Archista

[archista]

Welcome to my corner of Tumblr!

Hey there! I’m currently surviving as a Semester 5 Architecture student at MNU, and this space is a little window into the ideas I've been creating lately.

This semester, we plunged headfirst into nature-resilient design, specifically focusing on floating living units. My group got assigned K. Thulusdhoo, which is honestly the perfect backdrop for trying to figure out how sustainable, adaptable communities can actually coexist with climate change.

📐 The Process Breakdown:

The Collective Grind: We kicked things off as a group, sweating over site analysis and building out a massive masterplan.

Zooming In: From there, we mapped out residential clusters.

Going Solo: Finally, we branched off into individual unit designs, where I got to bring my own chaotic good architectural solutions to life.

This blog is a highlight reel of that journey with the messy process, the late-night ideas, and the final designs that survived the critique. Stick around! ✨

[archista]

The end of an amaxing semester! Looking back at those first few days on K. Thulusdhoo, watching the water from the harbor jetty, I never could have imagined how much this project would change me as a designer. What started as a late-night sketch of a "bait ball" of fish hiding from sharks evolved into a living, breathing architectural system.

This studio forced me completely out of my comfort zone. It taught me that architecture isn't just about drafting walls it’s about protecting communities, honoring environments, and designing for the human experience. Through every late-night model-making grind, every critique, every frantic page of the drawing pamphlet, and every moment of self-doubt, I was learning what it truly means to build with purpose.

I am so incredibly proud of how this journey ended, and so grateful for the lessons learned along the way. To everyone who shared their stories on the island, to my lecturers who pushed me to see further, and to the studio grind that kept us all going, thank you!

The final board is fianally pinned up. It’s emotional, it’s exhausted, but it is beautifully, completely finished. 🏆🪸✨

@feststudio5-26

[archista]

Final Model Seeing a concept travel all the way from a messy dockside sketch into a crafted physical model is honestly the best feeling.

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[archista]

From concept chaos to final board… somehow we made it

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[archista]

Preparing layouts for final board

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[archista]

honestly need to take a moment for this exploded axonometric I created.

The linework took so much time and patience to get right, but I am absolutely obsessed with how it turned out.

There’s something so satisfying about seeing the entire system pulled apart, layering the floating technology, the prefabricated assembly, and the protective outer shell all into one clear drawing. The line weights are exactly where I wanted them to be. @feststudio5-26

[archista]

Pamplet Submission

Moving on from the physical model-making grind, it was time to transition all those 3D concepts into Exercise 2 – Part 2: Design Development.

The Approach: Atmosphere Meets Tehnical Logic

The goal here wasn’t to just make dry, technical blueprints (no boring structural grids or heavy dimensioning allowed yet!). Instead, it’s a design-oriented package meant to show how the housing unit actually feels and functions.

I focused on bringing the project to life by combining:

Spatial Narratives & Rendered Visuals to capture the material atmosphere.

Exploded & Sectional Representations to show the prefabricated construction logic and component assembly.

Technical & Environmental Diagrams mapping out how the floating technology handles sea swells and sustainable systems.

It’s all about balancing crisp line weights with expressive collage techniques, making sure the raw, adaptive energy of the "bait ball" concept stays alive on paper.

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[archista]

Finally done with the structure

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[archista]

After some amazing discussions with my lecturers, I pushed my dwelling design so much further. I focused on leveling up how someone actually experiences the context like the way natural light cuts through the space, and creating pockets where people can genuinely interact with each other.

Honestly? I absolutely love how it turned out in the end. I’m so glad I got to step out of my comfort zone to explore and create this. I learned a mountain of things throughout this whole process. Huge growth moment! Tinted with a little bit of design exhaustion, but totally worth it. @feststudio5-26

[archista]

Initial Ideas for the pamphlet submission @feststudio5-26

[archista]

Some of the progressive sketches I’ve made throughout the concept stage, starting from some absolute crazy ideas for making a form, to some slightly more sane, structural layouts.

