A Social Design Festival I a Social Design Library, Porvorim (2025)

30/01/2022

Menstruation is considered shameful and spoken about in hushed tones. The stigma around the subject continues to ensure it remains under the cover. Young girls, women and even older women find it difficult to talk about it because of the shame attached to it. Initial research from the intervention areas served as our assumptions. Some highlights of the research were:

· Knowledge of menstruation was moderate
· Low access to menstrual absorbents was a problem.
· Lack of safe space to talk about menstruation.
· Girls and women did not know where to find answers to questions about menstrual health and hygiene.

To further understand and challenge these assumptions, a human-centred research methodology had to be adopted and Breakthrough was equally invested in this approach.

Written and contributed by .sc

Read more on https://socialdesignlibrary.in/creating-games-to-shift-attitudes-amongst-adolescent-girls-in-rural-up/

23/01/2022

The Bystander Anthology is a feminist project from Kadak Collective that comprises graphic narratives by writers and artists from the Indian subcontinent. The anthology explores the theme of the “Bystander”, a person who is present at an event or incident but does not take part. The anthology was crowdfunded via Kickstarter, through a campaign created by Kadak Collective. It exists in a 256 page printed publication and a small collection of multimedia stories. See more at bystander.kadakcollective.com.

The project is a collaboration of many forces and started as an editorial project on gender and geography.

Written and contributed by

Read more : https://socialdesignlibrary.in/bystander/

10/12/2021

PMNCH wanted a new identity that would align with their 2021-25 strategy. Over fifteen years since their inception, their focus had shifted from maternal, newborn, and child health to women, children, and adolescents’ health and well-being. Further, their 2021-25 strategy placed great emphasis on their evidence-based advocacy, which is core to how PMNCH now operate. Therefore, the new identity had to bring out this voice of the partners as a committed group that actively advocates for change.

We set out to bring in the characters of a woman, child and adolescent as positive and independent, empowered by the partnership. The final logo has a circular ring that embraces the characters, the PMNCH acronym and the word for; PMNCH for is contained within the circle. The preposition ‘for’ was introduced to give an incomplete sense of that active advocacy stance. Leaving it hanging involves the viewer and stakeholder to create and complete.

Written and Contributed by

https://socialdesignlibrary.in/a-new-voice-for-pmnch/

26/11/2021

iCall Colours of Light is a casebook that explores interventions by mental health practitioners for the benefit of adolescents and young adults who are placed in the rural context of Rajasthan. The interactions take place at multiple Ujala (Adolescent Friendly Health Clinics) clinics across Rajasthan, as part of RKSK (Rashtriya Kishor Swasthya Karyakram)’s mission to help people in the age group of 10-19 years who are navigating the complex processes of growing up and attaining adulthood.

Written and contributed by

Link to read more: https://socialdesignlibrary.in/icall-colours-of-light/

17/11/2021

Cocoon is a space for teaching and exhibiting projects to visitors of Krishi Vigyan Kendra, Trichy. The aim was also to create a comfortable and welcoming space for people to sit down, relax and talk. The community building is hand-built by local craftsmen, students and teachers working in collaboration with architects and designers. Local traditional building materials and techniques are combined with modern construction knowledge to produce a building that would be sustainable. The project adopted a locally available material bamboo, to create something complex in its form and simple to execute at the same time. The majority of the farmers in the village are involved in Sericulture farming. The built form of the pavilion has its resemblance to the act of silkworms spinning silk cocoons around themselves.

Written and Contributed by

https://socialdesignlibrary.in/cocoon/

29/10/2021

Architecturally, the school is much less of a study in spatial terms as it is of conditions between. That is, it is a study of thresholds and the processes that are at play in their shifts and negotiations. In its materiality, the project is an attempt to bring formal aesthetics to the effect of sun, rain and all manners of growth on its surfaces; an architecture less to avoid than to redefine through grace the relentless heat and dust of central India.

Written and Contributed by

https://socialdesignlibrary.in/aparnaa-world-school/

22/10/2021

Studies of the housing done more than two years after completion show that the spaces are used as conceived. The apartments are well ventilated and lit creating a healthy and vibrant living environment. Women approve of the location of the kitchen and the flexible lobby is the most popular space in the home. The corridors and otlas have become meeting and interaction points for the residents. Women extend their everyday activities of food preparation into the semi-public spaces, toddlers learn to ride bicycles in the corridors and slightly older children play cricket in the security of the enclosed courtyard. Gatherings like marriage dinners and small parties are held in the common spaces. The landings of the staircase, overlooking the mountains on the horizon and wide enough to hold a narrow bed, have become popular spaces to hang out.

