Culture Mapping Project, Udupi

Project on Conservation Studies by 8 semester students of Manipal School of Planning & Architecture, MAHE, under the guidance of our professor, Mrs. Sarmistha Chatterjee.

” Design creates culture. Culture shapes values. Values determine the future. “
Robert Peters

Mapping is a strategy to learn the various cultural and commercial activities happening along the streets and the impact of the Udupi Krishna Temple on these settlements.

This assignment helped in mapping streets of the temple precinct in Udupi, using methods that explore the intersection of built mass and social space, form and time, and uses and changes in these collectively owned, common voids. Techniques engaged the power of representation and data visualization for both understanding and shaping a perception of looking at the heritage fabric of this unique temple town.

The street encompasses old buildings which create a way-finding to the southern entrance of the Udupi Temple. To capture all the elements and activities happening along the street, it was first divided into six zones and each group containing a set of students was given a zone to map.

One of the oldest residence’s on this street

Along the Zone 5, the Badagupete lane has a character of its own. Be it the 125 year old building or the vibrance of their facade colors, it seemed very vital to retain the essence of the heritage fabric of this lane.

This street of the temple complex is a living history narrating the stories of Udupi’s culture. Streets play an integral role in a town like Udupi where it acts as an important public space for celebrating festivities and for social interaction. There is a distinct culture in the town of Udupi as a mark of its cultural, religious and social significance. The temple influenced the growth of the settlements in this precinct and hence, the commercial activities along the lane multiplied.

My teammate, Shloka, keenly observing the difference in activites along the street during inactive hours

These buildings mainly function as residences and commercial shops in the present day. The development of the temple precinct led to establishing a variety of shops like those of Silverware, Ration, Linseed Oil, Pickles, Garments, Laundry and a Mechanic’s garage. The variety of trade defines a hierarchy of the community that lives along the street. Each of these buildings showcase old architectural construction techniques as well as building materials. One such significant feature is the front porch of residences along the lane which behave as interaction spaces or gathering spaces for people of the family as well as the neighborhood. The high plinth and sit-out area in the porch defined the seating arrangement of persons based on the hierarchy of their social statuses.

The use of building materials like wood and mud explains that the structural frame of these buildings is inspired by that of the temple. Shared spaces or common interaction zones between two residences play a key role in socializing with the community and there is a need to retain the beauty of such social spaces. The buildings also display various tones of the color palette with a few structures having a touch of the modern vibrant colored facades.

The difference in building typology is observed in the above photograph

Team Discussions on listing the elements contributing to the essence of the street.
From left, Shloka, Samad, Haripriya and Shivangi. Pic Courtesy: Edgar

With the developing infrastructure of towns, we understand that it is difficult to come up with road widening and drainage patterns without disturbing the heritage fabric of the context. Although to retain the essence of these commercial spaces, revamping a few structures and retaining each of these buildings will keep the tradition of the street alive. The various users, shopkeepers and traders of this street, whose pattern of hierarchy in their social statuses interests us also shall be unaffected by any new activity happening on the street. The introduction of new elements may reflect contemporary aesthetic ideals as modern additions to old buildings.

A few sketches displaying activities happening in zone 5

Reading and Recording streets : Documentation by Group 5 – Haripriya, Edgar, Samad, Shloka, Shivangi,
Shonak & Yashaswini

Finding your identity

“I am thee and thou art me and all of one is the other”
Hemingway

One Monday afternoon, amidst the chaos of what was happening around me, I, along with 5 of my teammates begun to think of who we were and what was our identity. From commencing with a warm up game testing our presence, to sketching what we think of ourselves was what our Conservation studies class on last Monday was about.

Firstly, the entire class had to form a circular arrangement for seating followed by us getting divided sequentially into groups of 6. The host, our professor, Ms. Chatterjee, had a brief for us to follow for the remaining hours of the class. We got involved into team activities and fun-learning wherein we had to use newspaper as the only prop, pick two individuals from the group as models, and create an installation or dress the models based on the theme.

The first theme in the brief was ‘Aesthetics’. For this one, my crew perceived aesthetics as something that is not only beautiful but something which brings about the character and function of a particular element as well. We looked at the blending of inner and outer beauty of a person or element as our concept of Aesthetics.

The Aesthetic element that we chose was that of a Gothic window. The initiation of decorative styles and elements from the Gothic Era are one of its kind. For example, the long and narrow arched Gothic window which pretty much speaks for itself with its intricate details. And just like that within a span of 10-15 mins, we clubbed in our ideas to make the models as the strict instructions of not using any sticking material was given. We formed tubes of papers and ultimately ended up making what is displayed in fig (3).

The two models, Ann and Nymisha holding the newspaper prop for the Gothic Window

Shloka and Edgar trying to dress the models up in the given time frame.

All the six groups then explained their concepts and ideas and we then move on to a smarter round two. The theme for round two was ‘Element’. Being architecture school kids, we obviously first looked at the Elements of Design. We picked ‘Size & Proportion’ as our theme for the models. So firstly, we chose both the boys in our group, Edgar & Shonak to be the models. We begunwith making ties and hats of varied lengths and we tried to display through our models that size and proportion with balance brings monotony and creates harmony while disproportion and imbalance in sizes would lack monotony. This brought about the evolution of our thought process and how smarter and quicker we were by the second round boosted us up.

By the end of it, we all were very happy with the activities that caused adrenaline rush and enthusiasm in us and would also love fun-learning and outdoor schooling techniques.