urbanGround

@ +91 Residences

2011-06-21T23:19:00.002+05:30

Design Plus was invited to exhibit and Present at IHC, New Delhi for +91 Residences organised by InCITE.
Exhitbition - 17th June to 26th June 2011
Presentation - 18th June 2011

Private Residence, DLF Phase 3

2011-05-23T12:49:00.003+05:30

The idea to enhance the nuclear family interaction was the premise. The program was critically divided in Living Working and Sleeping Spaces. Every floor was detailed to increase the Living areas that would be shared by the inhabitants.

Built-Up - 4800 SqFt.

Deck

First Floor _ Under Const [March 2011]

Party Hall

Park View from Bedroom _ Under Const [March 2011]

Patterns and Performance - 2011 Sem 4

2011-05-21T17:08:00.004+05:30

Thesis | 2nd Year_ 4th Sem

Patterns exist all around us. They are evident all around in nature and the cosmos. Is it not intriguing that if we look at the organic layout of an atom it replicates a similar format of the solar system? SImilarly if we analyze the configuration of various molecular structures the diagraming is very similar to that of the structure of DNA molecules. However the DNA molecule may develop on a more vertical construct vs chemical molecular structures which may unfold on a more horizontal platform. The role of the studio is to be able to question this possibility into the realm of built form. Cities like molecules are a composite of various patterns of their own - some planned others amorphous generations. The studio will also research such conditions as part of the ongoing process of design. Students will participate in research developing tools, processes and strategies of patterns that may influence the built form. The unit will be involved with testing parameters and strategies in relation to the formulation of space. The studio will be testing these ideologies within a rural context as well as an urban scenario. The studio is based on the format of asking appropriate questions through design ideologies rather than answering them.

Neha Yadav

Vatsala Nagar

Ritika

Gauri Varshney

Patterns and Performance - 2010 Sem 3

2011-05-21T17:06:00.002+05:30

Details: http://ssaa-pnp.blogspot.com/

UNIT BRIEF

1. Patterns exist everywhere, and have existed since the big bang.
Patterns are graphic representation of coded information. From the
Neolithic symbolism to twitter mood swings. Spatial patterns are on the
drawing tables of all global design studios. The seduction for patterns is
driven by two essential reasons - first, the mystery of its aesthetic and
second, the rule(s) of generation.
Life revolves around the production of patterns. A simple tracking device
to map your daily movements can produce a personal and intriguing
diagram of your hometown. The subset of this movement also leaves
behind intricate diagrams, from the sediments on the morning coffee cup
to soap bubbles on the shower floor to potent wi-fi connectivity, pattern
dictate life processes.
The studio aims to map and formulate such patterns that envelope us. We
attempt to tackle spatiality by visiting the root of design, both intuitively
and objectively.

2. Performance criterions enable us to judge the creations. Broadly, It is
a measuring device to test the potential of the products. The definition is
extremely loose, as are the different categories under which a building,
installation, objects can be tested. However, Performance variables
are critical factors that enable us to create with balanced intangible
aspects (social, cultural, aesthetic, cognitive) and the measurable aspects
(economic, structure, heat, material constraints etc).
Every design move shall be tested for its performance. There are always
alternatives. Performance criterions would enable us to generate a
repertoire, a gene pool that provides a family with similar but not identical
traits.

3. With the use of models (physical, digital, mental, philosophical,
metaphorical), the unit aims to design and develop environments that
are bottom-up. There is no determined Program for most period of the
studio. The program is deciphered by the rules of engagement.

AA Visiting School India 2011 - Hyperthreads Edition 2

2011-05-21T16:56:00.001+05:30

The intention of the AA Bangalore Visiting School is to look beyond Computer Aided Design (CAD) as simple design automation to CAD as enabling architectural creativity whilst still responding to complex spatial and material performance constraints. In keeping with this spirit, the AA School of Architecture, Zaha Hadid Architects Computation and Design group (ZHA|CODE), Autodesk Inc and Department of Architecture, BMS College of Engineering, Bangalore will renew their collaboration to bring the second iteration of their ten-day workshop and one-day symposium to Bangalore. The workshop will explore the relations between contemporary design techniques, creative expression, software technology and its manifestation within India's emergent economy and ancient traditions of building. It also seeks to use production-proven design methods and software platforms in a judicious mix with innovative research.

