Melissa Smith
Vivisection of a vulnerable corner
this corner is not simply a structural construct nor is it purely intellectual. this corner is a story a timeline of additions and subtractions of responses and reactions of attempts, unfinished and altered all strung together interdependently layered one on another until the only means by which they can be ascertained is through the excavation vivisection extraction of that one particular joint whose perfect vulnerability reveals the moment where things come together or they don’t. |
As much as the corner arises out of the need for strength, it quickly becomes the point of weakness; where weather hits, joints fail, where people, animals and things occupy. To deconstruct the inhabited corner places the stories on the same footing as the footing. Through the intersection of collage and technical drawings, the project examines the organization of elements, the structuring of occupation, and their interdependency.
Melissa Smith
Melissa Smith is an architect based in Ahmedabad, India, and part of banduksmithstudio, an architecture, urban design, and research practice that she founded with Sachin Bandukwala. Their work engages processes of making through research on unique construction methods, both institutionalized and inventive, and built projects that explore the boundaries of material and craft in the context of contemporary Indian construction. Melissa completed M.Architecture and M.City Planning degrees from the University of California, Berkeley, USA, in 2011, where she was a John K. Branner Fellow. She completed her BA with concentrations in German, Asian Studies and Art History from Calvin College, Michigan, USA, in 2006. She teaches in Architecture and Planning Faculties at CEPT Unversity, Ahmedabad. Her interests, explored through the investigation of the incremental, unplanned transformation of aging modernist planned cities, and continued through the examination of settlement formation in India, follow how inhabitants tend to restructure their built environment over time.