Understanding the Role of Architecture in directing comprehensive tactility in spaces- through institutes of auroville, India

Author: Ar. Gazal N.

Affiliation: CEPT University

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Abstract:​​​​

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People’s experience of built environments is deeply multisensory, engaging light, color, sound, smell, and the feel of materials to create profound architectural experiences. While architectural design has often prioritized visual form to convey identity, a full understanding of buildings also involves foregrounding a range of corporeal interactions that foster human sensitivity and emphasize immersive familiarities. Physical touch, generally alluding to the ‘tactile’ sense is one such connotation that establishes an ardent connection between our body and the world, prioritizing a sense of ‘place’, ‘people’ and ‘essence’ of time. This research expands the definition of tactility beyond mere physical contact, drawing from 19th-century architectural thought. It highlights tactility's significance in India's mid-century modern architectural heritage, where it manifests in both "surface realities" and "space scenarios." Post-independence architecture in India, particularly Roger Anger’s Auroville (Kundoo, Anger's Auroville, 2008), excelled at blending visual and tactile elements through masterful spatial forms and material execution. By introducing the term ‘Comprehensive Tactility’, this research explores how architectural principles and design intentions cultivate intimate user-environment connections. It further extracts a range of relationships between materiality, architectural imagery, and tactility through various themes by examining the haptic environments in contemporary works from Auroville. Lastly, through the lens of dynamic processes of ‘making’ and ‘culture’—material and immaterial this research attempts to establish a deeper knowledge of how the underlying layers of tactility anchor some spaces to our memory, why some buildings emerge as timeless, and how some spaces hold deeper meanings – creating ‘The magic of the real”.

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Keywords: Comprehensive Tactility, multi-sensory experiences, Indian Modernism, materiality, Movement​

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ISSN 3069-8200