Showing posts with label Office. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Office. Show all posts

Jul 14, 2013

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?









Mar 3, 2013

Best of Reddit Ecosystem

Daily dose of Reddit Feeds!
Interwoven Biosphere  image by FeatheredTar, on Flickr
Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic License
  Image above by  FeatheredTar 


Source: http://www.reddit.com/

Data appeared in this post are auto generated/ Gathered/ Auto-Retrieved   from feeds from reddit, , which also gets updated automatically every time post is refreshed/ opened. Since contents of the post is reddit  user generated hence original user of Reddit/ author of respective feeds/post/ is solely responsible for the authenticity/ correctness / validity/ content/ and impact due to that data appeared in the table/post/grid in every possible sense. Author of this post has no responsibility regarding the content of this post. The basic intention of this post is to collate data for other to review for their ease. Please also read the disclaimer section of the Blog in addition. 

Dec 21, 2012

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
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

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
Unequal intra-city distribution
Inefficient network hydraulics,
Old and dilapidated networks
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

Nov 29, 2011

Language of City - Study of population flux in a City


By - Anoop Jha

Fluctuating population density of urban public spaces

Urban eco-system comprises of to distinct layers one static built mass, and second, dynamic floating and moving population. This static-dynamic  interface can be an interesting subject of study. Imagin fast pace time laps photography capturing to and fro movement of colony of black ants targting an abandoned sweet candy lying spotless white floor. Now imagine movement of population (ant) in a sprawling city (floor) on any average day.
 
One of the ways to study the intracity population flux can be as follows.

Demarcating zones in the city based on functional characteristics like, offices, residential, commercial, educational, recreational, transit etc, further deviding zones in smallest possible zones to be covered by an individual, lets call it urban pixel , studying each of these pixels for a given sizable period of time using time-laps photographs, vedios and conducting survays, preparing index and assigning rating to each of these small zones in term of population flux, which means assigning a range of rating based on tentative number or quantum of population present at that particular zone or pixal, deriving matrix of population flux for the entire city and further preparing population flux plan for the city.  

Nov 16, 2011

Pedestrian Vehicular conflict : why can’t we seem to find a solution?

By - Anoop Kumar Jha

Missing Human Behavioral Analysis aspect in Transport Simulation Model

No matter how functional and mathematically sound a transportation plan and related infrastructure design for any city or stretch appear before implementation, there is always a conflict between vehicular and pedestrian circulation which appears only once the transport plan is in place and functional, it’s the story of every city and every stretch. Blogs and forums are filled with discussions and captured photographs of such pedestrian vehicular conflicts.

It’s a conflict between pedestrians desire to take easiest and shortest route and transport planners age old scientific approach planning with modern simulation tools. Its conflict between “human desire” and “scientific approach”.  

In a country like India, apart from education and enforcement there is one missing crucial aspect which leads to pedestrian vehicular conflict in urban setting, that is understanding of human behavior and learning from past and other projects mistakes. It appears that common man collectively always appear smarter than the panel of planners, designers and implementation and enforcement agencies, because no matter how sound they make any system or transport plan people always find out loopholes in it. People are willing to take the dangerous shortcuts, break the law and even risk their life to reach the destination quickly. There is almost similar pattern and language of such human behavior across the cities and towns of India when it comes to intra city travel, but transport planners do not seem to observe and learn from such cases. Its high time that they should observe, document and incorporate human behavioral analysis in the transport simulation model to arrive at a successful transport plan for a city. 

Transport plan, systems and tools also need to be regionalized or localized, because what works in Bogota  or America or Europe might not work in Delhi or Surat or Jaisalmer  if replicated in-toto. 

Nov 15, 2011

Containerized office buildings – how we have accepted it as a part of daily life!!

By - Anoop Jha


Actual Mechanical Ambiance Vs Desired Holistic Environment

Majority of contemporary so called modern office buildings and towers where people as employees spend almost half of their life lack a healthy ambiance, environment and micro-climate, though it might have cleared all the statutory requirements, might have followed all the guidelines, might have amazing interior finishes, decorated with beautiful and almost real plastic plants.

Some signs that you are working in a Containerized Office 

Lighting
Shear ignorance to natural light and view,
Sole dependence on Artificial lighting,
Absolute absence of task lighting concept,
Light glare and  shadow,
No correlation with time of the day 
Same ambiance every working-day/hour 

Climate control
No consideration for individual's temperature requirement
extra hot and cold pockets distributed over floor-space,
No correlation with indoor-outdoor weather

Other interesting Traits
Being watched for work-productivity in the name of security
Feeling isolated from outer world

There is urgent need to analyse and assess the existing office complexes across the region on different qualitative and quantitative parameters and come up with an exhaustive list of recommendations  can further be consolidated in a set of mandatory Architectural guidelines.

Some Recommendations to design a holistically habitable office complexes-

Breathing building skin and building envelop (Ideally like Human Skin)
Visually connected to outside world (gives pleasant view, correlate to weather or at least gives sense of time)
Day light linking (Saves energy as well) 
Task lighting as per sitting arrangement / furniture layout (prevents Light Glare and Shadow, and gives a sense of personal space) 
Accessible pleasant weather (let the pleasant light breeze come in, let them touch and hear the falling raindrops) 
Sensible Cooling & Heating with ability to personalize (increased productivity, less medical leaves)

Oct 12, 2011

Daily space curve of a common Urban Man

post by : Anoop Jha

An average working person in a metropolitan city goes through a funnel of fluctuating space experience following a somewhat definite pattern on an average working day – from home to public transport to office to public transport again and back to home. Let’s call it “Daily Space Curve”. It’s a space footprint available to a person on an average working day, distributed across a day and across the standard route followed to complete the day activities.



Individual Space Curve


Daily Space Curve can prove to be one of the comparative scales while studying and comparing the standard of living or livability of different cities. Larger the space footprint available to a citizen more livable and desirable would be the city.

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