Sheet 01ArchitectureSemester 6At the scale of a site

Literary Art Space

A museum, a library and three gardens for the grounds of the Rifa-e-Aam Club in old Lucknow, where Premchand spoke in 1936. The new buildings stand back, so the old club keeps the front of the site.

Brief: A literary art space on the club’s grounds: museum and exhibition space, library, café and shops, gardens
Site: Rifa-e-Aam Club, Lucknow · 22,287 m² · composite climate, summers up to 45 °C
Drawings: Two plans, a roof and landscape plan, four sections, two elevations, form and axis studies, a column detail

The first of two presentation panels: the roof and landscape plan on the left, elevations and four site sections across the top and right, with form-evolution diagrams, programme bubbles and element studies between them. — 01Panel one of two. Roof and landscape plan, sections, elevations and the studies behind them.

The site

A club for the common man, in old Lucknow.

Rifa-e-Aam was founded in the 1860s by Lucknow’s nawabs and taluqdars, a club for Indians when the British clubs kept them out. Its name means something like happiness for the common man. In 1936 Premchand gave his famous speech there, and for decades the club was a centre of the city’s literary life.

Today it stands among dense markets and encroachments, close to Lucknow City station and the medical university, between the old city and the new. I wanted to bring writing, reading and art back to it. I had in mind students and researchers, readers who come for the Progressive Writers, and the artists and families who live nearby.

Axonometric of the existing Rifa-e-Aam Club, a domed and arcaded heritage building, linked by dotted lines to its place on the site. — 02The existing club, and where it sits on the site.

Form

Step back, and let the old club lead.

The new building had to be modern without competing. I set it behind the club, pushed it further back for the view, stretched it to the area the programme needed, then joined old and new with a transitional style and a sculpture garden in between.

It looks different from Rifa-e-Aam, but it borrows from it: an arched pathway, a pathway of columns, clerestory windows.

Four massing diagrams: a contrasting block behind the heritage building, the block moved further back, extended to the area required, and joined by a transitional style with a sculpture garden between. — 03Form evolution, in four moves.

Studies contrasting old and new: the heritage building beside a modern block, an arched pathway, a column pathway and clerestory windows, with a note on bringing modern architecture into old Lucknow. — 04Contrast in architecture. What the new building takes from the old one.

Plans

The café by the gate, the library upstairs.

The café and shops sit near the entrance. The museum and exhibition space sit side by side further in, and the library is on the first floor, away from everything public. Several axes organise the site, as they do in old Lucknow’s buildings; the main one runs straight from the entry to Rifa-e-Aam.

Of the three gardens, one is laid out on a Mughal plan, which feels familiar and keeps the view of the club open. The sculpture garden becomes part of the museum. The sensory garden, by the pond and the mound, is somewhere to sit and think.

Ground-floor plan in watercolour tones: the heritage building at the centre, the new café, shops and museum around it, a maze garden, a mound and pond to the west, and the entry from Jagat Narayan Road. — 05Ground floor.

First-floor plan: the library above the new wing, terraces and pavilions over the garden, with the site’s area and climate notes beside the north point. — 06First floor, with the library.

Sections

Four cuts through old and new.

Four section lines on the roof and landscape plan: three cut across the site and one runs up it from Jagat Narayan Road. Each shows how low the new buildings stay beside the domes of the club.

Roof and landscape plan with section lines A to D: sloped roofs, the heritage building’s terraces, gardens and a winding path to the mound.

Section A–A′ through the library, toilets, entry and museum, with level marks.

Section C–C′ from Nabiyulla Road through the library, toilets and the exhibition hall inside the heritage building.

Section D–D′ through the café and shops, with the heritage building’s domed front beyond, ending at the pavilion.

Section B–B′ from Jagat Narayan Road through the parking, café, shops and library.

Section A–A′ · library, entry, museumDrag the red line, or press A, B, C or D

In three dimensions

The site, with its roofs off.

A site model, made for this site from my drawings. It stands on the ground-floor plan with its heights from the sections, and its roofs lift off.

Loading the model

Lift the roofs

Elevations

The club stays the tallest.

From the south, the club’s dome and arcades rise above the low new wings and the trees on either side. From the north, the pavilion, the club’s domed tower and the new museum read together.

South elevation: the domed heritage building flanked by the low new workshop, library and café, with trees between them. — 07South elevation.

North elevation: the pavilion, the heritage building’s domed tower and the new museum seen from the north. — 08North elevation.

Detail

Down to the height of a person.

The new buildings are made of four materials: aluminium roofing, steel columns, exposed concrete walls and solar-control glass.

The column detail is the closest the set gets: one steel column, with a person walking past it for scale.

The second presentation panel: ground- and first-floor plans with dimensions, the existing building, the literary context of Lucknow, site context maps, transport and users. — 10Panel two of two. Plans, the existing club, and the research on the city around it.

Academic work, Semester 6, Architectural Design. The history of the club is from my site research.