Ananya Khujneri

The Healing Village
“Social Healing Among Space”

The Healing Village is a people-oriented approach to community centre where emphasis is placed on structuring social connections. This design revolves around the ideology that people heal through and with other people. That they share problems and form COMMUNITY of sorts. Hence introduced is the proposal of Community Health Centre to form a community in itself. It uses the metaphor of village, where people form lasting bonds. Despite the informal spatial arrangements of certain villages, they operate to establish deep rooted relationships aided by community consciousness. When this concept is realized spatially, it is observed that the relationships beyond a family are prompted by the NEGATIVE SPACES, the outside. Although, for the negative spaces to build the relationships, it needs incentives. Incentives in the form of regular and irregular activities that prompt people to come together.

One way to do it is via SOCIOPETALITY. This is a concept of social spatial arrangement designed to bring people together, also observed in the village settlement patterns. And a key result of this is formation of internalized small cores is that, it operates as spaces of interaction.

CIRCULATION plays an important role in controlling the intensity of interactions. Playing with the complexity of the circulation can bring chance encounter and development of the social relationships. A complex arrangement of circulation also need time and understanding to instil a sense of ownership to the user. This is a key component of place attachment (which surges the formation of communities, as seen in villages).