Projection for long range development vision- What are the limitations?

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One of the inherent limiting factor of long range development vision, especially City or Metropolitan Development plan is "Projection". While multiple alternate growth scenarios - like in case of population projections- are assesses including business as usual, exponential case scenario etc. through a scientific, statistical and pragmatic approach, but soon afterwards while selecting the optimal case scenario out of handful of alternatives, science tends to get replaced by somewhat abstract sweeping logic and individual or herd preferences and usually a "bullish scenario" is selected unanimously, because "vision" is perceived to be bright and luminescent,  and rest other scenarios are sidelined.

Now very much convinced with the assumptions and choice of decision, projected numbers (say derived future population) assume concrete significance and starts dictating physical planning and form of city (like BUA, FAR, PCU), but in actuality such numbers (say projected population) may or may not be achieved or may exceed projected numbers, only to be evident half a decade later or so. Over stressed city infrastructure and ghost cities both are  results of over reliance on single final future scenario and discarding equally valid other possible scenarios.

It's worth acknowledging that a single market ready technological advancement in span of 3 to 5 years, has potential to disrupt 30 odd year vision plan just like that.

Vision and long range planning should be as agile, accomodative and resilient as possible; to be revisited, reinvented and reconfigured in short intermediate spans and it should also have a monitoring dashboard mechanism with a continuous feedback loop.  Additionally, vision document must elaborate and articulate multiple scenarios, their impacts and concrete response measures, plan-B, Plan-C and so on.

Author: Anoop Jha

Scaling of opportunities, a bigger challenge than scaling up urban infrastructure!

Tackling immediate soft urban challenges through resource prioritization!

Infrastructure expansion is where the money and interest is and is a never ending process as well, so it will keep scaling up in background anyway and will be taken care of diligently, with or without much intervention. Public sector has more of a catalytic and mentoring role to play in that direction. Skill is what we need to focus on today.

Like they say “Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day, teach him how to catch a fish and he will eat for his lifetime”.  Scaled opportunity is what an urban dweller needs irrespective of which Socio-economic strata they belong. More opportunity to masses means more involvement in the urban dynamics, and hence being more engaged in the process of building the very city which provided the new scale and dimensions of opportunities. Scaling of opportunity are less resource intensive and has higher ROR than scaling or urban infrastructure and might be more sustainable an approach!

Further scientific modelling and analysis will be required to validate and assert the idea.  

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What does growth cycle of design industry looks like?

Design industry follows a repetitive elliptical growth path.

If you look back down the development lane of design industry especially visible in product design and fashion industry, you will witness some familiar recurring pattern of growth, repetitive, though every time in a new avatar.

More than say 90 percent of designers still use direct or derivatives of primitive or rather eternal   geometrical building blocks as raw material- shapes and surfaces, like circle, triangle, square, prism, hyperbole  etc. and remaining 10 percent relentlessly trying to unearth some divine pattern or previously unseen building blocks or magic design elements, anxiously looking here and there for some clue, looking into microscope, looking up to nature, science, nano technology, microbiology, history or mythology or whatever or simply resorting to hallucinated inspiration, so that some divine "never before design element" descends upon them out of luck, while still acknowledging that those basic geometric building blocks like triangle and circles are not going to go away anywhere soon, probably never.

So, when majority of fundamental design elements have remained exactly the same throughout the evolution of design industry, this industry is bound to follow a recurring path starting from basics, evolving on the way through innovation, reaching to maturity, taking an inspirational U-Turn and finally going back to its roots, from where it all started. Apparently a perfect circle of growth; but it goes further, we haven’t talked about technology yet, this ever evolving technology provides designers even bigger opportunities, with new materials, new textures, enhance durability and elasticity, new colors, new opacity newer viscosity and so on, which helps prolong this period of growth cycle pushing this circular trajectory to follow an even larger elliptical path, finally going back to its roots just to be born again.

You might also like this post - Artificial Sonic Urban Environment to break the monotony of City!

How we assess and respond to architecture

Need of assessment without prejudice and unconditioned response.

Architecture and design is awfully judgmental and philosophical stream, its aesthetic and functional perception varies from person to person and it holds different meanings for users of different socio-economic and educational background.  For the evolution of architecture it is necessary to assess it from a radically different perspective, questioning every established values and prevalent formulas and benchmarks of good architecture.

Just getting overwhelmed by the magnificent interior of a high-end hotel lobby or much hyped restaurant interior or luxuriously decorated living room of an ultra-rich individual is not a real justice to the architecture and interior design in term of its design assessment and criticism. When someone come across to such wonderful places associated with big names, their immediate response of pleasant surprise in the moment they enter the building makes their design assessment biased with a touch of prejudice. Their analytical mind which is responsible for aesthetic and functional judgment, immediately surrenders to the mesmerizing ambiance of interior. Getting mesmerized by something amazing is a natural response of the human mind, but little more is expected from the architects  and designers in terms of their response to immediate environment, surrounding ambiance, assessment in terms of functionality and desired balance between aesthetics and  functionality. In that state of amazement they tend to forget the actual purpose of design, and start judging it on its face value.

