Skewed and limited perception of project essentials, budget, timeline and professional fees in developing countries!

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

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The notion of urban development and architecture in a developing country is more or less, civic amenities, public facilities, parks, road, paving, brick and mortar etc and 3D simulation to either publicise welfare achievements or to lure investors. We see in both public and private domain one such project after another lined up, debated, recognised, argued, praised, awarded or dropped and trashed.

While most of such projects get executed anyways even in developing countries and cities, but most of these projects certainly, sometimes purposefully miss one or several or most of following fundamental elements of urban planning and architectural practice which are part and parcel to developed country's usual planning and design practice, including Heat island effect analysis, Shadow analysis, Wind tunnel test, Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulation, shading analysis, traffic noise simulation, sustainable city/ neighborhood development practice, Low Impact Development (LID) planning, waste heat recovery, building heat load simulation, green building design, solar passive design, and many more.

It's difficult to understand the root cause of same, whether it is lack of knowledge and awareness at city administration and client level or lack of capital or unavailability of technology or lack of technology know how or inertia of decades of mediocre planning or simply ignorance or reluctance to growth. Whatever be the reason it's high time that city administrations, planning professionals and architects increasingly adopt to good essential planning and design practices, advise clients to consider these and projects must allocate additional budget to integrate these while consultants, consulting firms and advisory firms must be paid judiciously to integrate and adopt to above mentioned necessary measures. Accordingly project timelines should also be increased to make room for adopting such good practices.

Author: Anoop Jha

#urbanplanning #architecture #sustainability #simulation #smartcity #design #townplanning #development #projects #technology #consulting #municipal

The misunderstood, misinterpreted and misconstrued missing link of education.

In the realm of monopolistic education lobby!

The education system which taught us “c for cat” when we were kid and thanks to animal planet which taught us reproduction affair of cat community large or small when one was grown enough to grasp it and teaching nothing in between about the subject, what else has been real contribution of supposedly highly evolved, thoughtfully articulated education system towards educating masses about numerous such small elements of life, environment and beyond as in example? Where is the missing link, do we even feel that there is some missing link, do we even feel that we needed to learn more about subject for example or are we already numb? One might not be thoroughly updated on latest content or programs of curriculum but essentially that’s all most of us will be able to recollect about such subjects through that long guided journey of education. Rest what we learned about subject was either from Tom & Jerry cartoon series or Catwoman from Hollywood, i.e., TV & Movie, both of which has been declared profane or useless by education system when it come to their jurisdiction, we haven’t even talked about internet yet, which is the actual missing link!  

Does this system of education, either imposed directly through curated structure or implied indirectly through cultivated social wisdom has right to set boundaries of education, or does it has right to dictate handful of acceptable credible streams of knowledge, does it has right to limit student’s optimum exposure towards any particular subject?

In this highly evolved world of technology which is constantly in progressive flux, it’s apt and high time for education system to realize its unprecedented role and grave responsibility towards shaping individuals, nations, world and future civilization at large. Things are different than decade ago, so has to be the thinking and approach. System has to cope up with the flux where by the time syllabus is framed the subject content becomes obsolete, in a world where by the time bestseller books are being edited, subjects discussed in book become outdated on internet discussion forums. Education system has to rebuild its structure, with stable core of moral principles and with dynamic mutating envelop which constantly mimic the societal and technological changes.  

Yes Internet and everything tech has to be introduced at the earliest ladder of education. How we filter the content is education system’s burden not kid’s. But just because they are unable to filter the bad content of internet they can’t simply deprive the bright young kids from whole potential and knowledge of internet which they would have used otherwise to understand the subject. Why it is that a students still have to resort to a tiny textbook to know about a cat for example when even an elementary or secondary students can have access to information about cat at their desk in as much detail and depth as a PHD student can enjoy. Majority of which content might appear to be useless for that kid, but that cannot be an excuse not to give him access to whole depth of knowledge, you never know one of them choose to go deeper picking up fast, ending up making millions of dollars by the age 13 writing blog about cats. Go to retire@21 website and you will find numerous such examples.

It’s true from all across schools to colleges. Does existing education system hesitate to reinvent itself in this fear that what if students become more knowledgeable than educators, what if laced with constant stream of information students ask smarter questions than ever which they might find difficult to answer. Meanwhile producing millions of mediocre tools seems to be an easy escape for education system. 

