Cities within city!

Please visit my web page "Urban Tenets" at https://urbantenets.nl/

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These metropolitan cities are so big that many inhabitants spend their entire life without the need of visiting few other parts of city for any purpose be it business, socialising or recreation, and when they do visit that other part of same city for the first time, it's sometimes not less than a shocking experience, pleasant or otherwise - experiencing drastic change in built-up scale, a very distinct manifestation of architectural style, a juxtapose density, visible economic stratification, attitudinal and behavioural changes are observed, obvious difference in level of upkeep, city beautification and public services, varying degree of management witnessed, sometimes changes witnesses in regulatory enforcement, citizen compliance and level of citizen engagement; difference in lifestyle, life choices and opportunity landscape is worth noticing as well.

Several forces are at play here making different part of city very different in appeal and experience, like - chronology of development, different developmental vision for different city zones in an effort to create specialised nodes, different economic activity and status.

Silver-lining; Heterogeneity and diversity in a large metropolitan city was never an outdated idea, additionally possibility of intracity excursion and tourism is there. Learning opportunity from each other is also there. A city with multitude of experience is always welcoming anyways.

In all likelihood it can be safely assumed that there is critical mass in terms of a chunk of city with a cluster of habitation and segment of economy which makes it autonomous in many senses, making it a small city within a larger metropolitan, and metropolitan city can be perceived as agglomeration of several such smaller cities, of course huddled together with a symbiotic relationship.

Author:Anoop Jha

#urbanplanning #cityplanning #townplanning #habitat #urban #smartcity #cluster #neighborhood

Let me show you the true artist in you!

No art is as inclusive as fine arts or call it whatever. 

It seems every single person is born with artistic talent specifically more pronounce and visible in the field of fine arts, abstract art or call it whatever, an artist even in you, whether you consider yourself an artist or not that is irrelevant,  proof is your childhood notebook filled with weird characters drawn by you and spoiled pages of your dad's diary and all the tattoo that you made on your hand, graffiti on your school desk and crayon spoiled walls of your house where you spent your childhood days and that creative surge when you were staring at the damp basement or loo walls trying to infer some meaning out of those grunge damp patterns, or even today if you occasionally tend to draw a smiley face on moist, dew clad surface and so on. Every adult was an artist in his or her childhood so they are today, so are you. 

Every child with his or her genuine creativity, making and living their own dreams in their sketchbook or on wall, vivid and real in their own imagination, a spell-bounding piece of rawness with bit of influence from surrounding, and we are not talking about all the art and craft assignments forced by educational curriculum and competition, those are plastic, manipulated, and imposed, threatening and robbing the very creative rawness of child. We are not talking about biased aesthetic judgement here. We are talking here for example the child's own interpretation of how round a sun should be or how round his dexterity allows him to draw it, not the Vinchi style geometric perfectness of circle which we tend to impose on them. Since art being essentially a true expression of self does not necessarily demands shape of circle to be a perfect circle so it really doesn't matter how well you used to draw a circle to qualify as an artist in your childhood, and since art is beyond the clutch of time so if you draw the similar weird circle today when you are grown up it is still an art and so you are an artist. Another reason is that if making a perfect circle is a qualification criteria for an artist than our computer or tab can do that job better than our master artist. 

So acknowledging the truth of your own childhood talent now you can appreciate the works of kids around better. Not judging them on their perfectness but admiring them for their innocence. You see these kids will grow up one day and change the very definition of understanding of what an art should be. After all its art if you can prove it. 

You might also like to read this post on "design diplomacy"

Some kids don't play Soccer and possibly will never play Golf, why so?

Sometimes one feels that sports is more about opportunities and affordability! 

Usually Kids from humble socioeconomic background seems to be happy and content with their primitive sports, which does not need any sports gear or tool or gadget or training or coach and so on. 
   
 Has it anything to do with the limited opportunities they get and their    sparse economic condition?

Thriving market of cheap design aesthetics.

Have you ever wondered why you still find those similar crude designs around even after decades?

Design demands Freedom 

 Image by  karen horton 

So, will they keep producing those sub-standard design and inexpensive aesthetics just because they have found a comfortable niche market for that? a compromising non demanding market segment which is either unaware of their right to aesthetics, right to own good design or they have accepted this false imposed notion of design dictatorship that a good design and aesthetics is only for well-off segment. The restrictive and monopolistic approach towards design only leaves majority of people frustrated witnessing bad designs and cheap aesthetics scattered all around which is usually propagated due to lack of serious talent and affordable skills in design industry or sometimes carefully established to make you feel inexpensive!  

