The Machine
A Courthouse through a Looking Glass2019
KRVIA
Individual Project
Oblique Strategy
“Shut the door and Listen from the Outside”
The studio is an interrogation of the architecture of Institutions. The institutions to be examined in this semester are those related to religious practices and their relationship with the communities that they serve. The study of the Dargah(Sufi shrine) in Ajmer used ‘biography’ as the method of understanding this relationship. Interviews conducted with actors in and around the Dargah examined the nature of the relationship of the visitors and inhabitants of the old city of Ajmer with the institutional systems in the city.
Process
The study looks into the paradigms through which the institutions of democracy can be re-imagined. For this study sites were chose from the lowest tier of the pyramid - a local court, family court, etc.
The design tries to metaphorically compare the Bombay City Civil and Sessions Court to a machine. In this analogy we call the courthouse a “Judicial Machine”.
A Machine is the sum total of the various functions it performs , these functions working together attribute to its optimal functioning . Similarly this judicial machine is the sum of all “Processes” and “Activities” that take place inside it everyday: Filing,Recording,Hearing etc.
The design can be seen as a dissection of the machine which exposes the “machinery “. Each program being expressed as an individual volume.One can see the various actions and processes being performed in different parts of this machine while walking up or down the viewing ramp.
Working Drawings
Ground Floor Plan
Exterior Shell & Roof Details
Sections
Entrance Lobby Glazing Details