Whether they will allow them that exposure or not kids will still learn on their own when they will have access to internet after some idiosyncratic prescribed age limit, but the only fear is that by then their most productive learning age period will be over. It’s time to ponder and rethink Education!

By - Anoop Jha

Urban development is contagious, keep an eye and let it spread!

One gear triggers other and whole machine gets activated.

Process of urban development is spontaneous, sometimes sluggish sometimes fast but always forward looking, if left on its own it will automatically morph and mutate and expand, to cater, to accommodate, by utilizing whatever little or more they have, by seeking and digging what and when they require. And we are not talking about another Squatter!

Left on its own city might sustain and prosper or it might entangle and be a mess, but it will grow for sure, that’s how we have made our journey from jungle to habitat spanning centuries. We need planning upfront today different from mud house age since our needs have changed and so the externalities, otherwise natural mutation of habitat or city should technically be sustainable a phenomenon.

Development has inertia of growth inbuilt we just don’t know in which direction, though we really don’t have to push is so hard we have to just push it to keep it rolling and have to give it a logical direction.

Upfront capital being a key constraint in urban development sector, an example of mutating self-sustaining habitat can be an additive model of shelter where you give only that much of infrastructure which is basic but with provision of ample spatial flexibility and assistance at disposal, and letting them build further on their own, based on their capacities, choices and needs. Creating some rules to play with and giving them an assistive hand when and where they require.

A favorable environment, assistive and vigil governance and a scientific approach are what we need to see this natural development phenomenon unfold and sustain.

Habitat Automation - Can our computers generate architectural concepts on their own?

Automation of Architecture seems to be the only way to fulfill this world dream of a home for everyone!

We all know computers are really good at visual simulation, 3D Modeling and Rendering etc., but when it comes to architectural concept design part can we also assign this task to computers or do we still have to rely solely on architects, for may be another century. We can’t really afford to wait even for another decade considering the handful of Architects in world and ever mounting unattended architectural needs of millions and more across the world, resulting in epidemic architectural indiscipline, in forms of unorganized colonies, squatters etc.  You see the problem is the moment we tag these habitations as squatter or unorganized it becomes a taboo, government and architects tend to lose their interest in such settlement thinking they will deal with it later, they simply let it happen blaming the scarce current resources, letting it morph and mutate, left unattended and when it becomes unmanageable, planners and NGOs come into picture doing their standard Slum Networking and Regularization stuff.  Don’t you think if these guys would have collaborated and helped those guys in the beginning while they just started making their home on their own, in absence of any substantial external assistance and in absence of contextual building bylaws, things would have been very different? Though we know that one of the major reason of such unorganized growth is demand supply gap of skilled manpower specially architects and planners. This gap will always be there so what will we do?

We can’t design and build home for everyone on earth with these limited skill supply, but we can sure help everyone design and build their home on their own with some robust mechanism in place, with very little assistance so that everyone in this world has a place called home.  If there isn’t enough architects and planners in world than we will have to find out some external tool which will assure a home for everyone! We will have to automate this very process of architectural design making it universally accessible at almost no cost, and please do consider that we are not at all talking here about mass housing or government welfare scheme or something. We are talking about knowledge transfer, relaxed, easy to understand and innovative and stratified building guidelines, innovative use of locally available materials and most important of all - automation of architectural design process itself. We are here talking about shear intelligence of computer to do more than 90 percent of architectural design including concept design and delivery part while architects and governing body to take up the rest 10 percent or so of task just to assure the quality of delivered options, rectifying fundamental issues, if any!

With millions of reference images floating freely on internet in form of architectural plans, schematic views, sectional profiles, site plans, neighborhood plans, area plans, city and regional plans, while many millions coming soon, along with almost unlimited supply of architectural and settlement patterns in form of satellite imageries, it won’t be a Herculean task for present and next generations of computers to understand the logic of all this and to produce a somewhat rational building or neighborhood plan and form on its own through its embedded logic and algorithm. Little bit of last mile human intervention and everyone in this world has a blueprint for their home.