The monsoon in all its glory lashes these parts of western India from June till late September. The semi shielded corridors, open staircases and balcony spaces give the residents the possibility and various options of enjoying these natural phenomena. With its frugal use of material, sensitive response to climate, and careful planning to focus on the users and the community, the project seamlessly achieves a balance between social and ecological sustainability.

Written and Contributed by

https://socialdesignlibrary.in/sublime-ordinariness-housing-project/

13/10/2021

The impact of the restoration has been quite positive. The senior officers of SBI got nostalgic and jubilant when they saw that the buildings where they received training in Nagapattinam was saved from demolition and restored well.

For the contractors of Nagapattinam and Madurai, it was their first conservation project and they expressed great satisfaction after the completion inspite of various odds such as shortage of skilled craftsmen, escalating labour costs, Covid lockdown and budget caps.

As consultants when we shared the before-after pictures of the restored buildings, our clients and consultants were greatly impressed and expressed their wishes for us to take up more such projects.

We nominated this project for the HUDCO 2020 Design Award and got the second prize. The project was featured in their annual publication as well.

Written and Contributed by
Cuboid Architects

https://socialdesignlibrary.in/restoration-of-state-bank-of-indias-heritage-buildings/

08/10/2021

The campus is situated on the periphery of a small town, Wardha, and this building serves as a primary health center for the entire campus community. It has been situated centrally and has been integrated within the context to create universal access for all people. The campus had a challenging terrain and the building design negotiated the slopes to create ease of access for patients.

The central void is a flexible space that invites the community within. The waiting area in the void transforms into a social space for different activities such as health awareness camps and other common student activities at different times in the day.

The strategies used for the design and selection of materials emerges from an environmental concern. The use of fly-ash bricks, random rubble exposed masonry of locally available basalt stone, minimizing cut and fill, retaining the trees on-site all allow for a building type that sits gently within its context. The building becomes a prototype for the larger shared programs within the housing area by creating a minimal imprint.

Written and Contributed by
MO-OF/ Mobile Offices

https://socialdesignlibrary.in/mgahv-healthcare-center/

30/09/2021

“The project developed from earlier personal thesis research, which included documentation of materials and spatial configurations used in construction workers’ colonies throughout Ahmedabad over an 18 month period.

At Nebula company’s invitation, we drew on this research to design a network of open spaces, housing units and amenities. There is a focus on design elements that are best initiated at project conception such as overall site drainage and ventilation, as well as strong input from the labouring community and collaborating NGO’s such as lockable doors and windows on rooms, and ease of visiting children in the creche.”

The project documents a struggle to employ architecture as a means of achieving a desired standard of dignity for the construction workers. It accepts that a realistic way to achieve this is by employing local techniques and incremental improvements, rather than by imposing a one-off, technologically advanced solution. The result is a design that is simple in terms of its spatial configurations, materiality, and structure, but complex in terms of the social, cultural and economic barriers it had to negotiate.

Written and Contributed by
Hatch Workshop

https://socialdesignlibrary.in/nebula-labour-colony/

22/09/2021

Designed using stabilized earth blocks to form Nubian arches, St George Orthodox Church evolved through a series of dialogues between the masons, architects, clients and an immediate understanding of the site and the surrounding. It resurrects the first church of the Christians in Kerala, built in 1615 AD. With the increasing demand for resources, it is the responsibility of architects to use materials with very little embodied energy. Mud as a material can be expressed in its true form through various methods like earth blocks, rammed earth, wattle and daub and many more.

The exploratory spirit combined with pressing demands our designs are born; which are evolved through a series of dialogues between the masons, architects, clients and an immediate understanding of the site and the surrounding. Rammed earth and compressed earth blocks are dominant materials in the design process.

Written and Contributed by
Wallmakers

https://socialdesignlibrary.in/st-george-orthodox-church/

15/09/2021

Growing out of the agrarian hillside, the campus is a collection of simple structures arranged around an informal series of walkways, courtyards, gardens and terraces. Culled from local and universal examples of academic, domestic, public and sacred spaces, the architecture responds to site, program and climate, addressing the needs of the community to provide a sanctuary for learning.

One of the things the studio has really focused on is the careful use of resources, from money, energy, time, effort, materials like stone waste, reclaimed wood, bamboo, concrete. From the local farmers we learned the use and management of water which is an important element of the design.

Written and Contributed by
Case Design

Images by Case Design in collaboration with Ariel Huber and others | © all rights reserved

https://socialdesignlibrary.in/avasara-academy/

09/09/2021

As an exercise in abstracting tradition, the plan was a contemporary update of the classical temple pavilion. The idea was to circumnavigate through the forest of canopies and arrive at the shrine that housed the deity. The cascading drapes of the fabric planes were lifted in places to create almost a forest pathway for the devotees to trace their steps to the shrine. Formally, the fabric canopy can also be thought of as an inverted temple Shikhara. The Indian temple is a classical example of designing a devotional community space. The conceptualization of the Pavilion of Canopies is in its essence, a contemporary attempt at re-imagining this ancient tradition.

