Museum Entrance Gallery
Client
Uttarayan Foundation Trust
Location
Jaspur, Vadodara
Material
Exposed brick masonry walls and pitched RCC slab cladded with Mangalore tiles
Project Brief
Uttarayan Foundation is 10 acres of green built environment overlooking the banks of the river Mahi on the outskirts of the art capital of Gujarat, Vadodara. The campus design for the foundation was privately commissioned by Dr. Rakesh Agrawal in the year 2000 and completed by Karan Grover and Associates in the year 2006. It is comprised of the main building to house studios, secondary building blocks for dormitories + cafeteria for the artists, office building, a few service building blocks, and an amphitheater. The foundation serves as a host to multifarious artists from all over the globe ranging from sculptors to digital print media artists. The infinitude of art produced over the years urged to develop of a museum for the same. The paucity of finds led to the reuse of the studio blocks as a museum and to house the studios elsewhere. The architectonic challenge was to develop an entrance gallery that humbly highlighted itself as the featured gallery but never overpowered the existing builtscape. The new entrance gallery would house the featured works and profiles of the artists whose works have been displayed in the museum. Also, the new building block has to serve as an architectural design solution to guide one through the existing building blocks which when refurbished were to function as museum galleries built around a courtyard.
Work Description
Two design strategies were formulated as a result of rigorous discussions and mockups with the aim of preserving the existing character of spaces and adding new building blocks and functions at the same time. The design process led to the development of two design iterations for the new entrance gallery in accordance with the understated strategies.
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The existing lower-level courtyard would be taken vertically up in terms of an accessible green roof to enclose a gallery below it and to retain the infinity green view from the verandah of the upper-level courtyard.
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The existing built block would be completed by building around the existing lower level courtyard to preserve the excitement and play of having two stepped courtyards within the built mass.
My Role:
The nature of my involvement in the project consisted of the following stages:
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Site visits with the studio team to formulate the two stated strategies
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Design mockups and presentations to the studio team headed by Ar. Karan Grover in person
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Spatial analysis through the means of working models
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Architectonic translation of the two stated strategies.
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Producing a complete set of drawings for both options.
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Involvement with consultants to get estimates and bills of quantities.
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Attending client meetings
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Producing a final set of presentation drawings.