Some Architectural Ideas Regarding the Proposed Demolition of Dormitories at IIM-A

Team-X : Mat Buildings and Open Structures

The idea of mat building was developed in the 1960s by several members of Team-X, particularly starting with Piet Blom -followed by Alison and Peter Smithson, and developed in practice by several others. Their provocation was the concern for large scale urban projects and their architecture, and their inspirations ranged from the Venice Hospital by Corbusier, Fatehpur Sikri from India (which apparently was introduced to the Smithsons by B V Doshi) to the Katsura Palace in Japan. A key project that influenced this discussion was the Richards Medical Research Labs by Louis Kahn. The key idea that emerged from here is the modular grammar of large-scale projects and the open-ended structure of these projects to either expand, shrink, or absorb new programs and intentions. One can think about the famous orphanage in Amsterdam by Aldo Van Eyeck, Several Projects by Herman Hertzberger, and so on.

An important campus project that emerged from this discussion was the proposal for the Humanities department at the Frei University in Berlin by Candilis, Josic, Woods and Schiedhelm. This is of great importance in the debate round IIM-A campus because firstly, it is an idea for thinking about an architecture for campuses and secondly because it is a large-scale campus building which is coded to absorb a wide range of new developments in the department and the campus. As is popularly known, the building has interchangeable prefabricated components right at the level of fixtures to the structural and façade components. Whether the building is truly modular in the long run is a matter for another debate. What is interesting for our reference here is how has this mat building with open structure fared with new changes over the years in dealing with changing intentions?

Firstly, the Frei University campus is a site where multiple architects have contributed designs for multiple buildings. Secondly, the Humanities building itself, the mat building, has evolved in several ways since it was completed, including a brain shaped library designed by Norman Foster. Some students have even appropriated one of the modules as a hipster café and resting place. Even with these additions and changes, the integrity of the building design is not compromised at all. In fact, if anything, these additions make the project even more interesting and lived.

The idea of open structure, where Kahn’s work is a key reference, could hold remarkably interesting possibility for the future of the campus of IIIM-A and several other campuses elsewhere. This idea transgresses the assumed binary between demolition and preservation. One can imagine new additions between the hostel buildings, almost like scaffolds or formwork for new programs and newer intentions. The great potential of this idea is in identifying and continuing the diagram / system of the building, albeit in an open ended and perhaps even in a striated manner. This is perhaps also its limitation, as it predefines a possible space all too in advance.

Aldo Rossi : Urban Artefact and Typological Framework

Contrary to the idea of Open Structure, yet similar in terms of openness of the objecthood of a building, is the typological idea of urban artefact developed by Rossi in his Architecture of the City. If you are a student of typology in architecture, you have certainly spent quite some time with Architecture of the City by Aldo Rossi. You are also aware of the key ideas from the book, particularly those concerning the urban artefact and the enduring form in the city. You also remember the intriguing images of a Colosseum transforming into a settlement, buildings accrue other buildings over decades, various economic, social, and political modes live their lives either through existing buildings or lead to the production of new buildings. Several buildings endure through several paradigmatic periods and several others are demolished to make space for newer buildings. To that extent, if you are a student of typology in architecture then, change and endurance are your friends to think about the city.

This idea of typology can be seen to be wonderfully developed in the oeuvre of Rafael Moneo, parallelly championed by Oswald Mathias Ungers and others. Particularly interesting is the idea of working towards adding to the urban form of the city. In this framework, it is not the diagram but the form –perhaps we can also use the term objecthood- of the building that is given primacy in deciding an appropriate and beautiful manner of composing the built-form. The added form corresponds with the existing built- forms not in a diagrammatic manner but analogously. What this means is that the new form need not be either similar or same to the existing built-form but has its autonomous existence while spatially engaging with existing buildings in a manner that together form a new unit of experience or new form. This differs from the open structure strategy in a way that in this case, there is no predefined diagram that one need to follow but take into account only the quality and intensity of the spatial experience that is the new additions will produce.

Lacaton & Vassal + Frédéric Druot: Never Demolish

The open-ended idea of Never Demolish developed by Lacaton & Vassal with Frédéric Druot is in many ways polemical, yet perhaps one of the most considerate ideas for urban settlements and societies of 21^st century. Think of their most popular project ‘Transformation de la Tour Bois le Prêtre’ where they not only proposed to save the social housing from demolition, but also developed an architectural strategy to add more space to the existing apartments while never displacing a single occupant. Not only that they also convinced the clients that with the money that they will save by not demolition and not displacing the occupants they can build a brand-new building on another site. This way the client gets two, good, buildings, I must add, at the price of one -and all of this while enriching the apartment spaces of the existing households. Also, by building less one is also able to reduce one’s ecological footprint (although one needs to really put the ecological angle to test, but it certainly is convincing and even relevant in all other aspects that it considers)

This strategy is not only considerate to the capacity of the existing built form to absorb new intentions and changes, like the typological framework, but also is considerate to the life and well being of the inhabitants, the life of buildings, economy, and livelihood of all stakeholders. This strategy is accompanied by closely reading the building, its structural system, condition of the building, circulation, its urban setting, clients’ budget, and intentions, lives of inhabitants and their intentions, and so on. It is in line with the repair and retrofitting strategy, but it goes a step ahead and equally considers the aesthetics of means.

Architectural offices like 51n4e, ROTOR, DOGMA, among others (even OMA) have been parallelly developing ideas for projects to work with existing buildings by means of spatially reorganizing and adding very minimal scaffold like structure to make space for new programs. This form of close or considerate reading of multiple factors and intentions and formulating architectural strategies from these considerations is what distinguishes this approach from both the form driven typological approach and diagram driven mat building or open structures approach.

Close Reading: some concluding remarks

The ideas listed above are few among various other spatial and formal frameworks to think about architecture of institutional campuses and particularly in light of the proposal to demolish the IIM-A hostels. While all the three of them are open ended in terms of their starting point, the core and hence the generative framework for all the three ideas significantly vary. What is also common to all three is that they invite everyone involved to participate in the process of closely reading the situation in various ways. For instance, the mat building strategies entails that the design of the building encode in its diagram, structure, form, and elements the possibility to continuously expand and modify as and when the need arises. For the typological framework, a close reading of the urban setting of the buildings, site, neighbouring buildings, scale, proportions, experience of space, light, etc. are paramount. Lastly, the Never Demolish framework calls the stakeholders and architects to closely read, as mentioned above, a wide range of conditions, right from buildings, stakeholders’ intentions and wellbeing, ecological and economic factors, and so on.

Coming back to the question of the proposed demolition of the hostel buildings at IIM-A. What these four ideas tell us is that it would be unwise to be puritanical or ontologically limited about the architecture of an educational campus. Instead, it should be possible, both ethically and spatially, to conceive and mobilise formal strategies that should be able to absorb a wide range of intentions, present and future, while strengthening, adding, enhancing, intensifying the quality of experience of a beautiful campus like the IIM-A without having to demolish the existing buildings.

These ideas, including the images (below), are suggestive and are intended to open more discussions on new spatial and formal imaginations for the IIM-A campus. Like everything else, one may choose not to engage with such a discussion if one is not inclined to.