Life in a city, any given day!

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"

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!

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”! 

The only sustainable retrofit whether it’s a product or city environment

To leave scope for future retrofits in the moment you conceive the idea of product or vision of a city.

Today you realize after 5 or 20 or 30 years that this product or system or infrastructure which you had planned back then with the most sophisticated tools and technology available at that time, with the best brains at disposal and the best hands available, that robust system of past desperately needs a technology overhaul and efficiency retrofit today, just to validate its contemporary relevance and to drag itself for few more miles in the tomorrow, but it would have been quite difficult for you to confront and accept this apparently unpleasant fact that this product, infrastructure, system or even strategy which you claim to be the most advanced and avant-garde today is very soon going to be outdated, very soon indeed!! Acknowledge it or not, that’s how it works, especially when technology, planning and policy is concerned only thing which remains eternal is aesthetics and nostalgia associated with such technology, possibly that’s why many people still prefer analog watch over digital one, that’s totally a personal choice.

Change is not only an integral law of nature but equally a law of technology, inevitable like growth of humanity, because humanity is curious and that’s why innovation and hence need to replace and retrofit old technology. Problem with the contemporary approach of planning and product design is that we tend to conceive and create a system or product which is 100% complete in its form and design “today” leaving no scope for future integration except few exceptions, even knowing that need for retrofit is waiting only at the next turn of system or product life-cycle  You see those overly stuffed embedded products, jam packed conduits, circuits and channels, overcrowded service corridors, saturated underground utility trench, suffocating right of ways (ROW), chaotic narrow streets, thousands of unventilated unlit city rooms and residences, all of this have two things in common, one, is the shear lack of vision and second, ignorance to change. Change which is inevitable, but we are happy and content with what we have planned today, who cares for tomorrow? Meanwhile, you enjoy all the attention and praise because of your new product and system. They might even have bagged few awards for best innovation and work in the field, but it all doesn't really matter if that product or vision fails in next couple of years. The single largest criteria of product or planning judgment and evaluation has to be sustainability, which means your product or system or vision have to have an inbuilt scope for absorption of future technology and efficiency integration for sustainability, to keep up with future pace of life and lifestyle.

Lets talk something about "sustainability" here. The word "sustainability" has been exploited much in recent years  increasingly assuming a very narrow meaning just revolving around "anything green". Lets keep in mind that being or doing green is just a piece of sustainability. Sustainability is much more, it is vastly inclusive a phenomenon, it is about the whole life cycle of product or system or plan. if you make a greenest product on earth which has a life span or tech-viability span or people-acceptance span of one or two year that is not sustainable when compared to a product which is though not so green in its DNA but which has a larger life span or acceptance span of may be half a decade or so or more. All the resources  which has gone into making of that short lived green product goes to vain at the end of its functional or acceptance span but the similar resources  which has been consumed in making that not so green product with a much longer life span seems more sustainable an option.  Using 5 most "greenest" products of same use one after another in just five years is much less sustainable than using 1 single "not so green" product for 5 years.

Now today you realize that environmental laws have become more stringent, people have become more educated, aware and choosy  technology has become more and more complex and sophisticated, every coming tomorrow product or system of yesterday is becoming obsolete, what to do. We can’t really plan for something which has not been invented yet, but we can always try to leave some scope for future integration, for the time when it is invented. It might add to few percent of capital or man hour but it’s worth giving a thought. Acknowledging the need for future retrofit and leaving some scope for it today will make our life easy tomorrow, products more relevant and cities more sustainable.   

Absolut city...

Life at Edge

Satellite view of urban settlement trail along river edge


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Sometimes you appreciate unintentional grunge architectural experience!

Even architects refrain to talk about the darker intuitive side of architectural experience.  

