PM - Auction House
Corrie Graham - Michael Posso
Boat Club's tend to convey elitist views, sub-urban mentality, notions of wealth and exclusivity. Kolkata seems to encourage urban infrastructure built upon bourgeois amenities: social clubs and other privileged spaces are linked together as series of buoys floating on a surface of now fragmented colonial class-formed territoriality. In the South of Kolkata, The Lake Mall creates a distinction between the “up”-market measure of privilege in the upstairs shopping mall and the “down”-market Ganga measures present among the fishmonger folk at street level. In the North of Kolkata, the Tallah Tank echoes and represents parallel water distribution inequalities of Kolkata more directly through its re- appropriation, dominance and measure of nature. These agencies negotiate edges in a dichotomy of measures.
Project Mayhem is an urban garden project that seeks to disturb current water and Ganga relations. The Rabindra Sarobar Lake presents a fecund ground for tactical rupture. A rowing track is proposed for the artificial lake. It seeks to look beyond the handicap of water through aquatectural thresholds (Ganga’s Cast of Gags), using various social measures to rupture and redistribute privileged measure.
A series of kilns will re-appropriate the man-made garden ground (that was once swamp) to Democratic Huts, abiding by the precision of a rowing track. Urban Shuttering will provide a transition between Ganga measure and the conditions demanded by social measures. Ganga’s Cast of Gags will reveal a new garden biopolis to initiate a different Boat Club mentality for the benefit of all folk.
Initial massing sketch
initial roof concept model and drawing
A Cast of Gags set the aquatectural thresholds of the site. Through an appreciation of Ganga and pure measure, Project Mayhem will disturb the current edges and boundaries of building, ground and water along the site.
The Auction House is composed of a series of Gags: Clouds, Urban Shutters, Democratic Huts, Deck and Kilns. This chapter explores the tectonic and building properties of these characters.
Consumption of Chai and the throwing away of the clay cup
Hand drawing section exploring the construction, destruction and reconstruction of the chai clay cup
The Auction House
Competition is a trait of negotiation. An Auction House along the rowing track will mirror the competition which occurs on the lake. It will be a hub for communal activity between the privileged and common folk. Conditioned vessels containing an Auction Hall, Gallery, Restaurant and Jewellers workshops will be wrapped by Urban Shutters and Clouds. The fishmongers will be allocated tables to sell and prepare fish for the restaurant. Democratic Huts flank the hub of activity, suggesting moments of rest and shade.
'Project Mayhem - Auction House Axonometric rendered image
Ground Floor Plan
Deck Floor Plan
First Floor Plan
Roof Plan
The Kiln
Project Mayhem begins with a series of kilns nestled amongst the topography of the site. Each kiln is sculpted from the surrounding clay ground and put together as footings for the Auction House. once the kilns are carved and scorched into the landscape they become the active agent in the sculpting of the brick pieces for the various facades and earth elements found within the project above.
The kiln also becomes a catalysts for project mayhem as the first underground point of fight club is the kiln which uses the process of firing clay as an act of breaking the horizontal edge along the site and places the earth above the original ground line.
Axonometric Drawing of Kiln layout within the Auction House
Auction House - On the Horizon
1:200 Short Section through Restaurant and fish market
1:50 Long Section through Fish market, Gallery, Auction hall
Green Shutter - Calcutta
Green Shutter of Calcutta
Conditions of the vessel
A series of vessels dock on the Rabindra Sarobar Lake. They contain moments of privilege and condition relating to their programmatic values. For example, Auction Halls and Galleries need to be conditioned as their will house high value items. However, the ground the vessels dock on respond to Ganga measure, that of the Sundarban jungle.
Project Mayhem looks to the auction house as the epicentre or "soap street" where it can be said that it is manifesto in action. Each conditioned space deals with a varying degree of wetness wether that be found in the technical apparatus of the space dealing with keeping (at the body scale) the spaces dry. or at a cosmopolitical level a degree of wetness within the introduction of fisherman and auctioneering 'folk'.
Each vessel seeks to become the epitome of a level 'slab' that a fair 'Adda' can take place upon.
Detailed Section - Fish Market/Restaurant (1 - 2)
Detailed section - Gallery (4)
Detailed Section - Auction Hall (5)
Auction House rendered timeline
Horizontal rendered image, Morning - Fisherman
Horizontal rendered image, Evening - Rowing clubs
Water Table - Saturated Walnut
Glueing Walnut planks together, Biscuit joint
Walnut post routering
Modelling Varying degrees of 'wetness'
Water and ground within India is one of the same, the Sundarbans rivers including the Hoogly river that runs through Calcutta is fed by Melting ice from the Himalayas they act as a series of filtered 'drains' that occupy most of the soil across India, Where the Himalayas reach the North point of India and Nepal the rest of India 'down' south becomes a funnel for the melting and passage of water. However with such a rich and 'wet' surface representing 'dry' ground and waters edge becomes quite tricky, as they are effectively the same thing. Yet if you were to acknowledge the statement of water and ground being of material (Walnut) then only the material would need to show such subtle variation. Therefore i chose to saturate the wood by applying an oil upon the 'waters edge' of the table creating the liquid like reflective surface compared to the un-oiled surface that shows ground.
1:200 Model - water table