More Details: http://www.aaschool.ac.uk/STUDY/VISITING/bangalore.php
http://www.zha-code-education.org

AA Visiting School India 2010 - Hyperthreads Edition 1

2011-05-21T16:40:00.001+05:30

Details: AAVS_Bangalore 2010

Let a Bird Brain design for you

2011-05-21T16:26:00.000+05:30

Design Workshop: Understanding Fields and Topology
At: Sushant School of Art and Architecture
Date: 26th Feb 2009 to 2nd March 2010

Spiretech

2011-05-21T15:57:00.004+05:30

a Team VI project - Arun K Bij, Ginny Sharma, Apurva Alankar, Garima Jain, Abhishek Bij, Priya Vakil

Urban ground featured here as a model of architectural programmatic planning that dilutes the degree of publicness. The ground, as a platform for public aggregation and usage, appears and re-appears at Varying Zs.

We propose to acknowledge the evolution of the city.
We speculate and propose an architectural shell with programmatic indeterminacy.
We propose a ground for publicness that exerts itself at various scales and levels.
We propose to highlight the importance of water and its source.
To reduce-reuse-recycle water within our periphery, alleviating the pressure on the ground and the river.
We envision a system of development around the River that acknowledges it as a dynamic constant in human evolution.

Installation 1 | Component Aggregation

2011-05-21T15:20:00.000+05:30

On 26th August 2010, Unit 4 successfully aggregates the design components. Each component with embedded joining detail aggregated to:

1. GROW
2 .form an 18 sided 3d Geometry
3. Find touch down points to stabilize the installation.

Construction Team - Unit 4 | 2nd Year | SSAA
Construction Location - SSAA_Amphitheater
Construction time - 3 hrs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9H76qm1l53M

Private Residence, DLF Phase 1

2011-05-21T15:13:00.004+05:30

The residence is a result of a speculative 10 year plan. Running from a bachelor pad in 2011 for Khurana brothers to a twin family residence in 2020.

The permissible built volume was converted to a low resolution voxel model. Spatial requirements, programmatic arrangements and HUDA by-laws drive the sculpting of the generic 1cuM. Each iteration dissolves 40 voxels. Termination of 20 iterations prepares a 'Restore Point Model' (RPtM) for a built-up area calculation.

A RPtM is further detailed with house design components and materiality for discussions and aesthetic judgments.

The process is continued till it passes most (hopefully all) objective and subjective tests.

Parametric Shell

2011-05-21T15:08:00.000+05:30

The parametric prototype alters its geometry imbibing client’s requirements and aesthetic arguments. The 140 Sqm shell encounters spans, views, room locations and orientations.

The project is at a research stage and exploring material possibilities of deploying pre engineered steel structures with insulated fillers.

Marketel Head Office

2011-05-21T13:58:00.003+05:30

D[+]DR proposed an alternate skin for the Marketel Head office.
There is a constant endeavor of the main office to reflect the program of the interiors onto its facade. The building itself represents the context within which it operates. The "Travel Jaali" is a symbol of the hospitality industry that the clients deal with. In addition to the semantic connect it also serves as a surface protecting the building from the harsh South + West sun.

http://designplus.org.in/sw-res-market-headoffice-noida.html

Development:
Point field - modulated to provide desired opening sizes and location

Fabrication:
The Indian construction industry operates between a marriage between several Hi-Tech + Low-tech marriages. Owing to budget constraint, the entire surface is being labour-cut by custom made moulds.

Each MS sheet of 4' x 2' is cut manually by a temporary mould and fixed in situ. The sheet size governs not only its own strength but also the structural glazing intervals

Deployment:

Proposal:

20Under35 organised by Design X Design

2011-05-21T12:42:00.008+05:30

Abhishek Bij, Design [+] Design Research, was invited to exhibit at Alliance Francaise Delhi for 20Under25 organised by Design X Design. 21st December 2010 to 3rd Jan 2011

Details - http://delhi.afindia.org/node/2643

Design Plus presented for PLATFORMS

2010-05-13T15:48:00.002+05:30

Design Plus and Amit Talwar Associates presented for PLATFORMS
at
Sushant School of Art and Architecture,Gurgaon.
15th April 2010 @ 1400

Seminar - Design Plus Presents for Urban Voids

2010-04-08T14:24:00.006+05:30

Design Plus Presented for Urban Voids

Date: 31st March 2010
Location: India Habitat Centre, New Delhi
Organised by: GREHA

“The spirit of our times is neither the grand optimism of utopian modernist ideals nor the playful technological wonder that influenced the avant-garde of the 60s and 70s.”[1]

Through this lecture I try and address the layers of complexities of an urban setting. Attempt to objectify and tap into the overload of information that floats around. Reduce this information into data sets. And eventually question the role of Architects and Urbanists in “designing” an urban Model.

