URBIZEN

A few days back I was having a conversation with some of my fellow architects. At one point the discussion moved towards the availability of good architectural staff, especially at the junior level. The complaint was that the entry level architects were not industry-ready, and a majority of them lacked the most basic of design and drawing skills. That this lack of availability of required skills in the youngest generation architects is affecting the design and delivery of projects. This is a problem faced by many architecture firms. My argument was, “How much time and energy are architecture firms investing in training and teaching their junior architects? How many architecture firms today have a culture of mentoring?” The counter-argument to that was, “We don’t have the time to train, teach and mentor.” Well then can you guess who’s losing out here? For the benefit of the profession, and for the firms themselves, architectural firms should rethink the way they operate and create a...

For everyone, their home is their palace, and they are the kings and queens of their own little palaces. But if we start making palaces for everyone, we will only be building castles in the air. The urgent need of the hour is to build more houses, with fewer resources, in the quickest time, for the many seeking a pucca house. We will need to create a paradigm shift in the way we design, engineer and construct social housing in India. If we continue to construct our houses and apartment buildings like we have being doing since the past three decades, it will be impossible to reach our intended target anytime in the foreseeable future. There can be much learned product design and manufacture, including car manufacture. Some of the key aspects that can be directly transferred to house construction are: Modularity: Modularity is a design approach that sub-divides a system into smaller components that can be replicated, scaled, and used in groups or independently. Modularity ...

(image source: www.urbanland.uli.org) Housing is one of the most important elements of urban development. The current focus on affordable housing in India presents numerous challenges and opportunities at the same time. The housing shortage is growing at more than 6%, and is projected to reach 34 million units by 2022. With high demand, limited resources and time running out, the challenges are obvious. It also cannot be denied that great challenges come with great opportunities. The opportunities and challenges of affordable housing demand innovative solutions from everyone involved – architects, engineers, contractors, developers, and the government. This also presents a unique opportunity to Architects in India to develop design solutions that are unique to the current Indian context. The Architecture fraternity should not miss out on this opportunity to create an impact. There is a generally accepted assumption that affordability is a policy issue, and not a design issue...

There is fresh new opportunity for developers, architects, engineers and contractors in India, in the form of Affordable Housing. With a 1.9 Crore (19 million) shortage in urban housing, there is a huge gap that needs to be bridged. The market demand for affordable housing had already existed, but due to absence of an enabling regulatory framework and policies, developers shied away from the sector. The present Central government has formulated several changes in the form of incentives and tax breaks in the Union budget to address the bottlenecks. The primary changes are: 1.      Infrastructure status to the affordable housing sector – This allows the developers to raise funds at lower interest rates. 2.      The maximum permissible size of the apartments was increased to 60 sq.m. of carpet area. 3.      The time limit for completing the projects was increased from three years to five years. 4.  ...

(source: CIRIA) Water has been integral to the evolution of cities. Yet, today water does not find a central place in the planning and design of our cities. Many Indian cities are facing a water crisis in some form or the other. Development and urbanization disturbs the natural water cycle, and creates a stress on the supply-demand equilibrium. In terms of water, cities are grappling with the issues of water shortage, flooding and water course pollution. In spite some areas being flooded every year claiming loss of life and property in urban areas, numerous other villages face drought, forcing many farmers towards destitution and suicide. Water has become a risk to be managed rather than an asset and opportunity. To bring back the focus on water in Indian cities, the need of the hour is for urban planners, urban designers, architects, engineers, landscape designers, hydrologists, environmentalists and ecologists to come together to develop strategies and plans to conserve ...

The Government is making massive efforts to set the ball rolling on the Smart Cities program in India. ULBs are gearing up and creating SPVs and hiring consultants to make their pitch, and access the funds. Much seems to be happening in the background. Self-proclaimed "Smart City Gurus" seem to have sprung out of nowhere, and others are clamoring to get into the scene. International consultants, IT companies and Management wallahs have all jumped onto the bandwagon to make Indian cities "Smart". But if you ask the man on the street about "Smart Cities", he will either give you a blank stare or utter something which is merely an aspect of the concept of Smart Cities. And you will experience the same reaction when conversing with a qualified Architect, Urban Planner or Urban Designer. That, or you might end up in an endless, pointless debate. The point is, in all this brouhaha where does the common-man-on-the-street fit in? Is he a part of this wav...

Urban transformation may not always be "effort-time-money-intensive". Eric Reynolds (of Urban Space Management) mentions about the "Lighter, Quicker, Cheaper" solutions that can be applied to urban spaces. This signals a bottom-up approach to urban issues rather than the top-down traditional approach. Even small urban interventions carried out with minimum resources can improve the livability and image of an urban space and transform it into a "place". Most of these interventions are small-scale, temporary and address an immediate issue at a neighborhood level. More often than not, these are community initiatives for the sole aim of improving their immediate environments. 'Parklets', street painting, wall murals, "happy streets" etc. are all examples of these "Lighter, Quicker, Cheaper" interventions which fall under the umbrella term of "Tactical Urbanism". It is also referred to as guerilla urbanism, po...