Lavishness and expensiveness of architectural treatment can be enough to move an average audience or user hence one should be cautious not to get deviated or mesmerized by the shear ambiance of the environment while assessing the functionality and aesthetics of the said design. One has all the right to question the validity and contextuality of design elements and functionality of design even if it is created by established and much celebrated architects and designers. Often people seem to have been caught in the articulated concepts and animated design language while assessing and experiencing architectural spaces and design elements. Their experiences are colored by the aura of authority of established and much hyped architects and designers. Experiences are more or less fabricated and predefined in most of the cases.

One feels that there should be freedom of assessment. There is a need, not only to challenge and break free of established design values but to perceive the design from a clear vision which is beyond the past experiences, which is neither opaque by any prejudice nor conditioned by any socio-economic or regional background of the observer. An assessment based on complete firsthand experience might be a better and sensible way to judge the design.

By Anoop Jha

Thin line between development works, social service and exploitation

By - Anoop Jha

A case of tribal communities and regions

We need to question our own intention of doing right and doing good thing to others. May be what we think is right for someone or some community might not be that good for them as we assume.

Who is to decide what is good for whom? Is it the job of government? or maybe the Highbrow society? Or socially, politically and intellectually established individuals with their idiosyncratic ideology and philosophy having their own idea of utopian society? Is it the job of little advanced segment of society to decide what is good for not so advanced segment of society?


[Handpicked Books]

What could be the hidden intention behind doing good to others or some community or some region, which we call development work or at times social service?  Let’s take the example of tribal community and tribal region. Is it the shear innocent intention of sharing existing wealth and knowledge to unprivileged or unexplored segment of society or is it to exploit the untapped potential of the previously unexplored tribal region for our own advantage, is it a sincere effort to understand and document the needs and social pattern of these tribal communities or is it just to get commercial advantage by exposing these hidden communities to mainstream society, is it to help them learn utilize their own resources more efficiently or the hidden intention to exploit rich tangible and intangible tribal resources.  Is it to provide them better health, better opportunities and better lifestyle or is it  just shear gratification of doing social service.  Has that road been built to connect those hidden tribal communities to the mainstream society and to provide them new age opportunities and facilities or the intention is to extract the tribal wealth of region and exploit the heritage and culture value in form of tourism and all. 

Shy and conservative tribal communities throughout the world need very little for their living; they are an autonomous society in themselves.  They have been adapted to their environment in course of evolution and their local environment usually provides them all they need- food, shelter, social interaction, entertainment, spiritual satisfaction. Now there are few choices to make. One is to let this situation of apparent equilibrium of autonomous tribal community go ahead as usual and second to interfere and change the equilibrium either for their good or for own advantage which seems to be the case most of the time. This is a sensitive and tender issue has to be dealt with much thought and compassion. Social behaviors, norms and needs of tribal communities are mostly way different then the mainstream, so simply imposing the rules of mainstream society on the said communities might not do justice to them. For example the concept of formal education might be something totally alien to many tribal communities, so simply introducing the primary and secondary education system to those communities might not be a good idea just because we want everyone in the country to be literate, may be they simply don’t need a formal education, may be they need a different kind of skill orientated education, may be they need an education system totally different from mainstream society.  There are many such issues to address and subject of discussion.

Until they all arrive at a consensus, role of government in the mean time can be to protect the tribal communities and regions from external commercial invaders,  and provide them the health infrastructure with emergency facilities.   

Rural market urban goods – Why rural commodities haven’t succeeded to make niche position in urban market

By – Anoop Jha

Breaking the inertia of urban business dominance over rural communities

In the developing countries like India, when it comes to consumer needs the urban rural gap seems to be disappearing, which was not the case a decade ago.  The rural reliance on urban goods have been an increasing phenomenon in recent past due to higher standard of living, increased affordability, choosy customers etc. Take for example a very essential commodity of daily needs i.e. “Milk”, which is supposedly product of villages due to usual abundance of cattle, buffalos and cows, but imaging the growing dependence of rural population on “packaged milk” which is produced in some remote dairy farm and travels thousands of kilometers before being consumed in this particular village, which is quite ironical. 

Urban  dominance over rural  business 

There might me many reasons behind this particular scenario of using packaged milk in spite the availability of local fresh milk like - readily available - on demand goods, local small storage facilities for perishable goods, direct linkages to urban market, awareness to quality of goods, similar hierarchical product packaged for different affordability group, either manipulated by monopoly of big dairy owner or trying to break the monopoly of local milkman who at times manipulates with the quality of milk, availability of goods to cater to seasonal bulk demand etc. etc.

 
Question is, why the urban commodities have been able to penetrate the rural market but rural products except agro products have only been limited to the small urban cultural markets, like, Pragati maidan, Delhi Haat, seasonal artesian mela etc. Are there any utilitarian perception attached to the rural goods in urban context or has it become a showpiece item to be decorated in the drawing room or to be worn on occasional events or is it that urban merchants are way smarter than the rural counterparts? Is it that rural community has been deprived of knowledge of cunning and manipulating business skills of urban nature, which seem to be a common survival practice expansion strategy of urban businesses?  Is it that rural business lack the skill set to sell their product in quantum. Is it that intermediate agencies involved in the urban rural dynamics are taking the advantage without rural community being aware of such possibilities?  Whatever it is, this issue can be dealt with little business motivation, rural community participation, capacity building and involvement of public agencies.  

