SEWA Foundation’s Kamala Cafe by Studio Praxis
The Kamala cafe, a self-sustaining facility nurtured through the Self Employed Women’s Association(SEWA) Foundation, supports women across the city in the everyday economy to enhance their working and living conditions
A cozy cafe in Ahmedabad that is designed by Studio Praxis and modeled as a fluid play of nature and organic elements of architecture that interact and assemble a silhouette cast with yellow sandstone.
The facility also operates as a nutrition-cum-training center and provides food production and processing services. Its architectural language recites a blissful tale that is perceived with delightful details of nature blending with the encircling, crafted context. The primary idea was to seek the lost connection of sky and soil, humans and nature with silence and stillness for sharing the moment in the spaces.
The heart of the place acts as the openness between the inside and outside spaces, relating the visitor with nature creating spirited dialogues. The walls were laid out with different sizes and shapes of raw stones to comprehend the beauty of randomness with the interpretation of articulating the joy and pain through the charm of plants.
The spaces are orchestrated as an open plan having a dining area at the core enclosed by foliage giving rise to the sense of belonging in nature’s dwelling. The structure consists of raw sandstone walls and a metal roof having minimum supports, creating water channel spouts to admire the sound of water in the monsoon. The soil was kept untouched to make one perceive a connection and imagine a manifestation from the fallen twigs.
The yellow sandstone walls constructed in random masonry portray the sun’s movement mysteriously unfolding the patterns of shadows. The concrete channel relaxing on the walls and metal supports act as the distinction and correlate the whole structure. The project inspires the visitors to discover the lost relationship of our souls and senses through exploring the details of spaces deeply corresponding to nature.
Project: Kamala Cafe
Location: Ahmedabad
Design House: Studio Praxis
Principal Architect: Maneesh Kumar
Design Team: Maneesh Kumar, Arthur Duff, Kalpesh Siddhpura
Photography: Harsh Bhavsar
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