Strengthening Design  

  Image by  Nerds For Nature 

Next time you are travelling in a public transport or while casually strolling through the busy market street, take a serious look around, you might be overwhelmed by the shear abundance of product designs borrowed from your childhood memories, for example look at couple of shoes of those people standing next to you in a subway, chances are, out of ten pairs of shoes you will find one out of this world customized designer pair "a must have it in your wardrobe style", you will see two highly expensive ergonomically designed branded pair, another two pairs from the trending fashion, and another five pairs of shoes with design and aesthetics borrowed from the memories of your distant past, designs borrowed from different time spans of previous couple of decades. It cant just be a coincidence that 40-60% of designed products are still trapped in the evolutionary stage of design, while we already have the best of benchmarks available and established. and it is applicable to almost every type and scale of product available in the market, shoes are just a crude example!

It's the urgent need and responsibility of a designer and a progressive society at large to unlock and libralise the design and aesthetics in a production environment or otherwise, and educate masses towards the same, letting this dissipated knowledge and awareness permeate through the consciousness of otherwise design ignorant and aesthetically suppressed consumers and society, a wind of change which will help make a better ambiance and surrounding whichever part of the world or whichever corner of the city you are in at the moment.

you might like this post on Design Democracy as well called "Deprived of design aesthetics?" 

A Public Art you will appreciate!

Making Vibrant Public Spaces and Amenities 






 

At an Art and Craft Festival Near Delhi, India

Still untapped potential of raw satellite images for city planners!

Urban Planning satellitexted

Satellite view of urban alphabet

Love exploring cities from the eyes of satellites! they tell stories which were never written, imprints of time still visible, you see a city, you see it growing, you see where its going, you learn where it comes from. They say you need to travel if you want to learn, you confront with knowledge and experience while travelling. Some tools like free or else satellite imageries were not available for planners decades back or even recently, by the time it arrived for planners as a tool, GIS and satellite image interpretation etc. also accompanied and hence all the focus shifted towards degitising the whole world including your neighborhood street and front yard, making layers after layers, though they sure help planners in many ways, but you know at times on feels that in this whole process of mechanization and automation and interpretation, the shear beauty of raw, as it is satellite images and views are loosing its significance. 

The naked and raw satellite images of earth like as seen in google earth can tell things and give clues which even high level high resolution satellite image interpretations can't tell, the judgement of human eyes and brain, not just the computer processor, once in a while for sake for fun learning at least. Urban planners, transport planners and so on planners need to see and understand the random behaviors of random cities across the world, travel wont be possible and you don't have enough time to wait for that as well so go explore a city, any city or settlement or villages on google earth or something, every time you will go there you will learn something. Don't get simply spoon-fed by other's version of what that particular city is  all about, go learn yourself through your own version of experience, through satellite images, if you are not familiar with the streets and terraces and vegetation of a city from its aerial or satellite dimension, your all efforts to become a good planner is halfhearted. Explore to understand and share with the world or simply use this learning in you next city planning or development project. There is always more than you can explore there!

Architecture Satellitexted

Satellite view of architectural alphabet 

Absolut city...

For those who are very fond of Urban Axis…

Diluting significance of urban Axis due to land constraint and transit retrofits?? 

At times you see someone being possessive or rather poetic about linearity of city architecture and geometry of urban fabric, being very peculiar about alignment of streets and visual axis, there is fair chance that he or she is an Architect and if you see someone rather sentimental or defensive about all this affair of axis and orientation, there is strong probability that you are interacting with an Urban Designer. Of course laymen also appreciate the beauty of carefully planned urban fabric and thoughtful positioning of landmark structures and public plazas etc. knowingly or unknowingly, they even travel faraway lands to witness the glory and charm of historic cities and as well as modern metropolitan cities and certainly formulas of urban patterns and  axis have great contribution in the making of a wonderful city as proven historically.

Let’s try to understand the quantum shift in the approach of city planning and redevelopment from couple of centuries back till today not to speak of future trend and try to analyze the “still un-deviated” intellectual affection for urban geometry specially axis call it inertia or stubbornness or whatever. All this in the light of mounting pressure of traffic; growing, busy and occupied population, all this in a city which is struggling everyday just to survive functionally that very day while managing the damage and backlog of many yesterdays. In a city which is going on a path very different than what perceived originally because of its changing priorities and unperceived growth, specifically in terms of transit requirements.