[1] Theodore Spyropoulos – Prologue: AADRL Documents 2, DRLTEN A design research compendium, AA Publications (2008)

The question that design plus posed for themselves if a dilution of program was possible in Nehru Place and more importantly who decides what’s to be done (assuming something needs to be done in the first place).

From the flyover, Nehru Place is a collection of concrete skyscrapers clustered around a few central plazas. In the buildings themselves, a number of very legitimate businesses. But on the ground level is India’s IT boom in action: an explosion of brand names, a cacophony of vendors, waves of young men in fashionable shirts, and ancient diesel generators that roar to life every time the power goes down.

Agents/ Boids/ Drones were deployed into the plaza with a simple rule of avoiding each other and spending time in the plaza. Originating from either end and based on fuzzy principles of directionality, location, conferences, final target etc they merrily just walk around the plaza.

Each agent, each simulating a set of visitors, divides the plaza.

We picked up one such division to identify the density pattern in the created areas. Identified 4 distinct areas based on boid congregation.

Touch me nots
Display Portal
Pavilions/ Follies
Use me as you please

With division sorted. We were unsure of the next step for the 3^rd dimension for a 24x7 environment. This stage of design methodology was purely intuitive, purely out of long hours of just staring at the ******* patterns the ******** boids had created and one inspiring video.

We adopted 3 approaches to deal with the 4 areas created.

1^st we adopted a packing exercise of the entire plaza. Repel and Scaled the geometry to restrict the packing in the “use me as you please area”. Created a portfolio of more patterns that provide another layer of information.

2^nd – we adopted simple paper folding exercise to provide an alternate terrain to the flat plaza.

3^rd – left alone the highly dense areas.

HexaSpray

CAM 1 - NP by 1300Hrs

CAM 1 - NP by 2100Hrs

CAM 6 - NP by 1300Hrs

CAM 6 - NP by 2100Hrs

Published Paper - Who is in Control?

2010-03-21T20:05:00.003+05:30

Who is in Control?, Abhishek Bij, Architecture - Time Space & People, March 2010

Apocalyptic Creations - Projects @ Sushant School of Art and Architecture

2010-01-11T23:44:00.003+05:30

AC is a design studio at Sushant School of Art and Architecture, New Delhi. AC operates in the realm between reality and fiction. Studio challenges human perception to create environments that cater to 'novel' socio-political, cultural, economic, geographic, physical and mental conditions.

http://apocalypticcreations.blogspot.com/

Published paper

2009-11-03T16:18:00.016+05:30

Omnipresent Models, Abhishek Bij, Architecture + Design, October 2009.

Exhibition_Design Plus' SPA Entry

2009-06-16T12:10:00.007+05:30

The Design Plus' competition entry for School of Planning and Architecture, New Campus, New Delhi, was one of the chosen 30 entries out of 250+ submissions to be exhibited at SPA, ITO from 1st June to 7th June '09.

Implimentation_School of Planning and Architecture

2009-06-14T17:57:00.062+05:30

@ Design Plus (www.designplus.org.in), New Delhi

Project: SPA, New Delhi

Intensity_preface

Designing the School of Planning and Architecture campus is more nostalgic for Design Plus than a moment of prestige. For decades the SPA has produced both National and International achievers for the Architectural Profession, and we too claim to be amongst the list. Apart from the personal connection present, the Design Competition carries immense responsibilities towards the profession as a whole.

The proposal for us would be a statement for an ideal designed environment/habitat for this century. A product which boasts of being aesthetically sublime, environmentally conscious, functionally a blend of convention and differentiation, but more importantly a responsively planned urban model and architecturally articulate built environment.

The claims are humongous, but it’s the project that compels us to be at our best. The site for example can be understood as a confluence between the natural environment (South Central Ridge) and the Urban Development (Vasant Kunj residences and now Malls and JNU, teri and bio-diversity parks as institutionallandmarks). Apart from its volatile location, the brief brings together the entireSPA commune (Under-grad, Post-Grad, Planning, Architecture and the residential requirements) within one perimeter for the first time since itsinception in 1959.

Finally, this competition shall bring the country’s finest together on one platform. It is probably the first time ever that who’s who of Indian Architecture shall be competing against their colleagues, students and teachers to mastermind India’s premiere architectural institute.

