Hybridization of Autopoietic Systems : The Adiganga Centre for Eco-culture, Kolkata

Abstract

Water is one of the most precious resources on the planet, yet over the past few years, we have been witnessing a number of issues that show our negligence. Cities are running out of water to drink, and rivers are more polluted than ever. Superficial changes to the urban realm will not bring lasting changes. What is required is a change in culture altogether, in order to make lifestyles more eco-sensitive. This thesis is an extension of a Landscape Urbanism workshop carried out for the ‘Reanimation of the Adiganga’ under IIT Kharagpur and Search Trust in 2018. It aims to collage indigenous processes, with modern interpretations such as urban farming, permaculture and aquaponics to revive the relationship that communities had with the river. When working with communities, we must understand that communities are autopoietic systems. They create and organize their own spaces according to their own beliefs. What sort of space can be created when multiple communities, with multiple belief-systems are brought together in a single geographical location.? The various autopoietic systems studied in this thesis will be: the creative communities of the Adiganga, the rural creative communities of West Bengal, the urban dweller, and ofcourse, the architect, his interpretation of cultural systems, and the regulations he must abide by. This thesis is born of a metapattern composed of the spatial patterns of indigenous craft communities, the patterns of biophilia worked upon by Terrapin, and finally the pattern of the colonial site and narrative which must be contrasted to regain balance. The thesis understands the need for both cultural as well as environmental sustainability. It realizes the potential of the latter in the pre-colonial, indigenous societal systems of India. It aims to explore a program, form and materiality that not only represents the indigenous crafts of West Bengal in the heart of a pre and post-colonial cultural conflict, but also tries to reignite our strong relationship with ecological surroundings and habitat, deeply rooted in parts of our value system. The architecture aims to be a catalyst in a much larger system of processes that will define a new, eco-sensitive Kolkata.