Senses, Rhythms and the City
The city is viewed as a series of perceptions that we sense, fondness, relief, anger, disgust, and much more. We often mistake these feelings for characteristics of the city. The feeling of disgust elicits alienation and neglect towards the particular space that evokes it. Hence, entering a site that initially evokes disgust, and later shifting the gaze to understand it through the forces and energies it affords, led to a neutral response to the site.
A skywalk that connects Borivali east and west is a steel structure built over the railway tracks. The steel columns on the either sides of the bridge affords a 'form of living'. a temporal and dynamic shelter crafted by hanging household materials, become home for the street dwellers. This moderately busy skywalk becomes a space where these households spill.
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The skywalk is open to sky and surrounded by midrise building, landscape and trains moving below it, once the body is on the skywalk there comes a sense of relief and liberation, a renewed connection with the sky. Another act witnessed frequently on the skywalk is people halting to just see the trains pass, the motion and frequency builds an association with time.
Perceiving the site through rhythms and energies became a way of engagement. The motion of commuters, the edge being occupied by the street dwellers, the constant motion of vehicles at the foot, crafting spaces within the four columns by hanging objects, spilling of these household onto the streets. these became the identified forces that the skywalk affords.
The bridge affords a sense of relief and vastness, attracting the spilling of household and slowness for commuters. The logic to intervene on the site is by introducing an urge to make the body consciously sense these feelings. The street dwellers make their dwelling by the principle of hanging or suspending household and handy materials. This particular pattern is what makes their dwelling a ‘home’. Tactility of objects and appropriating and negotiating them gives an agency to the user leading to the emergence of consciously feeling the needs of the body and mind to form or craft something, in this case something dynamic and temporal. Perpendicular to the railing of the sky walk, a steel pipe is attached. These steel pipes are free to move along the existing railing, this is done by making a groove through and through to fit in and facilitate movement of the pipe. The pipe can be anchored at a certain position by fixing a latch on the railing one level above the railing the pipe is attached to. This allows one to transact with these pipes in varied ways and craft forms to inhabit, just like a bricoleur. These projections happen at certain intervals of the 60 m long bridge, they also slow down the commuters by interrupting the 3 m wide bridge, causing diversions in their movement.
