Spring 2022

Borders as Performance

Design Dissertation at Sir JJ College of Architecture

Bombay, India

Mentored by Prof. Mustansir Dalvi

The design intends to create a syncretic microcosm of liminality, that intrepidly confronts and embodies the dialectics that pervade Mustang. Through a spatial public intervention, we would like to create a contact zone that brings together various fronts of the social agency operating within and beyond the landscape. Spatially and programmatically, the design would aim at engaging with a diverse group of people, provoking dialogues across all scales and classes of the community.

Mustang is a polyphony, and we position ourselves as a note, that may possibly create unheard social and organisational melodies. Neither do I belong to Mustang, nor does the landscape need me - its future would unfold regardless of our intervention. Thus, we consciously eschew from megalomanic pursuits, and approach our design as an opportunity to not stabilise Mustang, but to stage its tensions.

In the process, we would temporally attune ourselves to the capricious present, mediating the autochthonous cultural past of the landscape and pitted against globalising universal standards. Our design would intend to emerge from within the idiosyncrasies of Mustang, offering a simultaneous deconstruction and reinvention of the infiltrating world culture.