Author: P. Preeti
Site Location: Watrap Pudupatti, Tamil Nadu
Institute: R V College of Architecture
Advisor:Prof. Meera Vasudev Srinivasan
Description
The project explores how architecture can intervene within the caste-divided spatial landscape of Watrap Pudupatti, Tamil Nadu, through the everyday lives of Paraiyar women. Rather than attempting to erase caste difference, it creates layers of democratic space that allow different communities to coexist while gradually challenging who can occupy, access, and control space.
At its core, the project establishes ownership as a foundation for leisure and agency. Land, therefore, is not treated simply as a site for a building, but as a means of reclaiming spatial autonomy. The architecture creates a sequence of public, collective, semi-private, and intimate spaces, allowing women to move between gathering, learning, performing, producing, resting, and governing.
The five fundamental rhythms of the parai become the project’s architectural syntax. Their patterns of repetition, pause, acceleration, and release are translated into spatial operations—compression and expansion, thresholds, courtyards, movement paths, gathering grounds, and moments of pause.
Rather than a singular monument, the project becomes a porous network embedded within village life. Open grounds, shaded courts, landscape, and transitional spaces allow everyday movement to flow through the institution. Architecture thus becomes a framework for ownership, visibility, leisure, collective expression, and coexistence, creating spatial loopholes within an existing caste hierarchy.
Drawings
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