Written and Contributed by
Abin Design Studio

https://socialdesignlibrary.in/pavilion-of-canopies/

03/09/2021

The 2001 earthquake in Kutch destroyed the built habitat across the region resulting in loss of human lives and livelihoods. There was an extraordinary pouring of help – monetary, emotive, genuine and also otherwise. The tax sops offered to industry by the government to set up shops almost immediately started to change the landscape. The indigenous craft was under a serious threat. Native artistic skills were being lost to jobs offered by industry. A dangerous trend that had begun to take shape slowly, ensuring that an entire generation and its skillset would be lost.

In the wake of this, Shrujan, an NGO based in Kutch led by Chanda Shroff, began the initiative to restore the livelihood of the people and the Living and Learning Design Center (LLDC) was conceived as a project. It was meant to be a ‘place’ that would become a tactile and visual repository of the various crafts of Kutch. Its primary role as a resource centre for artisan’s doubles up as a public museum and place for demonstrative, hands-on learning.

Written and Contributed by
Indigo Architects

https://socialdesignlibrary.in/living-learning-design-center/

23/08/2021

Delhi is unique for its weekly markets which are a part of its rural and cultural legacy, continuing well into the contemporary city. They pop up in public places and streets which are multi-layered spaces that change through the day and the week. Delhi has 272 officially recognized weekly markets across its 17 zones which are set up on different days of the week.

In a Covid-19 world, there is a need for us to rethink public spaces, especially those associated with multiple informal livelihoods such as weekly markets. In 2020, weekly markets across India had to shut down due to lockdown restrictions during the first wave of Covid-19. As the unlockdown process gradually began in Delhi over July and August, the weekly markets had still not opened, hard hitting the livelihoods of thousands of street vendors. That is when a collaborative initiative made up of hawker unions, NGOs working on rights of street vendors and research & design organisations – SEWA, WIEGO, Janpahal, City Sabha, IIHS and Social Design Collaborative – came together as part of the civic campaign Main Bhi Dilli.

Written and Contributed by
Social Design Collaborative

https://socialdesignlibrary.in/street-vending-in-times-of-covid-19/

16/08/2021

Sameep Padora on the impact of the project: “Water is the most significant element to the project. We could and did design a temple – but to remediate an ecology now that is something that is beyond the scope of the project and ideally it should not be. We feel we are at a point where, both in terms of ecology and resources, the value of water, and other resources should not be of just metaphorical or sceptical consideration. The more we start looking into all resources and their ecologies we’d be able to create more sensitive environments. Ideally, every project should respect its context, whether it is a temple, house, community centre, school etc. The base program has always been important so that you can investigate and project it to the extent that you do but the layers that you can add creates additional value beyond the fulfilling of the program itself. And we think that is critical, how do you do ‘more with less’?”

Written and Contributed by
Sameep Padora & Associates

https://socialdesignlibrary.in/temple-of-steps/

07/08/2021

The Hilltop School (officially known as the Bright Horizon Academy) is on a site that is highly contoured and was covered with sheetrock and buried under a blanket of garbage piled on over decades. The client had a programme requirement for basic educational infrastructures such as classrooms, a library, laboratories, offices, and staff rooms that could be built on a shoestring budget and require little maintenance. Material choices had to be affordable as well as durable. Articulating the peculiar and difficult topography of the site and its surroundings posed a major challenge: due to proximity to heritage structures and dense urban context, most of which is residential, blasting the rock was not an option, and other methods were not affordable and thus it took the rocky terrain as part of the design layout. The school was financed by a non-profit educational trust run on charitable funds.

Reds, blues, yellows and greens create pops of colour as accents in contrast with the grey of the concrete.

Written and Contributed by
DesignAware

https://socialdesignlibrary.in/hilltop-school/

28/07/2021

The building engages with the local community at multiple levels. The children’s home offers a caring and secure environment for those without family support. They receive an education at Divya Shanthi school which also caters to kids from the locality. There is extensive accommodation for girls, including a transition home that prepares young women to become independent and eventually move out into the world. A well-equipped dining facility offers mid-day meals to all students while also serving the children’s home.

Additional facilities that benefit the community include a special needs school program and a teacher training facility. The Library primarily serves the school but is also intended for use by people from the locality. A street-level primary healthcare centre provides quality medical services, including doctor consultancy, a daycare bed facility, a testing lab and a pharmacy – to the poor, free of cost.

Written and contributed by Flying Elephant Studio.

https://socialdesignlibrary.in/divya-shanthi-campus/

A Social Design Festival I a Social Design Library