Understanding the urbanGround | Scales

The ITO campus enjoyed the intensity of its urban engagement, where the evolution of School of Planning and Architecture overlapped with the development of the city. However, the now evolved SPA with its new campus would add to the institutional, residential and commercial collage in Delhi’s south central ridge and would brace itself to witness yet another state of dynamism of such a juxtaposed urban setting.

Highlighting the important distinction between Urbanism and Urbanization, we propose the Urban Ground. This is a model of urbanism that attempts to dilute the extremities between the natural and the human imposed context.

At the Macro-level, the urban ground respects the once nature dominated skyline and simultaneously the need for human intervention.

At the Meso-level, acknowledging the pressures exerted by the site’s morphology, the Urban Ground acts as an extension of the existing terrain, both as a blend or an additive layer.

This ground can be understood as a surface at the Micro-level, that negotiates topography and accommodates functional deployments, performing as a roof, a ground, and occupiable space, depending on its own gradient and the variation in its thickness.

Feasibility

Tooling

“If architecture is an extended process of formation, then before ideas coalesce into definitive form there must exist some undifferentiated state free of any organization” - Benjamin Aranda & Chris Lasch

Ideas are formless and exist floating in describable abstracts. Designdevelopment is a process that initiates the transition of these ideas from the abstracts into the realms of the tangible; and Tooling is the operator that transfers this ‘pre-material’ to the ‘material. Tooling is a set of techniques that afford the design decisions to set sail. The products however, may reflect abstractions in purity or their derivations.

Design Plus breaks down tooling into algorithmic reasoning. The architectural and planning decisions are supported by custom written codes that create a certain degree of accidental yet consistent results. The modulations of codes provide a repertoire of formal outputs, demonstrating relations and their evolution, loading the project with glaring information.

A series of conducted operations generate 2D patterns, 3D forms, and varying spatial configurations that are open to interpretation.With our machinic processes we attempt to balance the theoretical, digital, and intuitive input.

Varying Ground Conditions

Academic Zone - The surface over the academic zone strengthens the concept of extending the terrain by introducing an additive layer. When serving as a roof it ensures a perennial comfortable micro-climate and with its mild gradient, also performs as a ground.

As Occupiable Space. The level 1 studios maintain floor levels with either side of the trench, while level 0 studios pretend to be protrusions of trench walls.

The trench maintains the natural greens. Performing as the omnipresent ground is an extension to the studios, with stipples like, amphitheater, natural terraces, cafe etc.

Administrative Zone - Surface behaves as a conventional roof over the Administrative block, shaped by surrounding sky-line pressures. To accommodate separate programs the ground splits to generate multiple spatial conditions in addition to creating an envelope for National Resource Centre and Health Centre. The lecture hall exemplifies a condition of stacked floors including its roof, which in turn behaves as an elevated ground for the academic zone. The Auditorium identifies the Surface as a conventional roofing element. However, gradual slope above the campus centre permits pedestrian movement.

Residential tract -

- The system of alternating units, their serving corridors and occasional sky lounges introduce accidental interactions on and between floors.

- Residential passages are daylit to reduce energy consumptions.

Surface behaves as a conventional roof over the Residential blocks, binding the three distinct units.

The Origin_FlowUrbanism @ AADRL

2009-06-14T14:10:00.058+05:30

Flow Urbanism

Brown Sheep (Rajat Sodhi | Brian Houghton | Abhishek Bij)

AADRLv11 | Parametric Urbanism III

The Research Agenda for this Thesis focuses on the inherent intelligence in the dynamics of flow to mediate natural, pedestrian and vehicular movements to reach stasis and to define a boundary condition for distributing built mass, mixed use program and a public park. The pattern of distribution highlights theconsistency of an evolutionary system, wherein local variations of networkingpaths and nodal points, influenced by parametric contextual field conditions, can have multiple emergent effects from the scale of an architectural logic to global urban organization.

The techniques developed to control flow are deployed on a site of Parque DomPedro in Sao Paulo, which has witnessed consistent urban decline due to conflicting infrastructural systems. The proposal aims at restructuring the site and introducing a new building type that integrates the ground with the builtto create occupiable spaces and emerging circulatory routes that help the user to negotiate different transport infrastructures and rejuvenate the site.

Urban Condition

Sao Paulo is the largest city in Brazil and in Latin America and ranks among the top five cities with the largest metropolitan area in the world. The city consists of a historical city center and the metropolitan area. With 11 Million people inhabiting a little over 1.5 square kilometer, the center is the most populousregion in South America and the southern hemisphere.