Affordable Housing is one of the most important issues for Mumbai's development. due to its complex and dynamic nature it is a big challenge for the Government, urban planner and all stakeholders. In Mumbai, approximately 42% of the people live in slums and about 57% households live in one-room tenements, with 9 out of 24 wards with more than 50% slum population. (Census 2011) Affordability is a relative concept. It means different things to different people. But then how do we define Affordability? A high-level Task Force on Affordable Housing for All, set up by the Government of India in 2008, and headed by Deepak Parekh, has put forth the following definition of affordable housing: (http://www.naredco.in/pdfs/report-high-level-task.pdf) For EWS/ LIG: ≤ 4 years of income or EMI/ Rent ≤ 30% of gross monthly income For MIG: ≤ 5 years income or EMI/ Rent ≤ 40% of gross monthly income Currently the two approaches being adopted to address the issue of affordable housi...

I recently received this email. It seems to be an interesting assignment for a young aspiring researcher, and some of the readers might be interested.  NYU Stern Urbanization Project ( urbanizationproject.org ) is seeking  a researcher from/ in Belgaum who can work with us on a short term assignment there. The details can be found here .  Please feel free to forward this to your colleagues.

Holding ponds in Navi Mumbai (photo: NMMC) Navi Mumbai, a planned sister city of Greater Mumbai was planned by conceived by Charles Correa, Pravina Mehta and Shirish Patel, and planned and executed by CIDCO. Navi Mumbai has a unique geography and topography. It is bound by Parsik hill, Sahyadri range on one side and Thane creek on the other side. The relative ground level at Parsik hill range is between 30 to 65 m RL and it drops down to sea level at Thane creek. The planners of Navi Mumbai have shown commendable foresight and environmental sensitivity by preserving the original lay of the land and working within the constraints of the natural topography, with minimum damage to the natural environment.  The land between the creek and the mountain forms the developable land for the city. Navi Mumbai consists of 29 villages (source: Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation, NMMC). These villages are located on higher ground on the hillocks. The lower levels were subject to high ...

(Image source: Steven Holl Architects) The planned extension to the Bhau Daji Lad Museum   (BDLM) in Mumbai is generating active discussion and debate within all groups. The most controversial was the opposition from MNS (Maharashtra Navanirman Sena), whose stand is that the city needs open space more than art museums.  The international design competition for the museum extension was won by Steven Holl Architects , competing against some very famous and well-known international star architects like Rem Koolhaas and Zaha Hadid. In a lecture delivered by Steven Holl on March 10th at the museum, the architect presented some of his works in China and also presented his concept for the museum extension . Holl's talk focused on large urban projects in China, presented in a crisp and interesting manner. He stressed the need to integrate the project with the larger urban context, and the idea of generating active public spaces defined by the built form. His projects tie the ...

I got introduced to Dieter Rams (Braun designer) first at one of the lectures at IIT Bombay. He has had immense influence on modern industrial/ product design. Rams came up with his own 10 Commandments of Design.  Architecture and interior design has much in common with industrial design, and the principles can be applied to architectural design also. Today, when the boundaries between disciplines is merging, it makes even more sense for the inter-disciplinary approach between various design disciplines. " Dieter Rams’ 10 Design Commandments 1. Good Design is innovative It does not copy existing product forms, nor does it produce any kind of novelty for the sake of it. The essence of innovation must be clearly seen in all functions of a product. The possibilities in this respect are by no means exhausted. Technological development keeps offering new chances for innovative solutions. 2. Good Design makes a product useful A product is bought in order to be used...

On May 09, 2014 The Collaborating Chambers, EMBARQ, IITB, Nagar, TISS, UDRI, WeSchool and Mumbai First jointly organised a talk by Dr. Isher Judge Ahluwalia titled "Transforming Our Cities". The talk was held at the BSE International Convention Hall in Mumbai. Dr. Isher Judge Ahluwalia is a well known economist and Chairperson, Board of Governors, the Indian Council for Research on international Economic Relations (ICRIER), heading its research programme on urbanization. She was also Chairperson of the High Powered Expert Committee on Urban Infrastructure and Services (HPECUIS) during 2008-2011. The Report on Indian Infrastructure and Services by the HPECUIS addresses the issues of urban governance and suggests ways to bring about urban reform. Dr. Ahluwalia is Member of National Manufacturing Competitiveness Council and is on the Boards of a number of premier research institutes in India. She was awarded the Padma Bhushan by the President of India in the year 20...