DWELL 2020: TUBE HOUSE
DWELL WORKSHOP, February 2020DWELL is an annual workshop at the Foundation that is aimed to stimulate architects, designers and students to think about the idea of living in contemporary urban landscapes and the issues that arise in these contexts. DWELL also aspires to provoke a discussion on the role of architecture and design to mitigate urban mathematics. The workshop aims to introduce the many perspectives that influence life in a city. The dialogue is intended to revolve around the design of a dwelling, its contexts and the fundamental amenities that are critical to the success of a vibrant housing layer in any city.
The format of DWELL — a four-day intensive interaction between young architects and experienced mentors, who work together to ideate on a design, serves to immerse young professionals to the issues of housing in the developing world. It creates an environment where students have an opportunity to work with practitioners.
In order to focus the workshop, we used the design of the “Tube House” as a vehicle to navigate the idea of low-rise high-density housing as a solution to equitable housing in India and the Global South. We feel that the design for the “Tube House” addresses not just this, but additionally, to quote Charles Correa, the “opportunity! — to use the architecture itself as the essential manipulator of climate”*
A team of young professionals worked under experienced mentors who introduced them to ideas about housing, building construction, and detailing. Further to the lectures we worked with the archival drawings of the Tube House, and other relevant projects in the Charles Correa Archives and guided them to make a set of sketch drawings. Understandably public aspirations have changed and hence the use of carbon negative materials and iterations based on user demands were designed by the teams to account for contemporary context.
*Correa, Charles. ‘Techniques & Architecture’, Paris, December 1976.