The city of Sao Paulo was built for the automobile and the dense infrastructure of roads, highways, underpasses and traffic interchange loops define the urban fabric and sustain the city’s ability to sustain its high density.

The site of Parque Dom Pedro is located at the edge of city center and is defined by a set of traffic interchange loops that allows both for the absorption of incoming traffic from the suburbs into the center and allowing vehicular movement to bypass the city. The site is also bifurcated into east and western banks of the River Tiete. The western part of the site consists of Dom Pedro II Bus Terminal which links the city center to the suburbs, while the easternsidecontains the Palace of Industries, the former site of the Mayor’s office, now a restoration project and the Dom Pedro Park.

In recent years, the site has witnessed the layering of new infrastructural systems such as a metro station and a tram terminal. The only physical link to the site is now reduced to a pedestrian bridge that connects the city with the infrastructural systems on site. Paradoxically, these new layers have turned the site into a traffic churning infrastructural archipelago sustaining the city with both vehicular and pedestrian traffic, yet leading to its rampant degradation due to its limiting and segregated connectivity.

The positioning of the site within a high density and fast moving vehicular traffic interchange ring has resulted in its degradation. The bifurcation of the site by the river adds another degree of inaccessibility to Dom Pedro Park which makes it an ideal place for anti-social behavior.

The Plugin - The emergent distributed cluster work routes allow localized access points and circulatory routes the buses. The distributed system connects the site geographically with bus circulations in corresponding directions. In addition to the vehicular circulatory logic, thediagram suggests possible massing and redistribution of greens in an elevated and thickened ground conditionwhich may serve to connect with the context both at a planning and human level.

Materialization

The Fins of the urban diagram enable to suggest not only an urban massing for the site, but a set of relationships and differences that each set of fins exhibits within a nodal point set in comparison to the fins of other sets. The different cluster formulations of the fins were segregated and each cluster was used to define a set of surfaces. The translation of a group of fins into a surface thus provides an opportunity to collect and regroup geometry to create architectural effects.

Spatialization

The translation of the urban diagram into surfaces provided an opportunity to instrumentalize the surface as structure to create spatial configurations. This was achieved through a process of thickening, splitting, bifurcating and blistering of the ground surface, both horizontally and vertically. Our research focused on developing a new form of urbanism that is derived from the generation of integrated and diverse ground conditions that negotiate a complex networking of pedestrian flows, and set forth new opportunities for the organization and differentiation of public and private spaces.

The challenge in thickening of the ground surface involved its successful translation from a horizontal plane, vertically up to form the skyscraper.

The deflections of the surface results in creation of blister like formations that can be parametrically controlled for each set of fins independently, allowing for a control over the dispersion of program in the thickened ground. In the process of thickening of the ground, multiple layers of circulation were introduced therefore leading to recursive thickening and splitting of the surface allowing for occupiable zones to be created not only on the top and underneath the surface but also in the interstitial regions of the surface.

This technique results in the formation of a new architectural prototype thatintegrates the flows of pedestrian and vehicular traffic while simultaneously allowing for pockets of spaces being created due to the resulting structure. These pockets of spaces are connected by a complex network of pathways which allows for differentiating the program and the parametric reconfiguration of the building based on its relative position with the larger global system of nodalpoints.

The Urban Plan shows the reconfigured park structure and its connectivity to the context. The thickening of the ground enables the park to exist at different levels, allowing for a non-linear flow of pedestrian in and out of the site. The proposed architectural prototypes cross the periphery and connect with the context at local points where the pedestrian is allowed in order to maintain a discreet disconnection with vehicular movement in the site.

The prototypical model demonstrates the architectural prototype that enables the negotiation of pedestrian and vehicular flows, connectivity to context and continuation of the park space as a thick ground.

Conclusion

The exploration of flow dynamics through material experimentation, its translation and research into off the shelf software and custom written code, and its application to create a new form of urbanism that is predicated on creating and negotiating infrastructural connectivities has allowed the thesis to produce a new architectural prototype which integrates the ground and the built.

Such an urbanism challenges the relationship between the figure and the ground and allows us to ask new questions about urbanism as a system defined by inter-relationships and relative relationships between points in a field condition.

The architectural prototype pushes the dilution of the relationship between figure and ground to another level where the gradient of formation of spatial pockets and circulatory networks allows the dissolution of the public and the private by establishing varying degrees of publicness as a primary mode of distributing program within a built structure. Thus, by modulating and controlling types of flow, one is able to create gradients of occupiable zones, pedestrian and vehicular movement and gradients of structure and green spaces.