Rashi Sonsakia Thesis - Weavers Centre at Maheshwar

B. Arch Thesis – Weavers Center at Maheshwar by Rashi Sonsakia, Surat

The study focuses majorly on reviving the Community, their identity and Continuity of a town which has its own identity even today and are known by their art forms. Thus for a particular town, the main question arises today is to run with the present times or revive their own identity. Thus the design explore to keep the community values intact, revives its own identity and continue to move with the present times..
Rashi Sonsakia Thesis - Weavers Centre at Maheshwar

ABSTRACT
The study focuses majorly on reviving the Community, their identity and Continuity of a town which has its own identity even today and are known by their art forms. Thus for a particular town, the main question arises today is to run with the present times or revive their own identity. Thus the design explore to keep the community values intact, revives its own identity and continue to move with the present times

Rashi Sonsakia Thesis - Weavers Centre at Maheshwar

AIM
To provide a platform that generates opportunities for the town to evolve through its heritage, economy and culture.

SCOPE OF WORK
This project focuses on the upgradation of the weaving industry of Maheshwar.
The project has major two components for the upgradation of weavers,
Common facility Center
Handloom Institute
By collaborating learning and business in one unit, it would help each other to involve each other in their same field.

OBJECTIVES

  • To provide a platform where the Weavers can generate opportunities to keep the cultural and economic values of the town intact.
  • To facilitate collectivization of handloom weavers for production, marketing and other supportive activities to promote a sustainable growth to the town.
  • To act as a center for learning and developing innovative designs and fabric samples and other related services to the cluster on continuous basis.
  • To disseminate information about the development in handloom industry.
  • To provide a self sustaining unit to the Weavers which can upgrade the economy as well as their skills.

METHODOLOGY:
The study involves three stages,
Study of weaving industry of Maheshwar.
Understanding the patterns of the particular art form.
Interpretation of patterns in Architectural design.

CONCEPTUAL NOTE:

The main idea is to merge the abstractions of weaving with the architectural language of the place. Weaving is a process of exploration of forms, space, light, colours and pattern, thus these abstractions creates endless possibilities and opportunities for a design to transform.

Warps and wefts are the basic elements of weaving fabrics. Abstractions of inter sections, inter relations, mixture of colours, mergence, densification are carried forward to understand the indepth patterns of weaving. The beating mechanisms orders the warp yarns, control their density and packs the weft yarns into position.

By merging those abstractions with the built forms, the building would go into continuity as that of fabrics, As a loom undergoes a particular process through which a fabric takes it birth, the building acts as a giant loom which allows the activities to beat up and form a weaved complex.

There are basically three interfaces planned out at site level:
1) Interface with the existing town. (This interface is to extend the activities of the town to the site, the fort is the end point to the main road, whereas the site acts as another end point to the parallel road of the main road.)
2) Interface with the river. (The building acts as a pavillion which drags one to the river, All the activities and spaces are directed towards river)
3) Interface with the immediate context. Taking the immediate context of site into consideration, the design responds to the road, major nodes and existing fort wall.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Recent

Vision Pakistan, Pakistan by DB Studios 1

Vision Pakistan, Islamabad, Pakistan, by DB Studios

Vision Pakistan, a project by DB Studios recently recognized with the 2025 Aga Khan Award for Architecture. Set within Islamabad, Pakistan, the project offers a ‘second chance’ to disadvantaged males who have fallen into aggression, depression, drug use and/or crime.

Read More »
Source - Deccan Chronicle

Wall As a Public Space
“To read public space only as a spatial condition, as a matter of square footage, zoning, or physical access, is to miss half the picture.”
—Reshma Esther Thomas

Reshma Esther Thomas examines how Hyderabad’s flyover pillars, painted with Cheriyal-style murals under the GHMC’s ‘City Art Scape’ initiative, reveal the paradox of managed public space. What appears to be beautification is actually cultural assertion in the wake of the 2014 bifurcation, bureaucratising a surface that once belonged to those without institutional power.

Read More »
Khazans in Slavador du Mundo, Bardez, Goa. © Kusum Priya (1)

The Map That Was Never Yours
“If publicness is reduced to what is legally accessible, then these landscapes were never public to begin with.”
—V.V. Kusum Priya

As part of our editorial: What makes a space public?, V.V. Kusum Priya argues that Section 39A of Goa’s 2024 Town and Country Planning Act this isn’t just a legal issue, and that it’s the erosion of an unrecognised but collectively sustained commons, and a question of what “public” really means and who benefits from the legislations surrounding this.

Read More »
Life on the public spaces in downtown Calcutta. Source - Wikimedia


“Appropriation of public spaces is the genesis of political movements, of ideological apparatus, and of endangering the city’s multi-dimensional fabric.”
—Dr. Seema Khanwalkar

Dr. Seema Khanwalkar, explores how the public spaces in India are dynamic, contested areas shaped by informal economies, migration, and social negotiation. She reveals how the transactional activities democratise ownership of these spaces, while the political and religious appropriation increasingly displaces this organic vitality, creating exclusion and anxiety. This shrinking of inclusive public space threatens urban social fabric, yet remains largely absent from city planning conversations, making it a far deeper crisis than mere encroachment.

Read More »

Featured Publications

New Release

Stories that provoke enquiry into built environment

www.architecture.live

Subscribe & Join a Community of Lakhs of Readers

We Need Your Support

To be able to continue the work we are doing and keeping it free for all, we request our readers to support in every way possible.

Your contribution, no matter the size, helps our small team sustain this space. Thank you for your support.

Contribute using UPI

Contribute Using Cards