SEARCH FOR KINETIC EXPERIENCES WITHIN BUILT FABRICS The Centre for Neurological Disorders and Complimentary Medicine [CNDCM], located in Pune, India, is focused on the enhancement of life styles of specially challenged people. Most of those approaching the Centre are children, brought by their parents who have all but lost hope. They are youngsters with developmental impairments and seek a unique path to follow, making their lives richer and more meaningful. Dr. Oswal, the founder of the Centre, began his research and medical practice in a small, dismal shack in an over-crowded area of Pune in 1968. Applying indigenous forms of medicine he soon began to see results where allopathic medicine had failed. Parents also saw positive changes in their children. As his fame spread, patients started flowing in from distant lands and from all walks of life. Most do not pay any fees! Following a “pay according to capability” model, Dr. Oswal was able to keep aside [in trust] enough funds to buy a half-acre of land on the edge of the city and to approach an architect to pursue his dream. Culturally, the mentally challenged in India have been swept under the carpet and locked in back rooms. Institutionally, India still follows archaic laws and supports facilities wherein such unwanted patients are virtually incarcerated under out-dated laws in Dickensonian institutions where bared windows and chains are found. In my early conversations with Dr. Oswal he lead me thorough a process of “de-schooling architecture,” leading me to explore the minds and lives of mentally challenged children. From the other side I had to change Dr. Oswal’s ideas about “a building,” relationships between the inside spaces and the outside spaces of a building, and convince him that we were not looking at walls and ceilings, but exploring the spaces that are left over after one imagines these components fading off into the background of daily use. Rather than static rooms, we both became interested in flowing spaces for breezes, for light and for people to move in. There merged “inside spaces” and “out-of-doors spaces” into a holistic, inter-flowing, group of spatial experiences. As a plant lover and gardener, Dr. Oswal immediately understood the idea and integrated his poetry for gardens and all living things. The resulting small campus employs “village like” lanes to channel breezes and encourage movement; employs solar water heaters and natural lighting as passive energy; uses mist irrigation to cool spaces and water plants; brings in natural light to obviate artificial illumination; opens every corner toward pleasant views and vistas; and uses a judicial mix of interior and exterior spaces linked by verandahs, small arcades and porches. Light shafts bring light from upper levels down into lower ones. Transparent wall panels visually link subtle court gardens with interior spaces. The mind is always wondering, exploring and discovering new things, in an inter-linked world of visual and kinetic experiences. This complex functional program employs sustainable building practices to bring human dignity and loving care back within the cultural continuum. Stimulating environments that sustain one’s interest and passion for life added a new dimension to my ideas of “sustainability.” From physical energy my attention shifted to mental and spiritual energy. In the evolution of facilities designed for specially challenged people this project represented the beginning of an end to a long colonial nightmare, and is a step into a better future. Architecturally, this project was an important phase in my journey to self-discovery and evolution of my design concepts. This campus refers back to the evolution of my work from rectilinear spaces that inter-penetrate and reflect the structure of the systems, to more experiential kinetic spaces that flow one within the other. This change emerged within the design process of the Mahindra United World College of India, and in a further evolutionary step at the YMCA International Camp Site at Nilshi. Unlike the Samundra Institute of Maritime Studies that began to explore “objects” in space and their abstract relationships, this ensemble referred back to earlier concerns seen in the Bhanuben Parikh House and the SOS Children’s Village at Bawana wherein “Cluster Architecture” employing paths, courts, arcades and internal niches are inter-linked with enclosed spaces and private domains. This positive-negative; forms and voids analysis was an important generator of new spatial experiences. It would be a mistake to call this an experiment in “deconstruction” as that movement was an intellectual one that struggled with historical time lines, and “the past,” while this paradigm emerged purely form a search for spaces and light and movement.
Posted on: Sat, 27 Dec 2014 18:54:23 +0000