Oct 11, 2012
Sep 28, 2012
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soon going to be outdated, very soon indeed!!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.
Sep 21, 2012
Sep 16, 2012
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Abstract Art, to Graphic Design, Home Décor & Interior Design to Product Design, Thematic Sculptures and more.
Sep 13, 2012
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"
Sep 8, 2012
Sep 5, 2012
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