Environment centric view of Planning and architecture

By - Anoop Jha

Creating  green value chain for projects

If we observe closely, apart from the obvious socio economic benefits and unavoidable demand needs of the development projects they have some questionable effects on our environment. Any development project affects the the ecological balance of nature through its resource exploitation and project externalities, which in most of the cases seems inevitable to prevent, but its effects can be mellowed down and an attempt can be made to neutralize the negative impacts of development on the environment.

Environment centric approach is the process of planning which revolves around the aim to conserve and minimise the effect of development project. It is applicable to any scale and nature of project whether architectural or planning.  Its a process of integrating green design and planning principals as well as adopting green strategies across the different segments of, project lifespan, implementation and operational value chain of any planning or architectural project.

There are ways and means to formulize greener value chain for new planning projects like new township or business district, introducing and reinforcing green retrofit for the existing functional value chain like any random city, there are also principals to plug in green principals into the value chains into the dilapidated value chain like old cities or uncontrolled megapolis. Planner’s role is to analyse the situation and propose green and sustainable environmental friendly strategies for the city.