPA adopts the planning of traditional towns with narrow streets and courtyards to enable passive cooling and protection. The lower floors are rendered porous allowing cooler air through the pre-cast block jali walls constructed along the peripheries. The middle floors are densely packed and designed for efficient circulation, while the top-most floor of the building has terraces which are used late in the evenings. Apart from providing rainwater collection on the terraces directly above the student rooms, the emphasis was on the use of local materials such as tandur stone for flooring and cladding, flyash bricks, pre-cast block jalis and rough-cast plaster to retain ‘cool’ interiors in peak summers. Additionally, the furniture used has been re-purposed from the earlier campus.
Sharing a similar framework as part of national competition entries, both projects demonstrate an architecture that is expressive of the process rather than the product. With a competition dossier and a prescribed vision statement, “for both these projects the brief given was debated extensively in the studio assuming different perspectives as a user, architect and client. This allowed for questioning and challenging of both the competition briefs. In MGAHV Student Housing, the segregation of students on the basis of institutional departments and seniority of students was questioned. Whereas in SPA Student Housing the total built up area proposed on the allotted plot was questioned, since accommodating that would have resulted in a high-rise format of design which did not seem appropriate in the low-rise context of Vijayawada.”
ENDNOTE
While the housing at Wardha may be perceived as a more confined construct of housing owing to the sizeable parcel of land it occupies, the housing at Vijayawada confronts parameters similar to housing in an all too familiar urban setting. It is this latter context that poses relevant challenges for architects, planners as much as builders, as we advance into a more ‘urbanised’ future that is increasingly low on resources.
Owing to scarcity of land, campus housing in urban environments will see a decline and hostel aggregators / facilitators will probably become primary student-housing providers. Student Housing typologies will become more high density/ high rise formats and continuing ideas of building communities within such densities will certainly be more challenging.
Conforming to the constraints at large and tapping into the inherent opportunities that any housing project has to offer, the Student Housing at Wardha as well as Vijayawada encapsulates the spirit of a tactful architecture with a resolute aesthete, that is above all heedful of its impact on the well-being of the end-users⊗
MO-OF/ MOBILE OFFICES is a design practice set up in 2001 in Mumbai which focuses on Architectural, Urban and Interior design. Led by Principal Architects Shantanu Poredi (AA, London; CEPT University, India) and Manisha Agarwal (Cornell, NY; CEPT University, India), the firm has completed projects across diverse categories such as educational campus, hospitality, residential communities, offices, exhibitions and healthcare.
MO-OF’s interest in architecture and design stems from the debate on the evolving cities and the potential it offers a designer. The primary issues that the practice engages with are social, cultural and environmental sustainability – ushering explorations that transform building types and typologies. Ideas are tested through the various competitions the practice engages with at all levels. This has led to an opportunity for realising some of the largest projects of the practice. The essence of the practice is embedded in the idea of collaboration with diverse co-creators. The practice is constantly informed by pedagogy and academic research through a multidisciplinary approach to design and its execution.
