Amith Krishnan LA-700

Studio Exercise 1 – Book Review

Book review exercise was the first studio problem in the semester 1 and which was given to
understand and perceive various aspects and resources in landscape. The studio exercise was
interesting and we area given the book called Landscape Architecture: A Manual of
Environmental planning and Design by JOHN O. SIMONDS. The book goes through aspects
of landscape like habitat, water, planting etc. and by making short notes and schematic
diagram of the book helped me to understand the importance of landscape.
The chapter I was given was chapter 5 vegetation: the chapter explains about the vegetation
in our earth, the changes happing to the vegetative cover of our earth during these years and
how the loss of Vegitation affecting the other organisms in earth, nature and the soil. Further
moving on the author explain about the soil formation and importance of topsoil. Plants in
nature have major importance in maintain the food chain, transpiration, climate control, water
retention, soil building and in productivity which is very well explained in this chapter. In the
final part of the chapter author explains about the plant identification and plant culture and as
a conclusion to the chapter he try to figure out the problems in the field of Vegitation
including the effect of vanishing green.
By doing this exercise I understand how to perceive various things by reading a book and
how which can be explained to another person by my own way of representation including
schematic sections, sketches and even by small texts.
Studio Exercise 2 – Urban garden case study
This exercise deals with the urban park case study and we were given was the landschaft park
in Germany. This exercise was done in a group of two people and was given to understand
and study the large open spaces and park and how they are contributing to the nature and
biodiversity and for the people of that place. The landshaft park was an old iron and steel
industry and later on which was converted into a landscape park. From this particular case
study I understand about how an industrial waste land can be transformed into a usable place
for the community. We have done spatial analysis of park through various layers including its
evolution, topography and hydrological regime and finally how various layers planting was
done to achieve landscape character of the park.
By studying the particular park we understood its importance and how a landscape park is
changing the character of a place and how which contributing to the community and nature.
Studio Exercise 3 – Aastha kunj park
This is a design problem that deals with landscape of children play area. The studio problem
was intended to understand the various parameters and aspects to be analysed that will
directly or indirectly affect the design of the children’s park. The study was look into various
parameters including. Land, water, vegetation along with climate which was an important
factor in designing the children’s play area.
This exercise was very interesting and given knowledge about various aspects of landscape
architecture and more over which helped me to study the designing parameters in a larger site
and context. The design was more into the user experience and which helped to understand
how a landscape project can be a part of human life.

Studio Exercise 4 – Liminal spaces

This studio problem was introduced to understand the green spaces in the city of Ponnani in
Malappuram, district of Kerala. We also tried to understand the liminal spaces within the city
and how these liminal spaces evolved along with the transition of the city.

SPIRIT OF THE PLACE

RECONNECTING THE PAST GLORY OF PONNANI
“To reimagine The Old Precinct as a Cultural and Recreational District, Connecting on
Its Local Assets, Effectively Being an Integral Part and Giving a Unique Identity to the
Growing Ponnani Town.”
The idea was to reconnect the past glory of Ponnani the ancient port town of Malabar.
Ponnani is a coastal town in the northern Kerala having rich heritage, cultural context and
having a great palate of traditional architecture of Kerala. The context of the Ponnani include
economically backward Muslim fisherman community whose day today life mainly depended
on fishing. The Ponnani has great cultural landscape from the past and it’s the meeting point
of two major rivers Bharathapuzha and Thirur River to the Arabian Sea.
Ponnani has an age old charm to it with a large number of heritage built stock, important
religious buildings, the presence of a large no of old people who are actively exchanging
stories of the past. It is the spirit of this precinct that is often attributed to be the spirit and
identity of Ponnani.
The main intention was to create a common space for these common people of ponnani for
exchanging their stories to the younger generation of ponnani, these old people are the living
examples of past glory of Ponanni and these people can strengthen the cultural diversity of
Ponnani.