Policy makers and administrators need to strengthen and expedite urban rural forward-backward linkages along with providing business education, training related to workmanship, strengthening local art and craft, teaching ethical value of quality control, asking for community participation to benefit rural market. 

Role of Managers as Decision Maker

By - Anoop Jha

Planning and Architectural decisions which can save valuable time and resources

The future course of any planning or architectural project is shaped by decisions made at different stages of project by able managers. A manager should have strong organizational capabilities to manage the limited resources in most effective ways, excellent interpersonal skill sets like oratory command, active listening, backed by groomed personality, delegational capabilities, strong sense of intuition, superb management and leadership capacity which reflects in swiftness, smartness and precision of decisions made in the crucial moments. Managers should be capable of perceiving macro level issues which might emerge in course of project as well as should be capable of understanding and analysing minute details of project and process if required.

In planning and architecture every now and then macro level issues demands attention as well as swift and smart decision from managers. A wrong decision can be a toll on already limited and pressing time and resources while a sensible decision which emerges from the wisdom and experience of managers can save a lot of time and hassle.

Now, what is sensible decision and how can one arrive at a sensible strategic decision?  A team leader or manager is like a captain of any dynamic sport, who has to constantly change, modify and revive his or her strategy, negotiating twists and turns of this dynamics and unpredictability of the game, accommodating and absorbing changing situations, while keeping his or her focus on the end result i.e. winning the game.  In the similar way a manager or team leader has to constantly reinvent its strategies meeting the project needs, accommodating dynamism of project with the focus on timely completion of projects with effective utilisation of resources at hand.

Local Ecosystem : Model for adaptive growth

By - Anoop Jha

An autonomous and sustainable model for planning

Understanding the intricate pattern of  local ecosystem of any region which is adjustable and adaptive to its constantly changing environmental parameters like micro-climate, inhabitants, pace of activities, external tangible influences etc. could prove to be the key to future sustainable model for Urban and regional development. 

There are ample of example of such ecosystem throughout the world with  its peculiar challenges and solutions. ecosystems can be as small as an small island or a patch of land on a river bank, or it can be as big as a regional watershed catchment area of forest of Amazon, but each of these autonomous ecosystems have some kind of  similarity  which is absorptive capacity of these ecosystems, they seem to have inevitable capacity to nurture and absorb the growth within its somewhat flexible envelop. 

Natural ecosystems try to maintain a unique environmental conditions necessary for its existence from its constant physical and chemical activities. For example, river bank of an urban settlement which acts as the only grazing land for  buffaloes and cows of the small villages trapped within the city fabric in the process of urban expansion, can be an interesting area of study related to ecosystem.It is more or less similar cycle of activity flux everyday in the somewhat flexible envelop of this river bank grazing land, though constantly being influenced and invaded by the development activities of city and natural cyclic activities like annual flood. another example can be the Large forest of Savanna, which apparently seem calm from a distance but  buzzing with life cycle activities of flora and fauna inside its dense green envelop, constantly nurturing, changing, adapting  and absorbing the growth, while maintaining its ecosystem. Urban and Regional Planner need to study, document, analyse, extract, and implement the similar autonomous model of growth and planning for a sustainable future of cities.

Changing Scale of Innovation – from Architecture to Urban Planning

By- Anoop Jha

Next generation of Urban Planning inspired by Architecture Evolution

Evolution of Construction Technology and new construction Materials inspired the Architects in past to experiment with the form, scale and aesthetics of buildings, technology fueled the growth of architectural innovation and the broadened vista of modern architecture. Complex and sophisticated simulation tools and software, advanced construction equipments, advanced structural engineering and emergence of new stronger and flexible construction materials combined with creativity of Architects made this architectural revolution possible. Urban planning was of relatively much larger and complex nature, incorporating architecture as one of the element. For the long period of time technology was of little importance in urban planning except the transportation revolution of Mass Rapid transit systems and emergence of steel as high-rise construction material which shaped the development of urban planning to some extent.

Technology in recent past has made tremendous development like satellite images and advanced mapping technology, Geographical Information System (GIS), sophisticated analytical tools and software, new resource management techniques, modeling prediction tools, automation, integrated infrastructure systems etc. and it is growing exponentially, which is giving tremendous possibilities for urban planners to experiment in the field of urban habitation, buildings of near impossible height and scale, urban transit systems, environment, and core urban infrastructure, utilizing resources, use of previously untapped potential of region and inaccessible terrains, and planning in extreme climate. We can see the impact of state of art technology manifesting itself in the new planned cities, future urban development proposals, emerging revolutionary thoughts on next generation of cities. The kind of innovation which was only visible in architectural domain till recent past is now have become a regular feature of urban planning processes an proposals.