‘Village Project’ by B. Arch for Architectural Design Studio

As part of their Architecture Design Studio, students of fifth Semester B.Arch. of Chitkara School of Planning and Architecture (CSPA), have taken up a project aimed at ‘Design Interventions for Upgrading the Quality of Life’ of the Village Ram Nagar, located around 2.5 km from the Chitkara University, Punjab.

The project is being conducted under the supervision of a team of faculty members, namely Ar. Harveen Bhandari, Ar. Kanika Bansal, Ar. Ranjit Singh, Ar. Sher Ali Dar, and, Ar. Shikha Garg, with advice from two of our senior Visiting Faculty, former Chief Architects Ar. R.L. Goyal and Ar. S.S. Sandhu.

The genesis of the project lies in the fact that today our villages are facing many problems due to lack of engineering and architecture initiatives. From limited or no access to design talent, technology and new and improved building methods, our villages are being forced to remain as crumbling units of the past.

Therefore, there is a need to address the problem and bridge the urban-rural gap. The objective of the project, thus, is to sensitize our students to the ground reality of India’s rural environments and to build special attitudes and skills for creating appropriate, context-responsive designs for such situations.

The project would continue till the end of the current semester and would comprise various stages, such as identifying unique attributes of the chosen case study, i.e., Ram Nagar, through study and documentation of its settlement pattern, design and usage of public/open spaces, design of various types of buildings, construction systems, etc., as well as detailed household surveys and other forms of interaction to identify need-based development issues within the village. The results would be analysed for formulation of design project (s). The project would end with various Design Proposals.