Narratologies of Ahmedabad was an architectural proposal by Vsevolod Yurchenko, Pamela Feng and Jamie Forde based on the inquiry into stories that haunt the city of Ahmedabad. Traced through narrative figures, structures and places, the proposal draws out a possibility for the future while remaining grounded in the enquired narratologies of past and present.
As outsiders, our group uncovered Ahmedabad through the event of The Salt March, an act of non-violent resistance led by Mahatma Gandhi in 1930. Through the study of body and building posture, the relationship between the perception of narrative events and architecture was discovered. The anatomy of narratological absence and presence resulted in a series of tectonic speculations in hauntology.
Through exploration and measuring, the unique constitution of the present Ahmedabad was revealed. On a city scale, when put in series, the analyses of the various city territories display narratives of past visions for Ahmedabad, which today are sensed like disparate fragments strewn across the carpet of the city. The proposed Sabarmati City affords the space to bring the fragments together constituting a new possibility for Ahmedabad.
The new assemblage for the Sabarmati City was tested technologically and ecologically through three architectural projects: Dandi Crematorium (by Pamela Feng), Sabarmati Pol (by Jamie Forde) and Sabarmati Business District (by Vsevolod Yurchenko). The new series of enzymatic territories parasites as an architecture of non-violent resistance to neo-liberal compulsions along the newly-built riverfront walls to re-engage with wetness and to reintroduce the liminality between city and Ganga. The project engages with the city and its climatic context. Naturally, the temporary river of Sabarmati swelled up during monsoon and dried out during the winter. The project aims to take advantage of the river tides and engages with water through collection, filtration and storage as well as aims to convert tidal energy for urban purposes.
Sabarmati City synthesises different conditions of wetness depending on opportunities at hand. The tidy demarcation of the boundary between land and water is in contrast to the ubiquitous reality of wetness. The current Sabarmati Riverfront Development is this line that separates land from water. As part of this project we aimed to reconnect the city and river through discontinuations in the line. When illustrated in section wetness regains a new capacity in which precipitation becomes its key manifestation. This shift from bodies of water creates a different dynamic within the four stages of wetness in operation through the Sabarmati Riverfront Development.
Sabarmati Business District
The new series of River Markets take up the space in-between the neo-liberal Riverfront area and the traditional Sunday Market. Water creeks cut into the Sunday market in order to connect the two territories as well as to provide places of hospitality. This East-West connection carries the hauntology of the originally surveyed market near Delhi Gate, where the promenades on both sides of the creek are the gateways from one space to another.
Through the hauntology of the Delhi Gate the relationship of the Northern and Southern walls of the creek were discovered. As the gate allows the passage through the creek, it also turns the landfill mass into a yet another set of walls, therefore bridging the gaps with the gate circulation and the above lines of connection. While the programme from public to private is adjusted as we move up each level, different liminal conditions benefit from the closeness to the water. At the lower level we have permeable pavements with the river underneath, which allows cooling. As we move up, the markets use the principle of a cooling tower to provide passive cooling through a series of cuts to the water. On the upper level office buildings gather solar energy in order to get the water up to the level and cool the structures resting above it.
Water Department Building
According to Ahmedabad Water Department data, the current amount of water taken from the river in relation to other sources is 4%. The majority of water supplied to the city comes from groundwater sources. As such, it is currently damaging to the environment and the aim of the Water Department is to reduce the use of ground water completely. The project aims to establish the relationship between the Water Department and the river by moving the head office of the department to the riverfront from its current location in the Old City. The buildings on site are essential for the operation of the Marches of Wetness. Each water pool on the upper level requires a plant room that would contain the filtering equipment as well as all the electric equipment necessary for running the conversion of solar energy into clean cooling water. The proposed Ahmedabad Water Department would also provide a lab for testing the river water downstream from the old city. The facilitation of water testing together with the operation equipment encourages the constant checking of the river water to mitigate the impact of its discharge beyond the Sabarmati City.
The anatomy of the building positions the heart of it - the plant room - between the river and the pool. The tectonics of the architecture facilitate the further spread of wetness for cooling of the office. Breathing pavement and brick skins allow a spread of cool air above the pool throughout the space, while thick timber skins and external structures keep the spaces ventilated and protect them from the sun.