When you’re trying to design a floating community inspired by a shifting school of fish, you have to let your pen go a little wild first. These pages are the literal paper trail of my brain trying to figure out how to translate the fluid movement of the "Bait ball" into actual, livable architecture.

It started with messy, abstract doodles on the harbor dock and slowly evolved into actual spatial zoning, floating modules, and protective outer shells. Scroll through to see the chaos before the order! 05/27/26 @feststudio5-26

[archista]

Testing Floating models 24/05/26 @feststudio5-26

[archista]

Welcome to the Model Making Grind!

Exercise 2 is all about Model-Based Design Development, which basically means step away from the laptop, put down the digital tools, and let the physical models do the talking.

Following C.B. Mills’ framework, we aren't just making one final pretty model but,we’re building an entire ecosystem of Primary Models (tracking our design evolution from rough sketch models to refined forms) and Secondary Models (focusing on specific details like structure and joints).

Scaling Up (and Floating Down)

Our model set has to solve problems across four crazy scales, arranged in a chronological timeline from concept to reality:

The Masterplan Scale: A dry context model showing how our floating settlement actually integrates into the lagoon.

The Cluster Scale (The Splash Test!): Modeling a group of units and literally testing them in a water tank to prove buoyancy and wave response.

The Dwelling Scale: Zoning into a single unit to test spatial quality, light, and ventilation.

The Detail Scale: Zeroing in on the micro-connections, joints, and marine-ready materials keeping it all together.

Paired with a continuous hand-drawn sketch strip, each model acts as a chapter in the design story. The goal? Exhibition-ready craft that explains itself without me needing to say a word. Let the cutting, gluing, and tank-testing begin! 17/05/26

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[archista]

It took me approximately 4 hours just to figure out how I was going to make a gear system that could be incorporated into my structure ⚙️

My main idea was to make the physical model actually rotate, so it could demonstrate how the mechanism would work in real life as well, instead of just being a static model. I first spent time researching how gears work and sketched multiple ideas to understand the movement and connections better.

What made it even more complex was that I wanted to integrate the planter systems (the white foam pieces in the model) as reedbed systems that would move along with the gears, almost like they were fixed into the gear system itself. So it wasn’t just about making gears rotate, but also making sure these additional elements could move properly without affecting the mechanism.

There were so many trials and errors. I tested different materials to see which would rotate smoothly and hold the structure properly. One of the biggest challenges was deciding the right diameter for the gears so that the inner and outer circles wouldn’t collide while rotating. I also spent a lot of time figuring out the exact placement of each piece so everything aligned and moved the way I intended.

Seeing something that started as just an idea in my sketches finally work as a moving physical model made all the effort worth it.

@feststudio5-26

[archista]

Collage

Fresh off the boat from Thulusdhoo, I immediately started working on my concept ideas, starting with a collage to capture the vibe.

The inspiration came from a beautiful contrast at the harbor jetty: above water, locals and tourists were fishing and talking, full of life. Below water, a school of small fish gathered into a moving sphere where the "red strings" represent a danger that could break the whole thing apart. An uncertainty. they cluster together to confuse sharks. But if even one fish gets caught, the whole defensive formation shatters.

I used this exact logic for a site facing massive sea swells and storm surges. Just like the fish, these dwellings don't stand alone. They feature protective outer shells that dynamically shift and close based on water levels. It’s an adaptive, united architectural system designed to conquer the fear of water and structural risks. 22/04/26 @feststudio5-26

[archista]

K. Atoll Comparative Analysis Book A collective attempt to read five islands of K. Atoll through one shared lens, where each of us took on a fragment of the whole and turned lived reality into structured data. My chapter focused on economy, livelihood, and crime rates of Thulusdhoo, translating everyday patterns of work, survival, and movement into pie charts and bar graphs that tried to make sense of something inherently unquantifiable. It was a process of compressing island life into categories and percentages, where numbers became stand-ins for stories and diagrams became quiet interpretations of how people actually live.

[archista]

A glimpse of our trip to Thulushdoo

@jauuuus @shaimyarchcore @notmalakkkk @feststudio5-26