Looking through a dirt clad window glass pan on a rainy day at  your half a century old sparingly used ancestral house, mysteriously thrilling fog and  street light setting as viewed from the window of a motel room in no man’s land where you stayed last weekend on your way back home from a road trip,  flickering interplay of light and shadows projected on the walls and roof  of your bedroom by the light of traffic passing by on the adjacent street,  bizarre abstract patterns on the under maintained damp bathroom or subway walls,  grunge white noise of much awaited rain pouring on the garage tin shed,  looking at the engulfing silence of valley from the balcony of a remote hill resort experiencing the shear lack of artificial urban sound of which you are used to or an experience of strange inquisitive damp smell while you are getting down the basement stairs in a dimly lit surrounding, you at times experience unspoken, unperceived, un-designed and unintentional side of architecture further accentuated by the time of year and day, your mood and company or absence of other people at that particular time.   

At times you feel so tiered of popular architecture, popular formula of architecture, formula of what should be and what not and all the glorification and stubbornness around what is popular, those are kind of beautiful, but they are every were, architectural orders, theories so much overvalued so abundantly repeated, interiors so much commercialized so much in order, so much restricted, so much formalized, you are left with no choice but to live in an environment which appeal to neighbors, your housing society and society at large, even You don’t know what you really want to experience. Spoon-fed architectural experience of what is good and what is bad being taught to architects as well as future prospective clients in the school. They are taught to create wonderful architecture but no one encourages them to create wonderful personalized architectural experience no matter even if its eccentric on conventional benchmark, experience of space which you can’t really create with the popular architectural tools, styles, mass education, thumb-rules available and being used widespread today. For example if you have already decided that a particular room, should have a particular lux level of lighting, particular illumination level,  uniformly distributed across the room with slight variation here and there as prescribed in the architectural bible or bylaws or general practice or as limited by the market availability and client’s choice of fixture, you can’t create an architectural experience which is thrilling, mysterious, inquisitive and even hauntingly sticky at times even for a moment, which are human psychological needs and part of their personality to experience such environment, at least just for sake of fun. No wonder at times you cherish that moment of darkness in the rainy damp evening or moonlit night when suddenly there is power cut for a brief period, because you have just experienced the dimly lit darker side of architecture which was never intended for you to experience in its original form, but only you know that how much it means to you to experience that very silence of spatial darkness, that mysterious view of dusk from the dark corner of your room, that stillness of ambiance and lack of bright LED light, that passionate experience in the beautiful and diluting sphere of space and light created by that single candle lit on the dining table, that momentarily grey sheds of otherwise bright and warm colors of interior walls. We are talking about darker side of architectural experience which induces a momentarily feeling of introspection to the occupant through its very silence, stillness darkness and grunginess, many writers, directors, photographers, architects, and artists will be able to relate to such experience. Grunge architectural experience which in thought provoking and inspires you at times and which is innate human psychological need somewhere buried in the subconscious under the monumental load of popular architectural experience!  

By: Anoop Jha

So that you never run out of development ideas again!

Wonderful list of vision script for urban development,

Have created a list of possible vision statements in snippet form for your quick reference, just to keep your creative thinking wheel running. 

Reshaping city, Re-harmonizing urban clusters, Recasting city silhouette, Re-energizing spirit of city, Re-establishing magnificence of old city, Revisiting the glorious past, Re-engaging population, Re-engineering city infrastructure,  Reconnect to past, Rethinking city, Repositioning city, Recreating       history, Reinventing urban mobility, Reorganizing urban growth, Rebuilding city aspirations, Reintroducing urban techniques, Redeveloping business hubs of city, Rerouting transit veins of city, Re-knitting city fabric,  Reuniting city fragments for better functioning, Urban rezoning for optimization, Reintegrating smart urban technology, Redesigning mobility grid, Re-envisioning historic city, Re-proposing mobility, Reimagining urban future, Redefining boundaries of urban innovation, Repurpose  city finance, Reorienting city growth direction,  Rebuilding city governance structure, Re-linking destinations, Rearranging development priorities, Realigning development objectives, Reprioritizing urban development avenues, Restructuring functional hierarchy of city, Re-exciting life in urban public spaces

Glimpse of cultivation worldwide

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What with urban farming? Can we make it happen?

