B.V.

DOSHI
B.V.dOSHI.
• Date of birth august 26, 1927
• Place of birth pune, India
• B.V doshi, completed his studies at j. J. School of art, Bombay in 1950.
• He became a senior designer on le corbusier’s projects in Ahmedabad and Chandigarh.
• In 1956 he established a private practice in vastu-shilpa, Ahmedabad and in 1962 he established the vastu-shilpa
foundation for environmental design.
• He has worked in centre for environmental planning and technology (cept, Ahmedabad) and kanoria centre for arts,
Ahmedabad.
• He was the founder member of visual arts centre, Ahmedabad
• Over the years doshi has created architecture that relies on a sensitive adoption and refinement of modern
architecture within an indian context. The relevancy of his environmental and urban concerns make him unique as
both a thinker and teacher. Architectural scale and massing, as well as a clear sense of space and community mark
most of his work. Doshi's architecture provides one of the most important models for modern indian architecture.
BUILDING STYLES AND FORMS.
• The building profile will have natural light, air movement and access elements against the sky to express the cosmic
relationship .
• The building base will gradually widen towards the ground through platforms, terraces, and steps
• The building mass will integrate roof, rainwater, cascades, water bodies, natural landscapes, gardens and foliage
• The external finish of the building will express one homogenous mass but will have adequate details, textures and surface
modulations
• The main arrival to the building will be at a higher or a raised level- with provision for a lower entry to express duality.
• Not all movements within the building will be symmetrical but will shift axis to give unexpected experiences and provide
ambiguous or dual impressions…”
• Finally aesthetic considerations will take into account local symbolism, context, and associations casting of shadows,
breaking of mass, rhythms in the structure, solids, voids, will be the mode of expressions.
Principles.
•Flexible rather than rigid approach to the structure
•Timelessness in his architecture .
•mythical sense –moving beyond historical examples of his own region
•transformation between the building and the people that transcends the functional use. •Doshi has persisted a
deep belief in important of human institutions.
•The notation of flexibility and symbolism.
•Doshi made an intensive and sustained study of traditional Indian philosophy and ancient architectural texts,
while maintaining a deep commitment to modernism.
•The architectonic scale and massing(vaulting), the clear sense of space and an attraction towards materials
remain thematically strong throughout his works.
Awards and achivements.
• 1992 - special award for excellence in architecture by journal of the indian institute of architects
• 1995 - aga khan award for architecture
• Member of the 1998 award steering committee, aga khan for architecture 1985-59 - international fellow of the graham
foundation for advanced studies in the fine arts, Chicago, u.S.A.
• 1971 - hon. Fellow, American institute of architects, u.S.A.
• 1988 - Chicago architecture award by the Illinois council/ American institute of architects and architectural record,
u.S.A.
• 1988 - great gold medal for architecture, academy of architecture, Paris
• 1988 - gold medal instituted by indian institute of architects
Notable works.
• Institute of Indology Ahmedabad(195762)
• School of architecture Ahmedabad 1968
• Indian institute of management Bangalore (1977-85)
• Madhya pradesh electricity board Jabalpur (1979-89)
• Sangath Ahmedabad (1979-89)
• Aranya low-cost housing Indore (198386)
• Husain-doshi guffa (1992-95)
• National institute of fashion technology new Delhi (1997)
• GANDHI LABOUR institute.
Sangath Ahmedabad.
• Sangath means 'moving together through participation’. Sangath is
alive, well and growing.
• As an architect’s office, it has created an imaginative, simple ,
friendly ,relaxed and subdued physical and psychological
environment most conducive for creative thinking and development
of ideas.
• Building complex called sangath has total floor area is of 473 square
metres and located on a flat 2425 square metre site on the fringe of
Ahmedabad in India.
• The building is largely buried under the ground to use the earth
masses for natural insulations.
• Storage walls- external wall of the building is nearly a metre deep
but have been hollowed out as alcoves to provide storage that
becomes an insulative walls with efficiency of space.
• Vaulted form used at first minimally was later developed an
extensively used to relate to Indian sensibilities. The vaulted roof
separated by lower , flat surfaces were designed to make the best use
of natural light .
• the pools were developed as a natural cooling system.
• Mosaic tiles, purchased as waste material, were used as an
inexpensive means to reflect harsh sunlight.
Sangath Ahmedabad.
Sangath Ahmedabad.
• The ventilating window at upper volume releases the accumulated
hot air through pressure difference.
• The top finish of china mosaic glazed tiles further enhances
insulation by being white and glossy to reflect sun and being of clay
to retard heat transmission
• The structural system is post and beam with reinforced concrete
slabs.
• The ferro concrete cavity vaults with high insulation values are used
on upper floors.
• Facades are either of mosaic tiles or cement plaster.
• Interiors are characterised by the building’s various shapes and
forms.
• Light enters from different directions. Decoration is based on
construction materials with exposer of shuttering impressions on
concrete ceiling contrasted to smooth red oxide cement floor all
materials and the 60% skilled labour were of local origin.
• The external finishes of vaults were recycled broken glazed white
tiles provided additional function of heat reflection.
• Internally surfaces are either plastered or left in their natural off form
concrete state.
Sangath Ahmedabad.
Hussain Doshi Gufa Ahmedabad.
• It was a collaborative effort between doshi
and m.F. Husain for the exhibition of artist’s
work.
• The reference for the gufa are elemental and
primeval; it emerged from the Buddhist stupa
and karli and ajanta
• stupa as the primary reference, signifies both
tomb of Buddha and the symbol of pursuit.
• Stupa formally signifies and implies the
enlightening nature of knowledge.
• 25 millimetre thin ferrocement caves. Shell
that has been used as the structure of doshi’s
museum.
• Sloping column support museum internally.
• The Hussain doshi gufa in Ahmedabad is
located on a campus of the centre for
environmental planning and technology.
• The plan is evolved from the intersecting
circles and ellipse.
Hussain Doshi Gufa Ahmedabad.
• Site area: 1000 m2
• built-up area: 280m2
• project cost: rs 1.8 million.
• Husain-doshi gufa is an underground art
gallery, exhibiting
• the spaces formed within are continuous and
amorphous
• through inclined planes of domes, curvilinear
planes of vaults, undulating floors and non
rectilinear leaning columns
• the structure is in the form of skeleton skin
and wire- mesh, sandwiched on each side by
layers of cement and has been carried out
with simple hand tools by unskilled workers.
•Projecting skylights and skin cut-out not
only illuminate the spaces within but create
mythic shafts and spots of light reminiscent of
the galaxy and stars.
• Buried spaces, earth mounds, raised volumes
and china mosaic finish renders the
architecture energy conscious, cutting down
it’s energy intake, in an otherwise harsh hot
dry climate.
Hussain Doshi Gufa Ahmedabad.
• The use of coatings as well as depressing
the gallery more than a metre into the
ground is an effective insulating strategy
and the white tiles also reflect the sun
rays helping to keep the interiors cool.
• The protrubances finally emerged as
windows specifically oriented to let in
maximum amount of light but minimum
amount of heat giving the interiors a
golden glow.
• To enhance the cave like feeling, the
general contours of the site were retained
rather than being levelled.
• The gentle undulating surface of the earth
can still be perceived beneath the thin
concrete floor slab poured over it.