[POL]inizACTION

[POL]inizACTION comes out with the aim of reactivating the historical core of Ahmedabad, whose neighbourhoods - the Pols- are starting to be abandoned due to the quick city growth. The project explores the concept of a new public space which arises from the educational program and weaves the streets and the rooftops, recovering the lost traditions.

The proposal takes place at Jethabai Ni Pol and it arises from the 4 main potentials of these settlements: the strong sense of community, the open and flexible concept of ownership, the typological variety and the habitable rooftops, which are the vacuum: the opportunity. After carrying out an exhaustive in situ analysis, 20 buildings were selected and a catalog describing the 8 possible combinable interventions over them was developed. Considering the two schools of the Pol as the starting point, the proposal for these buildings are assembled creating 4 reactivation foci: - AROMATIC: Connecting a family-run perfume factory and one of the schools with new herbal workshops. - TRADITIONAL: Answering to the lack of spaces devoted to worship, culture and community. - PRODUCTIVE: Supplying the spatial deficiencies of the second school by connecting it to a new self-managed workshop that stimulates children’s creativity and recovers the textil, ceramic and wood local works. - HOUSING. Establishing a safe children centre due to the fact that many orphan students come to both schools from far hosting centres. Although each focus answers to specific deficiencies, all together shape a strategy, which starts from the empty rooftops, "pollinating" (POL-iniz-ACTING) them with a new programmatic network which would boost a productive and cultural development of the area bringing back other social and economic aspects: the sense of community and the local family business. The intervention goes down from the rooftops and reaches the street level, colonizing the public space with mobile devices, crafted by the Productive Focus. The adaptable character of the intervention requires a simple and systematic construction allowing the possibility of growing and decreasing over the time. A light wooden framework system with steel connections, known as balloon frame, together with an inventory of hand-made panels as vertical partitions embody the essence of the project: its capacity of being directly carried out by the neighbours encouraging the local economical and traditional standards.