Designing heritage art and craft museum, Shamukha beach resort, Puri, Odisha

Abstract

The project discussed in the following report is the designing of an arts and craft museum in the city of Puri, Odisha, India. In the initial sections of the report, the idea behind the initiative of the project is discussed enlisting the names of the authorities and consultants involved in the process. Additionally the details of the project constraints and limitations are analyzed to procure design constraints. As an advanced objective, the “patterns of interaction between an exhibit and a visitor” is explored by scrounging through the phenomena of cognitive psychology. Parameters such as: attention, memory, remembrance, wayfinding, etc. are observed in the physical space in the case studies undertaken for the project, to develop parameters of designing. Certain observations enlisted in Gordon Cullen’s “Townscapes”, are studied and an attempt has been made in the design process to replicate similar effects in the physical space of the museum. To understand the system of management of a craft museum campus, certain examples of successful craft programme endeavors are visited and documented, namely: the crafts museum, Pragati Maidan Delhi, and the Khamir crafts resource centre, Bhuj. Anatomies of these campuses are analyzed and compared to understand the effects of different kinds of arrangement. Through the case studies holistic requirements of a crafts museum are worked out. Multiplying these with the expected footfall and the diversity of the sizes and scale of art; the area requirement for the museum campus is devised. Further, the study of the site is elaborated, and its connection with the subject of art and craft has been discussed. The physical constraints of the site, including, its strength, weakness opportunity and threats are deciphered to build site constraints for the design process. Subsequent chapters in design process, explores the discipline of Preventive conservation, a part of museum conservation that enlists various pre-requisites in the zoning, intended for the protection of various campuses against physical deterioration like: overcrowding, emission, radiation etc… using these principles, the mass of the museum and its arrangement is worked out. The concluding chapter unravels the basic idea and a context specific relevance of the form and hierarchy of the campus and revisits the theory of patterns of interaction and shows the effect created in the physical space by incorporating its parameters in the design.