Imagine feeding a set of crude data like your architectural wishlist, site location, plot dimension, uploading few pictures of site, surrounding and neighborhood, stating your financial position and budget, then exploring computer generated wonderful building options based on your data input, customizing it within the defined domain if you feel, choosing final one and downloading your own home in pendrive, or mailing it to competent authority or architect for few minutes of final approval. Now, here you are printing plans for execution on site within couple of fun hours, club this phenomenon straight with 3D-Printing thing and here is your home ready to move in, in another couple of hours.

As policy makers we need to be very realistic about finite resources at hand and look for new ways to complement the conventional process, while breaking away from certain self-imposed dogmas and diehard utopian dream built around human habitation needs and conventionally defined standards, dogmas evident from the fact that we have elaborate building bylaws for brick and mortar, and steel and glass, but no clear set of guidelines for houses made of thermocol, plastic sheet, tin sheet, gathered from here and there by poor urban sections. No efforts of technology, innovation and knowledge transfer yet to such populous, just because policy makers across world have a utopian dream of slum free world after some odd decades later, meanwhile intentionally forcing millions to live in squatters and unorganized colonies by not making simple and easy to understand guidelines and relaxed bylaws, utilizing whatever minimal resources and materials are at hand.  Caught in the centuries of dilemma of idealism Vs realism! Since these limited human interventions with limited skilled manpower supply haven’t been able to solve this world habitation scarcity and architectural indiscipline, may be its time we should look out somewhere else to fulfill world habitat needs - may be towards machines may be computers!   

You might also like to read another post: 
What planners of urban environment can learn from online environment? 

Check out new Blog Page dedicated to World Education

Educ@ti.ON  - Rethinking Education for a "lightened up world"!! 

Click on image to go to page-

Visit Page at following Link: http://planningurbanoregional.blogspot.in/p/eduction.html

More Coming....

Conserving inherited heritage - an urgent challenge!

Need of a micro conservation policy. 

We let our inherited ancestral heritage decay, gathering dust and slowly fading away in the oblivion, inheritance sometimes tangible like that beautiful gramophone, that antique classic chair, that vintage album of family photograph or that intricately carved wooden window of ancestral home somewhere in suburb, inheritance at times even intangible like values, culture, stories and learning, family heritage dilapidated usually due to ambiguous responsibility among siblings, lack of time, lack of alacrity and most importantly in absence of micro conservation mechanism, because we feel disoriented and helpless in absence of such mechanism, a guideline, a supportive hand saying "let me help you conserve your family heritage because we know how important it is for you, and equally important for our nation, because these little inherited objects, antiques, collectibles, vintage photographs, values, stories, prose, poetry, proverbs, lessons, and so on make the larger heritage pool of historical cultural and social importance. You can call it “crowd sourcing of heritage” which subsequently contributing to nation's image building, while maintaining a stock of inheritance. 

This micro conservation mechanism should be prepared by government because heritage even individually possessed is something of national value and something to be proud of and something which should be preserved and documented immediately for the future generation. These family heritage need not necessarily be kept in museum just because it’s of national significance, we can rather let them be with those families and individuals who inherited them, but we must make an effort to help them conserve it, governments role can be as a facilitator, trainer, protector, documenter, providing manpower and finance to restore protect and document every piece of family heritage without getting into affairs of taxation and legality, with sole focus of preservation and documentation of objects of historical importance whether for individuals or for nation, documenting design, motifs, techniques, skill set, learning, stories etc. which are going to corrode and disappear in thin air otherwise!

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?

If "Law of Physics" is working in your piece of Art or Architecture...

..then you know you are going in the right direction!

From Wonderful Classical Art to Good Design to Amazing Architecture, one thing is common that is "Law of Physics" which is and should be ever-present there to make it a success. If Gravity is acting on you, it can and should act on your Piece of Art or Architecture as well. Though Gravity is just a simple example here to explain the impact of Physics on Art or Architecture.

A page from the old Notebook

Art without true reflection of natural physical laws is like making a portrait of someone sitting in front of you and assuming that there is no force of gravity acting on your subject of art or may be your subject is floating in the air or something. Remember the good old classical art works from master artists, with beautiful bulky art subjects of individual or group portraits?

There is another way to look at it as well, that is; you can also make a successful art or architecture by beating the gravity or natural laws itself, like an architectural work having an appearance of floating in the air. No matter what, a good design revolves around the law of physics whether going with it or challenging the Natural Laws, Laws of Physics!

