URBIZEN

Though Indian cities are going through a rapid process of urbanization and growth, there does not seem to be enough attention and debate on the process and the outcomes, either at the government (central, state or local) level or the professional level, save some sporadic conferences and conventions to discuss the issues. I don’t think anyone would disagree to the point that for our overall progress and well-being, Urban Planning and Design should take centre-stage and be at the crux of our discussions on progress and development. Poverty, housing, child mortality, health and education are no longer problems of the villages alone. In fact due to sudden and rapid urbanization and migration, these issues are more urban than rural now. It is time we acknowledge that India will become more urban than rural soon, and accept urbanization as a regional and local phenomenon rather than a foreign idea. Urban Planning and Urban Design will play a pivotal role in shaping the new ...

“In Maurilia, the traveller is invited to visit the city and, at the same time, to examine some old post cards that show it as it used to be: the same identical square with a hen in the place of the bus station, a bandstand in the place of the overpass, two young ladies with white parasols in the place of the munitions factory. If the traveller does not wish to disappoint the inhabitants, he must praise the postcard city and prefer it to the present one, though he must be careful to contain his regret at the changes within definite limits: admitting that the magnificence and prosperity of the metropolis Maurilia, when compared to the old, provincial Maurilia, cannot compensate for a certain lost grace, which, however, can be appreciated only now in the old post cards, whereas before, when that provincial Maurilia was before one's eyes, one saw absolutely nothing graceful and would see it even less today, if Maurilia had remained unchanged; and in any case the metropolis has th...

A recent column by Shanta Gokhale in the Mumbai Mirror encouraged me to write this blog about the meanings conveyed through spaces. In her column Ms. Gokhale laments the lack of substance in the current outcrop of tall buildings and spaces in Mumbai. Giving the example of Kohinoor Square, she says, “A dumb tower is just as meaningless, visually, as the towers of babel that dot the city …”. Spaces are like people; they can be interesting as well as boring, humble, arrogant, simple, flamboyant, reticent, gregarious …. Charles Moore rightly put it by saying, “Place is the projection of the image of civilization onto the environment.” And David Harvey emphasizes the importance of thinking about cities in terms of social processes rather than just things. A Place is merely a physical manifestation of the social processes that take place there. We have to understand the social processes (and political, and economic, as well) that have created (or destroyed) our cities. In...

Recently the Maharashtra State Government withdrew tax cuts and FSI sops for “eco-friendly buildings” . The government is in the process of developing a “Green Building Code”. The code will have mandatory and voluntary reforms. This I think is a good step in the direction of sustainability. In fact, many Western countries have this kind of code already inculcated in their code; for example the Tile 24 Energy Code in California, to which all the projects have to adhere to. In Pune, the Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Corporation adopted the GRIHA guidelines in their Building bye-laws and require all new construction to follow those guidelines to obtain approval. To me, though, “Sustainable Architecture” is a tautology . I strongly feel that a building is not “Architecture” if it is not “Sustainable”. In the last few years we have seen abundant misuse of the terms “Green”, “Sustainable” and “Eco-friendly”, with developers, builders, product manufacturers using it as a marketing gimmic...