The shadow house by Samira Rathod was understood by studying the compositional properties and the play of mass and void of the spaces. Its every element is designed and detailed as an if to obstruct light. The house is designed like a sieve through light is filtered, dappled and draped into its hollow. The architecture is crafted as art where conventional modes of building thought are deviated to deride the predictable strict geometries that are attached to impressive architecture.
After understanding the house, we started with the arrangement of the basic volumes and the voids of the house and understood how volumes come together to form a space and voids can be used as a meaningful space within the volumes. We also understood the use of unusual angles created inside the space which adds the value to the space. This helped us to realise the use of consciousness to develop the spaces which can be used to create meaningful spaces having functional quality as well. This exercise helped us to developed a more critical approach towards designing spaces.
Then we were given cement as a material to make a mass void volume model out of it. So, we made a mould out of sun board, but as we were using cement as a material and we need to pour it, we were challenged to imagined and make the mould in upside down so that when mould is removed, we get a proper model of cement. In the process we also understood to make the appropriate mixture of cement and water and other strategies for making a proper cement model from mixing to drying to final model.