FIRST YEAR, Term 3 Brief 1: Context. Observing. Visual Communication.

2 Weeks , April 2021

T3B1 focused on highlighting out awareness about our immediate physical contexts. Since the 2020-21 academic year was unique, with most students studying online from their hometowns, this brief received a variety of responses with every student studying their physical contexts.

My brief required me to make a detailed axonometric A1 drawing, which highlights the peculiarity of my neighborhood. During the course of the brief, my physical location was Rajkot: A small city in India.

Final Output: Axonometric Drawing.

The drawing illustrates how a privileged residential area, open recreational space, and illegal informal housing settlement coexist to create a heterogenous neighborhood which reflects the broader context of an Indian city.

Process Portfolio

Since Rajkot is a small city, there were no ready 2D or 3D maps available. Hence, the process to create this drawing began with a physical site survey, transitioned to recreating the neighborhood from scratch on Rhino 7, and ended with adding details on Illustrator 2021.

Through this brief, I noticed previously unseen details of my neighborhood, such as the orderly positioning of electricity cables and manholes.

I was also able to understand the influence of physical context on design, through comparative studies between my drawing, situated in India, and the drawings of my brief-mates, situated in France, South Korea, Russia, Greece, China, Israel and England.

Overall, I gained a higher understanding of my immediate surroundings and was able to comprehend its influence on architecture through comparative studies and meticulous observation.