Sculpting Communities
Pali, Maharashtra
2017 - Competition
This proposed housing project is located 60kms away from Mumbai close to the Mumbai-Nashik expressway. It houses 650 families spread over 14.5 acres of land. Being away from the main city, the project is focused on creating a colony with an intimate environment where community gatherings and celebrations happen together. Hence, we explored how to achieve this human scale, and connection to the ground, by using a court typology that creates ‘mini-worlds’ within the larger colony.
To create a seamless pedestrianized community space across the entire ground floor – with gardens, walkways and children’s play areas – we’ve relegated all vehicular movement and parking spaces to the basement. A largescale breathing space is defined at the center of the site by the apartment clusters, which surround it and lend it an overall sense of enclosure. Several smaller pockets of gardens are then distributed here to encourage activities and gatherings. The open spaces therefore become active spaces where the community intermingles and plays. The courts here also help to bring light into every house, ensuring that the houses are always internally well-lit. Each apartment unit has good cross-ventilation and connectivity to the movement spines.
The horizontal terracotta louvers across the balconies and windows of the houses would add a touch of variation to the building complex. This contemporary articulation of the language of architecture is simple, yet distinctive, and creates a presence of its own.