Urban farming, a real good concept, something which might save the humanity from starvation. How far we are from autonomous urban system, system which generates enough food for itself, food affordable enough to reach the lowest economic strata of urban system, food pallet diverse enough to suite the heterogeneous  appetite of cosmopolitan city.  Why it is that we started doing agriculture thousands of years ago, but basic principal of agricultural has remained same apart from high-tech agricultural  machines,  tools, pesticides, genetically modified crops etc., why it seems stagnated, while in the course of evolution world population is shifting more and more towards urban centers but the source of food which was in the rural areas have remained there itself, of course it triggers economic growth, employment etc. through to and fro movement of processed and unprocessed food between urban and rural areas, which perfectly makes sense, but have we done it purposefully, or is it that we couldn’t devise a full blown method to get our food produced in the city itself,  apart from small experimental efforts of terrace farming etc. dotted here and there on the city map. Of course, city chooses its own priority activities in its core while pushing and spreading less important activities towards periphery and surrounding rural  regions. Is it that we are  treating urban farming as a luxury lifestyle item like terrace farming which can be shown to our guests with pride, is it that urban farming has just become a formula to get noticed in the race of green architecture, or a green USP to convince the client and sell the project to a wealthy end user, is it just a tool to prove that you are environmentally enlightened or has it really a potential to feed the city.

Can we make urban farming a concept easy enough  to be grasped by an average city dweller since gardening and farming involves skills and knowledge which is not taught in school,  a process easy enough to be implemented in the every balcony and every terrace of the city, can government provide training and  motivation to its citizen with supportive policies to make widespread urban farming a reality.



Can we expect array of fruit trees along the city streets in the near future, can we expect orchard and vegetable farming in the public parks and abandoned land parcels as a sustainable urban landscape effort. Can we expect urban farming in majority of houses,  apartment and premises of any city, implemented through training, stringent bylaws, tax saving policies,  subsidies and persistent efforts.  Can we give our child an opportunity to witness agricultural life cycle in their own private premises to better understand the process of life.     

Have we ever thought that urban farming might not be a luxury to showcase but an inevitable necessity for every city, which we are delaying and prolonging somehow?  

Where have we reached in evolution of Interior Design?

Analogy of Sculpture and Interior Design

Evolutionary comparison of sculpture and interior design can throw some light on the state of interior design in which it is at present and may pave the future direction for it. If you analyze the evolution of Sculpture, it has evolved from a “symbolic gesture of kingdom and state authority” historically to the “liberalized expression of rebellious creative individuals” in past century to an “interactive public art” at present. When it comes to interior design it has evolved from “utilitarian design driven by necessity” to “lifestyle symbol with expression of wealth” to “uniqueness with technological integration”. The crucial missing point in the evolution of interior design is that it has still to reach a point where a user can interact and relate to it rather than simply appreciating its beauty and ambiance while waiting on a comfortable couch in a lobby or from a workstation of an office.

While the focus of sculpture, individually or as part of landscape architecture or in public domain has shifted from a decorative element to an interactive and engaging public element, the efforts of interior design has remained focused mostly in the aesthetic domain with attention to space efficiency, economic execution and operation even at present. Since all the efforts are concentrated on the aesthetics, ambiance and efficiency part of interior design, majority of architects and designers are caught in to the vicious cycle of making it more and more efficient. It’s high time that architects and designers should break this cycle and create an indoor environment which is not only appreciated by the users but where division of user and space gets blurred, a space where occupant is constantly interacting with its ambient indoor environment in tangible manner, where user have been kept engaged not only by its aesthetics but in terms of physical and mental activities, an informative, interactive indoor ambiance like the case of modern public sculptures.

