Urban Bazaar

Bachelor thesis — a market place designed as an occasion

Drone view of the bazaar: rows of white tensile canopies over a paved plaza beside a curved stone wall and trees — **Fig.** Drone view from the entrance pavilion

Urban Bazaar was my bachelor capstone: a market place on a 39,370 m² site in Hyderabad, on the northern edge of the Durgam Cheruvu lake. The concept was to capture the enriching feeling that one experiences during small occasions of interaction — the liveliness of a bazaar, or even a simple market place in a neighbourhood. The stalls stand close together, so that a visitor gets a sense of déjà vu and is comfortable in the place while interacting with the sellers, or even with the passers-by.

The objective was to create an experience rather than just a physical structure, and the design approach was formulated with that intention in focus. Many of us can recall childhood memories of accompanying our parents to a marketplace, watching them bargain with vendors and talk a price down. That is the thing the plan is built to keep.

In today’s world, many see malls and theatres as the epitome of modernity. I disagree. I believe modern progress should embrace our traditions. While malls and fancy dining spots flourish, they often hinder meaningful human interaction, leading to increased depression and isolation.

Type: Individual project — bachelor capstone
Semester: 9th
Year: 2022
Project type: Urban space
Course code: AR17B9.1C
Instructor: Prof. Harish Vangara
Site area: 39,370.7 m²
Location: Hyderabad, India

Top view render of the site: curved rows of white canopies between the lake shore and the surrounding dense neighbourhood — **Fig.** 01.1 Site plan — top view render

Who it is for

Five groups share the place, and they want different things from it at different hours: the shop keepers and artisans who are there all day, students who pass through, families who come to buy, the staff who run it, and casual visitors who came for something else.

Mapping what each group does — buying handicrafts, eating, socialising, walking, relaxing, waiting — gave the pause points: the places where the plan slows down and people end up standing next to each other.

User groups

Shop keepers / artisans
Students
Family
Staff
Casual visitors

Concept collage of market scenes: vendors under awnings, people bargaining, children playing, stalls laid out on the ground — **Fig.** The feeling the plan is after, before any plan existed

Web diagram linking user groups to goods and activities, with the links converging on pause points — **Fig.** What each group comes for, and where those wants cross

Reading the site

The site sits on the northern part of the Durgam Cheruvu lake, so it has no obstruction on its southern part. In India the winds are largely from the south-west and west, and since the site has an unobstructed open space towards the south the winds are largely coming from the south. That has been kept as the primary focus, and the lines that create the design language are set by the wind.

The day is then divided up. An underutilised parking space in front of the administrative buildings does three jobs across the day — street food and service in the early morning, parking and bazaar through the working day, parking and street food again at night — which is what turns one piece of ground into three different places.

Set by

Wind from the south
Sun path
Lake edge
Hours of the day

Site diagram with the boundary in red, dashed blue arrows for wind direction across the plot and a yellow arc for the sun path — **Fig.** Wind and sun across the plot

Three axonometric diagrams of the admin block showing how the same ground is used at 6–9am, 10am–6pm and 6–10pm — **Fig.** 01.2 Axonometric view of the admin block, hour by hour

Ground floor plan of the admin block with a numbered legend: reception, open working space, clerk room, food court, service rooms, washrooms, cabins and pantry — **Fig.** 01.3 Admin block — ground floor plan

Monthly comfort chart for Hyderabad with green, yellow and grey bands for comfortable, warm and cold hours — **Fig.** Comfort through the year

Psychrometric chart with the comfort zone marked and the year's hours plotted as red and green points — **Fig.** Psychrometric chart

Line graph of monthly temperature range rising to a mid-year peak — **Fig.** Temperature range

Sun chart with warm and cool hours plotted in red and blue against the December and June arcs — **Fig.** Sun chart — where shade helps and where sun is wanted

The stalls

The bazaar itself is not a building; it is a kit. Three families of stall module — A, B and C — cover everything from a table a single artisan works behind to a full shop front, and the typical layout arranges them in curved runs that follow the wind lines rather than a grid.

Each one goes up the same way: the frame is set out on the paved module, the fabric canopy is pulled over it, and the whole thing is tied down. It comes apart the same way, which is what lets the same ground be a car park in the morning.

Modules

A1–A2
B1–B4
C1–C3
Demountable frame
Tensile canopy

Typical bazaar stall layout: colour-coded stall runs curving across the paved ground between planting — **Fig.** 01.4 Bazaar stalls, typical layout

The three stall module families drawn to scale and labelled A1 to C3 — **Fig.** 01.5 Stall modules

Three numbered steps showing a stall frame being set out on the paving, the canopy pulled over and the mast fixed — **Fig.** 01.7 Modular stall set-up procedure

Long sectional elevation through the whole site, with the colour-coded programme bands running under the section — **Fig.** 01.8 Sectional elevation of the site