Playful Mobile Advertisement (2008) : Unpublished work.

Advertisement graphics for imaginary client.

Graphics by: Anoop Jha (Blog Author)

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?" 

Post-calamity socio-physical reconstruction: Untapped potential of urban planning!

It’s high time they should care for heritage values of shattered settlements.

Contemporary planning response : A wake-up call!! 

Any Natural calamity, An Earthquake, A Tsunami, A Flood or A Hurricane strangles the life of community and leaves a physical and emotional mark behind! Damage which is irreversible, but still people gather their spirit and strength and try to reconstruct that which has been shattered, their home, their neighborhood, their community, their village, their city, sometimes on their own sometimes hand in hand with community, with the support of government and with the aid and good wishes from around the world. It’s a collective effort of those who care to rebuild, those who feel responsibility to reconstruct, everyone contributes their bit!

A relevant question to ask here is that what an urban planner, an architect, an urban designer, a conservationist or a policy maker can do to restore the faith, hope and dignity of that community, How they can better contribute in the socio-physical reconstruction after an unforeseen natural calamity which physically shatters the settlement, a settlement which might have evolved in course of centuries whether it’s a village or a small town or a metropolitan city. Of course such situations demand a quick immediate response, a fast solution, a resettlement plan, a re-construction effort, a physical master plan to absorb and protect the affected population as quickly as possible; an infrastructure fast and techno-economically optimized enough to be viable. But in this race of providing the immediate comfort and amenities to the affected population we usually tend to forget or sometimes purposefully ignore the very basic need of community, the settlement itself, the fabric of settlement with which community has intimately remained attached throughout its life, probably they have grown together help shaping each other and hence the highly emotional bonding of community and settlement cannot be ignored neither its legacy of heritage value and learning.

In a neighborhood or community affected or devastated by natural calamity, an individual is not just bothered about his or her own loss, their own damaged house, but they are subconsciously also moved by the loss of others in the community and their very own settlement and neighborhood which has been shattered heavily. Their memories of growing in that neighborhood, those winding streets, their facades and architecture, their community spaces, those lingering familiarities and so on. We can try to reconstruct the original face of settlement if the damage is low and concealable, but sometimes they feel it’s better to reconstruct the settlement in adjacent open lands if the physical damage is much, this phenomenon is more noticeable and even more a point of concern in the rural or small urban communities. Usually physical planning response form the government and planners after a natural calamity in most of the cases is generally a super-optimized techno-economic solution, an efficient physical infrastructure, fast paced architecture, but surprisingly lacking in emotional response and nativeness in terms of architecture, lacking in regional impression and heritage values of planning, alienated from urban/ rural design principles and practices of the region, a shear absence of conservationist inputs and above all lack of human touch. Outcome seems an efficient but emotionless physical planning response which can and are being radially justified in the name of constrained resources and urgency of demanded action. Image above speaks for itself!

Though a much needed temporary relief, imagine the emotional and functional pain this new mechanical re-settlement master plan causes to the inhabitants in longer course of time through its totally alienated new physical planning environment, fabric and architecture, by continually reminding them of the disaster which occurred in past, due to its ever-present imposed unfamiliar environment. Imaging the continual struggle to adapt to this new imposed “efficient but rigid” neighborhood plan which has no relation whatsoever to the original form and architecture of the village or town which was devastated in earthquake or else and the loaded feeling of never to return to a spatial experience in their lifetime which even vaguely resembles to their original neighborhood or to a locality with its regional character! Imaging the loss to the future generation who is going to grow up in these reconstructed integrated prefab concrete township or villages with identical kind of off the shelf household unit next to the fading ruins of their devastated ancestral village and who will never know how it is like to live in the vibrant settlements were their parents, their grandparents and their ancestors used to live!

It’s high time that the legacy of heritage planning values, unique and integral to specific regions need to be acknowledged and incorporated in the post disaster reconstruction efforts specially in physical planning of the settlement which will have a long term beneficial effect. Even the communities in crying need of immediate physical reconstruction support, in a post-natural-disaster environment, need a physical planning solution with a “human touch”! 

What are the urban planning challenges today?

Inferences from review of JNNURM CDP & Appraisal Reports!

