Artrovert is our project to design a studio in a peri-urban artists' colony, Kaladham, in Greater Noida, Uttar Pradesh. The 280 sqm. studio is built on a 300 sqm trapezoidal plot which is one of 216 arranged in an octagonal grid. The studio was envisioned not as the typical introverted artist’s “cave” but rather an extroverted residency where the creation of art and the living of the artist are shared with her precinct.
Inviting an immersive experience of art, the studio comprises of rugged, large volume workspaces, spread across the basement and ground floors and an overlooking mezzanine study.The top floor is two room residence arranged around a terrace, for artists for short duration stay. A sloping front lawn is opened up for theatre-style public screenings and talks.
Spaces are created as an unraveling rather than as a construction, revealing as much as concealing. Two materially contrasting yet filial bands loop and coil forming the various spaces across multiple levels. These are book-ended by a grey steel armature that works as gallery, working scaffolding and circulation space providing vantages from different heights. The panels are detailed to swivel to share the finished art on them publicly. And conversely, an externally created mural may be turned inward with multiple permutations of such arrangements. Tall and narrow interstices are glazed against the outside while vertical slits cut through the internal volumes. Formed, thus, as a conversation between binaries, the design hopes to offer multiple views and varying perspectives through a multilevel space.
The studio maintains comfortable thermal levels throughout the year by the use of multiple passive strategies. Air heated through thermal stacking is vented through slits while the massive floors and walls mitigate solar heat gain. The swivelling panels let in the easterly monsoon breeze decreasing internal humidity.
