This Studio project taken in 2018 focused on Environment. This term was used here in a wider sense in order to provide us with a more expansive perspective of the built environment beyond the design of a building alone. The term derives from Old French ‘environ’ meaning ‘around’ and literally describes “everything that is around us”. It includes the built environment, but also the natural environment and its local ecologies, as well as the cultural, social, economic and political environment. The focus therefore goes beyond a narrow understanding of ‘green’ or ‘energy-efficient’ design, and instead aims to consider the sustainability and context of buildings more holistically.

Firstly it complemented our studies to date and gave us a chance to design within a wider context and to consider buildings in their surroundings. Even if we may not end up working as an urban designer, it is essential as an architect to be able to situate and design buildings within a wider urban and cultural context. In fact, many urban designers are architects or have at least some architectural training. Furthermore, many successful architectural practices have built their reputation on their intelligent and often critical architectural response to a local context.
The second reason is that the site takes us out of our familiar surroundings and purposefully provides an unfamiliar context. For this studio we cannot rely on our assumptions of a familiar environment. This is both an opportunity and challenge. Just like many design tasks, we need to make an effort to understand a new context and problem, in order to propose creative and useful responses. The project is therefore a good practice for taking on unfamiliar tasks and to develop the confidence and tools to be able to tackle these.
A third reason is that the project constitutes cultural, social and also environmental challenges that you will need to respond to with your design. It is a complex problem for which there are unlikely to be easy or perfect answers. The challenge will be to provide suggestions that can nevertheless be interesting and have the potential to address at least some of these issues.
A fun aspect of this project is that it was part of an international competition. It was an exciting and challenging task that enriched my study experience.

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My group and I were so excited when we received an Honorable Mention for our “Worli Koliwada The Living Eco-System!