Urban studio collective (USC) is a research and documentation initiative, set up by DSSA to engage the student in hands down experience in recording various settlements. This unique experience allows the students to be a first-hand witness of the various cultures and evolution of settlement patterns of a small towns.
A settlement has always been the result of a dichotomy of occurrences between people and place. How each influences the other to form a place or how the other gets influenced by a place becomes a priority parameter of the research. The culture, religion and history of the place add on diverse layers to this dichotomy to form a complex web of events in a town which almost becomes inseparable from the other.
Our endeavour in this vertical studio of USC was to understand these varied forces and influences which played a crucial role in the evolution and formation of Badami through the process of recording and documenting of identified typologies and streets in the old town of Badami.

USC aims to record these occurrences and layers that form and shape a society and eventually a community. A true sense of place and its attributes is of primary importance in this study The historical town of Badami with its unique geographical and architectural features was the first settlement chosen for this initiative.
Badami or Vatapi as it was formerly known was the capital of the powerful kingdom of Chalukyas. It thrived as the political, cultural and economic center of the Badami Chalukyas for nearly two centuries and continued to be a cultural and economic hub for successive kingdoms.
Thus, the town of Badami and the larger precinct that it influences has a layered narrative that is at times nuanced but bolder at others, with each successive outside influence leaving behind an impression that was assimilated into the town.