By Anoop Jha

Blue Infrastructure strategies for Green Infrastructure

Water and related infrastructure collectively plays a vital role in wellbeing of city. Urban quality of a city can be accessed on the attention given to its water resources by the city planners and authority which includes conservation measures, utilization strategies and quality of water resources.  Quality of Water is the scale on which urban health can be measured. Water has its whole spectrum of influence from drinking water to sanitation to micro climate to green cover and varies in scale and operation from pond to river to sea and flood. Conserving and creating and managing blue infrastructure of city is the way towards greener infrastructure  and sustainable future

Why we can't & shouldn't get rid of open spaces of city.

Holistic environmental economic view 

Open and Green Spaces have been integral part of the fabric of city historically and served as a democratic interaction place for citizens in the sea of individual private territories of a city. Though green landscape philosophy and clean ambient environment techniques have evolved and spread widely in course of time from open public realm to building interior, to terrace garden, to artificial air purifiers etc. but the material or psychological need of public open spaces in the city can not be replaced by any other present technology or method. So its not only the need of green spaces but the need of pubic space which validates the existence of such open and green spaces throughout the city and this need cannot always be evaluated on monetary terms. Government and municipal bodies  need to find out new innovative fiscal strategies to raise funds to operate and maintain such spaces rather than getting rid of green space for immediate economical benefit. 

Walkability demands flexibility : new approach to neighborhood planning

By - Anoop Jha

Number of available choices defines quality of urban environment and experience

Walking and jogging  trail

Image shows actual walking trail around a lagoon in some part of Santa Barbara, with different route options for people to choose from, one shorter complete loop around waterbody and other longer route which also includes dotted segment. Close view  of lagoon is an incentive to walk extra length of dotted route otherwise people can take shorter route if they are in hurry or tiered. There has be different available exit choices for people, to make any pedestrian or walkable plan successful whether its planning of park or commercial complex or mega exhibition pavilion.

[Handpicked Books]

Terrace Garden on Every Roof !!

Did they say their city is green? Don’t believe them unless you see that green yourself. Seeing is believing! Common man does not understand the intricacy of complex statistics that is produced to position a city as a “Green City”. 

Lay men do not understand the matrix, criteria and assumptions that goes into judging a city on environmental benchmark. They don’t know and even don’t care how much eco friendly materials has been used in construction of their skyscraper office building, they also don’t care whether hot water supply in their luxurious bathroom of a high star grade hotel is from solar water heater or conventional power heater, star rating of their home appliances have only become a thing to be shown off. Green criteria of common urban dwellers are very simple in nature, if they been able to breathe fresh air, if they see lush green surrounding their home and their streets, from the window of their workplace, if their children can run and play in sprawling green fields, if their children know what it is called an ecosystem from their own living experience in city not learned from the text books, if they look above in the sky and see glittering bright stars on a clear night and if they look down below into a satellite imagery and see City as Green patch of land then they should definitely approve that city is green.

Series of Terrace Garden in a City

Let’s start with our own home or apartments, wouldn’t it be a wonderful thing to enjoy a garden of your own which you can’t afford in your front lawn because you have to park 2 to 3 cars  there, larger the lawn larger the car and larger the paved area.  Community park of your housing society you anyway don’t want to use after long working and  travel hours, you lake time and energy, also you don’t feel motivated enough to use community or public park unless a doctor has gives you a good dose of advice recently.


How about climbing few steps in your own villa or taking a lift from your own apartment floor which leads to terrace where you would have found a lush green terrace garden where you would have done your daily meditation or Yoga and exercise while breathing in fresh air, spending quality time with family, only if they would have planned it properly as an approachable and inviting terrace garden, which is currently either not used at all or used as storage of discarded household stuffs in the midst of complexity of installed utilities and storage. So why not make terrace garden on every roof of the city. If governments across the cities shall make it either mandatory to have a terrace garden in every building with certain assistance or if incentivize this feature for being integrated in the architecture of building, that would be a great leap forward towards sustainable and greener urban future.