Site Mapping
type | ACADEMIC status | COMPLETED year | 2019
Context Map
When choosing a site, it was important to consider an area where there was a confluence of built and unbuilt ecologies. A brownfield or greenfield site was necessary to demonstrate architecture that could allow the ecology to "heal" after the building had passed it's life cycle.
The site chosen is located in the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay - on a greenfield site, an undeveloped extension of the existing campus. Adjacent to a small jungle, the site sits on a strip of land between two major lakes, Vihar and Powai. It's elevation is considerably lower than the surrounding geography, and is essentially a valley between two heavily wooded hills.
Vihar lake, to the north, is a water body with considerable proportions - thus, a heat sink that has a slight cooling effect on the air above it. The two small hills between the lake and the site act as a massive wind tunnel, funneling cooler air onto the low-lying site.
The larger context of the site, showing the two lakes to the north and south of the site, and two hills to the north-east and north of the site, creating a geography that funnels cooler air onto the site. The site, with the adjacent grove of trees, is marked in a darker shade. Created by Kahin Vasi.
Site Delineation
I created a grid, subdividing by powers of 3 - a 30 M^2 grid, a 90 M^2 grid, and a 270 M^2 grid (the map above) to break down the site into "pixels" that could be analysed individually, creating various choropleth maps that delineate the trees, the shaded areas, and the temperature on site.
Through this mapping, I was able to determine the ideal location for the building in terms of two major factors: temperature control and allowing the local ecology to thrive. These two factors were instrumental in the design of the building and its landscape.
Cool air flows into the site from the surface of Vihar lake (in the north) toward the warmer areas of the site (to the south). Air passes through the grove of trees and in further cooled by the vast shaded pockets till it comes into the southernmost point of the site, where the direct sunlight on the ground surface causes the air to heat up and rise - drawing in more cool air from the north. The building sits on this part of the site, where it can take advantage of a constant supply of cool air, especially during the dry summer months.
A series of maps, from top to bottom: the site extents; the 30 and 90 M^2 grids; mapping the tree density; sunlight intensity; temperature mapping from >28 degrees celsius to <23 degrees celsius. Created by Kahin Vasi.
Tree Delineation
While delineating the ecosystems of the site, I organised the trees present on site based on three major characteristics: sub-systems, frequency, and rate of proliferation. The end product was a tabulation of some of the major plants and trees on site, and the designer's attitude towards these trees. Trees with a complex or semi-complex sub-system were left alone, being keystone species in the ecosystem (such as Acacia preta or Indian Almond). However, some trees had a higher frequency on site, and therefore could be transplanted or removed with lesser detriment to the ecosystem as a whole. Further, trees that had high rates of proliferation, with a simple sub-system and high frequency of site could be removed with a very slight (and not lasting) detriment to the ecosystem.
Below is the tabulated visualisation of the major trees on site and the attitude towards them during the design process.
The Delineation of trees on the site
This page is part of the expanded series about my design dissertation completed in April 2019. On the links below, you can continue to "Lab Layouts", the next in this series.