Following sectoral list of “Urban Planning Challenges” have been compiled based on data extracted and analyzed from JNNURM Comprehensive Development Plan (CDP) for selected cities of India and its appraisal reports. Though these aspects are generalized and somewhat overlapping across most of the urban nodes of Indian sub-continent, lessons and inferences can be equally valuable and applicable for other cities across the world to considerable extent. It’s just an effort to have a consolidated perspective and understanding of future urban challenges, you can further suggest additional planning constraints and challenges to the list!

Comprehensive list of Urban Planning Challenges-

INSTITUTIONAL 

Functional overlap

Jurisdictional overlap

Issues of convergence and coordination

POLICY     

Lack of stakeholder consultations or under-participation

Disaster management issues

Governance issues

Delegation of functions to the new ULB

Prioritizationof action and projects alienated from problems and vision

Matters of resource sharing with neighboring states

ECONOMIC

Lack of value-add sectors

Expansion of informal sector

Continued influx of low skill manpower from neighboring states in some cases

Expanding un-organized sector

Lower work participation rates of women at some places

SOCIAL     

Issues of urban sociology in a multi-ethnic city

Social unrest,

Civil disobedience,

Public safety,

Unemployment,

MUNICIPAL FINANCE   

Unstructured financial profile of urban local bodies

Long-term financial viability of municipal finances

Capital investment requirement

High level of dependency on state government grants

Un-assessed properties for property tax base

Tax rates not being revised regularly

Irregular flow of specific grants

Irregular servicing of debt

PROPERTY 

Low coverage of properties by taxation

Low collection efficiency,

Inefficient user charge

SLUMS & URBAN POOR       

Security of tenure

Quality of housing

Access to infrastructure

Rehabilitation and resettlement

Problem of sanitation

Community toilets

Inadequate night shelters and security

High density with poor infrastructure

Issue of ‘unapproved slums’

PLANNING 

Infrastructure deficits

Unplanned growth

Constraint on growth in city areas due to natural or environmental constraints

Increasing gap between demand and supply

Inadequacies in the basic services in unauthorized clusters

Encroachment,

Non-confirming land use

Missing link between physical and fiscal planning

Protecting, conserving and managing heritage resources

Skewed spatial density distribution

TRANSPORT

Limited road space

Shortage of public transport system

Regional traffic through the city

Inadequate management of streetlights

Problems of roads and transport during festival season

Congestion in the old city areas

Lack of facilities for NMV

Rapid increase in vehicles

Lack of land use transport integration

Inadequate facilities for physically challenged, pedestrians

Inadequate parking

Multiplicity of agencies

Missinguser interface

WATER     

Nonrevenue water

Leakages

Losses in distribution network and transmission main

Inequitable Distribution

Obsolete distribution system 

High energy cost in water production and Distribution

Ground water pollution

Water supply Vs storage capacity gap

Ground water depletion

Problems of water supply on specific festival days

O&Mproblems

Unequal intra-city distribution

Inefficient network hydraulics,

Old and dilapidated networks

Pricing and cost recovery

High pollution in distribution network

River/ Sea odor

Lack or failure of river action plans

SEWAGE   

Limited sewerage treatment facility,

Release of untreated municipal waste into rivers

Release of untreated waste into natural drains and open grounds

Disposal of industrial effluent into the city rivers,

Soft soil condition

Storm water management

DRAINAGE 

Frequent floods

Lack of proper drainage system

Silting

Uncontrolled solid waste dumping causing blockage,

Stagnation of water & waste water runoff

Backflow of water from the river system

Flooding during monsoon season

SOLID WASTE MANAGEMENT (SWM)

Absence of effective primary collection mechanism

Inadequacy of waste dumping sites

Lack of scientific waste disposal

Continued use of open dustbins

Un-segregated waste disposal

Land availability for sanitary dump sites

Issue of industrial slag

HEALTH CARE    

Inadequate bed strength

Ill-equipped and inadequate operation theatre in some government hospitals

Ill-equipped corporation dispensaries and health posts

Unsafe hospital waste disposal practice

ENVIRONMENTAL

Depletion and pollution of water resources,

Degradation of forest cover

Deteriorating air quality

High incidence of environmental health problems

NATURAL  

Earthquake

Fire

Possibility of epidemic events

JNNURM CDP & Appraisal Report Source: http://jnnurm.nic.in/citywise-cdp.html.