Terra Firma – Phase 02

Resource person – Ar. Ophylia Vinodhini

It’s always interesting to trek the hill less traveled by. Our 5 days of explorations with contour site has proved it well. This time with a well focused team of students, we started with a visit to Kadambavanam, a place close to Sirumalai and Azhagar malai hills. The site with its scenic beauty and interesting onsite and offsite factors was inspirational to work upon. The focus was to understand the ratios, the character of site at various zones and site a group of buildings along the terrain. The students worked on layers of Analysis coming up with the feasibility and vulnerability areas. Solving the roads and pathways was an interesting exercise in itself. The workshop also extended to designing on different slope conditions. Interesting techniques to resolve surface runoff, retain / stabilize slopes such as different types of pitching, swales and retaining walls were discussed and attempted in the given site condition. Representation drawings and techniques were also discussed and explored in the workshop. On the whole, it was a collective learning of observations at site, analysis, design considerations, design development and representation drawings.