When Lutyen Delhi was perceived originally no one would have imagined that this very city is going to grow so much so soon that one day it will need a mass rapid transit system (MRTS) or may be more, like integrated transport system as we call it, no one thought that it will need “flyovers”? subways?? Underground transport!! Are you kidding? Elevated tracks, No way!! PRT?? What is that?? Such would have been the response of architects, Urban Designers and Planners of that time, someone go ask them, if you will, hire a time machine may be? And hence they planned wonderful avenues, boulevards, most importantly urban Axis what started as a core of city. Of course that’s the beauty and heritage of the city one can be proud of, but as city expanded the firmness and geometry of those axis and alignments got diluted, which was due to the race, race of providing accommodation and business to the exponentially growing population but still without recognizing the latent growth potential of the city otherwise they wouldn’t have planned low and medium rise land use in South Delhi and similar spatial positions at the present intermediate ring of city which they can’t really afford to! Now the focus shifted from axis to pockets, loosely arranged urban pockets, based on affordability and all. This diluting axial or otherwise geometry is also due to retrofitting, retrofitting of transit systems and development interventions and traffic management measures, like flyovers, underpass, subways, elevated tract, underground tunnel etc.

We were discussing axis, so let’s stick to the subject for a while. That colonial urban axis emerged from the need to showcase the extravagant luxury and prove their capacity, knowledge, authority and aesthetic or otherwise, while rest of the city fabric which emerged in recent decades was driven by the necessity to handle growth, priorities were different and will be different. The colonial axis was bliss to experience, still it is, while today’s axis in other parts of city is apparently agonizing an experience for many most of the time, waiting in a traffic queue today’s urban axis gives a view of more than mile long array of crawling vehicles bumper to bumper, again and again, everyday. Array of flashy car tail lights in the mirage of heat emerging from vehicles!   You can’t associate this axis with a very pleasant experience. What about aesthetic urban experience of thousands of those commuting in tens of mile underground tunnel or organic and maneuvering elevated MRT network? They don’t really come to witness the extraordinary experience which is historically associated with planned urban fabric.

Feelings attached to traditional values and formulas of what an ideal urban fabric should be have remained same while the needs and urban technologies have moved ahead. People tend to approach and appreciate modern cities and metropolis on the historically benchmarked cities and hence this disappointment. These contemporary cities demand a totally new approach of planning for preserving and nurturing its aesthetic beauty. What we seem to have achieved very convincingly historically, since centuries and beyond seems to be a big challenge today. It’s time to shed the nostalgia and comfort of proven urban design formulas and get back to drawing sheet to create new age aesthetics for new age cities in the light of new transit, growth and lifestyle needs and in the light of emerging and unexpected urban technologies and unexplored land use strategies. Though you can’t really design or plan for some urban technology or strategy which has not been invented or explored yet, but we can always keep some margin and scope today itself for future integration and urban retrofit which seem to be inevitable a phenomenon. Only one thing which is definite here is the growth, so let’s plan for growth. At least let’s try to acknowledge inevitability of growth today itself, for a better urban future, its aesthetics and character.

All said and done, fact remains that there is something really magical about the urban axis and it has repeatedly proven its worth and guess that quantum of our future city planning strategies and spatial arrangement will still revolve around it.          

“This post is dedicated to friend “Poppy” who really enjoy studying and analyzing urban axis across the world and has the habit to relate everything with the Axis phenomenon and seems he is having really good time deliberating about it with friend “Roomy”, only if he gets time free from study, if at all"

Changing landscape of rural architecture

While scrolling, zooming in to google earth or something you find satellite image of villages across the world very fascinating very different from the urban settlement, it’s almost enchanting to look at their wonderful spatial patterns, their distributed uniformity, their hierarchical cohesiveness in terms of architecture, spatial arrangement and surprisingly it all evolved without any development blueprint, without an preconceived vision, without any kind of architectural bylaws at least in the case of India, but with long sustainable past, at least it was the case decades back and beyond.

Now today when you look at the same villages of India you will find usually two sets of clusters in most of the cases, one organically evolved village settlement with impression of time, with wonderful lively streets, with hierarchy of spaces, driven by family needs, scalable with demand, a symbol of community effort and cohesion, built by local materials, crafted by passionate local hands, using indigenous skills, planned by intuition, nourished by centuries of experience, in the guidance of wise old people, architecture by personal choice and collective regional aesthetics.

Though many of them are financially weak, but they usually have a place they can call home unlike urban poor.

