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Designed as a comprehensive resource on spatial thinking, experimental pedagogy, and academic practices, this archive serves as a record for reference and critical analysis. 

More than a traditional institutional repository, it is envisioned as an "Archive of Ideas," structured to mirror the conceptual and intellectual framework of SEA. The platform captures specific engagements, explorations, and pedagogical reorientations, expressing the school's distinct set of practices constituted by its students and teachers. 

The collection encompasses intellectual articulations—from course books and objectives to studio briefs and lectures—alongside a  documentation of student work, field studies, and thesis projects. Through this structure, the archive navigates complex inquiries into typologies, ontologies, and genealogies, while exploring themes of environment, urbanisation, futures, and ethics. It serves as a space for rethinking geographies and histories of type, offering the school's co-learning experiments and its ongoing articulation of space and form.


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Living in the forest: a study of settlements in and around the edge of the forest

 Skins and Thresholds
Divya Bhat, 2019


Studied during the active protests against the forceful state-directed erasure of the Aarey forest cover in north Mumbai during April 2019, this thesis aims to document and understand the types of human habitation within
different sections of this ecologically sensitive environment. Mumbai is one of the few cities in the world that accommodates a forest right within it. After the formation of Mumbai, a lot of the existing settlements inside these forests relocated themselves to other parts of the city whereas, a few stayed back. Most of the forests areas were taken over to build infrastructure and housing for the growing population by the city authorities. Due to this, the forest cove rof Mumbai has dropped from 35% in the 1970s to just 13% today.

Currently, a patch of the Aarey forest is being cleared for a metro carshed. While such projects are inserted into the city by surgically removing the forest cover, one needs to invest in ways of carefully articulating the edge
of the forest and the city. By studying the older settlements alongside the newer developments along the edge of the forest and the city, the thesis aims to compare the contrasting forms of living, and hopes to articulate methods in which eco-sensitive edges can be intervened architecturally. The research identifies three distinct built form typologies which are common inside as well as on the edge of the forest. The documentation was primarily done to understand their spatial configuration and the way they interact with the  forest.

This research, therefore, tries to understand as to how do we reimagine the aspect of co-living between the settlements and the forest? How do we exist in resonance with the environment? Can modern development be less invasive in negotiating with the environment? How do we see a city in the forest ratherthan a forest in the city?



Read also under ‘Skins and Thresholds’:

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Spatial learnings from cellular phenomenon


Skins and Thresholds
Dhanvi Shah, 2022
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Land-water interface: a narrative of the land-water edge along the Godavari River, Nasik

Skins and Thresholds
Gautami Kasat, 2019
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Stories of urban thresholds from Mahad


Skins and Thresholds
Kaushal Vadake, 2018

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Of building skins




Skins and Thresholds
Priya Jalan, 2018
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Life resettled: work, life and leisure in the resettlement colonies alongside the edge of the Deonar dump

Skins and Thresholds
Vibhavari Sarang, 2019
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Spatiality of roughness/softness of streets



Skins and Thresholds
Yash Bhandari, 2022
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A routine of happiness: in-between realm and the spaces of respite



Skins and Thresholds
Yash Vadher, 2018


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