The other distinct set of cluster you will see in the adjacent part of village, which is either a result of recently accumulated wealth by the young generation of villagers who live in metropolitan cities of India for better livelihood opportunities and who bring wealth to their village along with new architectural exposure and experiences, new construction techniques and remote aesthetics of cities when back home. It is architecture in transition from traditional to contemporary from thatch-&-mud to brick-&-mortar and may be its need of time as well, but little confusing at the same time. This new strikingly different grid iron pattern of recently developed cluster of village can also be a result of some development efforts by government, not so surprisingly way different an architecture and planning from the traditional settlement and sentiments. An imagination of planners and architects sitting thousand miles away with their own perception and impression of what an ideal village should be, while being most cost effective replicable, scalable and with speedy construction possibilities, neat and clean imported village with all the amenities. Hundreds of thousands of house arrays being constructed throughout the countries, apparently job done! Similar is the case of several villages and outskirts of cities across the world. 

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It’s good idea to provide shelter to poor rural inhabitants, but their traditional architecture and planning needs and sentiments cannot and should not be ignored. It doesn’t cost much to incorporate century old traditional planning and aesthetic of the rural settlement of different regions in the contemporary rural architecture and planning solutions which need to be tailored for specific regions, it’s just demands a little more  communication and careful investigation as well as understanding of spoken and unspoken lifestyle and perceptual needs of rural communities. 

Glimpse of cultivation worldwide

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Key strengths and potential sectors of Indian states

ANDHRA PRADESH

ITES destination

Industrial estates

Abundant energy

World-class academic institutions

Storehouse of minerals

ASSAM

Comprehensive central investment policy for NER

Liberalised state industrial policies,

Skilled and cheap manpower

Pleasant climate and scenic landscape

Locational advantage for foreign trade

CHHATTISGARH

Power surplus

Availability of low grade coal-power plants

Ample amount of land

HARYANA

High per capita income

Proximity to trade and consumption centers in country- NCR

Automobiles and automotive components

IT/ITES facilities /software,

Textiles and readymade garments

Property development and retailing

Agro export

HIMACHAL PRADESH

High incentives index

Consumer market index

Most urbanised state

Low power tariff and cost of power generation

Policy proactiveness

Availability of natural resources for agro-based industries

High literacy rates and good quality workforce

High quality limestone

JAMMU & KASHMIR

Concessional land rates for industries on lease

Large tourism potential

Horticulture industry

Skills of weaving and designing of textile products,

Traditional skills of fine craftsmanship can be used in the field of electronic and precision engineering.

KARNATAKA

Proactive government

Sector-friendly policies

Large pool of skilled manpower

Best infrastructure

Larger focus on industrial growth

KERALA

High literacy rate

Largest producer of coconut, pepper, coir, cocoa, rubber and areca nut

MADHYA PRADESH

Law and order

High growth in infrastructure development..

High growth in agriculture

Good governance.

Centrally located, / accessible

Low cost of skilled labor

Low cost of land

Cement, textiles and edible oils.

Track record of attracting private investment in transport infrastructure

Initiated greenfield special economic zone.

Automobile and pharmaceutical industries

Improving social development indices

RAJASTHAN

Cement

Mineral production

Producers of cotton and wool

Tourist destination

Progressive states in electricity sector reforms

Oil and gas reserves

Emerging destination for it and ITES industries

UTTARAKHAND

Hydro-potential

Promoting industrial estates, industrial parks and growth centre

Vast pool of a natural resource

Tourism development

Quality human resource base at competitive rates

Number of fiscal benefits like concessional industrial package

By Anoop Jha

Source: pppindia.com

Rural Development Schemes in India

Some of the Schemes launched by Government of India (GoI) at present and in Past under deferent department and mission for Rural Development are listed below with the website link or relevant resources. 

Ministry of Rural Development-MoRD (http://rural.nic.in/)

Department of Rural development-DoRD (http://drd.nic.in/)

• Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) (http://nrega.nic.in/netnrega/home.aspx)
• Swarnjayanti Gram Swarozgar Yojna (SGSY) (http://sgsy.gov.in/)
• Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojna (PMGSY) (http://pmgsy.nic.in/)
• Indira Awaas Yojana (IAY) (http://iay.nic.in/netiay/home.aspx)
• National Social Assistance Programme (NSAP) (http://rural.nic.in/sites/downloads/right-information-act/06NSAP(F).pdf)

Department of Drinking Water Supply-DoDWS (http://ddws.gov.in/sites/upload_files/ddws/files/pdf/IECPlanwater2010-11.pdf)

• Total Sanitation Campaign (TSC) (http://tsc.gov.in/RuralSanitationNew/HomePage.aspx)
• National Rural Drinking Water Programme (NRDWP) (http://indiawater.gov.in/imisreports/nrdwpmain.aspx)

Department of Land Resouces-DoLR (http://dolr.nic.in/)

• National Land Records Modernization Programme (NLRMP) (http://dolr.nic.in/Nlrmp.htm)
• Integrated Watershed Management Programme (IWMP) (http://dolr.nic.in/iwmp_main.htm)

 Bharat Nirman (http://www.bharatnirman.gov.in/ )

• The Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY), (http://pmgsy.nic.in/)
• Accelerated Irrigation Benefit Program, (http://wrmin.nic.in/writereaddata/mainlinkFile/File620.pdf)
• Rajiv Gandhi Grameen Vidyutikaran Yojana, (http://rggvy.gov.in/rggvy/rggvyportal/index.html)
• Indira Awas Yojana, (http://iay.nic.in/netiay/home.aspx)
• National Rural Drinking Water Program and (http://indiawater.gov.in/imisreports/nrdwpmain.aspx)
• Rural telephony. (http://cca.ap.nic.in/ruraltelephony.html)

By- Anoop Jha

“Smell Architecture”!! We have to accept non-tangible design elements as part of architecture and Urban Design!!

Walking down the buzzing food streets of the world is a thrilling experience for most of us, it’s a play field of light and shadow, sound and noise, colors, textures and smell. Smell of street, smell of variety of foods being baked, grilled, processed, and served with love from generations, aroma of spices in the air, that raw fragrances of freshly chopped vegetables, occasional breeze with hint of what is being cooked inside, looking at the faces of crowd apparently engulfed and hypnotized by the tempting aroma of food, all this combined together with the built architecture of street gives an experience which is complete and memorable.



Now take a few steps back and rewind the tour without “Smell” part of the whole experience, and you will realize how important these intangible elements like smell, sound etc. play in making architecture and urban design a complete experience.  Though Light is also an intangible element but it has been given an undue advantage in architecture since centuries, contrary  to its counterparts like smell,sound etc. Unfortunately they don’t teach this in architecture and planning school as well, probably they themselves have unable to understand the significance of such non-tangible elements of architecture. Unfortunately there focus has remained on mass-producing architects, designers and technical hands through proven formulas and they have confined themselves in the predefined boundaries of architecture like, form,  function, space, texture, colors, at most interplay of light and shadow. What about smell, noise, feelings and state of mind of users, experiencing and validating the existence of the architecture and urban design in the first place?

It’s not a hypothetical assumption but a fact that you can’t create a good architecture without a great user experience which involves variety of non-tangible elements, those elements which can’t be quantified in form of project specification items into a spreadsheet.  It’s high time that architects and urban designers should shift focus towards the ambient environment and users experience since they have already mastered the art of form and space through accumulative knowledge of centuries. It’s time to move on.

By - Anoop Jha

Walking down the memory lane of city

Walking down the memory lane, may be way different an experience now than actually walking down the old neighborhood lane you used to live decades back, while you were studying in that town, while you were on a social visit to your aunts place or on a vacation to that place, or the narrow street you use to travel to and fro from the school in childhood days.



City changes its form, experience; attitude like a person changes his appearance, philosophy and approach In course of time. Impression and impact of time can be seen on the city as we see in the human life. City reinvents itself and reflects contemporary life. Comparing present and past impression and memories of city is an emotional affair. Hence extra care needs to be taken in revitalizing and redeveloping cities because millions of memories and hopes are attached to these. 

Fallacy of Neighborhood Planning

By- Anoop Jha

Isn’t it that urban planners, landscape architects and urban designers have heard “neighborhood planning” and stuffs like that so many times, so many literature and theories revolving around these concepts are floating  everywhere from college library to, store bookshelves, to free internet, to paid ebook, that one feels little repulsive about these concepts. These concepts and theories are quoted in every urban design, landscape and planning lecture and workshop, seminar, government development and area planning proposal and have been repeated so many times, so many standard templates for neighborhood street sections, hardscape details, footpath design, street furniture etc. are available that it no more sounds exciting that someone is planning or designing neighborhood.

It all began few decades ago when people started getting aware of their surrounding environment , became conscious of their rights of healthy urban living and better neighborhood as a citizen, then planners and designers came forward with a better neighborhood concepts, which has been explored for decades now. They need to come out of this hangover or inertia of decades old new urbanism, it’s time for a new refreshing burst of creativity, radically refreshing approach to define emerging livable cities, not just taking individual pockets of city which we call neighborhood and planning and designing them up to the side curb detail but it’s time to perceive a city in totality and not just dealing with individual pockets.

Its time of revolutionary urban thinking which is made possible due to emerging near impossible technologies, amazing breakthroughs either already achieved or likely to happen very soon, Its time when definition of work, living , Landuse,  commuting, communication all are merging together  with boundaries fading, in this dawn of new era how relevant are the decades old planning theories and design philosophies? It’s time to Pause, think and provide a new solution for future urbanism.